Butterflies Will Burn: Prosecuting Sodomites in Early Modern Spain and Mexico

Chapter 3: Mariner, Would You Scratch My Legs?: Sodomy Prosecutions in Andalusia, and the Ensign Who Liked His Kisses with a Bit of Tongue

chapter 3 MARINER, WOULD YOU SCRATCH MY LEGS? Sodomy Prosecutions in Andalusia, and the Ensign Who Liked His Kisses with a Bit of Tongue De los sodomitas . . . no sólo no sabemos de ellos pero ni querríamos saber que supiesen de nosotros; que en ellos peligrarían nuestras asentaderas y los diablos por eso traemos colas porque como estan aca habemos menester mosqueador de los rabos. Francisco de Quevedo, El sueño del infierno n 1698, Magistrate Villarán pronounced both Bartholomé, a mariner from Sicily, and Giovanni Mule, a native of Palermo, guilty of having committed the “nefarious sin of sodomy” on board Nuestra Señora del Carmen, an admiral’s ship docked in the harbor complex of Cádiz while waiting to set sail for the Indies. Three years later, after a lengthy appeal process before the Royal Council of the Indies in Madrid, Bartholomé Varres Cavallero, who was twentysix years old, “with minute diffidence came out of the Royal Jail in Cádiz mounted on an old beast of burden, dressed in a white tunic and hood, his feet and hands tied.” About his neck “hung a crucifix of God our Lord.” Giovanni Mule, who was about the age of fourteen and had been rebaptized by the Spaniards as Juan Mule, was “nude from the waist upward , his hands and feet also tied,” and “rode on a young beast of burden ” just behind Bartholomé (Fig. 3.1).1 The procession meandered through the Cadizcan countryside “without having passed in front of a church or any other sacred place until it arrived at a site known as el Salado.” There, Giovanni, who had been “sentenced to public humiliation,” was placed “within site of the execution” by Juan Antonio, the executioner. Juan Antonio then “tied Bartholomé to a pole erected in the ground and after half an hour administered garrote in such a manner [that the mariner] died a natural death.” Bartholomé “remained in this state within public view for more than half an hour” after the strangulation. [ 74 ] I Afterward the executioner “covered the entire cadaver with many portions of logs and faggots.” Juan Antonio lit the fire, and the “cadaver burnt into ashes all within the eyesight of Juan Mule, whom the executioner passed over the flames and [thereafter] banished him permanently from this kingdom.”2 The Tribunals in Andalusia The findings presented in this chapter on early modern Spanish perceptions of sodomy emanate from some 175 cases, or procesos, prosecuted by secular tribunals in Andalusia. After studying the procesos of the sodomy cases prosecuted by the High Courts in Seville and Granada and the Casa de la Contratación tribunal in Andalusia, I have attempted to explain whether or not Spain’s imperialist-colonialist politics “altered and exploited ” the nation’s perceptions of manliness and of sodomites. Further, did these categories emerge as products of “ruptures in the political economy of colonialism”?3 Mariner, Would You Scratch My Legs? [ 75 ] 3.1. Shirtless to the stake. Drawing by Christoph Weiditz, 1529. Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid. In Seville and Granada, the two Royal High Courts customarily prosecuted the sodomy cases, although an Inquisitorial tribunal existed in Seville . Convicted sodomites could have their cases retried before the Royal Chancellery in Granada, the highest-ranking criminal court in Andalusia. The final avenue of appeal rested with His Majesty’s Royal Council— the highest appellate court in Spain.4 In addition to the two High Courts in the Seville-Granada metroplex, a third tribunal—the Audiencia de la Casa de la Contratación—founded in Seville and later relocated to Cádiz , also prosecuted sodomy cases. Fernando and Isabel established the Casa de la Contratación in 1503 to regulate colonial commerce and shipping between the peninsula and the Indias.5 In 1511 the Casa de la Contratación acquired juridical powers, in the form of an audiencia. The new status permitted the Casa to prosecute both civil and criminal crimes, like sodomy, committed in the harbors of Andalusia or on board the ships en route to and from the Indias.6 The Casa’s tribunal consisted of a sole letrado with a formal degree in law, a public prosecutor, two scribes, and other pertinent officials. By 1524 the Audiencia de la Casa de la Contratación fell under the appellate jurisdiction of the Royal Council of the Indies, and thus a final...