phillips (carla rahn)_the moriscos of la mancha, 1570-1614 (the journal of modern history 50:2,...

8/19/2019 Phillips (Carla Rahn)_The Moriscos of La Mancha, 1570-1614 (the Journal of Modern History 50:2, 1978, 1067-1095)

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The Moriscos of La Mancha, 1570-1614Author(s): Carla Rahn PhillipsSource: The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 50, No. 2, On Demand Supplement (Jun., 1978),pp. D1067-D1095Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1876621 .

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The Moriscos of La Mancha, 1570-1614*

Carla Rahn Phillips

University of Minnesota

Between 1609 and 1614 the Spanish government

expelled the

Moriscos (converted

Moslems) from Spain,

a

massive undertak-

ing

that

transformed

275,000 useful citizens

into bitter ex-

iles.1 Ever

since then, historians have been picking over

the

documentary

remains to analyze the

causes and effects of

this

expulsion.

Was the government's decision religiously

motivated? (The Moriscos

were notoriously bad

Christians.)

Was it motivated by greed for Morisco-owned property? Or was

it

instead a response

to the military threat

posed by this

alien community that

had spiritual and cultural

links to the

Ottoman

Empire? The

threat was real enough

in 1568 when re-

belling Moriscos in Granada

were offered help from the Otto-

mans.2 Was it still

real in 1609, or did the

government per-

*I

wish to thank

the

Graduate

School

and the

Office

of

International

Programs

of

the University

of Minnesota

for

financing the research trip for this article in the sum-

mer of 1975. Professor

Albert J. Loomie,

S.J., of Ford-

ham University commented

on a research design presented

to the Society for

Spanish and Portuguese

Historical

Studies in

April 1975,

and

I

thank him

for several

valu-

able suggestions about the direction of this

work.

'Henri Lapeyre,

G6ographie

de l'Espagne

morisque

(Paris,

1959), p.

205. Wildly different

estimates have been

pro-

posed

over

the years, but

Lapeyre's

count, based

on

offi-

cial records,

is now standard.

2Andrew

C. Hess, The

Moriscos:

An Ottoman Fifth

Column

in Sixteenth-Century

Spain,

American

Historical Review

(Oct. 1968):

1-25, and Juan Reglg,

La

cuesti6n morisca

y

la coyuntura

internacional

en tiempos de Felipe II,

Estudios

de historia moderna

3

(1953): 217-237.

The

re-

bellion

in Granada

is summarized

in most

standard works

on the period,

and

in the

more specialized

studies

men-

tioned in n. 7 below. For background to the rebellion,

see K. Garrad,

La industria

sedera granadina

en el

siglo

XVI y en conexi6n

con

el levantamiento

de las

Alpujarras

(1568-1571),

Miscelgnea

de

estudios

Arabes y hebraicos 5

(1956),

s. 73-104;

and the

same

author's

La

Inquisici6n

y

los

moriscos

granadinos,

1526-1580,

Bulletin

hispanique

(1965):

63-77.

D1067

Copyright

1978 by

The

University

of

Chicago.

All rights

reserved.

Requests

to

reprint

in whole or in

part

must be

submitted

to The University of Chicago Press.

JOURNAL OF

MODERN

HISTORY,

Vol.

50,

No.

2

Dec.

1978,

Order

No.

IJ-00034.


3/30

Morisco

expulsion and

the state

of the Spanish

economy?

Over

the

centuries,

historians

have responded

variously

to these

questions.

Predictably,

their

answers

have

often

tied the Morisco

question

to

the

decline of Spain

in

the

seventeenth

century,

and,

unfortunately,

analysis has

some-

times

been

subordinated

to

easy moral

judgments

about

Spanish

government

and society.

That no longer

seems to

be the

fash-

ion, and

modern

scholars

realize

that

a

thorough

examination

of the

Morisco

expulsion

must

move

back into the

sixteenth

century

and take

account

of the

regional

and local

differ-

ences

among

the

Morisco

communities.

If

there

was one

cen-

tral decision

to expel the Moriscos,

there

were

many separate

expulsions,

and

their effects

varied considerably.

The most

sophisticated

regional

analyses

to

date

have concerned

Valen-

cia,

where

Moriscos

were

over 25 per

cent

cf the total

popu-

lation

before

the expulsion.

They were employed

mostly in

agriculture

as

vassals

of the

landowning

nobility,

and their

4

loss was

potentially

quite

serious

for the

Valencian

economy.

3Florencio Janer,

Condici6n

social de los moriscos de

Espana: Causas

de su expulsi6n

y

consequencias que

6sta

produjo en el orden econ6mico

y politico (Madrid,

1857);

Manuel Danvila

y Collado, La expulsion

de

los moriscos

espafloles: Conferencias

pronunciadas

en el ateneo

de

Madrid (Madrid and Seville,

1889); Pascual

Boronat y

Barrachina,

Los

iporiscos

espanoles y

su

expulsi6n. Estu-

dio hist6rico-critico (2 vols.;

Valencia,

1901); and Hen-

ry Charles Lea, The Moriscos of Spain. Their Conversion

and

Expulsion

(London, 1901;

reprint ed. New York, 1968),

which is a good

sumary in

English of the older scholarly

tradition.

Much modern research

has been inspired by

Fernand Braudel,

The Mediterranean

and the Mediterranean

World in the

Age of Philip II, trans. Sian

Reynolds

(2

vols.; New York,

1972-73,

especially 2:780-802.

A useful

bibliographical

essay is Rachel Aria, Les

etudes sur les

morisques en

Espagne A la

lumitre

de travaux rdcents,

Revue

des

Etudes

islamiques 35 (1967): 225-229.

4Henri Lapeyre,

Gdographie

de

l'Espagne

morisgue, pp. 50-

67, 93-108. Valencia lost

between one-quarter

and one-

third

of its

population in

the expulsion.

James

Casey,

Moriscos and the

Depopulation

of Valencia,

Past and

Present 50

(February 1971):

19-40.

Also useful for Val-

encia are Juan

Reglg's many articles, which

concentrate

on

political

reasons behind

the expulsion; they have been

collected as

Estudios sobre los moriscos,

Anales de la

Universidad de Valencia 37, no. 2 (1964); two long arti-

cles

by Tulio

Halperin Donghi,

Un conflicto nacional:


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4/30

sion cannot be blamed for the complex difficulties

Valencia

suffered in the seventeenth

century.5

In

contrast to their interest

in

Valencia, historians

have

neglected

Castile, the heart of the

Spanish monarchy

and also the

home of about

50,000

Moriscos.

The neglect

seems to have

occurred because the Moriscos

were a small

pro-

portion

of the total Castilian

population,

and

because

nearly

all of them

were recent arrivals,

relocated north from

Gran-

ada in 1570-71 after the uprising

mentioned

above. Henri La-

peyre, whose

G6ographie

de

l'Espagne

morisque

is highly re-

garded, spends6very

little

time on Castile, precisely for

these reasons. Yet

his approach overlooks

the

most

inter-

esting characteristics of

the Castilian

Moriscos:

that they

were new arrivals

and that they were heavily

concentrated

in

urban

areas

from Toledo south, instead

of being evenly

dis-

tributed through

all Castile. Unwittingly,

by the relocation

of 1570, the government created

a

Morisco

problem where

none

had

existed before.

