6 - Relationships Lost and Found in the Mid-Sixteenth-Century Iberian Atlantic: An Englishman’s ‘Suffering Rewarded’

Summary

Abstract

At 21, Robert Tomson had become an integral part of an English merchant's household in Seville and in 1555 he joined their emigration to Mexico. There he fell victim to the Inquisition. After languishing in jails in Mexico City and Seville, Tomson resumed his career in Seville under the protection of another English merchant and married a Spanish heiress. On returning to England, Tomson, eager to avoid accusations of papacy, wrote an account of his experiences. In this chapter I look at the personal relationships and family connections central to his story, exploring a world where marriages that transcended national ties and traditional boundaries were central to individual survival and to the project of national expansion.

Keywords: Robert Tomson, Inquisition, Seville, Mexico, trade, race, religion, family

In 1553 Robert Tomson, a Hampshire lad, went to reside with an English merchant and his Spanish wife in Seville. This was a common scenario by the 1550s when English merchants, who continued to thrive in Spain and its Atlantic colonies, were generally married to Spanish women. Such family units provided safe spaces for young Englishmen to learn Castilian, become familiar with Andalusian trading culture and acquire strategies for avoiding the attention of the Inquisition. By the age of 21 Tomson had become part of this merchant's household and in 1555 he joined them in emigrating from Spain to Mexico. After the merchant, his wife and children perished en route, Tomson was stranded alone in Mexico City. There he found employment in a Spanish household with no connection to the familial trading networks that had previously sustained and protected him. In 1557 his Spanish employer denounced him to the Inquisition for voicing ‘Lutheran’ opinions – making Tomson the first Englishman to fall foul of the Inquisition in Mexico. Tomson was found guilty and banished to Seville to serve out his sentence there. He eventually managed to resume working in Spain under the protection of an established English merchant before marring the daughter of a recently deceased rich Spanish merchant. On returning to England, Tomson wrote an account of his persecution in Mexico and financial redemption in Spain. Mindful of avoiding accusations of papacy, he framed his experiences as a pilgrim's progress with his marriage a reward for his sufferings for his faith.