Pedro de Mercado

• General Notes
  • p.180-1.  Born in Madrid.  Father was a doctor.  He fled to Portugal from New Spain.  A Jew he knew in Spain wrote him in New Spain, looking for his nephew, asking him to teach him judaism.  VISIBILITY:  "Certain Portuguese Judaizers presented a theatrical comedy in this city and one othem was the author.  This evil man gave the first seats to two Jews who had veen reconciled by this Holy Office,  This caused many other [sic[ Catholic honorable persons to stand. ...Such evil action caused the admiration of a Negro, a slave of one of the actors, and he stated aloud (even though rudely) that in view of what had happened at the comedy and the seating of those two men, they ought to find St. Dominic [the patron saint of the Dominicans, who made up a majority of the Inquisition] with a green candle and a yellow garment [sambenito]/  Such is the disoluteness and shame which this infamous Jewish people people produce." (p.181)