Blood and Faith: The Purging of Muslim Spain (47 page)
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Authors: Matthew Carr
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BOOK: Blood and Faith: The Purging of Muslim Spain
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Like all stateless people, the Moriscos were powerless and entirely dependent for their survival on the goodwill of the populations they passed through. A letter from Algiers dated July 25, 1611, by the
“licenciado
[graduate] Molina,” a Granadan Morisco from Trujillo in Extremadura, to a Christian friend named Don Jerónimo de Loaysa, makes this precariousness and vulnerability clear.
19
Molina appears to have been a man of some substance in his hometown and remembered fondly his regular visits to Loaysa’s house. He told his friend how he and a group of Moriscos had traveled overland from Trujillo to the port of Cartagena before sailing to Marseille, where “we were well received, with great promises of protection.” Within a few days of their arrival in May, Henry IV was assassinated by the Catholic fanatic François Ravaillac, and France was plunged into political turmoil. Spanish involvement was immediately suspected, and Molina and his fellow exiles now found themselves accused by the local authorities in Marseille of spying on behalf of Philip III in order to pave the way for the conquest of France. These accusations may well have been a pretext for extortion, as the Moriscos were divested of “a large part” of their savings by their accusers. When the queen regent, Marie de Medici, appointed a judge to redress these losses whom Molina described as “equally hungry for money,” the Morisco traveled with a thousand of his compatriots to the Italian port of Livorno, with where “the same thing happened to us as at Marseille.”
“licenciado
[graduate] Molina,” a Granadan Morisco from Trujillo in Extremadura, to a Christian friend named Don Jerónimo de Loaysa, makes this precariousness and vulnerability clear.
19
Molina appears to have been a man of some substance in his hometown and remembered fondly his regular visits to Loaysa’s house. He told his friend how he and a group of Moriscos had traveled overland from Trujillo to the port of Cartagena before sailing to Marseille, where “we were well received, with great promises of protection.” Within a few days of their arrival in May, Henry IV was assassinated by the Catholic fanatic François Ravaillac, and France was plunged into political turmoil. Spanish involvement was immediately suspected, and Molina and his fellow exiles now found themselves accused by the local authorities in Marseille of spying on behalf of Philip III in order to pave the way for the conquest of France. These accusations may well have been a pretext for extortion, as the Moriscos were divested of “a large part” of their savings by their accusers. When the queen regent, Marie de Medici, appointed a judge to redress these losses whom Molina described as “equally hungry for money,” the Morisco traveled with a thousand of his compatriots to the Italian port of Livorno, with where “the same thing happened to us as at Marseille.”
Like Molina himself, most of these exiles were educated middle-class Moriscos who soon became disillusioned with Italian lords, who “only wanted us to cultivate the fields and other vile professions that most people did not know how to do and had not been taught.” Molina and his companions considered returning to Spain, but changed their minds on hearing reports from other Extremaduran Moriscos on the high incidence of robbery and rape on the ships that took them from Spanish ports. Instead they made their way to Algiers, which was filled with Morisco exiles from all over Spain. Molina told his friend that his Muslim hosts “have not obliged us by any spiritual or corporal act to make us unsay what we have been,” suggesting not only that he himself was a Christian but that even Morisco exiles who were seen as Christians could sometimes be treated with a level of tolerance that was not always present in North Africa—not to mention Spain. Molina was clearly a religious man and appeared to take some consolation from the belief that his fate was divinely ordained and therefore unavoidable:
I do not think, Your Grace, that it was the King of Spain who banished us from his land, but divine inspiration; because I have seen prophecies here that are more than two thousand years old, which foretold what has happened to us and what must happen, that God would remove us from that land [of Spain] and place this intention in the heart of the King and his Counsellors and the majority of us would die on sea and land and in the end that is what has happened.
