Palace of the Inquisition

The Palace of the Inquisition is an 18th c. baroque house facing Cartagena’s Plaza de Bolívar, built in the language of empire yet defined by the Holy Office tribunal founded in 1610. Behind its carved portal and wooden balconies, inquisitors prosecuted heresy, sorcery, and dissent, turning Catholic orthodoxy into a tool of colonial discipline across the Caribbean. Now a museum, it is widely read as a difficult memorial where objects of punishment and independence-era records trace a long shift from coercion to contested ideas of justice.