This must have

affected official

debates in the period immediately preceding the expulsion,

but we know very little about

the Morisco

communities involved.

As a first

step

toward remedying our

lack

of

knowledge,

this

study

will examine one key

area of Morisco

concentration

--the

city of Ciudad Real

and the surrounding

Campo

de

Cala-

trava--in

the

south-central

region

commonly

called

La

Mancha.

The

area had

a

typical

Castilian economy

of

dry farming,

live-

stock raising, and artisanry,

and

the

Moriscos' experience

there

should

be pertinent to other

areas

of Castile

as

well.

Moriscos

y

cristianos

viejos en Valencia,

Cuadernos

de

historia

de Espana

23-24

(1955):

5-115, and

25-26

(1957):

83-250,

and

recouvrements

de civilisation:

Les Morisques

du Royaume

de

Valence

au XVIe

sitcle, Annales:

Economies,

Socift6s,

Civilisations

11 (1956):

154-182; Juan

Ram6n

Torres Morera,

Repoblaci6n

del reino

de Valencia,

despu6s

de la expulsi6n

de

los moriscos

(Valencia,

1969);

Leopol-

do Pilos

Ros,

Apuntes para

la

historia econ6mico-social

de

Valencia

durante

el

siglo

XV

(Valencia,

1969);

and

Earl J. Hamilton, American Treasure and the Price Revolu-

tion in

Spain, 1501-1650

(Cambridge,

Mass.,

1934; reprint

ed.

New York,

1965),

pp. 304-305.

5Casey, Moriscos.

6Lapeyre,

G6ographie

de

l'Espagne morisgue, pp.

158-159,

212;

also Antonio

Dominguez

Ortiz,

Notas

para

una

socio-

logia

de los moriscos espanoles,

Miscelanea de

estudios

.rabes y hebraicos 11 (1962): 41-42.




5/30

many

Moriscos

came

to settle in

La

Mancha

in

1570-71

and

how

well they fit into the local economy and society. Then I

will trace the evolution of official

and

popular attitudes

toward

them, especially in the period after 1580,

when

the

Castilian economy began

to have difficulties. Finally, I

will examine the

expulsion in La Mancha, and the extraordi-

nary problems the government faced in carrying it out.

My

research tends to support the standard interpretation

that

neither the Moriscos' arrival nor their departure had a last-

ing impact on Castile,

but it challenges the accepted reasons

for this. The impact of the Moriscos depended less upon

their

numbers and distribution, even when these are properly

under-

stood, than upon the

economic conditions of their host areas

in

Castile. These

determined how well the

Moriscos

would

be

accepted in 1570-71 and

the effect their expulsion would

have forty years later.

* ***

*

The

Morisco rebellion in

Granada

alarmed

the

government

of

Philip II, locked as

it

was

in

a

continuing struggle

with

the

Ottoman

Turks. After Don Juan of Austria had put down

the

revolt,

a

plan

was concocted to

disperse

the

Granadine

Moriscos throughout

Castile, both to forestall the threat

of

their collusion with

Spain's Moslem enemies and to

assimilate

them

religiously

and

culturally.7

Since the Moriscos had the

reputation

of

being

hard

workers, with frugal

habits and

use-

ful skills such as silk spinning and weaving, the government

could also hope that the relocation would further the

econo-

7Most scholars working

on the

1568-70 rebellion rely hea-

vily

on

the works of Luis

del

Marmol Carvajal, Historia

de la

rebeli6n y

castigo de los moriscos del

Reyno de

Granada

(1600),

and

Diego

Hurtado

de

Mendoza,

Guerra de

Granada, que

hizo el

rei d.

Felipe

II. contra

los

moris-

cos

de

aquel reino, sus

rebeldes

(rev. ed. Valencia, 1776).

Both are available in modern editions, Marmol in Historia-

dores de

sucesos particulares I,

Biblioteca de

Autores

Espanoles 21

(Madrid, 1946), and

Mendoza in an

edition by

Bernardo

Blanco-Gonzdlez (Madrid:

Clgsicos

Castalia, 1970).

For modern summaries

of

work on the rebellion

see Lapeyre,

G6ographie

de

l'Espagne

morisque, pp. 122-123; and Ber-

nard

Vincent, L'Expulsion des

Morisques du

Royaume de

Grenade

et

leur

repartition en

Castille

(1570-1571),

Madrid.

MU1anges

de

la

Casa

de

Vel'azquez 6

(1970): 211-

215.




6/30

missioners

began

rounding ip

Granada's Moriscos

and

arranging

for their

transport

north. La

Mancha

was

to have been

a

way

station

for their wide and

even

dispersal, but

instead the

re-

location

came to

a

temporary halt

there, with

large numbers

of

Moriscos backing up in

Ciudad

Real,

Almagro,

and the

areas

under their

jurisdiction.10

That was not

surprising, since

La

Mancha was

lightly

populated,

and, even within

the

towns,

there was

often

more space than

the

residents needed. It was

important,

too,

that descendants

of

Spanish Moslems had lived

in

the area

for centuries.

Some

of these

descendants (Mud6-

jares) belonged to

families that had

converted to

Christian-

ity

generations

beforehand, and

they were

counted as Old

Christians

in

1570.11Still,

they

were heirs to

the

same

soc-

ial

traditions as

the

Granadine Moriscos,

and

their presence

in

La Mancha

made

it easier for

the

relocated Moriscos to be

accepted,

even in

very large

numbers.

8Boronat, Moriscos

espanoles,

2:318.

The early sixteenth-

century growth of Castile is well known. See particularly

Jose

Gentil da Silva,

En Espagne: D6veloppement 6conomigue,

subsistance,

d6clin

(Paris, 1965).

9As

many

as

70,000 to 80,000 Moriscos

may have been moved

altogether, according

to Vincent, Expulsion des Moris-

ques,

pp. 219, 239.

Lapeyre, G6ographie de l'Espagne

morisque,

pp. 121-126 favors a total

of 60,000, but Vin-

cent

provides convincing support for

his estimate in

Com-

bien de Morisques ont 6t6 expuls6s du royaume de Grenade?

Madrid. M6langes de la

Casa de

Veldzquez

7 (1971): 397-

398. Their numbers

were drastically lowered by deaths

from

disease and

privation, and only

about 50,000

seem to

have

arrived

in

Castile.

10Archivo General de

Simancas [hereafter AGS], Cdmara de

Castilla

[hereafter

CAmara], legajo 2157, fol. 15. Letter

from

Crist6bal de la

Aguila to Juan

Vdzquez,

secretary of

the

king. Moriscos from

Baza,

Huescar, Guadix,

and the

Almanzora River were sent to La Mancha and points north.

Janer,

Condici6n social de los

moriscos, pp. 43-44.

11Francisco Fernandez

y Gonzalez,

Estado

social y poli-

tico

de

los

Mud6jares

de

Castilla, considerados

en si

mismos

y respecto de la

civilizaci6n espanola (Madrid,

1886)

is

the

classic work on the

Mud6jares.

See

Lapeyre,

G6ographie

de

1'Espagne

morisque, pp.

120-121 for

a

sum-

mary

of

this and other older

works.




7/30

ulation

in Ciudad

Real,

and

13 per

cent to

the

population

in

Almagro.

