Hernando Alonso: The First Jew on the North-American Continent

A history of the Jews in Mexico from 1521 to the present has never been written in any language. Few have written on any aspect of the life of the Mexican Jews during the colonial period. What little has been written has concentrated upon the life and family of the conquistador and Gobernador, don Luis Carvajal y de la Cueva (1539-1590) and one other Jew, Tomas Treviño de Sobremonte, who was burned alive in the Grand Auto de Fé of April 11, 1649.The focusing of attention on the Carvajals has obscured the fact that Jews had preceded them into Mexico by 60 years and that Jews have inhabited Mexico uninterruptedly since 1521. Little note has been made of the fact that Jews had been victims of the Inquisition prior to 1590. The historian's task of gleaning information from documents and people usually results in an interpretation colored by his own background, scholarship, economic status, conviction and even religion. We submit the following as a clear example of the foregoing.