CLR Faculty Fellows Spotlight: Dr. Ana Schaposchnik

Dr. Ana Schaposchnik is an Associate Professor of History at DePaul University. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on Colonial Latin America, on the history of Inquisition, and on the history of Jews in the Americas. Curently, Dr. Schaposchnik's research focuses on the Tribunal of the Inquisition in Lima, Peru. On this topic, she published a book titled The Lima Inquisition: The Plight of Crypto-Jews in Seventeenth Century Peru (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2015) and two articles: “Exemplary Punishment in Colonial Lima: The 1639 Auto de Fe” (in: Death and Dying in Colonial Spanish America, M Achim and M W de Chaparro editors.

Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2011), and “The dungeons of the Lima Inquisition: corruption, survival, and secret codes in colonial Peru” (in: Colonial Latin American Review, 29(3), 2020) She is currently working on her second book She loves big cities, and has lived in Buenos Aires, Madison (WI), Madrid, and now in Chicago

INTERVIEW CONDUCTED BY ANTHONY MONDRAGÓN

Your piece for your fellowship, “Did the Holy Office Leave Room for Agency? The Trial of Faith of Francisco Vázquez (Lima 1600’s)” sounds fascinating, what inspired you to make this your project?

I’ve been working on the Lima inquisition for a long time. I actually wrote a book on it, and after finishing writing a book you always have more information. One of the documents that I didn't use was an appeal. I finished the book with the Auto de Fe, which is when the Inquisition finished the cases, issued sentences and applied punishment. But this one is someone who appealed later on. So, I had a primary source, but I never had the opportunity of using it, and this is my opportunity to see what was going on there.

Would this be a topic you would be interested in presenting in a classroom?

Yes, absolutely I offer a focal point seminar, not on this particular project because this is new research, that is called "The Inquisition in History, in Literature, and in Film." Throughout this course we read secondary sources –bibliography on the inquisition or modern scholarship– and we analyze primary sources to discuss them. Over time, we pay attention to movies, both documentaries and contemporary fiction movies, and also contemporary literature. So, students get to see the “drier” academic presentation of the inquisition and then see how it’s depicted in popular culture. Usually, I offer this class once a year.

While working on this project was there any new information that you found new and/or interesting?

I haven't worked on the project yet. I will be a fellow in the Spring Quarter and that's when I’m going to be working on it. Nevertheless, the reason why I’m making this project is because it is an appeal. The inquisition basically would issue a sentence called “release to the secular arm” which is jargon for death at the stake. The other option is called “reconciliation to the Christian community,” meaning that people were offered a second chance without this penalty. Most people, you know, were killed, actually few prisoners were eleased to the secular arm If they were reconciled they got some kind of penalty and usually vanished from the historical record They survived something very difficult But in this case, he comes back and he appeals. I think it's very unusual that he would take the time to write the appeal but also decide that it is a good idea to call attention of that institution to his own. What I found interesting is that someone appealed Even if the system allowed for appeals, someone had the guts to appeal.

Was it normal for the Holy Office of the Inquisition in that time to accuse civilians of being “crypto-jews”?

Yes, it was common to accuse them. However, they were not accusing without evidence They were following hunches or some sort of evidence that maybe today we would not consider as proper evidence. But for them, it was a procedure. So, the Inquisition as a tribunal was created to look after heresy, primarily. This is in the context of 15th and 16th century Spain; everything that is heresy is Judaism, Islam, and then later Protestantism, so those are their concerns that led them to establish the institution. Later on, they pay attention to sorcery and blasphemy, issues that are more like bad behavior or social control. Nonetheless, originally it was about the monotheistic religions and the other options outside of Christianity They didn't randomly accuse people That's the misconception of the Inquisition, that they were going around accusing everyone. They were not, they collected a lot of information before accusing someone. They were interested in any information that would reveal if someone was practicing either Judaism, Islam, or Protestantism in secrecy In the case of Vázquez, he was denounced by someone, so they would incarcerate people and sometimes torture them. Sometimes in the torture chambers they would ask questions about anyone else’s involvement. So, regarding the appeal document, he was brought in because someone denounced him. He was then reconciled, but he appeals saying the trial was wrong That’s why I think it’s interesting

Given the age of the documents, what was your experience like?

All these archives have a lot of regulations to protect the information. At DePaul, we have our own special collection of archives and they too have their own regulations. Found on the 4th floor of the Richardson Library, there are original documents from different parts of the world and in different languages The archives are protected, kept in special chambers with air conditioning and whatever else they think is appropriate. Besides the physical protection for preservation, there is also a mode of record keeping in order to know who has access or how many documents you can see at the time on a certain day and for how long Usually, the recommendation provided by the DePaul archive is three documents per day. However, you can request as much as possible in case it is allowed, which will allow you to have plenty on hand, so if the document is not interesting then you still have two to read through If you ever work with an archive, I suggest you go online and look at the regulations in order to be ready to work with their regulations within your timeline. Additionally, for reproductions it's the same Some archives are going to say you can have your own camera or your own phone to take images of what you want –some archives will say no to flash because the flash will destroy the paper–, other archives are going to say that if you want images you have to make a request and they will send them to you via e-mail with a possible charge They have their own regulations because their priority is to preserve the material. They have to maintain a balancing act between preserving the material and having it readily available to scholars.

Were there certain requirements needed to gain access to these documents, if so, were there limitations as to what you could access?

There are two ways to obtain these documents. One is to travel to the archive itself. This is a document from the Archivo Histórico Nacional in Madrid, Spain. For authorization, you’ll need a letter from the university you’re working with either as a student or as faculty to prove that a scholarly institution supports your project. They're going to request identification documents –whether that be your passport, or maybe your research proposal, in order to receive access since these are really old documents and they need to be preserved Archivists want you to be careful, maybe wear gloves or have them in a specific stand like an easel. The other, more practical way, is through online services. Nowadays many of these archives have materials online, so you will want to spend some time familiarizing yourself with the search engine in order to facilitate the research But once you do, you should be able to locate some of these documents online and if not, you can contact the archive and ask them for what you're looking for. They're going to send you a price for the documents, generate the PDF and the images, and then they're going to send it to you in a digital form. However, in my case, you will have to know how to read Spanish, and you’ll have to know 15th, 16th, 17th century Spanish.

Through your studies, have you noticed any parallels between the intolerance in those times and the different types of antisemitism found today?

No, because today there are no institutions like the Inquisition The institution I study is the Spanish Inquisition in the colonies. This is an Inquisition that is connected to the monarchy, a royal tribunal. On one side, I don't find that any government is connected to either antisemitism or religious intolerance in any sort, so no I'm from Argentina, I study the Peruvian inquisition in the colonial era, so I don't find that as an official policy in any government. On the other side, there are traces of antisemitism within these societies which allows us to trace back antisemitism to the colonial period by studying the Inquisition. That's how I started in this research But your question can be read in different ways If I think about any president then it's like “oh no, the president is paying attention to presidential and government issues and we don't have any more monarchies on this side of the hemisphere,” so we don’t see any executive office or power concerned with this At the same time, there are residues of antisemitism in our societies, unfortunately I mean, some people are interested in discrimination, mistrust, or any sort of prejudice. Derogatory terms and sometimes more violent antisemitism, and that's the part that I say yes. The part I say no to is about the existence of a tribunal from the government, with state and church combined, concerned with religious practices

Document from the Archivo Histórico Nacional in Madrid, Spain