When you pulled up to the dock, they were there waiting for you, those holy men of God.

But beyond inspecting ships that docked in the ports of Manila and Cavite for blasphemers and banned items, the Inquisition in the Philippines also investigated Protestants. Jews. Masons. Muslims. Non-Catholic Christian sects, like Armenian Christians or Jansenists. Its investigators monitored cases of heresy, blasphemy, apostasy, bigamy, and contempt. They kept tabs on witches, sorcerers, palm readers, fortune tellers, astrologers, and peddlers of superstition. And they dutifully recorded all their investigations and sent them to their head office in Mexico.

What tales can we uncover from these inquisitorial files? And what do they say about the practice of faith in our archipelago?

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References:

Galleons and Social Control in the Spanish Empire: The Contrabandistas: Defenders of “Free Trade” on the Manila-Acapulco Galleons, Volume IV. (2025) National Historical Commission of the Philippines.

Angeles, F. Delor (1980) "The Philippine Inquisition: A Survey." Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints, (28)3, pp. 253-283.

Cunningham, Charles H. (1918). “The Inquisition in the Philippines: The Salcedo Affair.” The Catholic Historical Review, 3(4), pp. 417-445.

Bonilla & Santos Garcia (1583). “Instructions to the Commissary of the Inquisition.” In Blair, Emma Helen, and Robertson, James Alexander (eds.), The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol. 40), Arthur H. Clark Company, 57.

Mawson, Stephanie Joy (2023). “Folk magic in the Philippines, 1611-39.” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 54(2), pp. 1-25.