In August 1698, José de Santa María, a Spanish tobacco trader in Mexico City, received an invitation to accompany Isidro de Peralta to a confraternal organization in the nearby neighborhood of San Juan de la Penitencia. Isidro, a mulatto street vender, had founded the religious brotherhood for the communal devotions in honor of Saint Augustine. He indicated to José that he would learn to “practice devotions and matters of the spirit” from a local instructor at the gathering. Intrigued by the devotions, José decided to attend. “On one Sunday or feast day in the afternoon,” he would later testify, he arrived at a house “where different men of all calidades” sat before an altar with “an image of Saint Augustine and some burning candles.” He remained at the gathering for “about a quarter of an hour,” listening to “a chat or sermon” given by one of the attendees before everyone departed “for their own homes.” During the following year, he continued to assist in the festivities in San Juan de la Penitencia for most feast days until for “no reason good or bad” he left the confraternity. Later he would state that he enjoyed the devotionals because he did not believe “these gatherings could be bad since they pray to the Rosary of Our Lady.”