Death by Effigy: A Case from the Mexican Inquisition

Chapter 2. Trial and Failure

Chapter two trial and Failure A Town Full of Suspects on 28 august 1578, the inquisitors began to review the information collected as part of the investigation launched by the alcalde mayor of tepeaca into the effigy and the sambenitos discovered on 21 July. The documentation amounted to twenty-one folios, or forty-two pages, of testimony from eleven witnesses and suspects interrogated after the incident. The alcalde mayor arrested several suspects, based largely on information provided by the victim of the libel, hernando rubio naranjo. The greatest suspicions fell upon three men: Francisco miguel, Pedro hernández, and Juan lópez de montalbán. The first two had been involved in suspicious activities on sunday evening, 20 July. Francisco miguel had arrived in tecamachalco only five days earlier. a thirty-two-year-old mestizo shoemaker, he was the son of a glassmaker from mexico city, where he was born. he now lived in chalcoatengo, on lake Xochimilco, about sixty-five miles northwest of tecamachalco. When asked the reason for his visit, miguel explained that he had come to collect a debt owed to him by a local trader. after collecting his payment, another shoemaker in town invited him to help with his work. on 20 July at sunset, three young men arrived on horses at the place where miguel was lodging. Pedro hernández, a twenty-one-year-old mestizo from tecamachalco, tended his father’s goats “in God’s fields.” For hernández , who had lived his entire life in town and had left only twice to travel to mexico city, the older Francisco miguel must have seemed a man of the world. hernández’s two other companions were even younger: Juan morillo, a nineteen- or twenty-year-old spaniard from córdoba, who was beardless, had a swollen cheek and jaw, and worked for his uncle; and lope Jaramillo, trial and Failure 33 el mozo (“the younger”), aged nineteen, who worked for his cattle rancher father.1 The three young men asked miguel to bring his little dog and come with them to hunt wild turkeys (gallinas monteses) while there was still daylight . off they went into the countryside. after killing two wild turkeys, hernández invited his companions for supper at his house. after dinner, they played guitar and listened to Francisco miguel speak in guineo, the broken spanish of recently arrived african slaves. he was so good at it that one of his new friends exclaimed: “This lad’s a devil the way he speaks in black!” (¡Diabólico es este mozo como habla en negro!).2 The four friends set out to serenade the town with their guitar and to show off miguel’s black routine. “here we bring the best black in all of new spain!”—hernández told two passersby, who dismounted their horses to join the group. one of them replied: “in that case, we won’t sleep all night!” By ten that night, the band of revelers had grown to seven. one of them proposed visiting the trader hernando rubio naranjo, who lived across from the church. after several weeks in oaxaca, rubio naranjo had returned to tecamachalco only a week earlier. When they reached the trader’s house, the revelers asked Francisco miguel to call out to rubio naranjo “in black language .” miguel asked his companions, “Who is this man?” lope Jaramillo replied: “he’s a man with an evil tongue. no man in this town is on good terms with him.”3 miguel later remembered the name from the northern mining city of Zacatecas, where rubio naranjo had had some trouble with the authorities. miguel walked up to the small front door and called out, “rubio, come out here!” hernando rubio naranjo came out, accompanied by an indian servant. it was dark, so he could not recognize the man calling to him in the black accent: Hernando Rubio Naranjo: is it cotlastes? Francisco Miguel: There’s no cotlastes here! Rubio Naranjo: is it cristóbal? Miguel: no! Rubio Naranjo: Brother, what do you want? Who are you? Miguel (still in black language): you don’t know me now, but you’ll know me tomorrow.4 The group then left rubio naranjo’s house. he saw seven men out in the street but could not determine who they were because it was dark and the men’s hats hid their faces. rubio naranjo went back inside his house. [52.14.85.76] Project MUSE (2024-04-26 12...