Trebino (Tremino) De Sobremonte, Tomas

Martyr; burned at the stake at Mexico, or Lima, April 11, 1649. He had previously been reconciled by the Inquisition; but in 1642, during the trial of Gabriel de Granada, information was brought against him and his wife, Maria Gomez. He appears to have been thrown into the dungeon of the Inquisition at that time, and kept in imprisonment till his death, possibly in order that the Inquisitor might obtain possession of his fortune; for when burning he taunted the officials with using up wood which had cost them nothing, because it had been bought with his money. Out of a group of 109 prisoners, Trebino de Sobremonte was the only one to be burned alive. He died without uttering a groan, mocking "the pope and his hirelings," as he called them, and taunting his tormentors with his last breath. De Barrios, the Spanish-Jewish historian, who visited Cayenne in 1660, dedicated two sonnets to him.

Bibliography:

  * Obrégon, Mexico Viejo, vol. ii.;
  * C. Adler, in Publ. Am. Jew. Hist. Soc. vii., pp. vi. 5, 59, 60, 65;
  * G. A. Kohut, ib. iv. 124, 161-162; xi. 164.



A. J.