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CHAPTER 3

Forbidden Crossings

Emigration Legislation and Morisco Responses

In 1577, Diego Herrador, a shoemaker residing in Mexico City, stood before inquisitors, charged with passing to New Spain with a false license. Inquisitor Licentiate Francisco Santos García accused Herrador that he, “being of the caste and lineage of Moriscos and the grandson of a quemado on his mother’s side, made a false report that he is an old Christian of pure blood and ancestry, and that no one of his lineage has been punished by the Holy Office.”¹ During his trial, the shoemaker described how he obtained his false license. Herrador’s case was eventually dismissed because inquisitors learned that they no longer had the jurisdiction to prosecute cases of false licenses and had to restrict themselves to matters of the faith. It is unclear what happened to Herrador after this ruling, yet it reveals the openings in the legislation that allowed “new Christians” to reach the Americas despite prohibitions. Knowledge of the strategies that prospective emigrants could use to cross the Atlantic spread not only among those searching for false licenses but also across various sectors of colonial society, as royal decrees were read publicly and officials aired their complaints. The anxieties created by the frequent breaches of the restrictions on Morisco emigration paved the road for future conflicts over status in colonial society.

Initially, the royal decrees were enforced only sporadically, as practical concerns with populating the islands and mainland of the Americas took precedence over religious imperatives. However, the situation changed by the end of the sixteenth century with the rising Spanish presence. Royal decrees demanding the policing of interior regions and the establishment of inquisitorial tribunals created a vigilant atmosphere that individuals could exploit in their competition over offices and encomiendas, as new generations of Iberians emigrated to the Americas and came into conflict with the self-styled first conquerors and settlers. Individuals banned from settling in the New World employed various strategies to evade the restrictions. There is ample evidence that despite prohibitions, Moriscos did have the means to travel freely to Spanish America, in the event that they or powerful sponsors desired to do so.

Official policies, based on ideals that were couched in millenarian language, were difficult to carry out. Vast distances between both Spain and the Americas, and within the rapidly expanding empire, delayed the application of colonial policies. Competing jurisdictional claims also slowed the process, allowing individuals to slip through the cracks. The Spanish legal system was porous and diffuse, lacking a codified series of laws, especially before the Recopilación de Leyes de Indias (1681). Authorities constantly consulted one another and debated policies, providing many openings for individual action. Much if not most of Spanish civil and criminal law was applicable to the Indies, but there was also the question of its relationship to Amerindian customary practices. Expansion of the empire brought with it a host of new administrative questions. In theory, regulations for governing stemmed from the king, but in practice the royal councils reviewed the issues and made recommendations for the monarch to either reject or issue the appropriate decrees. Although the laws derived from the king and royal council, they were often initiated in response to local problems, resulting in legislation that was based on reactions to particular cases that could be applied to others and subsequently cited in new contexts. Royal decrees supporting and creating new laws proliferated, and officials on the ground would determine how and if to respond. In this sense, the formulaic acknowledgment of obedezco pero no cumplo (I obey, but I do not carry out the order) could allow for a degree of flexibility in colonial settings, so that peoples’ actions, lawsuits, and sense of identity became situational and fluid to adapt to the circumstances.² Debates concerning one part of the Spanish world could have empire-wide repercussions, as they were cited in debates at court to define and restrict peoples living under Spanish rule. The cases of Moriscos in the Americas provide one such lens through which to examine the relationship between the formulation of legal identities through everyday negotiations and the debates at court to produce policies. The concurrent descriptions of seminomadic indigenous groups such as the Chichimeca, Chiriguanos, or Araucanos with those concerning alárabes and Moriscos following the Alpujarras uprising reveal how Spanish jurists and theologians were defining customary practices with policies in mind. Arguments about whether it was licit to enslave either Moriscos or Amerindians drew heavily from ethnographic descriptions.³

Due to the gap between expected and real enforcement of the legislation, Morisco emigrants crossed the Atlantic and played a role in colonial society. Both enslaved and free Moriscos found in the openings in the legislation a way to pass clandestinely. But for Spanish authorities, even the possibility of their presence raised concerns and fears that were already inflamed by a preoccupation with justifying imperial rule and establishing a model Catholic republic. Bishops and inquisitors complained about the difficulty of policing frontier regions and invoked the specter of new Christian settlement at the edges of empire. They issued edicts stigmatizing Morisco practices that were preached publicly, conveying a broader sense of urgency to the local population. These fears entered denunciations arising from feuds over position in the colonial hierarchy, as the consequences of possessing a Morisco lineage involved material losses and could affect a family for generations. In a system that encouraged heated disputes over encomiendas, due to their nonhereditary nature, families had powerful incentives to exclude their rivals.⁴

LEGISLATING EMIGRATION, A POROUS WEB: 1492–1548

During the sixteenth century, anxieties over legitimate title crept into the royal decrees or cédulas that regulated emigration to Spanish America. According to even the earliest of these laws, settlement of the Spanish colonies was in theory limited to old Christians. These attempts to restrict the presence of new Christians of Muslim and Jewish descent stemmed from concerns that they would undermine Spanish missionary efforts and introduce heterodoxy into a land where Spanish missionaries and theologians hoped to impose Catholicism easily. Spanish authorities’ fears became heightened in response to the Reformation. The Crown’s internal policies toward the Moriscos played a role in the articulation and enforcement of laws concerning emigration. In Spain, legislation restricting the Moriscos and apprehension surrounding their presence increased during the sixteenth century. This dynamic also possessed a transatlantic dimension.

