Secret Jews and Anti-Converso Narratives in Early Modern Spain

Despite having eradicated Jewish life by the end of the 15th century, Spain could never quite shake off its fear of Jewish influence on the Crown and the Catholic Church. Without any actual Jews to target, Spanish suspicion soon focused on the group of Conversos, Jewish converts and their descendants. Conversos were often accused of being false converts who only had converted for personal gain and secretly lived on as Jews, making them heretics in the eyes of the Inquisition. Relying on Francisco de Torrejoncillo’s infamous Centinela contra Judios, this paper explores how and why anti-Jewish stereotypes were so easily transferred onto Conversos and what impact (proto-)racist ideas had on this process.