Even though both

townls had

been

assigned

much

small-

er quotas of Moriscos,

local

officials were anxious to

keep

all of the new

arrivals. The

governor of

Almagro responded

enthusiastically to

the king's inquiry of

December 1570 about

housing, jobs, and

religious

supervision for them.

[T]he occupations in which

the

said

Moriscos

can

occupy

themselves are

working the land, (because

the principal

enterprises

(here]

are landed estates

[producing] grain

and

wine and oil)

and artisan

crafts such as shoemakers

and

cloth-shearers and tailors

and

cloth-cutters and ta-

vern-keepers and

retail

hucksters

of fish and

oil

and

fruit .

12

Despite

the detailed mention of

crafts, farm

work remained

the most

important occupation for

Almagro and

for the Moriscos

who

settled there. Of the new

arrivals by

Marth 1571, the

major part of them are farmers, of which there is need in

this

province. ,13 There

was

not,

however,

a

clear distinc-

tion

between agriculture and

crafts; the

common pattern among

town

residents in La

Mancha

was

to engage in crafts and

other

urban

occupations during the

agricultural

off-seasons. The

newly

arrived

Moriscos fit easily into the same

pattern,

rather

than

devoting themselves

exclusively

either to agri-

culture

or to crafts.14

12AGS, CGmara, g. 2160, fol. 57. Almagro, letter from

Don

Alvaro

de

Luna y

Mendoza.

13Ibid.

14Both

Dominquez Ortiz,

Notas, pp.

47-48 and

Lapeyre,

G6ographie

de

l'Espagne

morisque,

p.

131,

attack the

per-

sistent

misconception that

Castile's

Moriscos were

not

strongly attached to

the

land.




8/30

Table 1

Population

in

Ciudad Real

and the Campo

de Calatrava (late

March,

1571)

Place

Old

Granadine Moriscosb

Christian

House-

No. of Quota of

Households

a

holds Persons

Persons

Ciudad Real

700

1,000

apo

de atrava:

Partido of Almagro

9

732

2,229

345

Almagro

1,800

240 640

50

Daimiel

1,733

84

221 50

Valdepenas

1,400

62

236 46

Manzanares 800

216

662

40

Moral

688 70

262

30

Carri6n 410 10 28 20

Aldea

del Rey

380

2

8 16

Miguelturra

350 31

118

16

Torralba 350

3

14

16

Granltula

307

(5)c

14

15

Pozuelo 300

5

16 16

Bolanos

280 0

0 14

Ballesteros 151

1

2

8

Ferngn

Caballero

150

3

8

8

[alienated

towns,

formerly part

of

Almagro]

163 452

155

Villarubia

900

(71)

212

40

La Calzada

726 13

30

30

Santa

Cruz de Mudela

500 (8)

25

25

El

Viso

400

(18)

55

20

Malag6n

400

0

0

20

Porzuna 180 (20) 60 10

Valenzuela

160

0

0 10

Villar

del Pozo

30

(3)

10

Pic6n

28

30

60

(c oritinued)




9/30

Table

1 -- continued

Place

Old Granadine

Moriscosb

Christian

House- No.

of

Quota

of

Households

a

holds

Persons

Persons

Partido

of

Almo-

dvar

del

Cam

5,340

105

410 260

Almod6var

del

Campo 1,200

(20)

60

50

(Tiratafuera)

--

(2)

7

2

Puertollano

1,100

(12)

35

40

Piedrabuena

600

(6)

18 25

Argamasilla

500

(7)

22

20

Almaden

400

40

100

25

(Gargantiel)

--

(10)

30

2

Mestanza 300 (7) 22 15

Corral 200 (6) 18

12

Villamayor

200 (6)

18

12

Saceruela

200

(3)

9

12

Alcolea

150

(4)

12 10

Ca'?ada del Moral i00

(4)

12

8

Fuencaliente

100

(3)

10

8

Cabezarados

80

(3)

9

6

Luciana 70

(3)

9

5

Puebla

de

Don

Rodrigo

60

(3) 9

4

Caracuel 40

(4) 12

2

Los

Pozuelos 40

(2)

7

2

aAGS Cdmara, l. 2160, fols. 57, 66, 73.

bAGS,

Clmara,

.

2162,

fols.

1,

18-

21,

37, 76-79, 100-

101, 130-131.

CFigures

in

parentheses are

estimates

based on the

ratio

of

3.0 Moriscos per household in

the

partido of Almagro.




10/30

gro's, and it was also anxious to welcome the

Granadines.

Doctor Alanis, the corregidor, argued compassionately that

any further journey would be very hard on

the children and

old people and that the whole group would

be better off

in

Ciudad Real.15 His point was well taken,

judging from re-

ports of sickness and exhaustion among the Moriscos trans-

ported to Toledo in the previous winter.16

In

a

letter

dated

in

May 1571 Alanis stressed Ciudad Real's

need for agricul-

tural workers, complaining that the land went unworked for

lack of cultivators after so many citizens had volunteered

for the Granada War.17 It is natural that the corregidor

would be most concerned about agricultural

workers in May,

but the farmer-artisan was as

common

in Ciudad Real as in

Almagro.

[W]ith

the arrival of the

new

vecinos,

which

were

700

households, they began to work and cultivate

the land and...

they have received a very good welcome, where

the

dwellings

and victuals are of very moderate prices,

and

from which

[association] both they and the city have benefited.18

Almagro

and

Ciudad Real assured

the

king

that the

clergy

would

instruct the

Moriscos

in Christian doctrine

and that civic

officials would prevent their living together

in separate

neighborhoods or moving about without permission.19

As

proof

of

Ciudad Real's good faith, the 700 Morisco

households there

were distributed among the city's three parishes

and housed

with Old Christian families.20

15AGS,

CAmara, . 2160,

fol.

66.

16Ibid.,

.

2159,

fols. 37-45, especially fol. 37,

dated

Toledo

23 December

1570.

17Ibid.,

. 2160, fol. 66.

18Ibid.

19Ibid.,

for

Ciudad

Real; fol. 57

for Almagro.

20Ibid.,

. 2162, fols. 18-21.

Contrary

to Vincent,

Expulsion

des

Morisques,

p. 224,

these lists agree with

the information

in fol.

1, which

shows 3,098 Moriscos

in

Ciudad Real.

I presented

a

separate

study

of the house-

hold structure and

demographic

patterns of La Mancha's

Moriscos

to

the Sixteenth-Century

Conference,

Terra

Haute,

Indiana, 28-29

October

1977.




11/30

,

was not

falling,

despite the

corregidor's

complaint about

a

lack

of

cultivators.

Parish

registers indicate

that

the

pop-

ulation was

approaching a peak

for the

early modern

period

in

1570.21

Since

the

city felt

it

could absorb over three

thou-

sand

Moriscos, we

must

asslme that it

was

experiencing

a

labor

shortage in

the midst of

an

economic boom.

Gloves

and

other

leather

goods produced

by

the city had

acquired

a

wide

repu-

tation, and its

textiles,

at least for

a

local market, were

also profitable.22 More important, Ciudad Real was a producer

of

wine and

grain and a

major

market center in

La

Mancha.

