Hernando Alonso

Who was the first Jew in America?

The usual answer is Luis de Torres, who was Columbus' supposed interpreter. (Torres knew both Hebrew and Arabic, which would have been useful in India?) But he definitely converted to Catholicism (forced or not) and we already profiled him, focusing on his "discovery" of tobacco. We marked Torres as "Barely a Jew". So if not him, who?

The answer is quite possibly Hernando Alonso, a blacksmith and shipbuilder who came to America in 1520. There, he joined Hernando Cortes in conquering Tenochtitlan, did some shipbuilding, remarried, and lived a peaceful eight years until his arrest. You see, Alonso, who appeared Catholic and all, was supposedly a secret Jew.

Now, we obviously don't know if Alonso stayed true to Judaism or this was just plain old antisemitism, but we do know the answer to the following question:

Who was the first man in America to be burned at the stake?