Managing Disaster: Networks of the Moriscos During the Process of the Expulsion From the Iberian Peninsula Around 1609

In 1609 the Spanish authorities promulgated the first of a series of edicts ordering the expulsion of the Moriscos, descendants of the Muslim populations living in the Iberian kingdoms, which had been converted under duress between 1499 (Granada) and 1526 (Aragon). ¹ Since the great majority of these nuevos convertidos de moros, as they began to be called after the forced conversions, never truly converted to Catholicism but only outwardly professed to be Christians and hence remained Muslim in secret, their existence increasingly came to be seen as a political and religious problem by both the Spanish Church and the state. This problem was eventually solved by the decision to expel these false converts from Spain. How did the Moriscos try to manage this disaster, and how did they prepare themselves around 1609 to start new lives abroad? In a recent article, Luis Fernando Bernabé Pons argues that Castilian and especially Granadan Moriscos, who made use of Morisco networks that came into being in France during the years of the expulsion, were able to act as guides for their community during their transfer from the Iberian Peninsula until the establishment of the Moriscos in Tunis, one of the primary places, next to Morocco, Algiers, and the Ottoman Empire, in which many eventually settled. ² However, in order to explain the migration patterns of the Moriscos around 1609, which are still poorly understood as Bernabé Pons rightly argues, we need to consider the evidence concerning Morisco networks from different regions, with regard to the migration not only to Tunis but to many other places as well. ³

In the present article I will discuss a number of archival sources and other documents that shed light on the relations of prominent Moriscos with authorities (both religious and political) of the receiving countries with which they established relations, in order to improve the conditions of their own settlement and the lives of their people. An example of such a Morisco is the scholar, diplomat, and translator at the court of Mawlây Zaydân, Ahmad b. Qâsim al-Hajarî (ca. 1570–ca. 1640), or Diego Bejarano, his Christian name. Al-Hajarî made a great effort to improve the conditions of his people in the diaspora, or rather, as he and other Moriscos referred to their group, the “nation,” which is nación in Spanish and al-tâ’ifa in Arabic. ⁴ His efforts seem to cover both the last years preceding the expulsion and the years following it. As we will see, his life and work also raise the question of whether leading Moriscos such as himself, who secretly left Spain in about 1600 and made contact with the Moroccan court, prepared their people for a future life outside Spain even before the general expulsion. Alternatively, did the leading Moriscos consider outright political liberation as an option, for example, through an invasion of Spain by Turkish or Moroccan armies or perhaps by both? Or was their only alternative to be found in religious inspiration: the prospect of imminent eschatological struggle with the help of a divine, Messianic figure? We will see that there is evidence that all these motives and expectations played a part and sometimes intermingled in a fascinating amalgam of the confused hopes and fears of a group of people who were forced to leave their place of birth.

Before we embark on this research, it may be useful to discuss briefly the general context in which these events took place. The expulsion process did not consist of the direct deportation of Moriscos to the North African coast (though this was certainly the reality for many) but, rather, of a very complex process in which those expelled from Spain left in various phases and in various directions. Although Henry Lapeyre’s main aim in his standard treatment of the subject is to give a reliable assessment of the size of the Morisco population and its geographical distribution, he also examines migration patterns to some extent, and his work serves as a point of departure here. ⁵ Lapeyre...