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During the seventeenth century in Spain's colonial empire, there were two “Great Conspiracies” and the arrests resulting from the discovery of each of these conspiracies in the vice-royalties of Peru and New Spain culminated in an auto de fé. Only these two autos, out of almost 250 held in Spain's colonies, bore the title “El Auto Grande.” The first with this title was held in Lima, Peru, on January 23, 1639, and the second in Mexico City on April 11, 1649. Practically all those penanced in both autos were Jews. Of the sixty-one Jews in the Lima auto, one deceased went to the stake in effigy with ten living prisoners. Many of those whose lives were spared and who were “reconciled” were sentenced to serve as oarsmen without pay on the Spanish galleys plying between Spain and the New World. Their periods of servitude varied between three and ten years. There is no record of any galley oarsman ever being released alive at the termination of his sentence.

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