_Islam, Art, and Architecture in the Americas: Some Considerations of Colonial Latin America

In the millennium after the Hegira Islam spread all over the Eastern Hemisphere, but traces of Islamic culture should not have been found at all in the vast areas of the Western Hemisphere ruled by the Spanish and Portuguese during the period between the first voyage of Columbus and the independence of modern Latin American states, 1492 to ca. 1820.1 The Spanish crown repeatedly placed restrictions on the immigration of” Moors,” including those newly converted to Christianity, as well as on their children and descendants. 2 From the year 1569 the Inquisition worked in the Americas to make sure that only Christians (ie orthodox Catholics) practiced their religion. Extensive archival data attests to the presence in the New World of the Holy Office, 3 whose widespread activity is also suggested physically by buildings known by the name of Casa del Gran Poder, some of the largest extant structures that are not churches or monasteries erected in places such as Sucre (formerly known as Chuquisaca and La Plata), now in Bolivia, and Cartagena de las Indias, now in Colombia.