Blood and Faith: The Purging of Muslim Spain (29 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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By this time, even Don John had begun to conclude that Deza and his cohorts were actively impeding his efforts to achieve a negotiated surrender. In August he asked Philip to remove Deza from Granada by making him a bishop or granting him “some other favour” because “the common opinion is that the president has been the great instrument for the rebellion of these people, and el Habbaqui has told me on various occasions that the greatest difficulty in reducing them was the fear of being tried by the president, and for my part, I have no reason to doubt it.”
8
It was an indication of Deza’s status with the king that this request was rejected.
8
It was an indication of Deza’s status with the king that this request was rejected.
Aben Aboo’s own attitude toward these peace negotiations is not clear. Some accounts suggest that he was also considering surrender but was encouraged by the arrival of a new contingent of North African volunteers to continue the revolt, but whatever the truth, el Habbaqui was executed on his orders on returning from Don John’s camp. For the rest of the year, Aben Aboo and a few thousand rebels continued to survive in the Alpujarran highlands, as the
tercios
under the command of Luis de Requesens harried them relentlessly. “I have become ruthless with these people . . . an infinite number have been put to the sword,” wrote Requesens to one of Philip’s secretaries in November. By this time, most of the Turkish and Berber fighters had been allowed to return to Barbary, and organized Morisco resistance had ceased.
tercios
under the command of Luis de Requesens harried them relentlessly. “I have become ruthless with these people . . . an infinite number have been put to the sword,” wrote Requesens to one of Philip’s secretaries in November. By this time, most of the Turkish and Berber fighters had been allowed to return to Barbary, and organized Morisco resistance had ceased.
As in 1500–1501, the subjugation of the Alpujarras was accompanied by a new outbreak of rebellion near Ronda in the autumn, when Christian soldiers went on a drunken rampage at the Morisco town of Ubrique. Once again, the infuriated Moriscos rose up in revolt and took refuge in the same mountains of the Sierra Bermeja where Alonso de Aguilar’s ill-fated expedition had been decimated seventy years before. In November the Duke of Arcos led a new Christian expedition into the Sierra Bermeja that passed through the same plateau where their predecessors had been annihilated, still littered with the bones of soldiers and horses, saddles, rusted weapons, and armor. Arcos’s expedition did not meet the same fate and quickly brought the rebels to heel. In a time-honored counterinsurgency tactic that stretched back to ancient Rome, the Christian armies constructed a chain of forts across the Alpujarras to watch over the Morisco population. And even before Requesens and Arcos had completed their mopping-up operations, Philip had decided that more long-term measures were required to ensure that the Moriscos of Granada would never again pose a threat to the state.
Long before the outbreak of rebellion, the more hard-line anti-Morisco elements within Christian Granada had called for the expulsion of the Morisco population from the kingdom, citing security considerations as well as the interests of the faith. In June 1569, this objective had been partially realized with the removal of the Morisco population from the Albaicín. In February 1570, Philip instructed Deza to begin secret preparations to deport the entire Morisco population of Granada to Castile. Under Deza’s diligent supervision, Granada was divided into seven administrative zones, whose officials were ordered to compile lists of the Moriscos in their areas and arrange food and shelter during their transportation. Extra Christian troops and militiamen from Andalusia were used to escort the Moriscos to their embarkation points in Granada and then to Castile.
It was not until October that Philip made his intentions public and ordered all Moriscos in the kingdom to be “gathered up with their children and women and taken to other parts and places of these our kingdoms” in order to ensure “the complete security, pacification and quiet” of Granada. These orders were not greeted with universal approval in Christian Granada. Don John protested the king’s decision, arguing that deportation would divert his troops from their operations against the remaining rebels. Churches, convents, and monasteries petitioned Philip to allow Morisco workers to remain on their estates. Moriscos also wrote to the king and pointed out that they had remained loyal to the Crown throughout the rebellion. Few of these appeals received a positive response. On All Saints Day, November 1, Christian soldiers and militiamen began rounding up Moriscos in Granada and assembling them in churches. At Alhendín in the vega, heralds and trumpeters announced the arrival of cavalry and infantrymen from Córdoba to effect the roundup. At the town of Baza, the royal commissioner, Alonso de Carvajal, told the Moriscos that Philip intended to take them for their own safety to Castile, where the harvest had been abundant and they would be able to “eat and sustain themselves in great comfort” until it was safe to return to their homes.
This lie achieved its objective, and the Moriscos assembled without protest, but the roundup was not always so peaceful. At Torox, near Málaga, Moriscos broke away from their Christian guards and ambushed the soldiers sent out to pursue them, before returning to burn their own village. At Bolodui in the Almanzora River valley, Christian soldiers killed two hundred Moriscos who resisted their removal. Many Moriscos fled into the mountains, but most were too shattered and demoralized for flight or resistance, as the deportations unfolded with a methodical efficiency that had been mostly absent from the war itself. In the midst of heavy rain and the first winter snows, the Moriscos were marched to their embarkation points in Granada, in what Don John described to Royal Secretary Ruy Gómez as “the saddest sight in the world, for at the moment of departure there was so much rain, wind and snow that the poor folk clung together lamenting. One cannot deny that the spectacle of the depopulation of a kingdom is the most pitiful thing that anyone can imagine.”