These “prophecies” belonged to a Christian apocalyptic tradition that continued to fascinate many Spanish Christians in the seventeenth century, the roots of which could be traced back through the medieval mystic Joachim of Fiore (c.1145–1202) to the Book of Revelation and the Christian forgeries added to the ancient Sibylline oracles. The essence of this tradition was the belief in the end of history, followed by a cosmic conflagration that would usher in the end of time and the return of the Messiah. Over the centuries, this tradition had acquired new variants, some of which had a specifically Spanish and anti-Islamic dimension. Isidore of Seville had once prophesied the coming of a powerful king who would rule over Spain and drive out the “impurities of the Spaniards” before going on to conquer Jerusalem. The seventh-century
Apocalypse
of Pseudo-Methodius had been developed among Syrian Christians specifically in response to the Muslim conquests and foretold the coming of an Emperor of the Last Days who would wage victorious war on behalf of Christianity against Islam. Many of these prophecies were incorporated into the
pronósticos
that circulated through Spain in the sixteenth century. As a Christian—and a victim of the expulsion—Molina appeared to see Philip as the instrument of this tradition.
Apocalypse
of Pseudo-Methodius had been developed among Syrian Christians specifically in response to the Muslim conquests and foretold the coming of an Emperor of the Last Days who would wage victorious war on behalf of Christianity against Islam. Many of these prophecies were incorporated into the
pronósticos
that circulated through Spain in the sixteenth century. As a Christian—and a victim of the expulsion—Molina appeared to see Philip as the instrument of this tradition.
Christian supporters of the expulsion also believed that it was divinely ordained, from a more triumphalist perspective. On December 23, 1610, the Council of State considered a memorandum from Jaime Bleda on the “marvels that Our Lord has worked in the expulsion of the Moriscos” from Valencia.
20
Bleda’s memorandum was intended to solicit official funding for his forthcoming chronicle of the expulsion, and he summarized its contents in terms that were clearly intended to please the king and his ministers. He cited various indications that the expulsion had met with divine approval, from the good weather that had made it possible for the king’s ships to remove the Moriscos to the abundant “trees and harvests” that were now sprouting up across the kingdom since their departure. Much of this was a product of Bleda’s imagination, such as his description of the giant “white and resplendent” cross that had appeared above Los Alfaques during the expulsion of the Moriscos from Aragon and remained in the sky throughout their removal. The fanatical Dominican also saw divine intervention in Spain’s conquest of the Moroccan port of Larache that year.
20
Bleda’s memorandum was intended to solicit official funding for his forthcoming chronicle of the expulsion, and he summarized its contents in terms that were clearly intended to please the king and his ministers. He cited various indications that the expulsion had met with divine approval, from the good weather that had made it possible for the king’s ships to remove the Moriscos to the abundant “trees and harvests” that were now sprouting up across the kingdom since their departure. Much of this was a product of Bleda’s imagination, such as his description of the giant “white and resplendent” cross that had appeared above Los Alfaques during the expulsion of the Moriscos from Aragon and remained in the sky throughout their removal. The fanatical Dominican also saw divine intervention in Spain’s conquest of the Moroccan port of Larache that year.
The serious and respectful consideration that this strange document received from Spain’s senior statesmen was an indication of the overlapping religious expectations and statecraft through which the expulsion was perceived by the Hapsburg Court. Whether Philip and his favorite really believed that Valencia had suddenly become fertile as a result of the departure of the Moriscos, or whether they merely wanted their subjects to believe it, there is no doubt that both men expected the expulsion to meet with God’s approval and hoped that such approval would bring positive benefits for Spain. Without these expectations, it is difficult to make sense of Lerma’s insistence to the Council of State in December 1610 that “the greatest thing that the King of the World has ever done will remain imperfect” if the Moriscos were not expelled “without any exception.”
21
21
By this time, the majority of the Moriscos had already been removed from the country, and whatever threat they might have posed to Spain’s religious unity or the security of the state had been eliminated. The remainder were either so closely assimilated into Christian society that it was difficult even to identify their Morisco origins in the first place, or else they were so outnumbered by Christians that they had ceased to exist as coherent communities. On the surface, the broader objectives had been achieved, and the expulsion process could at this point have been brought to a halt.
