As Spain began to settle the New World in the 16th century, crypto-Jews were among the colonists; the Inquisition followed soon after. Natasha Pizzey describes the fate of Luis de Caravajal the Younger, a member of a large, prosperous, and originally Jewish family that came to New Spain:
[The Carvajals] governed part of northern Mexico and soon made enemies, including a power-hungry viceroy keen to topple them from power. The ambitious viceroy discovered that Luis de Carvajal was a practicing Jew, a crime [then] punishable by death. . . . Older relatives had urged Luis de Carvajal to convert to Catholicism for his own safety, but he staunchly stuck to his faith.
When he was first arrested, the authorities let him off with a warning but kept tabs on him. Far from giving up his religion, Luis de Carvajal became a leader in Mexico’s underground Jewish community. When the inquisitors caught up with him again a few years later, he was sentenced to death. He was just thirty years old.
Before he was executed, he was tortured so badly that he revealed the names of 120 fellow Jews. . . . His captors forced him to listen as those “heretics,” which included his own mother, were tortured in the cell next to him. . . . We know the excruciating details of Luis de Carvajal’s persecution because he managed to keep secret diaries. But these were not any old notebooks. They were painstakingly crafted, miniature manuscripts with almost microscopic handwriting in Latin and Spanish.
Read more on BBC: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-40029453