(This post is a continuation of Juan Rodelgo’s Tale: The Transcript of the Inquisitional Trial – Part 1. If you haven’t done so already, it’s best to read that post before continuing on here.)
Last week, I posted a translation of the transcript of the trial of Juan Rodelgo, a trial held by the Spanish Inquisition in the autumn of 1622, on Las Palmas, on the island of Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands.
Juan, remember, had escaped form an Algerine corsair ship and come ashore in northern Morocco, when he had been accosted by local “Moors.” He talked his way out of that problem and then headed southwards overland for Salé.
The transcript picks up the story with his Arrival in Salé.
[After a long overland journey], he [Juan] arrived in Salé, where everyone took him for an elshe.[1] He [Juan] was sick there [in Salé], and then convalescing. The witness [i.e., a witness testifying at Juan’s trial] says that Morato Arraez, [2] the corsair captain, gave money to this man [Juan] and tried to take him en corso. Juan slept on his [Morato Arraez’s] ship for some nights, but [being too sick] he [Juan] then stayed on land and was not with him [Morato Arraez] that time [when Morato Arraez went en corso].
He joined with Morato Arraez, who, along with Calafate Assan, a Greek renegado, was going en corso.
He [Juan] said that his name is Juan Rodelgo, a native of Villa Cañas in La Mancha in the San Juan amendment, thirty-two years old, and that he arrived today to this city [Las Palmas], having fled from some Turkish ships that had come to this island [Gran Canaria].[3] The captain of one of these ships was Morato Arraez, a Flemish renegado, also called Jan Jans. The captain of the other ship was Calafate Assan, a Greek renegado.
He [Juan] wanted to be here [Gran Canaria] for a month or two and try to go to the Indies.
Morato Arraez had arranged with Calafate to go en corso to the Canary Islands because they expected to find good prizes thereabouts. After capturing a German and a French ship, and, between the islands, a caravel with ten men and three women aboard, they sailed to this island of Gran Canaria to take on water in the port of Arguineguín, from where Juan fled from the corsairs and came to the town of Aguimes, and from there to this city [Las Palmas].
They [Jan’s and Calafate Assan’s corsair ships] made for the lee side of Gran Canaria to take on water. Calafate had posted Juan with a spear and a scimitar as a guard. Having driven the spear into the ground so that it would seem like he was still standing there, Juan took off his shoes and fled, throwing his scimitar away too, so that those of this Island would not think he was a Moor. He then came to this city [Las Palmas] where he was until being arrested by this Holy Office.
Juan said that Morato Arraez brought forty-two native Moors from Salé [as crew] and that eighteen of them were Morisco expulsados and the others were from Barbary. There were several Flemish renegados: one called Rachete, another Solimán, another Mostafa, another Morato, and another Solimán the Small, plus two others whose names he [Juan] does not remember. There were another thirteen Flemish Christian men [i.e., slaves]. He [Juan] was the only Spaniard on the said ship of Morato Arraez. Calafate brought thirty Turks and Moors and two Morisco expulsados from Salé and eight Flemish Christians [slaves].
They captured thirteen Frenchmen from a ship they took off the coast of Spain loaded with Spanish wine and another dozen people they captured in a caravel, ten men and three women, all Christians.
In the city of Salé, in Barbary, he [a witness giving testimony] was a captive of Jan Jans, the Flemish renegado, known in the Moorish language as Morato Arraez, for the months of January, February, and March of this year of 1622. He met a Spanish man [in Salé], 33 or 34 years old, dressed in Moorish clothing, who was publicly said to be a renegado. Everyone called him Mostafa [Juan’s Muslim name]. He [the witness] first met him [Juan/Mostafa] when he was sick in Salé. A month later, he [Juan/Mostafa] went aboard the ship of the said Jan Jans to go out with him en corso as a soldier. He was on the said ship for two months.
This witness [another witness testifying at the trial] knew two corsairs in Algiers, where he had been a captive. One was Calafate Assan, renegado, the another Morato Arraez, also called Jan Jans, a Flemish renegado.
