Who were the Moriscos, and why were they expelled from Spain?
The expulsion of the Moriscos
La expulsión de los moriscos
April 1609–January 1614. The Moriscos were descendants of Spain's Muslims who had been forced to convert to Christianity in the early sixteenth century, in 1502 in Castile and in 1526…
Where: Spain, Valencia, Aragon, Andalusia, Morocco
What happened
The Moriscos were descendants of Spain's Muslims who had been forced to convert to Christianity in the early sixteenth century, in 1502 in Castile and in 1526 in Aragon and Valencia. Many kept their customs and were suspected of keeping their faith in secret. In 1609 King Philip III, advised by the Duke of Lerma, ordered their expulsion, beginning in Valencia. By 1614 around 300,000 people, about four per cent of Spain's population, had been shipped out, most of them to North Africa. In Valencia, where they were about a third of the population, whole valleys were left empty and farming took decades to recover.
Say it
Unos trescientos mil moriscos tuvieron que salir de España.
Some three hundred thousand Moriscos had to leave Spain.
Why it matters
It ended eight centuries of Muslim presence in Spain and emptied much of Valencia; Arabic-derived words stayed, but the community that spoke them was gone.
Read about it
- La expulsión de los moriscos — The expulsion of the Moriscos
- La Inquisición española — The Spanish Inquisition
Connected
- The expulsion of the Jews (31 March 1492)
- Don Quixote is published (January 1605)
- Before: Lope de Vega and the comedia
- After: Velázquez paints Las Meninas
Sources
- La expulsión de los moriscos fue una decisión política (Manuel Lomas Cortés) — Universidad de Granada
- Los efectos de la expulsión — Universidad de Alicante, blog Moriscos en la España moderna