9
9
Ginés Pérez de Hita later described the Morisca women “weeping, looking at their homes, embracing and kissing their walls many times, remembering their glorious past, their present exile, the evil future that awaited them” in an exodus that he compared to the fall of Troy.
10
But the motives behind these deportations had more modern parallels. The relocation of the Moriscos was partly a counterinsurgency measure that was intended to drain the civilian “sea” that had sustained the rebellion—while simultaneously removing the strategic threat to Spain’s southern coast. But these deportations were also a form of social engineering that was intended to further the goal of assimilation. By placing small numbers of Moriscos in Christian parishes throughout Castile, Spain’s rulers hoped to break down the bonds of communal solidarity, which had supposedly prevented the Moriscos from integrating into Christian society, and “dissolve” them into the Christian majority.
10
But the motives behind these deportations had more modern parallels. The relocation of the Moriscos was partly a counterinsurgency measure that was intended to drain the civilian “sea” that had sustained the rebellion—while simultaneously removing the strategic threat to Spain’s southern coast. But these deportations were also a form of social engineering that was intended to further the goal of assimilation. By placing small numbers of Moriscos in Christian parishes throughout Castile, Spain’s rulers hoped to break down the bonds of communal solidarity, which had supposedly prevented the Moriscos from integrating into Christian society, and “dissolve” them into the Christian majority.
By the end of November, the first phase of the deportation was complete, and the towns, villages, and neighborhoods of Granada had been mostly emptied of their Morisco populations. On November 30, Don John left Granada to take up a new appointment and win new glory as commander of the Holy League fleet that was being assembled to repel the Ottoman invasion of Cyprus, even as the transportation of the Moriscos to their allotted destinations continued to unfold. Royal commissioners,
corregidores
(chief magistrates), and municipal officials from across the country kept Philip and his ministers informed of their progress, in hundreds of letters that can still be found in the Spanish state archives at Simancas. These faded documents provide bleak glimpses of a sixteenth-century bureaucratic machinery that was barely able to cope with the tide of crushed and broken humanity that it was asked to accommodate and transport.
corregidores
(chief magistrates), and municipal officials from across the country kept Philip and his ministers informed of their progress, in hundreds of letters that can still be found in the Spanish state archives at Simancas. These faded documents provide bleak glimpses of a sixteenth-century bureaucratic machinery that was barely able to cope with the tide of crushed and broken humanity that it was asked to accommodate and transport.
Many of the Morisco deportees were sick, starving, and traumatized by two years of savage conflict. Widows and war orphans, old and sick people barely able to walk, and very young children all formed part of a grim exodus that was reminiscent of the nineteenth-century forced relocation of the Cherokee Indians known as the Trail of Tears. About 21,000 Moriscos were taken to the staging post of Albacete, 6,000 of whom arrived on the same day. Another 12,000 were marched to Córdoba. In December, the mayor of the town of Molina de Mosquera wrote to Philip that 10,500 Moriscos were awaiting transportation to Seville, including “Men and women and children . . . naked and without any protection and all with extreme need for coats and sustenance.” The mayor reported that some of these Moriscos had been attacked and stripped of their clothing by their Christian escorts and asked that these soldiers be forced to give back what they had stolen.
11
11
In Seville, the processing of the Moriscos was supervised by the Count of Priego, who informed Philip in November that 4,300 deportees had arrived on twenty-four ships from Almería, many of whom were “so shattered and poor and robbed and ill that there was great compassion.”
12
In another letter that same month, Priego described his difficulties in finding accommodation for the Moriscos in a city that was already “very much in need of bread.”
12
In another letter that same month, Priego described his difficulties in finding accommodation for the Moriscos in a city that was already “very much in need of bread.”
From their staging posts, the Moriscos were marched inland to towns and villages throughout Castile in
cuadrillas
, or columns, of 1,500, accompanied by Christian soldiers. Some columns were accompanied by carts carrying the exiles’ possessions, which also transported young children and those who were too old or sick to walk. But there were not enough carts to go around, so that even the least physically able Moriscos were obliged to walk an average of twelve miles a day in exceptionally cold and inclement weather. Many Moriscos died of hunger, illness, or exposure as they trekked across the mountains and plains of Castile; they were buried in shallow graves by the roadsides. Others remained subject to the predatory attentions of their escorts. Though Philip ordered his officials to ensure that families were kept together, relatives, siblings, and children often became separated during the journey, in many cases because they were kidnapped.
cuadrillas
, or columns, of 1,500, accompanied by Christian soldiers. Some columns were accompanied by carts carrying the exiles’ possessions, which also transported young children and those who were too old or sick to walk. But there were not enough carts to go around, so that even the least physically able Moriscos were obliged to walk an average of twelve miles a day in exceptionally cold and inclement weather. Many Moriscos died of hunger, illness, or exposure as they trekked across the mountains and plains of Castile; they were buried in shallow graves by the roadsides. Others remained subject to the predatory attentions of their escorts. Though Philip ordered his officials to ensure that families were kept together, relatives, siblings, and children often became separated during the journey, in many cases because they were kidnapped.