But the purging of Muslim Spain was not merely intended to eliminate a deviant ethnic minority, nor was it simply a punishment for sedition. To rulers who saw political and military failure as a sign of divine disfavor, the expulsion was a propitiatory offering to the Almighty that was intended to change the course of history and usher in a new and glorious era in Spain’s fortunes—and win prestige for the monarchy that had achieved this purification. Bleda was not alone in seeing the relatively minor conquest of Larache as the first sign that the new era had arrived. For this regeneration to continue, Spain had to be completely cleansed of every single Morisco. Nor were the Moriscos the only scource of defilement. In the summer of 1610, the Council of State recommended the expulsion of Spain’s Gypsy population, whom it described as “vagabonds and prejudicial people.” This second purge never took place, as the architects of the expulsion continued their frustrating and ultimately futile attempt to ensure that no Morisco remained in the country.
20
A Perfect Conclusion? 1611–1614
On March 23, 1611, Cabrera de Córdoba records that Philip attended a special thanksgiving mass in Madrid to commemorate the “happy event of the expulsion of the Moriscos.” The ceremonies were attended by a prestigious gathering of invited foreign and national dignitaries that included the papal nuncio, numerous foreign ambassadors, and leading members of the aristocracy and clergy. Dressed from head to foot in white in a symbolic expression of Spain’s newfound purity, Philip led a solemn procession from the Church of Santa María to the Descalzas Convent, where he thanked the “Virgin of March” for making the expulsion possible. The new archbishop of Granada sent a hyperbolic memorial to mark the occasion, which described the expulsion as one of the Seven Wonders of the World and compared it to the great Christian victories over Islam, such as the medieval battle of Las Navas de Tolosa and the more recent defeat of the Ottoman fleet at Lepanto.
These celebrations took place at a time when the benefits of the expulsion were conspicuously absent in many parts of the country. Throughout Spain, the departure of the Moriscos had left a desolate trail of empty houses, deserted neighborhoods and villages, and falling revenues. In Valencia, despite Bleda’s evocation of a new era of abundance, there were reports of unsown and unharvested crops, and vineyards and orchards whose produce was left to rot because there were not enough hands to pick it. The absence of manpower was so acute that Lerma was considering the possibility of resettling the Valencian countryside with Greek Christians, while Caracena in December 1609 even warned the king that it might be necessary to use Moriscos from Granada to make up the shortfall.
1
In other parts of Spain, secular and ecclesiastical landowners complained of a lack of workers, and town councils appealed for financial assistance from the Crown to compensate for what they had lost through the departure of the Moriscos.
1
In other parts of Spain, secular and ecclesiastical landowners complained of a lack of workers, and town councils appealed for financial assistance from the Crown to compensate for what they had lost through the departure of the Moriscos.
If the “happy event” was not as popular as the celebrations in Madrid suggested, there was also disturbing evidence that the expulsion was not yet complete. In December 1610, in the last months of his life, Juan de Ribera ordered the removal of four thousand Moriscos from Valencia who had managed to remain in the kingdom more than a year after the expulsion had begun. Nearly six months later, viceroy Caracena was still reporting to Philip that many Moriscos “have remained hidden without showing themselves.” Some of them were working on the estates of their Christian lords despite the strict prohibitions against such activity. There were also survivors of the 1609 rebellion in the Muela de Cortes, who continued to live in caves in the surrounding mountains and occasionally attacked outlying Christian settlements.
On May 25, 1611, Caracena issued a savage ordinance that offered a reward for every Morisco brought down from the Muela dead or alive. A vicious manhunt ensued as Christian bounty hunters converged on these mountains and began bringing back Morisco heads to claim their rewards, before a Christian resident of Valencia named Simeon Zapata took it on himself to coax the Moriscos down without violence. Showing a humanity that was conspicuously absent in Valencia in those years, Zapata spent months roaming the Muela de Cortes alone and eventually persuaded the Moriscos to leave Spain voluntarily. Between January and February 1612, Zapata personally led these Moriscos down to the coast and sent his brother on one of the ships headed for Algiers to guarantee their safety.
