Blood and Faith: The Purging of Muslim Spain (31 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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These more sober and dispassionate assessments failed to dispel official suspicions of the Moriscos. Despite the Spanish-Ottoman cease-fire in the Mediterranean, Muslim corsairs continued to attack Spanish ships and coastal towns, and their crews sometimes included Morisco exiles, such as Said Ben Faraj al-Dughali, a Granadan émigré who fled to Morocco shortly before the War of the Alpujarras. Initially enlisted in the service of the Moroccan sultan, al-Dughali was given the task of recruiting the elite Andalusian militia that fought in the battle of Alcazarquivir, before subsequently taking up corsairing. From his base at Tetuán, he participated in numerous raids on Spanish ships and his former homeland, including the massive corsair assault on the Canary Islands in 1571, in which Lanzarote was occupied for two months.
Moriscos also continued to provide the corsairs with assistance from within Spain. In October 1583, fifteen Valencian Moriscos were drawn and quartered for helping Algerian corsairs attack the coastal town of Chilches. In another raid, on the Valencian town of Callosa, two thousand corsairs besieged the local Christians in a defensive castle and sacked the town before leaving with the entire Morisco population on board their ships. Though contact between Moriscos and their co-religionists in Barbary was strictly forbidden on pain of death, Moriscos from North Africa continued to sail across the Mediterranean by night to visit their relatives and sometimes kidnap Christians to sell as slaves on their return. These mysterious comings and goings heightened the prevailing sense of insecurity in Valencia, where rumors of Turkish spies and the unexplained appearance of sinister foreigners were often embellished with lurid folktales of Morisco bogeymen who reportedly tempted Christian children with sweets in order to spirit them away to Barbary.
Anti-Morisco paranoia was also affected by the banditry that was endemic in many parts of Spain during Philip’s reign. Banditry was by no means a uniquely Morisco activity. Both Moriscos and Old Christians “took to the mountains” and became bandits and
salteadores
(highwaymen) in the last decades of the century. Valencia was plagued by mafia-like gangs and armed bands, whose members included Christian “gentleman bandits” and disgruntled friars. Both priests and laymen in Valencia often carried weapons, and in other parts of Spain, members of the Church were similarly involved in various forms of criminality, from running gambling dens to kidnapping and homicide. The prevailing social insecurity was to some extent a consequence of the dire economic circumstances in which much of the Spanish population found itself in the last years of Philip’s reign. Banditry was also given a technological boost with the invention of flintlock muskets and pistols. Whereas matchlock firearms required an attacker to stand in front of his victim and painstakingly light a fuse to fire his weapon, flintlock technology made it possible to stage ambushes without warning.
salteadores
(highwaymen) in the last decades of the century. Valencia was plagued by mafia-like gangs and armed bands, whose members included Christian “gentleman bandits” and disgruntled friars. Both priests and laymen in Valencia often carried weapons, and in other parts of Spain, members of the Church were similarly involved in various forms of criminality, from running gambling dens to kidnapping and homicide. The prevailing social insecurity was to some extent a consequence of the dire economic circumstances in which much of the Spanish population found itself in the last years of Philip’s reign. Banditry was also given a technological boost with the invention of flintlock muskets and pistols. Whereas matchlock firearms required an attacker to stand in front of his victim and painstakingly light a fuse to fire his weapon, flintlock technology made it possible to stage ambushes without warning.
Moriscos and Old Christian bandits all made use of this innovation, to the point where the Spanish authorities attempted to ban both populations from using these weapons. But the special horror and dread that surrounded Morisco banditry was exacerbated by rumors and stories of cruel and gruesome crimes carried out by Moriscos against Christians, whether it was drinking the blood of their victims or leaving naked and decapitated bodies of Christian travelers lying by the roadsides. In Valencia, according to the Valencian chronicler Escolano, the Morisco bandit Solaya led a band of “killers and lost youths” whose activities were so prolific that it was “not possible to walk through the kingdom without danger of being robbed or killed.” Between 1566 and 1573, parts of Andalusia and Granada were plagued by a band of escaped slaves and former Morisco rebels, led by the bandit El Joraique, known to Christians as “the Dog,” before its leader fled to Barbary.
Castile also experienced a surge in banditry, much of which was attributed to Moriscos deported from Granada. In 1581 a report presented by the Valladolid Chancellery to the Council of State attributed some two hundred homicides in central Castile during the previous four years to Morisco bandits. According to the investigating official and author of the report, Doctor Francisco Hernández de Liébana, these killings were the work of six or seven Morisco bands, whose ranks were drawn mainly from “those who rebelled in Granada.” These bands killed “muleteers, people travelling alone and unarmed” in broad daylight, secure in the knowledge that they would be given shelter by “anyone of their nation.” Liébana’s report placed these activities in the context of a broader threat to Christian society posed by the expelled Granadinos, whose Christianity “cannot be trusted.... They have never shown any sign of it no matter how many different methods have been tried.”
