INQUISITION

The royal Tribunal del Santo Oficio was established in Spain in 1478, independent of the Papal Inquisition, to preserve the purity of the Church.  As the threat from Protestantism grew in Europe, the tribunal was brought to the New World (with a court covering the Caribbean set up in Cartagena de Indias in 1610) to persecute non-Catholics, primarily Protestants and conversos (Jews who had accepted baptism to avoid expulsion from Spain’s domains in 1492 and their descendants, suspected of practicing their former religion in secret), and to oversee the observance of Catholic teaching and to purge “dangerous” literature from the colonies.  It was finally abolished in 1834.