Forbidden Passages: Muslims and Moriscos in Colonial Spanish America by Karoline P. Cook (review)

This book has been very much needed. As Karoline P. Cook points out, scholarly studies on the Moriscos in English have been limited, and even more so in regard to Moriscos in the New World. Cook observes that there has been a vast amount of research on the conversos in America, but very little on the Moriscos, excepting works by Louis Cardaillac, Miguel de Epalza, and her own published articles. With this book, the need for a study of the Moriscos' arrival and conditions in American begins to be filled. The subject is vast, the archive is extensive, and the opportunity for scholars to continue what Cook has so ably started should be attractive.

The book focuses on the Moriscos from the sixteenth century, when the Moriscos were "created" and began the legal and illegal crossings to the Spanish possessions in America, to the mass expulsion of 1609–14, which Cook explains was seen by Spaniards as the completion of the reconquest. In the first two chapters, Cook describes the beginnings of Morisco mobility and settlement, relying on extensive archives in Spain, Peru, and Mexico, along with depositories in the United States. She shows the challenges that Spanish authorities faced in regard to the Moriscos, and the Moriscos' own challenges in adapting, or failing to adapt, to the triangulation of Spanish-Morisco-Indian in the New World. After all, as Cook observes, the Santiago Matamoros crossed the Atlantic and became a fixture of carnivals and liturgical processions. In this context, the discussion of Morisco history would have benefited from Arabic sources, some of which are available in English translation. There are numerous firsthand accounts from the late sixteenth century and early seventeenth century that show not only the manner in which Moriscos viewed their memory of, and relationship to, Spain but also describe, in their own words, the manner in which they were received by their North African co-religionists.

As a scholar deeply aware of the complexity of her subject, Cook begins and ends many of her chapters with questions. Who was a Morisco, she asks, because there is no easy answer. Was the designation ethnic, religious, cultural, professional, or what? Was the Morisco a North African? Or a crypto-Muslim? Or a speaker of Arabic? Or a healer? Or one who dressed differently? Or iconoclastic, like a Protestant? Are they to be understood by their own definition of themselves or by the way in which "white European" Spaniards described them? After all, in the Arabic that the Moriscos of North Africa used, they never referred to themselves as "Moriscos"; rather, they were Andalusiyyun (Andalusians), defining themselves by geography rather than by the ethnoreligious designation of "little Moors." And why did many Moriscos want to go to America, sometimes using false licenses, in defiance of royal decrees and colonial policies? While enslaved Moriscos had no choice in going—and Moriscos were as enslaved as Indians—why did free Moriscos venture to New Spain? Did they think there would be less discrimination from the church there? And how were Moriscas viewed since a good amount about their history appears in the confessions and interrogations of women?

Cook addresses these questions systematically, appealing to multiple trial records, chronicles, and church records. She examines the variety of Morisco practitioners and the long history of Morisco association with magic, showing how traditions and customs crossed from the Iberian Peninsula to Central and South America. The association of Moriscos with "superstition" had been widely used in Spain to indict them as secret Muslims, and in the New World, the offices of the Inquisition as well as testimonials from witnesses continued to be used. At the same time, Moriscos raised silkworms and produced silk, and sometimes acted as healers and diviners. Cook dedicates various chapters to these labor divisions as she configures the Morisco identity from as many angles as possible.

The strictures placed on Moriscos were necessary because of the conversionary nature of...