Tomás de Torquemada

Tomás de Torquemada was a Spanish Dominican friar who in 1478 became the first Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition, leading a group of prelates tasked with upholding Catholic orthodoxy in the newly unified crowns of Castile and Aragon. At the time, many Muslims and Jews had converted to Catholicism under social and political pressure, becoming conversos, moriscos, and marranos. The Catholic Monarchs saw these superficial converts as a threat, and Torquemada became a chief supporter of the Alhambra Decree, which expelled Jews from Spain in 1492. He approved and advocated for the Inquisition's methods: torture to extract confessions, burning at the stake for the guilty. He died on 16 September 1498, his name by then a synonym for fanaticism and intolerance.