spain and the human diaspora in 1492 |
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The year 1492 is known to every American schoolchild as the year of Columbus’s first arrival in the Americas and the beginning of a vast colonial undertaking by European powers. Earlier that same year, the armies of Ferdinand and Isabella had completed their conquest of the parts of Spain that had for centuries been under Muslim rule. With the recapture of Grenada, Jews and Muslims were required to convert to Christianity or leave the combined kingdoms of Spain. Between 1492 and 1610, some 3,000,000 Muslims voluntarily left or were expelled from Spain, resettling in North Africa. This displaced population provided an army of recruits prepared for commercial war against Christendom, launching piratical attacks from bases in Algiers, Tunis, Morocco, and Tripoli. At the time, half the world’s Jews lived in Spain, often achieving eminent positions in society. They were placed under severe pressure to convert or leave Christian areas as early as 1391, while grandfather agreements in peace treaties allowed the continued practice of Islam for at least a generation or so. Many Jews left Spain for Portugal, while most accepted conversion. The Inquisition was introduced to inspect the veracity of the converts. The conversion or removal policy came to Grenada early in 1492. Between 1492 and 1610, some 3,000,000 Muslims voluntarily left or were expelled from Spain, resettling in North Africa. This displaced population provided an army of recruits prepared for commercial war against Christendom, launching piratical attacks from bases in Algiers, Tunis, Morocco, and Tripoli. |
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[1] Columbus Takes Leave of Ferdinand and Isabella
Girolamo Benzoni. Das vierdte Buch von dern neuem Welt. (Frankfurt a.M.: J. Feyerbend, for Theodor de Bry, 1594). Columbus takes leave of King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabello of Castile. (Plate viii from the illustrated De Bry edition.) |
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[2] Tolerance and the Re-Conquest of Islamic Spain
Sebastian Münster. Cosmographiae universalis lib. VI. (Basel: 1554). Officially, a policy of tolerance existed in Islamic Spain. Jews and Christians were freely permitted to exercise their religion, under certain strictures. Christians, for example, were forbidden to proselytize, to build new churches, or to openly display the cross. From March 1492, however, a zero-tolerance policy for observant Jews was the rule throughout Spain. Separate grandfather agreements for Muslims existed in each kingdom and principality. The treaty in Granada allowed the moriscos to retain their religion, but Archbishop Hernando de Talavera was charged with the responsibility of converting them. Early in 1502, conversion or exile was ordered for all Moors in Granada. Similar orders went out for Muslims in Valencia and Aragon in 1526, but many were able to stay after paying a bounty for a 40-year suspension of the edict. The Arabic language and mode of dress was forbidden in 1566, and unconditional expulsion was finally effected between 1606 and 1616. |
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[3] Columbus Makes Landfall Girolamo Benzoni. Americae pars quarta. (Frankfurt a.M.: J. Feyerbend, for Theodor de Bry, 1594). Here, Theodor de Bry imagines Columbus arriving and exchanging greetings with indigenous islanders of the Caribbean. When the explorer arrived at Cuba, he thought it likely that he had reached the Asian mainland. He had brought with him an interpreter for Arabic, Luis de Torres, who was a recent Jewish convert to Christianity. Columbus hadthe intention of meeting with the Great Khan, understood from Marco Polo and other sources to be the highest political authority in the region. To set the stage for a trade agreement, he sent Luis de Torres into the interior of Cuba to search for the imperial court. Torres returned without success, but Arabic became thereby one of the first Old World languages to be heard by the Indians of the Caribbean. Columbus himself was deeply religious, and anticipated that vast material wealth from trade would be employed in the recapture of the Holy Land and hasten the fulfillment of Christian prophecy. |
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[4] The Spanish Inquisition
Juan Gomez de Mora. Auto de la Fe celebrado en Madrid este ano de MDCXXXII. (Madrid: 1632). The Inquisition was originally conceived as a means of halting the activities of French heretics. In the beginning, it was run by a committee of Cardinals, but later came under the supervision of Rome. In Spain, a separate operation was conceived by Ferdinand and Isabella with control vested in the Spanish crown, an unconventional arrangement which the papacy grudgingly and haltingly agreed to. The focus of the Spanish Inquisition was in the beginning on New Christians of Jewish heritage who were suspected of relapsing into their old faith. Later, Protestants and Muslims also came under the institutional examination. This pamphlet, a report to King Philip IV, includes a ceremonial prayer addressing “the Judaic superstition, the Mohammedan Sect, and the heresy of Lutherans”. In practice, the storied Spanish Inquisition was never as effective or well-funded as a modern police state and was forced to rely on occasional denunciations by suspicious and envious neighbors who watched for outward signs of religious scruple, like prayer rituals or an avoidance of pork. The arms of Spanish cities and the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon are displayed in this plate. |
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[5] The Spanish Inquisition in Protestant Eyes
Raimondo Gonzales de Montes. A discovery and playne declaration of sundry subtill practices of the Holy Inquisition of Spayne. (London: John Day, 1569). Though the Spanish Inquisition was focused chiefly on converted Christians suspected of lapsing into former beliefs and practices, Protestant writers and artists in England, Germany, and the Netherlands were the most effective publicists of righteous indignation against the dubious methods of interrogation which commonly resulted in false confessions, if not injury or death. This English engraving accompanied an English edition of a Sanctae Inquisitionis Hispanicae artes aliquot delectae, orginally published in Heidelberg in 1567. Here holding "feet to the fire" is not just a metaphor. The mysterious author, Reginaldus Gonsalvius Montanus, was probably a Spanish or Flemish Protestant. This is a prime example of the European half of the Black Legend, under which the worst excesses of Spanish policy were presented as the norm. The American portion of the Black Legend was focused on the portrayal of Spanish colonial mistreatment of the New World indigenous peoples. |
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[6] Moorish Architecture
Juan Alvarez de Colmenar. Annales d'Espagne et de Portugal. (Amsterdam: 1741). Though Muslims in Spain were required to convert or leave the country, Islamic cultural influences remain, the most obvious being architectural monuments built by both Muslim rulers and Christian sovereigns with the help of Muslim workers. The great mosque of Cordoba, the world’s third largest, was refashioned as a great cathedral following Christian victory there. Some of the most prominent structures are featured in this set of annals by Alvárez de Colmenar, published in the mid-eighteenth century, including the Alhambra and the Royal Palace in Seville. The Alcázar of Seville, the Moorish-style Royal Palace shown here, was built on the ruins of an old Moorish fort. The Arabic al-quasr means “palace”. Construction was undertaken by King Pedro of Castile from 1364, using Moorish workers, under a distinctly Islamic design. The structure was often enlarged and remodeled, including among other things contrasting Gothic and Italian Renaissance elements. The apartments are still used by Spain’s royal family. Other Islamic elements of Spain include a residue of the Islamic law used there for centuries, including in particular the titles of officials, such as alcalde (“mayor”), which were also introduced into Spain’s colonial American governments. |