They [the witness and others] were sent to ransom some captives, under orders from the Governor of this island. This witness, with many other people, went to the harbor of Las Palmas, which is on a bay of this island. On the corsair ships, the witness met many renegados and some Turks and Moors, the same kind he had known in Algiers. He asked them about a man who had fled, whose name he did not know but whom he had met in Algiers and also seen on this island. The Turks and Moors and Spanish Andalusians and renegados all told him that this man was a renegado. He was captured along with six Spanish renegados who were aboard the said corsair ships [in the harbor at Las Palmas].
One Spanish renegado said that the man [Juan] had denied [his faith] five years past because of the bad treatment his master accorded him. In Algiers, until he escaped captivity, he [Juan] had been a Christian because he [the witness] saw him [Juan] hear Mass in the Great Bagnio [4] and the said gentlemen renegados told him that they were Christians and that the said man [Juan] and they had all been captured together near Cartagena as soldiers on their way to Naples.
This happened in the said harbor of Las Palma, on this island, during eight or ten days. They [the corsair crew] referred to it [Juan’s story] many times because he [the witness] went out every day four or six times to count the ransoms for the captives in the corsair ships.
That dog Morato Arraez did not send to say that [Juan] was forgiven because he was a renegado and had fled, but that he, Jan Jans, would give four Christians for him [Juan] [to get him back] so that he could hang him.
That year in Las Palmas, on this island, they were rescuing Christian captives from the renegado Moors [i.e., the corsairs]. The said person [a witness testifying at the trial] had gone to the corsair ships, and in them he had met some Turks and Moors and renegados and asked them about a man who had fled from a ship, asking if he had been a renegado. The two captains and the other Turks and Moors and Renegados and Andalusian expulsados told him that the said man was a renegado.
[There were] six Spanish renegados who were onboard the said ships. One told him [the witness] that he [Juan] had been in Algiers for five years, and that he had denied [his faith, i.e., converted to Islam] because of the hard life his master forced upon him, and that this was public knowledge. The said six Spanish renegados were companions of the said man [Juan] who had fled, and all had been captured together near Cartagena when [they were soldiers] sailing to Naples.
The original manuscript of Juan’s Inquisitional trial consists of 92 pages of faded, four-hundred-year-old, spidery handwriting in several hands—dark gray ink on pale gray paper (see the image that accompanies this post). So the translation posted here represents only a small part of the original. Much of the trial focused on doctrinal issues. I abstracted the bits that tell Juan’s story—disjointed thought they are—and ignored the doctrinal stuff.
Juan was lucky. The Inquisitors who handled his case didn’t resort to torture, and the only punishment they gave him was to do several months penance at a local monastery and then to return home to La Mancha.
Juan no doubt did as he was told and returned to his family’s farm—one did not dispute the Inquisition’s verdicts—but it is unclear if he stayed there, for he disappears from history at this point.
Given all that had happened to him, he might well have been past the point where he could settle down into his old life. Did he stay only a little while and then head off again on a vagabond quest for adventure and fortune? Or by this time had he had enough of such an uncertain and dangerous existence? Did he settle in the familiar land where he had been reared and take up with relief the ordinary, homely life of a farmer? Perhaps he did. Perhaps he married and had children and grandchildren, whom he held on his lap and told exciting stories to.
If so, somewhere in Spain, today, perhaps even somewhere in La Mancha, his descendants might still live. In all likelihood—since very few people have ever read the transcript of Juan’s Inquisitional trial or know of his story—they are completely unaware of their ancestor’s adventures
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[1] The term elshe (sometimes spelled elche) derives from the Arabic el-‘ildj, meaning “foreigner.” The word was used to designate Christians who had converted to Islam—that is, renegados.
[2] “Morato Arraez” is a Spanish rendering of Murat Reis, aka Jan Janszoon van Haarlem.
[3] This is the first version of the story that Juan gave the Inquisitors: that he was a simple Christian slave who had escaped from his captors.
[4] In Algiers, slaves were housed in large buildings known as “Bagnios.” These Bagnios contained sleeping quarters, but also things like taverns, hospitals (of a sort), and altars where Catholic priests performed Mass. The “Great Bagnio” (also called the King’s Bagnio) was the largest in Algiers. The slaves belonging to the Ottoman Governor of Algiers (the “King”) and to the city he administered were housed in the Great Bagnio.
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