2
2
In other parts of Spain also, Moriscos had gone into hiding to avoid the commissioners who had come to remove them and had returned to their homes when the royal officials had gone. Others had obtained certificates from local Christian officials allowing them to stay. These developments were a source of great frustration to the king and his ministers. Only days before the thanksgiving celebrations in Madrid, Philip ordered his cousin the Marquis of Carpio to carry out a new expulsion of the Moriscos in Seville “because it is understood that many have never left, and others who did so have returned and managed to hide.” In order to ensure that “this operation should be brought to a perfect conclusion to the service of God and of myself,” the king insisted that all these Moriscos should be expelled “even if they have an affidavit that they have lived as good Christians, because such documents are extremely suspect.”
3
3
In October 1611, Philip experienced a personal tragedy when his beloved wife, Margaret of Austria, died during childbirth. Before her death, Margaret founded the Convento de la Encarnación in Madrid, in thanksgiving for the expulsion. Philip never married again, and he remained unwaveringly committed to the task that she had supported so wholeheartedly. Lerma also had cause to ensure, as he put it, that Spain was “so cleansed of Moriscos that there should be no memory of these people.”
4
Not only was his own reputation intimately bound up with the success of an enterprise that he had done so much to bring about, but his position at court was becoming more precarious. In 1612, Rodrigo Calderón, one of the most corrupt of Lerma’s creatures, was banished from court in a process that would ultimately lead to his execution. It was a significant victory for the duke’s political enemies and another confirmation of Lerma’s waning influence.
5
These personal circumstances may have reinforced the determination of both men to “perfect” an expulsion process that had turned out to be more divisive, more damaging, and more complicated than either of them had foreseen.
4
Not only was his own reputation intimately bound up with the success of an enterprise that he had done so much to bring about, but his position at court was becoming more precarious. In 1612, Rodrigo Calderón, one of the most corrupt of Lerma’s creatures, was banished from court in a process that would ultimately lead to his execution. It was a significant victory for the duke’s political enemies and another confirmation of Lerma’s waning influence.
5
These personal circumstances may have reinforced the determination of both men to “perfect” an expulsion process that had turned out to be more divisive, more damaging, and more complicated than either of them had foreseen.
In the second part of
Don Quixote
, written after the expulsion, Cervantes offered a more sympathetic portrait of Morisco Spain than his previous writings on the subject, in the character of Sancho Panza’s expelled Morisco friend Ricote the Moor, a former shopkeeper in Sancho’s hometown. The two men unexpectedly meet again when Ricote returns to Spain from North Africa disguised as a Christian pilgrim in order to dig up the treasure he has buried outside his village. Ricote’s ultimate intention is to bring his wife and daughter from North Africa to Germany, since both of them are “Catholic Christians; and though I am not much more of one myself, still there is more Christian than Moor in me.” The Morisco shopkeeper tells Sancho of the “terror and dismay” that the proclamation of the king’s expulsion order induced among “those of my nation” and laments the disastrous fate of many Moriscos in North Africa, declaring, “We did not know our good fortune till we had lost it, and so ardently do almost all of us long to return to Spain that most of those—and there are plenty—who know the language, as I do, return and leave their wives and children over there unprotected; such is our love for Spain.”
6
Don Quixote
, written after the expulsion, Cervantes offered a more sympathetic portrait of Morisco Spain than his previous writings on the subject, in the character of Sancho Panza’s expelled Morisco friend Ricote the Moor, a former shopkeeper in Sancho’s hometown. The two men unexpectedly meet again when Ricote returns to Spain from North Africa disguised as a Christian pilgrim in order to dig up the treasure he has buried outside his village. Ricote’s ultimate intention is to bring his wife and daughter from North Africa to Germany, since both of them are “Catholic Christians; and though I am not much more of one myself, still there is more Christian than Moor in me.” The Morisco shopkeeper tells Sancho of the “terror and dismay” that the proclamation of the king’s expulsion order induced among “those of my nation” and laments the disastrous fate of many Moriscos in North Africa, declaring, “We did not know our good fortune till we had lost it, and so ardently do almost all of us long to return to Spain that most of those—and there are plenty—who know the language, as I do, return and leave their wives and children over there unprotected; such is our love for Spain.”
6
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