It

was

also

well located to

provide

some goods

to Madrid

and Se-

ville

if

production costs

were

kept low enough

to justify

the

heavy

expense of

land transport.

The

Granadines in

Ciudad Real would

become

notable

land-

owners, and they

are

also credited

with

furthering cloth

and leather

manufacturing and

other

crafts. The

most

impres-

sive

evidence

for this

comes

from the city's

alcabalas

(taxes

on

transactions).

Between

1557-61 and

1593-97, the

assess-

ment was trebled by the government as part of a general plan

to

increase

revenue.

Besides

inflation, the

increase

seems

to

reflect a

growing

volume of

business after

the

arrival

of

the

Granadine

Moriscos.

Moreover, the

largest rises

in alca-

balas

were

for patos

(cloth),

leffa

y carb6n

(firewood and

charcoal), esparto

(basketry),

hortalizas

(vegetables), and

zapateria

(footwear)--all

products that

are

often

associated

with the

Moriscos.

21Carla Rahn Phillips, Ciudad Real no perfodo dos Habs-

burgos:

um

estudo

demogrlfico,

Ana'is de

historia

7

(Dec.

1975):

151-165.

The

city's

population

rose

from

about

1,300

householders

ca.

1530

(AGS, Contadurias

Generales,

legs.

768,

2304)

to

about

1,800

householders

before

the

arrival

of

the

Moriscos

(AGS,

Contadurias

Generales,

lg.

2304).

22Inocente

Hervds

y

Buendia,

Diccionario

hist6rico

.

. .

de

Ciudad

Real

(Ciudad

Real,

1890),

p.

220.

23

A list of

city

residents and

their

occupations

shows

the

involvement

of

Moriscos

in

agriculture and

industry.

AGS,

Expedientes de

Hacienda,

lg.

83,

transcribed

and

analyzed in

Jer6nimo

L6pez-Salazar

Perez,

Estructura

socioprofesional

de

Ciudad

Real

en

la

segunda

mitad

del

siglo

XVI,

20,000

km2

11-12

(fall-winter

1977):

51-92.




12/30

Yearly

alcabalas

in

thousands

of

maravedis

24

1557-61

1593-97

panos

35.5

223.8

le?na

y carb6n

24.7

156.9

esparto

5.6

68.2

hortalizas

6.1

90.2

zapateria

19.0 102.3

In

the

administrative

district

(partido)

of

Almnagro,

the

Moriscos

were spread too evenly

to leave an

identifiable trace

in

the alcabalas

records, though

they undoubtedly

contributed

to the area's

agricultural and handicraft

output.

5

Some of

them

may

also have become

economic dependents

of the noble

knights

of Calatrava,

who controlled most of

the land in

the

area. The

large numbers

of

Moriscos

in Pic6n,

a town alien-

ated to a

nobleman, also suggests

that relationship.

In re-

turn

for protection

and the chance

to earn

a

living, the

Moriscos in the Almagro

area may

have worked cheaply or

on

unfavorable

leases, just

as the Moriscos in

Valencia did.

This can only be proved by further

research,

but one way

or

another the

Almagro

area was able

to accept

nearly 2,700

Mor-

iscos from

Granada.

This is not as impressive

as the figure

for Ciudad Real, but

it is still

good evidence that

the

area

was economically healthy

in 1570.

The relative prosperity of Ciudad Real and Almagro is

also supported

indirectly

by the very different

response

that

another

part of the Campo de Calatrava

made

to the Moriscos.

The

partido

of

Almod6var

del

Campo

was

located

in

the

western

part

of

the

present-day province

of Ciudad

Real. Although

administratively

equal

to Almagro, it was less

wealthy

and

its

eighteen towns

and villages were generally

smaller.

The

area's

agriculture suffered

greatly from poor

soil

and

a

lack

AGS, Contadurias Generales, jg. 2304; Expedieiites de

Hacienda,

g. 81.

25AGS, Contadurias Generales,

ig. 2304

has

alcabalas for

the area in 1557-61;

those

for 1586-99

are in AGS, Conta-

duria Mayor

de Cuentas,

2a Epoca,

eg. 166. See Nogl

Salomon, La

campagne

de

nouvelle Castille

a la fin du

XVIe

sitcle. D'apres

les

Relaciones topogr

ficas (Paris,

1964)

for

agriculture

and industry

in the area.




13/30

wine in the late sixteenth century.26 The

corregidor of

Almod6var wrote to the king in June 1571

that

his area could

accept

400 to

500

Moriscos,27

but in

August

another official

instead stressed the poverty of the area and

its unsuitabil-

ity for the few Moriscos who had settled there.28 Clearly

the economic situation in Almod6var, and

perhaps

the Moriscos

sent there, were far different from those in

Ciudad

Real

and

Almagro.

Altogether over 6,000 Granadine Moriscos

had settled

into

the

area I have loosely called La

Mancha

by

1571,

and

they

were more or less well integrated into the

local economy. At

first the government did not admit that the

situation

was

other than temporary, however. In the spring of 1571 offi-

cials notified various towns of the number of Moriscos they

would be allowed to keep and the number they were to send

farther north.29 The success of the government's plans de-

pended upon the cooperation of local

authorities, and it soon

became

apparent that most areas in the north were unwilling

to accept the relocated Moriscos. For example, although about

2,100

Moriscos

in Ciudad Real were destined

for the city and

adelantamiento of

Leon

30 the Leonese did not want them. Of-

ficials there reported that the fourth

part of the said land

is

harsh and cold mountains inhabited by

quarrelsome people

among whom

the

Moriscos could not survive. 131 Elsewhere the

newcomers might sustain themselves with

farming and artisanry,

but the

entire district was not anxious to

accept more than

twenty craftsmen, preferably silkworkers. By the late spring

of

1571 the entire adelantamiento had only

550 Moriscos, in

a

total population of over 46,000

households.32 Similar re-

sistance in other districts meant that the

bulk of the Moris-

26Salomon, Campagne

de

nouvelle

Castille, pp. 66-69.

27AGS, CGmara, le.

2160,

fol.

71, letter

from

Crist6bal

de

Torres.

28Ibid.,

fols.

72-74.

29Ibid.,

.

2162,

fols.

76-79,

and

Table

1

above.

30

Ibid.,

fols.

100-101,

118-121.

31Ibid.,

.

2159,

fol. 27.

32

Ibid.;

also

.

2162, fols. 1, 32,

120-123.




14/30

part of them in

Almagro and Ciudad

Real. A count that prob-

ably dates from 1572 indicated

that Ciudad Real

still had

3,098 Moriscos when it should have

had only 100

[sic],

and

that Almagro's

partido

still had 2,345 when it

should have

had

only 600.33

The government's

plans for a wide and even

dispersal in

Castile had failed.

Though the

crown held ultimate

authority over the relo-

cated

Moriscos, local officials

had to keep track

of them,

and

they seem to

have done this scrupulously and

with compas-

sion. By July 1571 officials in Ciudad Real had approved

numerous licenses

for business

trips and for the reuniting of

families scattered

in the move

north, in addition to at least

seventy licenses for permanent

removal to other

cities. Of-

ficials in Almagro also granted

numerous

short-term licenses

and

nearly 150

ones for permanent

removal.34 For those mov-

ing

without

permission, the penalties were harsh.