7
7
Some Moriscos undoubtedly saw banditry as an opportunity for revenge against Christian society, though their activities were directed not only against Christians. Moriscos turned to banditry for many different reasons, and they were not necessarily concerned about the ethnic or religious background of their victims, nor were they any more or less brutal than their Christian counterparts. If some Morisco communities sheltered bandits, out of sympathy or fear, Morisco bandits in Valencia also had powerful Christian protectors, so much so that the Valencian viceroy, the Marquis of Aytona, was obliged in June 1586 to issue a decree threatening both Old and New Christians who protected Morisco bandits with equally harsh punishments.
Aytona attempted to eliminate all banditry from the kingdom with a draconian policy of floggings, hangings, and imprisonments, which achieved some temporary success, including the dissolution of Solaya’s band in 1586. Elsewhere in Spain, the authorities hanged Morisco bandits, sentenced them to serve in the galleys or forced labor in the mines, and in some cases negotiated their surrender in exchange for exile to Barbary. But brigandage continued to ebb and flow in accordance with the economic situation, though sometimes it overlapped with more specific political agendas. From 1585 to 1588, rural Aragon became the scene of a vicious ethnic feud between the Morisco vassals of the count of Ribagorza and Christian sheep and cattle herdsmen known as Montañeses, “mountain men,” who brought their animals through these lands to pasture. In 1585, the historic tensions between these two groups burst into violence when a Christian herdsman was murdered by Moriscos from the village of Codo. In retaliation, the victim’s brother and neighbors murdered a group of Morisco peasants from Codo as they were leaving to work in the fields.
This vendetta quickly escalated, as bands of Montañeses and local Christian bandits led by a mysterious individual named Lupercio Latrás unleashed a reign of terror against the “Moorish dogs” on the Count of Ribagorza’s estates. A onetime Spanish naval officer and a former spy at the English court, Latrás was a murky and enigmatic figure, whose war against the Morisco infidels coincided with an ongoing jurisdictional dispute between the Crown of Castile and the Aragonese courts regarding ownership rights over Ribagorza’s Morisco vassals. Whether Latrás was secretly working as an agent of the Crown or acting on his own account, neither the royal authorities nor the Christian seigneurs were able to protect the Moriscos from the violence that now engulfed the region. On Easter Sunday, 1588, Latrás and his Montañeses burned the Morisco village of Codo to the ground after its inhabitants had fled. This was followed by an even bloodier assault on the mixed Christian-Morisco village of Pina, where Latrás’s men murdered hundreds of Moriscos in the main square or threw them from the tower of the local monastery.
This was the most serious outbreak of ethnic violence since Granada, and there was a prospect of worse to come as Latrás exhorted his followers to “destroy all the Moriscos in the area.” Faced with the prospect of a civil war
cum
-crusade spreading throughout the region, the Aragonese authorities finally sent troops to restore order, arresting and executing both Morisco and Christian ringleaders involved in the violence. Latrás escaped punishment, however, and went on to perform another espionage assignment at the English court before being quietly murdered on returning to Spain in 1590. The unrest in Ribagorza preceded a major confrontation between the Castilian monarchy and the restive Aragonese, which began in 1590 when Philip’s disgraced royal secretary, Antonio Pérez, fled murder charges by seeking sanctuary in Aragon. The Inquisition’s attempts to arrest him provoked anti-Castilian riots in Zaragoza, and in September 1591, Philip was obliged to send eighteen thousand troops into the kingdom to restore the Crown’s authority. Moriscos had played no part in the
alteraciones
(disturbances) of Aragon, despite official fears that they might be used by their Christian overlords to resist the Castilian incursion, but they nevertheless felt its repercussions, when the Crown finally authorized the Inquisition to carry out the disarmament of the Morisco population, which the Holy Office had urged for more than a decade.
cum
-crusade spreading throughout the region, the Aragonese authorities finally sent troops to restore order, arresting and executing both Morisco and Christian ringleaders involved in the violence. Latrás escaped punishment, however, and went on to perform another espionage assignment at the English court before being quietly murdered on returning to Spain in 1590. The unrest in Ribagorza preceded a major confrontation between the Castilian monarchy and the restive Aragonese, which began in 1590 when Philip’s disgraced royal secretary, Antonio Pérez, fled murder charges by seeking sanctuary in Aragon. The Inquisition’s attempts to arrest him provoked anti-Castilian riots in Zaragoza, and in September 1591, Philip was obliged to send eighteen thousand troops into the kingdom to restore the Crown’s authority. Moriscos had played no part in the
alteraciones
(disturbances) of Aragon, despite official fears that they might be used by their Christian overlords to resist the Castilian incursion, but they nevertheless felt its repercussions, when the Crown finally authorized the Inquisition to carry out the disarmament of the Morisco population, which the Holy Office had urged for more than a decade.
