Morisco

Embarkation of Moriscos in Valencia by Pere Oromig

Armed resistance of the Moriscos against their forced explusion

Moriscos (Spanish ""Little Moors") or Mouriscos (Portuguese) were Spanish Muslims who converted to Catholicism during and the reconquista of Spain. The term later became a pejorative one applied those who had supposedly converted but secretly practiced Islam.

During the reconquista, Muslim communities were usually granted religious freedom, but this policy was changed in the late fifteenth century, when Christian authorities in Spain began to pressure Muslims to convert. Many Moriscos, however, continued to practice Islam in secret, and the continuing vitality of Islamic culture and religion among the Moriscos soon became a matter of concern to the Spanish crown, which sought to purify its newly conquered lands of both Muslims and Jews.

After several waves of persecution and regional expulsions and persecutions, the Spanish crown finally determined to expel the remaining Muslim population in the decree of 1610, a forced migration involving hundreds of thousands of people. Most of the Moriscos made their way to lands controlled by the Ottoman Empire or to North Africa, although some settled and France and a number were able to remain in Spain as Christians.

History

Progress of the reconquista

Spain in 1360

The reconquest of formerly Christian Spain and Portugal from the Muslims was accomplished over several centuries, with the last Muslim stronghold, Granada, falling in 1492. Muslim converts to Christianity were known as Moriscos, while Muslims who submitted to Christian rule but retained the Muslim faith were called Mudéjars. However, many Moriscos continued to remain crypto-Muslims, just as many Jewish conversos had secretly continued to practice Judaism in secret.

The exact status of the Mudéjars and Moroscos depended on various capitulation pacts and later royal decrees. In Aragon (1118) and Valencia (1238) Muslims who agreed to accept Christian rule were granted freedom to practice their faith. Likewise, after the fall of the city of Granada in 1492, the Muslim population the the Treaty of Granada guaranteed the right of religious freedom to local Muslims. However, that promise was short-lived. When Muslims reacted against peaceful conversion efforts on the part of Granada's first archbishop, Hernando de Talavera, the future Cardinal Cisneros took more forceful measures: forced conversions, burning Islamic texts, and the prosecution of some of Granada's leading Muslims.

Rebellion and persecution

In response to these and other violations of the treaty, Granada's Muslim population rebelled in 1499. The revolt, which lasted until early 1501, gave the Spanish authorities an excuse to void the remaining terms in Granada's treaty of surrender. In 1501, Granada's Muslims were given the ultimatum of either converting to Christianity or leaving. Most did convert, but usually only superficially, continuing to dress, write, and speak as they had before, and to practice Islam in secret. In 1502, the ultimatums were extended to the Muslims of Castile and Leon. The Muslims of Navarre had to convert or leave by 1515 and those of Aragon by 1525. Additional restrictive legislation was introduced at the national level in 1526 and 1527 under Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.

The Turkish Muslim privateer Barbarossa Hayreddin, whose mother had been a Christian, helped thousands of Moriscos escape persecution in Andalusia.

In August 1529 the Turkish Muslim privateer Barbarossa Hayreddin attacked the Mediterranean coasts of Spain and helped some 70,000 Moriscos escape from Andalusia in seven consecutive journeys. The sympathy of the Moriscos with such "pirates" worsened their reputation among Spanish Christians. However, wealthy Moriscos were able to by exemptions to restrictions against them.

In 1567, Philip II of Spain issued an order requiring Moriscos throughout the kingdom to give up their Muslim names and traditional Muslim dress, and prohibited the speaking of Arabic. And edict requiring Morisco parents to surrender the education of their children to Christian priests led to an uprising in the Alpujarras from 1568 to 1571, resulting in the forced resettlement of the Moriscos of Granada, often to the kingdom of Valencia. Only a few Moriscos, those who had collaborated with the royal forces during this revolt, were permitted to remain in the city and territory of Granada. The relocation also affected the Moriscos of Castile, who were quite assimilated by that time. During this time the Spanish Inquisition intensified its attention toward the Moriscos. From 1570 cases involving Moriscos whose conversion were suspect became predominant in the tribunals of Zaragoza, Valencia, and Granada. In the tribunal of Granada, between 1560 and 1571, 82 percent of those accused by the Inquisition were Moriscos.

Mounting tensions

The Moriscos were also suspected of being in contact with the Turkish Empire and the Barbary pirates, conspiring against Spain. Spies reported that the Ottoman Emperor Selim II was planning to attack Malta and later Spain, a plan which would allegedly also involve inciting an uprising among Spanish Muslims and Moriscos. King Philip II thus enacted additional restrictive measures against them.