In July

1571

the

governor of Almagro reported the

capture

of

over

a

dozen Granadines

absent from

Toledo and in his area illegally.

He reported that punishment is very necessary, because in

this partido and

Ciudad Real we are

full of [Moriscos], and

thus

I beg Your

Majesty to order me in

a

royal

decree to

be

able to hang

anyone who is captured

without a license outside

of

the

place

wghere he

lives. .

. . Except

for

responses

to such

requests

as

this, government concern about the Moris-

cos

in

La Mancha seems

to have

waned

for

a

full

decade after

1571.

With

its

attention occupied

by

more

pressing matters,

the

government

effectively

abandoned

the

relocation,

and the

Moriscos,

in

La

Mancha.

Official debate

about both matters

reappeared

in

1581-82

when the royal

court was in

Lisbon. The Council of Aragon

considered

a

spate of

charges

that

the Moriscos of

Aragon

and

Valencia were

planning to rise in

rebellion,

perhaps

aided

by

the

French,

and

that the

O116Christian

population

was

danger-

ously

aroused

against them.

The Council of Castile consid-

ered an

ecclesiastical count from

1581

that

showed

15,258

Mo-

riscos in the

Archbishopric

of

Toledo

alone,

residing primar-

33Ibid.,le. 2164, fol. 1. The figure for Ciudad Real

probably should have read 1,000, as listed in Table

1

above.

34AGS, Cdmara,

leg.

2163, fols, 11-14, 39-40.

35Ibid., fol.

39.

36Madrid, Real

Academia

de

la

Historia

[hereafter

RAH],

9-30-6/6436, which includes a discussion of a possible ex-

pulsion

from Valencia and the need to

compensate Valencian




15/30

they had been assigned

in

1571; even worse,

some

had become

outlaws. In

February 1583

the king

wrote to the corregidor

of Ciudad

Real reminding

him to enforce

the

pragmatic

for-

bidding

the free

movement of Moriscos.

Then

he stated the

real concern.

[W]e

have been

informed

that because of

much

carelessness

and

negligence that the

said juscicias

have had in

taking

care [that the

said pragmatic be

carried

out] ...,

and

for

the ease and excess with

which they

have

given

the said li-

censes, many of the said

Moriscos

have

moved from

where

they

were assigned

and go roving

about

from one place

to

another, from

which cause

there have occurred

many

deaths,

thefts, and assaults and

other

crimes

that some of

the said

Moriscos have committed

... .38

To

prevent

this

in future, the

justicias

of

Ciudad Real were

to give no more

licenses,

even for overnight

absences.

In

addition, they were

to reclaim

all Moriscos

originally

sent

to the city and return those

who belonged

somewhere

else.39

One probable source of the king's alarming information was a

memorandum

from a Doctor

Li6bana,

a judge on the Castilian

estates

of the marques of

Mondejar.

Writing to the

king on 1

September 1582,

Liebana accused the

Moriscos

of over two hun-

dred murders and

a series

of other crimes from

1577

to 1581,

all of them near

areas of

Morisco concentration.

The

outlaws

had become so bold that

they dare

to enter private

homes to

commit murder,

and in Ciudad

Real three of

them entered

a

lords of Morisco vassals. See

also

Madrid,

Biblioteca Na-

cional, Manuscript 12179, pp. 331-331v for the king's re-

luctance to accept charges against

the Valencian

Moriscos

without sure proof. Document dated 13 Sept. 1582.

37

37AGS,

CAmara, . 2183. This is the total given, though

correcting

a

mistake in addition for the Maqueda

figures

brings the true total to 15,268. Lapeyre's

total of 15,

253 (Geographic de l'Espagne morisque p. 127) is surely

a misprint.

38AGS,

Cdmara,

.

2187, letter

of

14 February 1583.

39Ibid.

Ciudad

Real

was

missing more

than

150 households

in

February 1583, but officials

found it nearly impossible

to recover them. The city wrote to at least fourteen

towns

asking for the return

of

its Moriscos,

but by mid-

October

1585

it was

still

missing

more

than

600 persons,

presumably

the

same

150 households missing

in February

1583. AGS, C.Amara, legs. 2187, 2193.




16/30

was with her. 40

The outcast

status imposed upon the Moriscos by

the

gov-

ernment

can easily be blamed for the creation of

Morisco

vag-

abonds and criminals. Yet

vagabonds and criminals

of all

sorts were common in Europe

at the end of the sixteenth

cen-

tury, driven to crime as a result of population growth,

ris-

ing prices, and social dislocation.

There is ample

evidence

that the early sixteenth-century boom in Castile worsened

the

economic position of many groups in society. When

the boom

ended in the late sixteenth century, this created other

diffi-

culties for the inflated

population.41 Unfortunately for the

Granadine Moriscos, they

were relocated

north at

just

the

wrong time. Doctor Li6bana stated that Morisco crime

had

be-

40RAH,

9-30-6/6436.

41The

precise

turning

point in the

Castilian

economy

has

been the subject

of much conjecture.

Pierre Vilar,

Le

temps du 'Quichotte', Europe 34 (1956):3-16, places the

crisis

of Spanish

power and conscience

in about 1600

and sees the Morisco

expulsion

of 1609 as a psychological

compensation

for the

concurrent Dutch

truce. Ram6n

Car-

ande,

Carlos V y

sus

banqueros,

1516-1556 (3

vols.;

Mad-

rid, 1943-1967)

saw

signs

of trouble

as

early

as the

reign of

Charles

V (Charles I of Spain)

as

government

ex-

penditures

consistently

outran income.

The timetable

var-

ies,

depending upon

where

we

look in

the

econormy.

For

the internal growth of Castile, the 1570s appear to be

the

crucial

decade.

Trade disruptions,

harvest

failures,

heavy tax

increases, and government

financial

collapse

all came together

with ruinous

results.

See especially

Braudel,

Meriterranean,

1:505-508;

Modesto

Ulloa,

La

ha-

cienda real de Castilla

en

el reinado

de

Felipe II

(Rome,

1963),

pp. 105, 122-127; Hamilton,

American

Treasure, pp.

195-201; Felipe

Ruiz

Martin,

Los

hombres

de

negocios

genoveses

de Espana durante

el siglo

XVI, Fremde

Kauf-

leute

auf

der

Iberischen

Halbinsel,

ed. Hermann Kellen-

benz (Cologne,

1970), pp. 84-99.

All contain evidence

from the

1570s,

though they

do

not

necessarily

agree

that

it

was

the

turning point.

Pierre Chaunu,

Minorit6s

et

conjonctures.

L'expulsion

des morisques

en 1609, Revue

historique 225 (Jan.-March

1961):92-96

makes

a direct

con-

nection

between

the

expulsion

decision

and an unfavorable

economic situation,

but he

dates the latter

from the

change

in the dominant

trend in

prices

of

1601-1604,

and

the

change

in the dominant

trend in

trade

statistics of

1608-1609.




