The Martyr

Luis de Carvajala, a Secret Jew in Sixteenth-Century Mexico

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by Martin A. Cohen,

Introduction by Ilan Stavans

University of New Mexico Press

Due/Published August 2001, 390 pages, paper

ISBN 0826323626

First published in 1973, this book traces the history of Luis de Carvajal the Younger and his family in Spain, their migration to the New World, their religious practices, and their adventures in New Spain until one by one they were put to flight or indicted by the Inquisition. Luis himself was burned at the stake in 1596 at the age of thirty. He left behind not only his legacy as an exemplary secret Jew but also valuable literary documents - his memoirs, his last will and testament, and his letters to his mother and sisters in the inquisitorial prison."