Forbidden Passages. Karoline P. Cook

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СКАЧАТЬ arguments justifying the excision of the Moriscos from the body politic.⁷⁹ In light of writers such as the Humanist Pedro de Valencia who emphasized the injustice of the expulsion and the harm that would come to the king’s conscience in carrying out such a deed, Catholic Apologists worked hard to legitimize expulsion. In these histories, writers such as Jaime Bleda and Pedro Aznar Cardona presented Spain as the “foremost Christian nation” and Spaniards as a new Chosen People, a line of thinking that was also linked to discourses to justify conquest and Spain’s title to the New World.⁸⁰

      The authors of treatises debating whether it was justified to expel the Moriscos applied racializing arguments to them. The treatises illustrate how Moriscos were perceived by jurists and theologians at the level of imperial policy in ways that had repercussions on the ground across the Spanish world. Writers on both sides invoked Divine Providence in assessing the Spanish Empire and used medical imagery to describe the Moriscos, albeit to very different ends.⁸¹ A vehement apologist for the expulsion, Pedro Aznar Cardona wrote that many well-educated men esteem “a bitter purgative to expel bad humors, from which valued health follows, even while they loathe the bitterness of the medium.”⁸² He cast Christ as a “celestial doctor” who could cure the “pestilential Mohammedan sect” with the sacraments, which the Moriscos refused due to their obstinate nature.⁸³ Aznar Cardona proclaimed, “What cannot be cured by delicate unguents, oils, or softness, should be cured by a rigorous cauterization by fire.”⁸⁴ As a result, Philip III issued an order that would “tear from their roots and extricate such fruitless weeds of bitter and mortal effects, unworthy of … occupying such a holy and fruitful land.”⁸⁵ In contrast, Pedro de Valencia advocated in his treatise the “mixture” (permixtion) or intermarriage between Moriscos and old Christians in order to fully assimilate them. Writing to advise Philip III against expelling the Moriscos, Valencia proposed a series of measures to incorporate them into Spanish Christian society and thereby decrease their threat to the Spanish Empire. Valencia wrote that Spain should be very worried about Moriscos acting as spies for the Turks because they were enemies of Christians as a result of their “lineage and nation that has professed … genuine hatred from Ishmael … toward all the children of Sara.”⁸⁶ Following the biblical narrative, contemporary jurists and theologians traced Morisco genealogies to Ishmael, Abraham’s first son who was cast out of his father’s house alongside his mother Hagar, Sarah’s slave. In a twist on the standard account of Abraham’s wife Sarah’s jealousy, which reveals how writers could recast biblical narratives for their own purposes, Aznar Cardona claimed Ishmael’s expulsion from his father’s home was due to his idolatrous practices. This led Aznar Cardona to specifically list and label Ishmael’s descendants, including Muhammad, as inherently “idolatrous.”⁸⁷ In contrast, Valencia argued that Morisco assimilation was nevertheless possible if they were permitted entry into honorable public and ecclesiastical offices because they had lived in Spain for nine hundred years: “With respect to their natural complexion, and by consequence their wit, condition, and spirit, they are Spaniards like the rest.”⁸⁸ If resettled in communities across Spain, adequately catechized, and married into old Christian families, the Moriscos would become Spaniards, and “their lineage would be lost with their name.”⁸⁹ Otherwise, if Spanish families continued to be “stained by razas, they would never lose the label and name of Moriscos … There would be no more old Christians.”⁹⁰ To Valencia, customs and education were more important than blood: “Thus, when you take away … infamy, we should not be afraid that Spanish blood is infected by mixture with that of the Muslims; many have had this since ancient times, and it does not harm them … The popular opinion to the contrary is ridiculous and very damaging.”⁹¹ However, many jurists failed to share Valencia’s view.

