Great auto-da-fé of Lima

The Inquisition of Lima, after several years of inquiry into what it called the "great conspiracy," held an auto-da-fé on the main square of the city, at which Portuguese merchants accused of Judaizing were brought before it. The most celebrated among them, the physician Francisco Maldonado da Silva, had spent some twelve years in a dungeon without ever relenting; there he had written, on sewn-together sheets, treatises defending his faith.

The trial durably struck the commerce of the viceroyalty, whose Portuguese networks were dismantled. The memory of Maldonado da Silva, transmitted through the tribunal's records, has made him one of the most frequently cited figures of American crypto-Judaism.