Lutherans in Two Inquisitorial Jurisdictions of the New World, 1609- 1660. The Adventures of the Hamburger Mati?as Henquel in New Spain

Abstract

With the support of the comparative method, this article explains some of the reasons that cau- sed the persecution of Lutherans during the first half of the seventeenth century by the courts of the Inquisition of Mexico and Cartagena. Based on the application of this methodology, the differences and similarities between one or another area are established in aspects such as the archetypes created by their respective native inhabitants on the behaviors that identified this type of religious dissidents and the social control mechanisms established to detect this type of heterodox. Likewise, some aspects of the Lutheran’s daily life are described and are narrated the strategies employed by some of them to enter the New World. In this last aspect, is narrated the story of Matias Henquel, a 22-year-old boy who was born in Hamburg and circulated in New Spain as an itinerant merchant. On August 14, 1657, the Holy Office of the Inquisition of Mexico issued a prison order against him for being considered a sacramental heretic.