 However, the New Christians were later hounded and persecuted by the Spanish Inquisition after 1478, the Portuguese Inquisition after 1536, the Peruvian Inquisition after 1570 and the Mexican Inquisition after 1571, as well as the Inquisition in Colombia after 1610.In Medieval Europe, all Asian peoples were thought of as being the descendants of Shem.By the 19th century, the term Semitic was confined to the ethnic groups which have historically spoken Semitic languages or had origins in the Fertile Crescent, as the Jews in Europe did.