The first Inquisition tribunal established in the Americas was founded in 1570.
The tribunal was established in Lima, the administrative capital of the Viceroyalty of Peru, as part of Spain’s effort to extend the Holy Office into its American colonies. King Philip II ordered tribunals for Lima and Mexico, giving them jurisdiction over large colonial territories.
Lima’s tribunal was formally inaugurated on January 9, 1570, while Mexico City’s permanent tribunal began operating in 1571. Earlier colonial investigations had been handled by bishops and temporary inquisitorial commissioners, so those episodes should not be confused with the creation of a permanent tribunal.
A third major American tribunal was established in Cartagena de Indias in 1610. The American tribunals primarily investigated suspected heresy, crypto-Judaism, Protestantism, blasphemy, and other offenses against Catholic orthodoxy; they generally did not exercise jurisdiction over Indigenous people in the same way as over Spanish settlers and other colonial populations.