Who was the first official inquisitor of the Mexican Inquisition?

The first official inquisitor of the Mexican Inquisition was Pedro Moya de Contreras.

The tribunal was formally established in New Spain in 1571, when Moya de Contreras became its first inquisitor general. He established the Tribunal of the Faith in Mexico City, extending the Spanish Inquisition’s institutional system across the Atlantic. He was also an archbishop and later served as viceroy of New Spain, making him one of the colony’s most powerful religious and political officials.

Moya de Contreras organized the tribunal and presided over its first auto-da-fé in New Spain. Its jurisdiction generally focused on non-Indigenous populations, including people accused of heresy, Judaism practiced in secret, Protestantism, and other offenses against Catholic orthodoxy. Indigenous people were largely outside its formal jurisdiction, although religious control over them remained extensive.

A common mix-up is confusing Moya de Contreras with Alonso de Montúfar, an earlier archbishop of Mexico, or Manuel de Flores, who was the tribunal’s last inquisitor. The office belonged to the Holy Office, not to the ordinary archbishopric alone.