Morisco
Morisco (Spanish "Moor-like") or
mourisco (Portuguese) is a term referring to a kind of '
New Christian' in
Spain and
Portugal.
From the late 1400s to the early 1600s
Moors (Iberian Muslims) were forced to convert from Islam to
Catholicism. The Moriscos were expelled by the decree of 1610 from Spain to
North Africa after being persecuted by the
Spanish Inquisition.
Prior to their forced conversion, the Moriscos were known as
Mudéjars, and were allowed to practice
Islam among Christians with certain restrictions.
The exact status of Mudéjars depended on the
capitulation pacts and the later decrees of the kings and
Cortes. After the fall of
Granada in
1492, the Muslim population was promised religious freedom by the
Treaty of Granada, but that promise was short-lived. In 1502, Muslims were given an ultimatum to either convert or emigrate. The majority converted, but only superficially, continuing to dress and speak as they had before and to secretly practice
Islam and use the
aljamiado writing system. This led
Cardinal Cisneros to use a more forceful approach, which resulted in an uprising in
1500 to
1502. This was suppressed, and the Spanish authorities took that as a pretext to void the rights and obligations in the surrender treaty. As early as
1508, authorities banned traditional fashion.
More restrictive legislation was introduced in 1526 and 1527.
Moriscos could buy a 40-year suspension of the laws, but in 1567,
Philip II of Spain issued an edict requiring Moriscos to give up their Muslim names, their traditional Muslim dress, and even prohibited the speaking of
Arabic. They were even told that they would have to give up their children to be educated by Christian priests. This led to another uprising in the
Alpujarras in 1568 to 1571 and the forced resettlement of the Moriscos of Granada upon its defeat - especially to
Valencia. Only a few Moriscos, who had collaborated with the royal forces, were permitted to remain in the city and territory of Granada.
Despite all that, the Moriscos continued to be industrious and prosperous, and were the subject of envy from the Christian peasants. Moriscos were suspected of being in contact with the
Turkish Empire and the
Barbary pirates,
conspiring against Spain. Spanish nobles, who appreciated them as cheap, hard workers, tried to protect them from expulsion. They were especially important in the agriculture of
Valencia and
Murcia.
Towards the end of the 16th Century, Morisco writers sought to challenge the perception of their culture as alien to Spain, with literary works purporting to present a version of early Spanish history in which Arab-speaking Spaniards played a positive role. Chief among these is Miguel de Luna's
Verdadera historia del rey don Rodrigo (1592 and 1600). De Luna (an official royal translator, one of the collaborationists at the time of the Alpujarras uprising), was also highly likely to have been involved in the falsification of texts (the
lead books of
Sacromonte) intended to demonstrate that the earliest Spanish Christians had, in fact, been Arabs.
The Moriscos were finally expelled from
Spain to between 1609 and 1614, by
Philip III, at the instigation of the
Duke of Lerma. Estimates have varied on the number of expelled although contemporary accounts set the number at around 300,000. [
1]. Some historians have blamed the following crisis of the Spanish Mediterranean on the replacement of Morisco workers by Christian newcomers, who were fewer and less familiar with the local techniques.
Adult Moriscos were assumed to be covert Muslims (i.e.
crypto-muslims), but the arrangements for expulsion of their children presented
Catholic Spain with a dilemma, as they had all been compulsorarily baptised, and consequently could not legally be transported to Muslim lands. Some authorities proposed that children would be forcibly separated from their parents, but sheer numbers showed this to be impractical. Consequently, the official destination of the expellees was generally stated to be
France (more specifically
Marseille); but, after the assassination of
Henry IV in 1610 few or none actually settled there. Those Moriscos who wished to remain Catholic (about 3,000) were generally able to find new homes in Italy (especially
Livorno) but the ovewhelming majority settled in Muslim lands, either within the
Ottoman Empire or
Morocco. The Sultans of Morocco tried to find a place for these Spanish-speaking people who had been influenced by Christianity.
Some communities fought as
corsairs, based at
Salé, against Christian merchants, or used European-made guns to cross the Sahara and conquer
Timbuktu and the
Niger Curve.
Miguel de Cervantes' writings such as
Don Quixote and
Conversation of the Two Dogs offer interesting views of Moriscos and put them in a favorable light.
In historical studies of minoritisation, Morisco is sometimes applied to other historical
crypto-Muslims, in places such as
Norman Sicily, 9th century Crete, and other areas along the medieval Christian-Muslim frontier.
In the racial classification of Spanish America,
morisco was used for a certain combination of White and Negro blood.
*
Aben Humeya*
Crypto-Jews*
Marranos*
Hornachos*
Detailed article by Professor Vincent Barletta*
1911 Encyclopedia*
The expulsion of Muslims from Spain by Professor Roger Boase*
Columbia Encyclopedia*
Aljamiado-morisco manuscripts*
Treaty of Granada*
Moriscos of Spain: Their Conversion and Expulsion, by H. C. Lea, (London 1901)
