The fate of the Moors had been decided. The Inquisition thinned the ranks of the "convert" Jews. The unconverted Jews, they that had preferred degradation to baptism; they that had preferred to take up their wretched abode as degraded outcasts in the prescribed outskirts of the cities, to feigning adherence to a faith which their hearts hated; they that had sacrificed with singular resignation all that honest toil had honestly secured, and donned the garberdine of disgrace, and followed the degrading vocations enforced upon them by cruel laws, and suffered everywhere meekly unprovoked jeers, insult, outrage, assault, these must be dealt with now. Torquemada was resolved, and with him resolve was equal to execution, that in Spain the sun should shine upon none but pure Catholics, that the atmosphere of Spain should no longer be polluted by the presence of Jews; that none but "pious" Christians should tread upon its holy soil. He resolved upon expelling the Jews forever. They had long clogged the wheels of his triumphal car. He knew that there was a secret communion between "converted" and unconverted Jews. He knew that it was mainly due to their religious influence that the convert Jews relapsed again into Judaism. He knew that they provided spiritually and physically for the poverty-stricken and branded families of those of their race, whom the Inquisition burned, and whose possessions it confiscated. He knew that, despite rigorous measures and Dominican spies, converted and unconverted Jews met in subterranean caverns, and counseled and worshipped together, and comforted each other. He hit upon a cure at last. He knew a remedy that would remove the clog forever. He counselled immediate expulsion of all unconverted Jews. In the year 1492, in the year in which Columbus discovered a new world, in the year in which the Jewish sailor of Columbus' crew first set foot upon the virgin soil of the western Hemisphere,[40] strange fatality, in the same year that Spain opens domains vast, destined to become the land of the free, the blessed haven for the politically and racially and religiously persecuted; in the same year, the year 1492, she opens her portals at home, only to thrust out, mercilessly, brutally, hundreds of thousands of unoffending, industrious, intelligent people, closes the gates behind them, and keeps them barred nigh unto four hundred years. [40] The first Jew came to America with Christopher Columbus. His name was Louis de Parres. He was one of the 120 companions of Columbus, and the only one, who understood the Shemitic languages. He and Rodrigo de Gerez were the first white men whom Columbus set on shore. (_See "Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen von Prof Sophus Ruge._)