Tomas Trevino de Sobremonte

Tomas Trevino de Sobremonte was a Marrano merchant in Mexico that ended his life as a martyr. He was born in Medina de Riosoco, Spain, and studied Latin in two Jesuit schools and canon law at Salamanca, and became a page for a nobleman in his home town. His father was a member of an old aristocratic Christian family, but his mother, Leonor Martinez de Villagomez, was a Judaizing New Christian.

A fellow page called him a Jew and Tomas killed him. After that he went into hiding and sailed for New Spain in 1612. In New Spain Tomas prospered as a merchant, with connections at the commercial centers of Zacatecas, Guadalajara, Acapulco, and Vera Cruz. In the meantime, his brother Geronimo and their mother were arrested in Spain by the Inquisition, and revealed under torture that Tomas was a Judaizer. Tomas was arrested in November 1624 by the Mexican Inquisition. The following year he was reconciled with the Church after he expressed repentance. However, the repentance was feigned. In 1629 he married the Judaizer, Maria Gomez, and after a while the Inquisition arrested her also. He waited for her to be released from the Inquisition and had planned for them to flee to Holland, but he was rearrested as a relapsed heretic on October 11, 1644, and after a lengthy trial condemned to the stake. He was burned alive at the great auto-da-fe of April 11, 1649.