These periodic disarmaments were among various attempts by Spain’s rulers to neutralize the perceived Morisco security threat. In October 1575, a royal decree prohibited Valencian Moriscos from approaching the coastline without an official permit. In 1581, in response to the “many murders, robberies and lootings” attributed to Morisco bandits, the Granadinos of Castile were ordered to carry identification papers at all times to prove their place of residence. The Moriscos of Castile were also banned from carrying weapons, except for knives with rounded points. In Granada, any Morisco caught carrying weapons could be hanged. In Valencia in August 1586, Moriscos were prohibited from changing their place of residence. In 1588, Philip instructed the authorities in Aragon to increase their vigilance along the French frontier in order to prevent contacts between Aragonese Moriscos and French Huguenots.
There were also sporadic attempts to ban Moriscos from certain professions that were deemed to pose a security risk, such as the manufacture of saltpeter and gunpowder. The Morisco muleteers, or
arrieros
, who dominated the Spanish transportation industry, came under particular suspicion. Morisco muleteers were often accused of smuggling weapons, gunpowder, and forbidden manuscripts in their baggage trains, and official searches occasionally did discover these banned items. But it was impossible to exclude Moriscos from a profession that Christians were generally averse to doing themselves, nor was it feasible to seal Moriscos in their different regions.
arrieros
, who dominated the Spanish transportation industry, came under particular suspicion. Morisco muleteers were often accused of smuggling weapons, gunpowder, and forbidden manuscripts in their baggage trains, and official searches occasionally did discover these banned items. But it was impossible to exclude Moriscos from a profession that Christians were generally averse to doing themselves, nor was it feasible to seal Moriscos in their different regions.
As much as the authorities tried to police the Moriscos, sixteenth-century Spain simply lacked the resources to allay its own fears. How could the authorities be certain that Morisco blacksmiths or metalworkers were not manufacturing weapons or musket balls to replace those that had been confiscated? How could they distinguish the horse smugglers who regularly crossed the Pyrenees from foreign spies or Moriscos seeking assistance for a putative revolt? How could Valencian Christians ever be sure that Morisco fishing boats did not liaise with corsair ships out of sight of land? In 1582, the Council of State drew up a detailed list of proposals to reduce the possibility of a Morisco uprising in Valencia and instructed the viceroy to ensure that all town councils were well supplied with gunpowder, muskets, and musket balls and to establish a Christian militia that would engage in regular shooting practice and shooting competitions between different towns as a show of strength visà-vis the Morisco population. Yet it was not until 1597 that these proposals finally resulted in the establishment of the Valencian militia known as the Efectiva.
There were also periodic attempts to make Spain’s Mediterranean coastline more secure. In 1575 the Valencian authorities reactivated Giovanni Antonelli’s plan for a system of defensive forts along the coast, which had lapsed through lack of funding. Similar efforts were tentatively undertaken in Andalusia, but their inadequacies were glaringly revealed by the English raids on Cádiz in 1587 and 1596. The more vulnerable Spain felt itself to be, the more the threat of the Moriscos was magnified in the eyes of Philip and his ministers. In the post-Granada era, these anxieties led to a new emphasis on Inquisitorial coercion. Out of 27,910 trials conducted by the Holy Office between 1560 and 1614, Moriscos formed the largest single category, falling just short of 9,000, or 31.9 percent of the total. These percentages were even higher in specific regions and in certain periods.
8
Between 1585 and 1595, the Inquisition of Valencia punished 1,063 Moriscos, compared with little more than 200 during the previous decade. In Aragon, Moriscos constituted nearly 90 percent of all victims of Inquisitorial autos-da-fé in the same period.
8
Between 1585 and 1595, the Inquisition of Valencia punished 1,063 Moriscos, compared with little more than 200 during the previous decade. In Aragon, Moriscos constituted nearly 90 percent of all victims of Inquisitorial autos-da-fé in the same period.
In Valencia, the outbreak of the Granada rebellion enabled the Inquisition to take more aggressive action against some of the Christian lords who protected the Moriscos, including the pro-Morisco Admiral of Valencia, Sancho de Cardona, who was brought to trial in 1569. In the same period, the Holy Office accused the family of Cosme Benamir, one of the wealthiest Moriscos in Valencia, of Mohammedanism, thus beginning a protracted legal process that brought substantial fines into the Inquisition’s coffers. The Inquisition was still disposed to issue “spiritual penitences,” pardons, and edicts of grace, but harsher punishments were increasingly common in the aftermath of Granada. Hundreds of Moriscos were burned at the stake or died under torture or in Inquisitorial jails. Thousands were fined, flogged, sentenced to the galleys, or reduced to penury as a result of confiscations of their goods and property.
Few Moriscos could consider themselves immune to such persecution. In 1577, the Inquisition of Aragon arrested Juan Compañero, a Morisco merchant from Zaragoza, and accused him of assisting the putative Turkish emissary Josu Duarte. Though Compañero denied such involvement even under torture, he eventually confessed to having engaged in secret Islamic worship and was paraded at a Zaragoza auto-da-fé in 1581, in which his best friend was burned at the stake. Compañero and his wife were sentenced to ten years of seclusion in a convent, and the following year, his youngest son Juan was sentenced to death in absentia, after fleeing to Algiers.
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