A small Hispano group of Sephardic Jews in northern New Mexico may be one of the oldest groups of practicing Jews in North America, dating back to the early Spanish settlers of Jewish descent who had been forcibly converted to Catholicism as Conversos or New Christians, or both after 1492. Some families of Conversos began to settle in Mexico City in the 1530s and 1540s. Some converted back to Judaism; others maintained some Jewish beliefs and practices in secret. After the Spanish Inquisition came to the New World in 1571, the conversos were threatened with death if it was found they were practicing Judaism.