17/30

, ,

bankruptcy

and the

trebling of the alcabalas tax

and in the

middle of

widespread ciarvest failures

in

Castile. If some

Moriscos were frozen out

of the work

force and took to the

roads, their

reaction was

understandable and

part

of

a

common

European

pattern. Unlike England's

sturdy

beggars, however,

the

Moriscos could

easily become

outsiders in their own

soci-

ety,

especially in urban areas where

their

numbers and their

choices of occupations

made them

visible when Spain needed a

scapegoat.43

Their exotic style of

dress

and

cuisine, ir-

religion, and

quite different social customs added

to their

image as bad Spaniards as

well as

bad

Christians.44

Some of

the most revealing charges

against the Moriscos

were clearly

products of

the economic anxiety

that gripped

Spain in the

late sixteenth century:

they had

too many chil-

dren, they worked too

hard, they

grew rich while Old Chris-

42RAH,

9-30-6/6436.

43Moriscos reputedly dominated menial service occupations

in

some

towns in

Castile,

especially

occupations

dealing

with

vital supplies

such

as water,

bread,

meat, and

other

foodstuffs. In

areas such as

La

Mancha with

a

carting

tradition, Moriscos

often chose the

job

of

muleteer,

pre-

sumably because

it

offered them freedom

of movement.

La-

peyre,

G6ographie de

1'Espagne

morisue,

pp.

131-132. See

also

Janer,

Condici6n

social de

los

moriscos,

pp. 47-48;

Jean-Paul

Le Flem,

Les

morisques du

Nord-Ouest de

l'Es-

pagne en 1594 d'apres un recensement de l'Inquisition de

Valladolid, Madrid.

M61langes

de

la Casa de

Velazquez

1

(1965):

239-240; and

Chaunu, Minorit6s et

conjoncture,

pp.

92-96, who makes

a

clear statement

of the

scapegoating

impulse in the

isolation of

Castile's

Moriscos.

44Lea,

Moriscos, pp. 178-212

provides

a

good

summary

of

the

anti-Morisco

prejudice

in the late

sixteenth

century.

Time and

again

in

Spanish

documents

the same

charges

ap-

pear, as

in

AGS, Estado,

.

165, fol.

349, a

letter

written by an

Inquisition

official

in

Valladolid.

See

also

Rachel Arie,

Acerca

del traje

muselmAn en

Espana

desde la caida

de

Granada hasta

la

expulsi6n de

los moris-

cos,

Madrid.

Instituto

de

Estudios

Isldmicos.

Revista 13

(1965-1966):

103-117. That the

Moriscos

returned the

hos-

tility

is

shown in a

new

study

by

Louis

Cardaillac,

Moris-

ques

et

Chretiens.

Un

affrontement

pol6mique

(1492-1640)

(Paris; published

by

Klincksieck

under

the

auspices of the

Centre

National de

la

Recherche

Scientifique,

1977).




18/30

in these charges a realization that population

growth

had

pushed Spain into a situation of scarce

resources. In

1594

one critic stated it explicitly in a

letter to the king's

sec-

retary Francisco Ididquez. Because of the great abundance

of people there is scarcity in Spain

and ... the land the

Moriscos occupy and the food they consume would better serve

the natives...

46

It is significant that the author con-

sidered the Moriscos to be foreigners, and, although IdiAquez

disagreed completely with his analysis, there were others who

would accept the argument that expelling the Moriscos would

improve the economy.

The Moriscos also fell

victim to

Spain's growing sense

of

vulnerability in foreign affairs.

Official debate over

the

Moriscos intensified after the defeat

of the Great Armada

against England in 1588 and English raids

on the southwest

coast of Spain in 1589.47 The government

was particularly

concerned with the Moriscos in Castile, and especially in the

Archbishopric of Toledo, where their

numbers and their

notor-

ious apostasy were considered a serious threat to the secur-

ity of the kingdom and an affront to the Catholic religion.48

One

royal official wrote that

some of the Moriscos

in

Toledo

were so hostile to the crown that they

had offensive

and

de-

fensive arms which they keep in their

homes to defend them-

selves against the edicts and pragmatics

of Your Majesty.

Still,

it

is

likely

that

government

fears

of the

Moriscos in

Castile were more

imagined

than

real.

With

so

many

enemies

abroad,

the

government simply

could

not tolerate

enemies at

45AGS,

Estado,

l.

165, fol.

349, which is

a

classic

statement

of the resentment

against the

Moriscos.

46Reported

in

a

letter

from Ididquez

to the king,

3

Oct.

1594,

RAH, 9-30-6/6436.

The

text of the letter

is print-

ed in

Danvila,

Expulsi6n

de los moriscos,

pp. 226-227.

Iditquez utterly

discounted

the argument

that population

pressure

causes scarcity

and

praised

the

industrious

qualities

of the Moriscos.

47Braudel,

Mediterranean,

2:793-795.

48AGS,

Estado,

le.

165,

fols. 348-355.

See

also

Lea,

Moriscos, pp.

301-302

for

a

discussion

of the official

debate.

49AGS,

CAmara,

.

2194,

letter

dated 6 June 1589.




19/30

the Moriscos were

more often seen

as enemies

than

as

errant

subjects

by many government officials.

Yet, surprisingly,

in

La

Mancha

there were few echoes of

this rising

chorus against the Moriscos.

City

council records

in Ciudad

Real barely

mention them after 1571.50 Even

more

significantly,

the Inquisition of

Toledo did not

show much

in-

terest in the Moriscos

of La Mancha,

even

though apostasy

was

one of the

most serious

charges against them.

Peter Dressen-

d8rfer,

who has analyzed

Morisco

prosecutions in Toledo,

found some twenty-nine cases in 1606-08 for the area includ-

ing Ciudad

Real and the

Campo de Calatrava.51

These

were the

fruit of several earlier

inquiries

(visitas) in

the

area,

but

none

of these

inquiries

shows any serious pressure

against

the Moriscos

by the church or by

the local population.

One

visita in

Ciudad Real and Almagro

in 1586 (the

first since

1554) received

denunciations of ten Moriscos,

five of them

accused by

other

Moriscos,

and all from Ciudad

Real and its

environs.

Later visitas in 1595

and 1606 turned

up another

dozen or so, but three times that many denunciations involved

Old Christians, most

of them itinerant

preaching friars

accus-

ed

of seducing

women parishioners.52

Literary

testimony also

suggests

that the Moriscos in La

Mancha were

viewed with more

indifference

than hostility.

In Part II of Don

Quixote, San-

cho Panza

meets his old

neighbor Ricote the Moor

on the road,

illegally returning to

La Mancha

after being expelled. Though

Sancho

does not

break the law to help him,

he does

not

react

to

Ricote

as

an

enemy

or

a

dangerous

alien, but rather as

a

neighbor

who

has

had

a

run of bad luck.53

50Archivo

M-unicipal

de

Ciudad

Real, Libros Capitulares,

legs. 5-9.

51Peter

Dressend5rfer, Islam

unter der

Inquisition;

die

Morisco-Prozesse

in

Toledo

1575-1610. Akademie

der

Wis-

senschaften und der Literatur

ver5ffentlichungen

der

ori-

entalischen Kommission, Band 26 (Wiesbaden, 1971), pp.

40-43, 65-74.

52Archivo Hist6rico Nacional

[hereafter AHN]. Inquisici6n

de Toledo, . 1, expendientes 2-3.

53lMiguel

de

Cervantes

Saavedra, The

Adventures

of Don

Quixote, trans. J. H. Cohen (Baltimore, 1950), Part 2,

chap. liv, pp. 817-822. Cervantes, however, was equally

capable of rehearsing all the

standard charges against

the Moriscos as a

group,

as

in his

Coloquio

de los

perros.




