A Morisco widow’s relocation backfired when her testimony named many converts

Evidence

From the Inquisition documentation relating to Islamic activity in Ar´evalo, it emerges that one Ana de Fonseca, a Morisco widow from Ar´evalo, testified (Tapia 1991, 227) in May 1540 to the Inquisition in Priego that she had been brought to that small Andalusian town (quite far south, near Cordova) by her brother Luis. She had been moved there because her family was afraid that if she remained at home in Ar´evalo she might inadvertently betray to the Inquisition “many persons, Moors, who had converted and then had apostatized.” Her evidence went on to do what the family had feared, and name residents in Ar´evalo itself and in nearby Medina and even Toledo as well. As a consequence of these allegations, Ar´evalo was visited by Inquisitors from Valladolid (under whose jurisdiction the town fell). And in Toledo the Inquisitors of that city succeeded in arresting (on September 4, 1540) one “Agust´ın de Ribera, el mozo (the lad).” During the proceedings it was noted that Ana de Fonseca spoke of a boy “who in Ar´evalo was held to be a prophet and the messenger of Muhammad.” — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 544

Categorization

• XREF: This self-defeating family precaution — moving someone away to prevent betrayal, only to have them betray anyway — mirrors tragic ironies in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and in Laurel Ulrich’s A Midwife’s Tale where protective measures backfire.
• SHARE: The irony that a family moved a woman south precisely so she wouldn’t testify, and she then testified anyway, is a perfect detail for anyone studying Inquisition social dynamics.
• SEED: An article angle: the tragedy of crypto-Muslim families in Arévalo — one widow’s testimony triggering arrests across three towns, showing how fear itself collapsed the community’s secrecy.