However, many of the Muslims had risen to positions of wealth and prominence, and wielded considerable counteracting influence. Aragonese and Valencian nobles in particular appreciated their contribution and tried to protect them from expulsion, advocating a line of patience and religious instruction. Toward the end of the sixteenth century, Morisco writers sought to challenge the perception of their culture as alien to Spain with literary works presenting a version of early Spanish history in which Arabic-speaking Spaniards played a positive and major role.

Some Moriscos indeed fought against Christians as corsairs based at Algiers, Cherchell, and Salé. Others became mercenaries in the service of the Moroccan sultan, crossing the Sahara and conquering Timbuktu and the Niger Curve in 1591.

Nationwide expulsions

Juan de Ribera supervision the expulsion of a Morisco family, painting by Francisco Domingo Marques.

In Valencia, the Catholic preacher Juan de Ribera came to the conclusion that it would ultimately be impossible to bring the majority of Moriscos to the point of authentic conversion. Determined to persuade the king to banish them, he portrayed the Moriscos as traitors and heretics, justifying their complete expulsion that the logical conclusion of of the reconquista.

The crown ultimately agreed, deciding that the Moriscos were fundamentally untrustworthy and too troublesome to tolerate. The Moriscos were thus forcibly expelled from Spain between 1609 and 1614 by Philip III, at the instigation of the Duke of Lerma. Estimates for this second wave of expulsion have varied with some contemporary accounts setting the number at around 300,000 (about 4 percent of the Spanish population), a majority of which were expelled from what is today Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia.

La Expulsión de los Moriscos. A drawing by Vicente Carducho. Museo del Prado, Madrid

The arrangements for the expulsion of Morisco children presented Catholic Spain with a dilemma, as they had all been baptized, and consequently could not be legally transported to Muslim lands. Some authorities proposed that children should be forcibly separated from their parents, but this proved to be impractical, not to mention its moral implications. Consequently, families generally remained together, with the official destination of the deportees generally stated to be France. Most of these, however, soon continued on to Africa and the Ottoman Empire, with about 40,000 settling in France permanently. Those Moriscos who sincerely wished to remain Catholic were generally able to find new homes in Italy, but the overwhelming majority settled in Muslim-held lands.

A substantial number of Moriscos were also able to remain in Spain, camouflaged among the Christian population. Some, whose conversion to Christianity was genuine, stayed on for religious reasons, others mainly some for economic reasons or as a matter of convenience. It is estimated that, in the kingdom of Granada alone, between 10,000 and 15,000 Moriscos remained after the general expulsion of 1609-10.

Moriscos in Don Quixote

Miguel de Cervantes' writings, such as Don Quixote and Conversation of the Two Dogs, offer interesting views of Moriscos. In the first part of Don Quixote which takes place before the expulsion, a Morisco translates a found document containing the Arabic history that Cervantes is "publishing."

In the second part, after the expulsion, the character Ricote is a Morisco and a good mate of Sancho Panza. He cares more about money than religion, however, and thus leaves for Germany, returning later as a false Christian pilgrim with the purpose of recovering treasure that he has buried. He admits, however, that expulsion of the Moriscos is just. His daughter, María Félix, is brought to Berbery but suffers, since she is a sincere Christian.

Other 'Moriscos'

Morisco is sometimes applied to other historical crypto-Muslims, in places such as Norman Sicily, ninth century Crete, and other areas, along the medieval Christian-Muslim frontier.

In the racial classification of colonial Spanish America, morisco was used for a certain combination of European and African ancestry, regarless of religion, similar to the classification mulatto.

See also

• Marranos
• Moors
• Reconquista

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Chejne, Anwar G. Islam and the West: The Moriscos, a Cultural and Social History. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983. ISBN 0873956036
• Ehlers, Benjamin. Between Christians and Moriscos: Juan De Ribera and Religious Reform in Valencia, 1568-1614. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006. ISBN 9780801883224
• Harvey, L. P. Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. ISBN 9780226319636
• Perry, Mary Elizabeth. The Handless Maiden: Moriscos and the Politics of Religion in Early Modern Spain. Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the ancient to the modern world. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2005. ISBN 9780691113586

External links

• A web site is dedicated to the research and study of the Moriscos - Moriscos.org
• Detailed article by Professor Vincent Barletta

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