Caceres Family - Antonio Dias (Diaz) de Caceres

Antonio Dias (Diaz) De Caceres

The first reference to any person bearing the name is in a list of heretics, posted according to custom in the cathedral in Mexico City, where the names of Antonio Dias (or Diaz) de Caceres and Catalina de Leon, his wife, occur as "Judaizers". The latter did penance at an auto da fé held on February 24, 1590 in that city. Their daughter Doña Leonor de Caceres was denounced as a "Judaizer" by her aunt, Doña Mariana Nuñez de Carabajal (see Francisca Nuñez de Carabajal), before the tribunal of Mexico. Her testimony gives these data: Antonio Dias de Caceres and Jorge de Almeida were married on the same day, in the city of Parmco, Mexico, to Catalina and Leonor de Carabajal, sisters of the deponent, and, after a visit to Spain, moved to the district of San Paolo in Mexico City.

Antonio appears to have lived in another district, in a house which served as a gathering-place for fasting and prayer; and although they all attended mass and otherwise observed the rites and ceremonies of the Roman Catholic Church, they practiced their Jewish rites in private. This was soon discovered; the deponent, her mother, and brothers were arrested by order of the Inquisition; and Antonio Dias de Caceres, fearing a similar fate, went to China. There he lived three years, came back to Mexico, feigned at first estrangement from his wife, because she was a "Judaizing" penitent, and finally, seeming to yield to the entreaties of friends who sought to bring them together, became nominally reconciled to her and set about in earnest to obey the behests of the Mosaic law. Antonio observed caution, dreading the arm of the Holy Office, but persisted, together with his family, in keeping the Sabbath at home. Prayers were recited at home out of a Hebrew book, said to have been written in verse, and the Psalms, without the required Gloria Patri, were chanted by all. His daughter, the above-mentioned Leonor de Caceres, figured as a penitent at an auto da fé held in the city of Mexico on March 25, 1601. A facsimile of a document dated September 6, 1608, containing an account of her trial, is given in vol. iv. of Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society.