Empire over Religion: Reevaluating the Causes of the Spanish Expulsion of the Moriscos

From 1609-1614, the Spanish government expelled up to 300,000 Moriscos – nominally Christian descendants of the Muslim population of Southern Spain – in one of the largest population transfers of the early modern world.  Scenes of brutality and division accompanied the project with families torn apart, communities divided, and a way of life destroyed forever.  At the time and since, most commentators have looked to religious explanations for Philip III’s decision to expel the Moriscos.  Contemporary authors utilized an apocalyptic rhetoric to argue for expulsion, and a major public relations campaign including pamphlets and sermons pointed to the Christian mission of unity that had underlay Spain’s earlier decision to expel the Jewish population.  No religious division was to be allowed in Iberia; only true Christians could survive within its borders.

This paper questions that consensus, and argues that Spanish officials making decisions were far more interested in the political ramifications of a large, separate population of crypto-Muslims living within Spain than with the purported religious transgressions of the Morisco population. The ongoing struggle against the Ottoman Empire and against the Muslim corsairs of North Africa made the “Morisco Question” one of foreign policy.  While the Moriscos were nominally Christian, having been forcibly converted after the fall of Grenada in 1492, Philip III’s government viewed them as a possible fifth column within Spain, and understood the issue as one of political necessity, animated by geostrategic concerns including the Twelve Years’ Truce with the Dutch rebels, signed, not coincidentally, on the day the first expulsion proclamation was circulated.  Drawing on primary documents from the Spanish Council of State, pamphlets, and other government documents, I argue that religion was little more than a smokescreen to gain public support for the endeavor, while the real cause of the expulsion's vast upheaval was purely imperial.