Jews were barred from Spain’s New World colonies − but that didn’t stop Jewish and converso writers from describing the Americas
- Written by Flora Cassen, Senior Faculty, Hartman Institute and Associate Professor of History and Jewish Studies, Washington University in St. Louis
An auto-da-fé − a public punishment for heretics − in San Bartolome Otzolotepec, in present-day Mexico.Museo Nacional de Arte via Wikimedia CommonsEvery few years, a story about Columbus resurfaces: Was the Genoese navigator who claimed the Americas for Spain secretly Jewish, from a Spanish family fleeing the Inquisition?
This...