      In 1609 the Consejo de Estado moved to expel the Valencian Moriscos, summoning the Italian galleys to Mallorca and sending galleons to patrol the North African coastline to prevent resistance or attempts to aid the Moriscos.⁹² The expulsion decree for the Valencian Moriscos, made public on 22 September 1609, presented their exile as a merciful alternative to the punishment of what was ruled to be the Moriscos’ collective lèse majesté (lesa Magestad diuina y humana) due to their persistence as “heretical apostates.”⁹³ This decree also provided exemptions for some Moriscos to remain in Spain. Those protected from expulsion included children under four years of age and their parents or guardians, children under six years of age if their father was an old Christian, and Moriscos who had been living “for a considerable amount of time” among old Christians, without returning to their aljamas, and who had obtained a license from their local prelate confirming that they were receiving the sacraments.⁹⁴

      The period of expulsion lasted approximately five years, from 1609–14, as Moriscos from communities across Spain were assembled at port cities and forced onto ships. Parents fought separation from their children, who were to be raised by old Christian families if they were under the age of seven.⁹⁵ Some Moriscos applied for exemption from exile on the basis of marriage to an old Christian, or having filed a petition for old Christian status.⁹⁶ The expulsion decrees were publicized at various points during this period, as an increasingly restricted group of Moriscos remained immune while new categories were deemed subject to expulsion.⁹⁷ Reports of abuses and violence against the departing Moriscos also reached Philip III, but he did not intervene.⁹⁸

      EXILES AND EMIGRATION TO NORTH AFRICA: PATTERNS ON A SPANISH FRONTIER

      Why did some Moriscos emigrate to the Americas, rather than to North Africa? Some answers can be found by examining Moriscos’ varying responses to the expulsion decrees. Some embraced exile in the Maghreb while others made every attempt possible to remain in or return to Spain.⁹⁹ Some Moriscos traveled to France briefly, before recrossing the Pyrenees and hiding out in Spanish mountain towns. Rising suspicion among the French who perceived them to be potentially treacherous Spaniards, led Moriscos in France also to attempt to move to Italy or settle among communities of Spanish Morisco exiles in the Maghreb.¹⁰⁰ Evidence that a number of individuals labeled Moriscos practiced Christianity and considered themselves Spaniards suggests that they may have hoped to forge new lives for themselves across the Atlantic, where there was less surveillance, rather than emigrate to North Africa both before and after the expulsion. In the Americas, they could continue to try to identify themselves as Spaniards, by claiming old Christian status, and if they gained honors or encomiendas, they could establish themselves among the local elite. In North Africa, the Morisco exiles received mixed reception. Even those who considered themselves to be good Muslims were perceived by many across the Gibraltar straits as lacking orthodoxy and in need of immediate instruction in Islam. Moriscos formed their own communities in Morocco, Tunisia, and Salé, which became a corsairing republic, and were also encouraged by Ottoman bureaucrats to settle in Ottoman lands to counterbalance more rebellious and malcontent local populations.¹⁰¹ Writings of Morisco exiles in North Africa reflected their regionally divergent experiences. Aragonese Moriscos expressed a desire for religious hybridity, blending Christianity with Islam, whereas many Granadans who had already experienced waves of expulsion and resettlement on the Peninsula reasserted their faith in Islam and retained resentment toward Spain.¹⁰² These differences in experience are also reflected in cases of Moriscos in Spanish America following the expulsion.

      In 1623 inquisitors in the Spanish American port city of Cartagena de Indias encountered a Morisco slave in the galleys whose case suggests the diversity of Moriscos’ attitudes toward belonging to a community following the expulsion. Francisco Martínez presented himself voluntarily before the Cartagena tribunal, claiming he had been born in Murcia and was a baptized Catholic before he and his parents had been expelled with other Moriscos to North Africa. He described how “upon entering the sea they declared themselves Muslims, and they treated him as such. Within two months of their arrival in Algiers, they made him get circumcised, and although he was a grown boy of sixteen or seventeen years of age, he did not dare to resist. They tried to teach him the suras and the zala, and they made him do them many times, but he was always so firm in the faith, that they did not make him renounce it. He considered the sect of Muhammad as coarse and cruel, СКАЧАТЬ