The mortality rate among the Moriscos was intensified by an epidemic of typhus that frequently made them an object of fear and hostility in the Christians populations they passed through. At Mérida, in Extremadura, one official told Philip that more than half of the three hundred Moriscos who had arrived in the city had died, and he complained that the local Christian population “do not apply themselves to provide charity. They especially flee from them because this land of Estremadura is full of illness and they understand that evil has come from them.”
13
The Spanish medical writer Luis de Toro blamed the deportees for spreading a contagion that was “especially virulent among the Saracens, due to the intense colds and other penuries of war that they had to endure.”
14
13
The Spanish medical writer Luis de Toro blamed the deportees for spreading a contagion that was “especially virulent among the Saracens, due to the intense colds and other penuries of war that they had to endure.”
14
Similar reports were sent from Ávila and Valladolid, where the local
corregidor
reported that a thousand Moriscos arrived in three different batches, of whom “many have died and are dying away each day.” Not all Christians feared and despised these deportees. Antonio de Salazar, a member of the Valladolid city council, was so moved by the sight of a Morisco named Juan Rodríguez and his wife, María, who arrived “so ill that it filled us with pity,” that he gave them food and clothing and put them up in his own house until they had recovered.
15
corregidor
reported that a thousand Moriscos arrived in three different batches, of whom “many have died and are dying away each day.” Not all Christians feared and despised these deportees. Antonio de Salazar, a member of the Valladolid city council, was so moved by the sight of a Morisco named Juan Rodríguez and his wife, María, who arrived “so ill that it filled us with pity,” that he gave them food and clothing and put them up in his own house until they had recovered.
15
At least fifty thousand Moriscos were deported during the winter of 1570–1571, and the overall figure may have reached as high as eighty thousand, including the earlier deportation from the Albaicín and other ad hoc expulsions carried out by Christian commanders before and after the November deportations. Some 20 percent of the Moriscos deported from Granada that winter either died, escaped, or were sold as slaves. Some made their way back to Granada, others became bandits or managed to
pasar allende
“to go to the other side”—go to North Africa.
pasar allende
“to go to the other side”—go to North Africa.
The survivors faced a difficult future in a Castilian society that tended to regard the expelled Granadinos with fear and suspicion. All the provisions of the Granada pragmatic were imposed upon them. Arabic was strictly forbidden, either in public or in the home, and they were subject to special requirements to attend mass and observe Christian feast days. They were forbidden to gather in groups or travel to Granada or Valencia and were obliged to carry a special identity card. If they were away from their new homes for longer than a night they had to inform the local justices. One magistrate in Valladolid was still not satisfied by these restrictions and proposed branding the Moriscos on the face with the names of their allotted residence, a practice that was sometimes carried out with slaves, so that they could be immediately identified if they strayed.
This proposal was not implemented, and many of the other restrictions on the Moriscos proved impossible to enforce. Nevertheless, the Granadinos were often subject to the claustrophobic vigilance of the secular and ecclesiastical authorities, especially in the early period after their arrival. In Granada itself, the deportations dealt a final blow to the rebellion. In February 1571, the French ambassador, Fourquevaux, wrote that the survivors were “leaving the mountains and coming to sell themselves to the Christians as slaves, in order to eat.” In March of that year, a
monfí—
turned—bounty hunter named Gonzalo el Xenix made a secret agreement with Deza to deliver up Aben Aboo dead or alive. When Aben Aboo discovered these intentions, a violent struggle took place in an Alpujarran cave, before el Xenix broke the Morisco king’s skull with a rock. His corpse was brought back to Granada on a mule, where it was decapitated in Deza’s presence. The head of the “king of the Andalusians” was impaled on a pole outside the city gate, facing out toward the Alpujarras, where it remained for more than a year as a warning to rebels.
monfí—
turned—bounty hunter named Gonzalo el Xenix made a secret agreement with Deza to deliver up Aben Aboo dead or alive. When Aben Aboo discovered these intentions, a violent struggle took place in an Alpujarran cave, before el Xenix broke the Morisco king’s skull with a rock. His corpse was brought back to Granada on a mule, where it was decapitated in Deza’s presence. The head of the “king of the Andalusians” was impaled on a pole outside the city gate, facing out toward the Alpujarras, where it remained for more than a year as a warning to rebels.
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