Luis De Carvajal

In 1579 Philip II awarded a large territory in New Spain to a Portuguese man named Luis de Carvajal. That territory included a significant portion of present day Mexico, as well as portions of Texas and New Mexico. This remarkable man discovered, conquered, and settled most of that territory. He also brought a large group of settlers from Spain and Portugal whose impact on its cultural development was very significant. Many of those settlers were of Jewish descent and some of them were tried by the Inquisition for practicing the faith of their ancestors. This book is a biography of Carvajal and is based on documents that were written during his life or soon after his death. The narrative follows him from birth to death and describes the actions he took to give rise to Nuevo Reino de Le n. These included explorations and discoveries; battles with free Indians; pacifications of Indian uprisings; and legal fights with Crown officials who were determined to eliminate him and to end his government. In the end his enemies defeated him with the help of the Inquisition, but the political entity he gave rise to did not die with him. Samuel Temkin is Professor Emeritus, Rutgers University. He received a PhD in Engineering from Brown University and has been a visiting professor in Chile, Germany, Israel, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Spain. Professor Temkin is the author of "Elements of Acoustics and Suspension Acoustics: An Introduction to the Physics of Suspensions" as well as numerous research articles on Acoustics and Fluid Dynamics, and of many research articles, on the topic of this book. Dr. Temkin was born in Mexico City and was raised in Monterrey, Mexico, the capital city of what once was Nuevo Reino de Le n.

In 2017, the New York Times announced that the long-lost memoir of Luis de Carvajal the Younger had been rediscovered. Considered the first autobiography by a Jew in the Americas, the book had been stolen decades earlier from Mexico’s National Archives. Here, Ilan Stavans recounts the extraordinary and entertaining story of the reappearance of this precious object and how its discovery opened up new vistas onto the world of secret Jews escaping the Spanish Inquisition. Called el Mozo (the Younger) to distinguish him from an uncle of the same name who was governor of Nuevo León, Luis de Carvajal learned of his Jewishness after being raised a Catholic. He came to recognize himself as a messiah for fellow crypto-Jews, and he was burned at the stake on December 8, 1596, in the biggest auto-da-fé in all of Latin America. His memoir—a 180-page manuscript written by a crypto-Jew targeted by the Holy Office of the Inquisition for unlawful proselytizing activities—was not only distinct but of enormous value. With characters such as conniving academics embroiled in a scholarly feud, a magnanimous philanthropist, naïve booksellers, and a secondary cast that could be taken from a David Lynch film, The Return of Carvajal recounts the global intrigue that placed crypto-Jewish culture at the heart of contemporary debates on religion and identity.

It is1596 and in Mexico the Inquisition is at its most efficient. A young man trembles in his cell as he prays for salvation, torn between the Christianity he was schooled in and his ancestral faith. What heresies will the Holy Office uncover? Can he protect his mother and sisters? He is Luis de Carvajal. His forbears had fled the Inquisition in Spain to Portugal and then from there to the New World. But the lives they try to rebuild as conversos in Mexico are just as perilous, for the Inquisition is determined to root out heretics throughout its realms. Luis's quest for true faith unfolds a tense and moving narrative, as he and his family's spirit and ingenuity are tested again and again. Anna Lanyon's Malinche's Conquest was awarded and widely translated, and was followed by The New World of Martin Cortes. Fire and Song also shows her as the historian whose chronicles from contemporary testimonies are so vivid that readers feel witness to the dramatic events and intimate moments of individual lives, woven deftly into the fabric of their times to illuminate the bigger historical picture. Fire and Song presents a world without the human rights and tolerance we take for granted today; yet the insights remain all too pertinent - into the power of faith, the tangled knot of religious and political interests, and human yearning for identity, belonging and spirituality.

Documentary history of Luis de Carvajal the younger and his family in Spain, their migration to Mexico, their life there, their persecution and deaths at the hands of the Inquisition.

In Creating Conversos, Roger Louis Martínez-Dávila skillfully unravels the complex story of Jews who converted to Catholicism in Spain between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, migrated to colonial Mexico and Bolivia during the conquest of the Americas, and assumed prominent church and government positions. Rather than acting as alienated and marginalized subjects, the conversos were able to craft new identities and strategies not just for survival but for prospering in the most adverse circumstances. Martínez-Dávila provides an extensive, elaborately detailed case study of the Carvajal–Santa María clan from its beginnings in late fourteenth-century Castile. By tracing the family ties and intermarriages of the Jewish rabbinic ha-Levi lineage of Burgos, Spain (which became the converso Santa María clan) with the Old Christian Carvajal line of Plasencia, Spain, Martínez-Dávila demonstrates the family's changing identity, and how the monolithic notions of ethnic and religious disposition were broken down by the group and negotiated anew as they transformed themselves from marginal into mainstream characters at the center of the economies of power in the world they inhabited. They succeeded in rising to the pinnacles of power within the church hierarchy in Spain, even to the point of contesting the succession to the papacy and overseeing the Inquisitorial investigation and execution of extended family members, including Luis de Carvajal "The Younger" and most of his immediate family during the 1590s in Mexico City. Martinez-Dávila offers a rich panorama of the many forces that shaped the emergence of modern Spain, including tax policies, rivalries among the nobility, and ecclesiastical politics. The extensive genealogical research enriches the historical reconstruction, filling in gaps and illuminating contradictions in standard contemporary narratives. His text is strengthened by many family trees that assist the reader as the threads of political and social relationships are carefully disentangled.

Both a biography of the titular Mexican reformer and a study of the events that shaped the Mexican-U.S. border, this book examines the challenges faced by Carvajal during the turbulent decades of the early to mid-19th century. A key figure in the violent struggle against the conservative factions that controlled Mexico, Carvajal also played significant roles in the fight for Texas's independence and the ill-fated Republic of the Rio Grande. Carvajal’s life and exploits have been largely overlooked — here, he is restored to his rightful place among the visionaries who shaped modern Texas.

Identity, family, and community unite three autobiographical texts by New World crypto-Jews, or descendants of Jews who were forced to convert to Christianity in 17th-century Iberia and Spanish America. Ronnie Perelis presents the fascinating stories of three men who were caught within the matrix of inquisitorial persecution, expanding global trade, and the network of crypto-Jewish activity. Each text, reflects the unique experiences of the author and illuminates their shared, deeply rooted attachment to Iberian culture, their Atlantic peregrinations, and their hunger for spiritual enlightenment. Through these writings, Perelis focuses on the social history of transatlantic travel, the economies of trade that linked Europe to the Americas, and the physical and spiritual journeys that injected broader religious and cultural concerns into this complex historical moment.