Civil Lawsuits before the Court of the Inquisition: Judicial Privileges and Local Power in Cartagena de Indias (17^th - 18^th Centuries)

Abstract

Among the judicial documentation produced by Inquisition courts in Spain and the Americas, the faith trials or faith causes are the most emblematic. Scholars have used these documents to study the religious and cultural histories of the early modern Hispanic world. However, Inquisition tribunals also adjudicated civil lawsuits, fiscal lawsuits, and criminal trials, which researchers have used in a lesser degree. This article offers an overview of the breadth and content of the existing civil lawsuits of the court of the Inquisition of Cartagena de Indias, produced between 1610 and 1781. The paper shows that a comprehensive approach to Inquisition sources, including secular documentation, opens up ways to better understand the formation of local colonial power and to explain how specific legal mechanisms - such as fuero - shaped structures of privilege and social mobility that allowed the Inquisition to integrate itself into secular matters.

Keywords:
Inquisition; civil lawsuits; fuero