20/30

in La Mancha did not

share the government's concern about the

Moriscos. First of all,

the same local conditions

that made

them welcome in 1570

still held true in 1600, and even in

1610. The area was sparsely populated and could use hard-

working farmers, farm

laborers, and artisans. This made the

Moriscos particularly

attractive to large landowners.

In

addition, although there were many rich Morisco

merchants

in

Toledo, there were

few rich Moriscos of any sort in La Man-

cha. Some owned property

and a few, like Sancho's neighbor

Ricote, were thought to have treasure hidden away, but they

were not rich enough

to be resented by the local population.

Perhaps most important, there was no serious

competition for

scarce resources in La Mancha. Land was plentiful,

even if

it

was often of low quality,

and a combination

of farming,

artisanry, and service

occupations meant that

many people

could subsist there,

even in bad times. Thus,

the Moriscos

were not rejected in

La Mancha, despite the worsening econo-

mic

situation in Castile

as a whole, and despite the govern-

ment's growing hostility toward them. This helps to explain

why the decision to expel the Moriscos seems

to have come as

an

unwelcome shock to people in La Mancha,

even though it had

been

debated at the

national level for decades.

Soon after

Philip

II

died

in 1598, the Council

of State

reviewed

previous

debate on

the

Morisco

question

and advised

the new

king to take

action

in the

matter.

Members of the

Council

tended

to favor

expulsion,

at least

for

adults,

and

they

still had

Castile

in mind

for the first target.54

From

1602

on, expulsion

became the official

policy,

but

Valencia

replaced Castile

as

the first target,

because

it was

more

vulnerable to Turkish

and Moroccan intervention.55

Secret

preparations

for an

expulsion began

several

times

in

the

years

that

followed,

but each time they had to

be

cancelled

because

of

more

urgent

matters. It

was not until 1609

that

a

full-

54AGS, Estado,

l.

165,

fol.

355, memorandum of the

Council of State,

dated

2 Feb.

1599.

55Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, Manuscript 12179, pp. 319-

330v contains

a

very unfavorable

report on

the

Moriscos

of Valencia in

1604, written by the Bishop

of Segorbe.

He

claimed that there

were 28,000

households of Moriscos in

Valencia (or

120,000 persons), divided among 460

towns

and villages.

This agrees quite

well with the official

figures for

the numbers

expelled

by February

1610 (AGS,

Estado,

.

220, letter dated 25 Feb. 1610;

analyzed in

Lapeyre,

G6ographie

de

l'Espagne

morisgue,

p. 62).




21/30

Morisco

uprising aided

by Muley Cidan of

Morocco

made it

seem

imperative.56

An

edict

expelling the

Moriscos of Valencia

was

published

22

August 1609, after

land and

sea forces had been

moved into

place

to thwart any

resistance.

The Valencia expulsion

and

its

aftermath

are

too

well known to

repeat here,

and

they

are

ably

summarized in all the

standard

works. Plans began for

Castile almost

immediately,

though

the edict

of

expulsion

was not signed until

December

1609, nor published

until

Janu-

ary 1610.5 By then the Morisco communities were in a

panic

brought on by

unofficial news

from Valencia and

by attempts

of

local

authorities

to enumerate them.

Many

had

begun

sell-

ing

their

land, despite

government rules

outlawing such

sales.8

Castile's

Moriscos,

however,

were allowed

a

thirty-day

period

in

which

to sell their

movable goods, convert the

proceeds

to

merchandise,

and leave

the country by a

northern

route.59 Des-

cendants of Castile's

native

Mud6jares

were even

allowed

to

sell their

land.60

Compassion may have been

behind

the

crown's lenient policy in Castile, as well as a desire to

avoid

the

expense of an

organized

expulsion. In any case,

scholars

generally

assume that many

Castilian

Moriscos left

voluntarily during the

period of

grace,

registering them-

selves in

Burgos and taking the

road to

the French

frontier.

We

know, for

example, that the

Morisco

merchant

aristocrats

in

Toledo

abandoned

their homes and went

into

exile laden

with money and

jewels,

even though these

items

were subject

to

a

50 per

cent exit

tax.61 What is

equally

clear, however,

is

that the

Moriscos of

La Mancha did not

want to

leave Spain

at

all, voluntarily or

otherwise.

56Lea,

Moriscos,

pp.

289-91,

312;

Boronat, Moriscos

espa-

noles,

2:150-153,

162-163.

The

expulsion

edict

and

the

Dutch

truce

were signed

on the same

day, 9

April

1609.

57Lapeyre,

G6ographie de

l'Espagne

morisque,

p.

148;

also

the

documentary

appendixes

in

Janer,

Condicion social

de

los

moriscos,

and

Lea,

Moriscos.

58Lea,

Moriscos,

pp.

348-349.

59Boronat, Moriscos

espaVoles,

2:281-282;

Lapeyre,

G6o-

graphie de

l'Espagne

morisque,

p.

148.

Lapeyre,

G6ographie

de

l'Espagne

morisque,

p. 177.

61Ibid.,

p. 159. See also

Lius

Cabrera

de

C6rdoba,

Rela-

ciones de las cosas sucedidas en la corte de Espana desde

1599

hasta

1614

(Madrid,

1857),

pp.

396-402.

See the

list




22/30

show

that

the

policy

of

voluntary

exile

failed

almost

com-

pletely.

The

corregidor

of

Ciudad

Real,

Don

Hier6nimo

Munoz

Palomeques,

wrote

that

no

one

had left

by

the fifteenth

of

January,

though

he

had proclaimed

the expulsion

on the

second

of the

month.

The

city

held

612

Moriscos

households,

he

re-

ported,

or about

2,000

persons,

according

to

what I

have

been

able to

ascertain

from

padrones

and

parish

lists,

since

I

have

not

wanted

to

enumerate

them,

because,

in the

state they

are

in, it

would

greatly upset

them. 62

A

month

later

the

Moriscos

of Ciudad

Real

seem

to

have

accepted

the

inevitability

of

their

exile,

but

they

were

doing

all they

could

to

avoid

hav-

ing

their

landed

property

confiscated

without

compensation.

Some

hid their

money

and

movable

goods,

so that

their

debts

would

have

to

be

liquidated

from

land

sales.

Others

abandon-

ed cultivation

and

were

allowing

their

orchards

and vines

to

die,

so that

if

they

could

not

profit

from

the land,

neither

could

anyone

else.

The

corregidor

reported

that

the

Moriscos

did

not

fear

imprisonment,

which

would

only

have

postponed

their expulsion, and they did not believe the government had

the

will or

the

desire

to

do

worse

than

imprison

them.

In

short,

they

would

not

leave

voluntarily,

and stories

of

Mor-

iscos

bein?

mistreated

on

the roads

only

made

them

balk

all

the

more.6

The

neighboring

Campo

de Calatrava

faced

a similar

prob-

lem. In

Almagro,

which

had

at least

200 Morisco

households,

none

took

advantage

of

the period

of

grace,

and

some

claimed

to

be

exempt

from

the

edict

as

descendants

of

Mud&jares.64

In Almod6var del Campo, not one of the forty-eight

households

would

leave

voluntarily,

nor

were they

likely

to,

since

they

are

very

comfortable

in

this town. 65

Here,

too,

threats

of

imprisonment

were

met

with

a shrug

and

could

not

induce

in

Lapeyre,

G6ographie

de

l'Espagne

morisque,

pp.

