To the end of the earth

Describes the Iberian origins of crypto-Jews now living in New Mexico. Focuses on the lives of their ancestors, Jews who fled Spain and Portugal to live in the New World. In Mexico, they suffered from Inquisitorial persecution in the 16th-17th centuries. At the end of the 16th century, Mexico was interested in expanding its northern frontiers; a prominent role in this endeavor was played by the Governor of Nuevo León, Luis de Carvajal, and it appears that crypto-Jews served as full participants. However, the Inquisition pursued some of the Jews even as far as New Mexico. The persecutions ended in the 1660s, but due to fear of persecution, often related to local conflicts, crypto-Jews practiced their ancestral religion surreptitiously - until 1848, when the U.S. annexed New Mexico. (From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)