LIBRARY News:
Mesa Public Library’s Authors Speak Series presents Frances Levine, PhD, Director of the New Mexico History Museum at 7 p.m., Thursday May 24 in the Upstairs Rotunda at Mesa Public Library.
Coummunity members and their out of town guests are welcome to attend and hear Levine speak about an intriguing episode in colonial New Mexico’s history, “In Her Own Voice: Doña Teresa de Aguilera y Roche Takes on the Spanish Inquisition.”
Among the many events lived in New Mexico’s Palace of the Governors, the administration of Governor Bernardo López de Mendizábal captures a time when intrigue and danger swirled through the building and the town.
The dramatic events of his term in office, from 1659 when he arrived in Santa Fe, to the summer of 1662 when he and his wife, Doña Teresa de Aguilera y Roche, were arrested by the Holy Office of the Inquisition, punctuate this period of Santa Fe’s history.
Through the analysis of records from the Spanish Inquisition archives, Dr. Levine will share the story of Doña Teresa’s fortitude in facing her accusers – the Santa Fe elites and Inquisition officials in Mexico City who tried her for the crime of being Jewish in 17th century New Mexico.
