Syntactic Trees

Letter from Fernando de Ojeda, judge, to Pedro Marmolejo, member of the Council of the Indies.

The author requests various things to Pedro Marmolejo, in particular that he ensure that his former slave Antonio de Santa María be punished by the Inquisition Tribunal.

The accused in this process was Antonio de Santa María, born in Alger and slave of Jorge de Cárdenas and Manrique de Lara, Duke of Maqueda. In 1623 he was accused by the Inquisition Tribunal of being a «morisco», as it was discovered that, although he had been baptised, he still practised Islam. Years before, he had been slave of Fernando de Ojeda, judge of the Audiencia of Sevilla, but in 1621 he fled to the Berber Coast to reject Christianism. Here he was captured by the Duke of Maqueda, governor of Orán. This letter was handed over by Pedro Marmolejo, member of the Council of the Indies, and it was joined to the proceedings as a proof. Eventually, the accused was condemned to abjure publicly in auto-da-fé and reconciled. Moreover, he was condemned to three years of prison, during which he had to wear a scapular, and all his possessions were confiscated.