252-253,

from

AGS,

Estado,

lg.

228

(2).

62AGS,

Estado,

lg.

227.

63Ibid., lg. 220, letter from Don Hier6nimo Mutnoz Palo-

meques,

dated

19

Feb.

1610.

64Ibid.

lg.

227,

letter

from

the

governor

of Almagro,

dated 8 Jan.

1610;

see also

lg.

234.

65Ibid.,

lg. 227,

letter

from

the

governor

of

Almod6var

del

Campo,

dated

8 Jan.

1610.




23/30

Farther north in Ocana,

very

few

of

the 900 Morisco households

left voluntarily.67

The

marquds

of Montemayor

robbed

the

gov-

ernment

of one last hope when he reported that

the

Moriscos

in

El

Viso

had indeed understood the king's

edicts; they

simply

ignored them.68

Making the best of

a

bad situation,

the

king

decreed on 9 February 1610 that descendants

of

Mudejares

cer-

tified by their bishops

to be good Christians

could remain in

the

kingdom. By summer

the ones without

certificates were

escorted out, generally

by way of Cartagena after the French

border was effectively

closed to them in May.69

Royal

officials

in

charge

of the

expulsion

could

not

count on much help from

their local counterparts.

The corre-

gidor of

Ciudad

Real

had to be warned repeatedly

not to

im-

pede the work of the

royal commissioner in charge of inven-

torying Morisco goods in the area. Although

the corregidor

denied any wrongdoing,

he was eventually sentenced for acting

to

keep Morisco property

out of government hands.70

Officials

in

Almagro

and

Villarubia

de

los

Ajos

also resisted the

ef-

forts of royal commissioners to confiscate the goods of local

Moriscos.71 The expulsion

order obviously

placed these offi-

cials in a very difficult position. Their

first duty was to

the king, but they also were responsible for

the well-being

of the

citizens in their care, including

the Moriscos. They

solved this dilemma

by doing what Spanish officials usually

did when faced with

conflicting loyalties: they carried out

the

royal order very

slowly, though few of them were disobedi-

ent enough to have to

answer formal charges. This made the

expulsion in La Mancha primarily an action of the central gov-

ernment, aided only

reluctantly by local officials.

It took

longer

than

planned and became

a

wearing

battle of nerves, com-

plicated by

the

problem of illegal returnees.

66Ibid.,

g.

220, letter

from

Almod6var

del

Campo,

dated

16 Feb.

1610.

67Ibid., letter from the

corregidor of Ocana, Manuel Fran-

cisco de

Hinojosa, dated 14 Feb.

1610.

68Ibid., letter from El

Viso,

dated

31 Jan.

1610.

69Lapeyre,

G6ographie

de

l'Espagne

morisque,

p.

161.

70AGS,

Contadurias

Generales, le. 345,

dealing

with

the

commission of Pedro de

las

Cuevas, dated from April

1610

to May 1612.

71Ibid., documents from June and July 1611.




24/30

of the expelled Moriscos drifted back home, disillusioned

by

their experience in foreign countries. Moriscos from other

parts of the kingdom also

sought

refuge in the vast expanses

of

Castile.

A royal edict in July 1610 repeated the order

expelling all illegally resident Moriscos,

2

but this was

largely unenforceable due to the presence of so many strangers,

some of them claiming to be descendants of

Mud6jares.

Faced

with the enormous task of separating legally resident Moriscos

from the frauds, the crown simply gave up, annulled the rights

of Mud6jar descendants to remain, and issued a blanket expul-

sion

order in March

1611.73

The Count of Salazar, who

was

responsible for expelling Moriscos from the two Castiles, La

Mancha, and Extremadura, reported that about 50,000 of them

had

left by July

1611,74

and by the end of the year the gov-

ernment could consider the expulsion officially over in

Cas-

tile.75

That was far from

accurate. Already by

October 1611 so

many Moriscos

had

returned to the Almagro area that the gov-

ernor, Don Pedro de Lizana y

Zfiniga,

felt obliged to report

it

to Madrid. The returnees lived together in small groups

on farms and in

field houses outside Almagro,

and

though

all

of them were

thought to

be armed with

swords,

and some

with

arquebuses they were not seeking

a

confrontation with public

officials.6

Many

had returned

from

the French frontier

with

the

complicity

of French and

Spanish

border

guards,77

and

once near

home they

found

help

from

all

sorts

of

people.

Some

of their

benefactors were

Moriscos

exempted from

the

expul-

sion,

such as women married to Old

Christians

(and

their chil-

dren); the old and the sick; and priests, monks, and nuns.78

Other benefactors

were

Moriscos with

individual

exemptions,

72 Printed in Janer, Condici6n

social de los moriscos,

p.

343.

Lea, Moriscos, p. 351; Lapeyre,

G6ographie

de l'Espagne

morisque,

pp.

162-163.

Lapeyre, G6ographie de 1'Espagne morisque, pp. 158, 187,

199-200,

208. The

official list at

the end of the

year,

which gave the total as 44,672,

is printed

on pp. 198-200

and in

a

number

of older

works.

'75Ibid.,

pp.

178-179.

76AGS, Estado,

.

233.

7Ibid.

e.

234, letter from

Lizana, 9 Dec. 1611.

78See

Lea,

Moriscos, pp. 351-352

for

exempt

groups.




25/30

ci6n in Madrid.

Still other benefactors

were Old Christians,

and there is

little doubt that the knights of

Calatrava,

es-

pecially those

with

landed

estates

in

the

area,

were

impli-

cated in helping

the illegal returnees.79

Lizana reported on

9 December 1611

that

over

three-fourths

of

Almagro's

600

Mor-

iscos had returned,

as well as 200 of 270

in

Daimiel,

all

but one household

in Aldea del Rey,

and

many

in neighboring

Ciudad Real. In

a

classic understatement,

he

concluded

that

the expulsion in regard to the [Moriscosi

of this partido

has

not had an effect equal to its intent.,80 Lizana's jails

were already

full of

Moriscos

who were reportedly poor and

dying of hunger, and he urged

the king either

to use force

to rid

the

area of illegal returnees

or to allow them to re-

main and earn

a living. Otherwise they would

simply become

highwaymen, preying on

the

rest

of the population.81

The

magnitude

of

the

returnee

problem

in La Mancha seems

to

have taken

the government by

surprise. There were still

no firm plans

to deal with it as late as January

1612, when

Lizana wrote to Salazar that all the Moriscos of his district

had

returned--more than 3,000

of them. In Villarubia

they

had resumed normal business activity,

and the

town of Almagro

was

also full of resident Moriscos

again.

. . . 82

Finally

in May the king

appointed the

alcalde de corte Gregorio L6 ez

de

Madera as

commissioner of the

re-expulsion in Castile.8

Though

his high-handed methods

made

scores of

enemies, L6pez

coul

phillips (carla rahn)_the moriscos of la mancha, 1570-1614 (the journal of modern history 50:2,...

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