The earliest decrees regulating emigration to the Spanish Americas issued by the Crown in 1501 were included in the instructions given to Friar Nicolás de Ovando, who was appointed first governor of Hispaniola. These instructions stipulated, “As we with great care have to carry out the conversion of the Indians to our holy Catholic faith: if you find persons suspect in matters of the faith present during the said conversion, it could create an impediment. Do not consent or allow Muslims or Jews, heretics, or anyone reconciled by the Inquisition, or persons newly converted to our Faith to go there, unless they are black slaves … who were born in the power of Christians, our subjects and native inhabitants.”⁵ These restrictions were echoed in the cédulas that regulated the colonization and settlement of the new Spanish territories. In 1508 King Ferdinand ordered the Casa de Contratación not to permit either the “children and grandchildren of the converts of Jews and Muslims, or the children of those executed or reconciled by the Inquisition” to travel to or trade in Hispaniola.⁶ Orders for the settlement of Florida and Bimini, issued by Queen Juana in 1514, specified that “new Christians [who are descendants] of Muslims and Jews can neither populate nor reside in the said islands under penalty of the loss of their property and of our favor.”⁷ Despite complaints about the shortage of Spanish settlers in the newly conquered regions and specific requests for Morisco or North African labor, the Crown maintained officially that only old Christians could settle in the Western Hemisphere.

It is unclear how enforceable these decrees against Morisco migration to the Americas were. Prior to the adoption of the statutes of limpieza de sangre in 1548, religious interests were less important than policies that would benefit imperial expansion and the Royal Treasury. Royal licenses and habilitaciones provided loopholes in the contradictory royal decrees restricting emigration. For example, in 1509 King Ferdinand issued a general license to Castilian converso communities paying the composición.⁸ Some local officials in the Caribbean and in New Spain initially favored projects involving Morisco artisans and laborers. Following the arrival of these early new Christian emigrants, competition in the recently established colonial settlements placed pressures on their presence. Growing resentments tested the limits of religious tolerance as conversos and Moriscos, due to their legal status as prohibited persons, became increasingly vulnerable to denunciation.

Local authorities in the Caribbean islands lodged complaints about new Christians that resulted in renewed decrees to restrict their presence. In 1539 Charles V ordered officials to address “what has been seen by experience: the great damage and disadvantage that results from transporting to our Indies the children of burned and reconciled Jews and Muslims and those who are newly converted.”⁹ This decree, upon its public proclamation from the steps of Seville’s cathedral, ordered that none of these individuals could pass to Spanish America “in any manner.”¹⁰ Yet it also provided an exception for purchasing a royal license, so that some could travel without penalties.¹¹ This permitted slaveholders to purchase licenses for their Morisco and North African slaves to accompany them to Spanish America, with the provision that they be returned to Spain after a specified number of years. Members of the Granadan Morisco nobility were also exempt from most legislation regulating Moriscos, and they could bear arms and wear silk in accordance with their high status. Some may have legally purchased licenses to cross the Atlantic.¹²

During the first half of the sixteenth century, royal policies toward the broader Morisco population in Spain were also less stringent. This may have had repercussions on their ability to cross the Atlantic. Following their initial forced baptism in 1499–1501 the Granadan Moriscos were granted a “period of grace” exempting them from full inquisitorial scrutiny, so that they could be fully instructed in Catholicism. In 1526 Charles V granted them the right, like the conversos, to pay a tax in exchange for certain privileges and allowed them to continue some of their practices for a forty-year period.¹³ Nonetheless, ecclesiastical authorities issued periodic prohibitions of Morisco customs that included food, dress, language, and dance, and the terms of this agreement had to be renegotiated continuously. Even in 1526, during Charles V’s stay in Granada, a panel of theologians in the royal chapel of that city banned Morisco practices and ordered the activation of an inquisitorial tribunal.¹⁴ Yet inquisitorial prosecution of Morisco cases did not gain momentum until after Philip II’s reign began in 1556.¹⁵ During this early period, bishops oversaw the conversion of the Moriscos in their dioceses, and missionaries such as the Jesuits and Franciscans also actively proselytized among the Moriscos in Granada.¹⁶

LEGISLATING EMIGRATION, THE NET TIGHTENS: 1548–1621

During the reigns of Philip II and Philip III, policies restricting the movement of Moriscos intensified across the Spanish world. This was tied to changing peninsular dynamics, from Counter-Reformation politics, to the adoption of the purity of blood statutes, to growing suspicion of the loyalty of the Moriscos. This larger political context played a role in policies affecting emigration to Spanish America and also in how Spaniards were defining their nation and empire.

While the purity of blood statutes appeared in Spain in the late fifteenth century, they gained ground during Philip II’s reign. They required that anyone applying to hold a prestigious post, or to attend university, provide documents testifying to their old Christian ancestry. Applicants for these positions had to prove their limpieza de sangre—that none of their ancestors descended from Muslims or Jews. These statutes delimited the official boundaries of who could hold power and status in the Spanish world. The resulting prevalence of limpieza discourses also produced and reinforced a link between concepts like heresy and faithfulness, and their physical transmission to future generations through bodily fluids.¹⁷

The political climate toward the Moriscos in Spain was shifting, and they appeared increasingly in protonationalistic discourses about loyalty and fears concerning the vulnerability of Spain’s Catholic empire. By the mid-sixteenth century some Spanish authorities had become frustrated with the slow progress of the assimilation of the Morisco population. By this time, the growth of the Ottoman Empire, Berber incursions on Spanish outposts in North Africa, and worries that the Moriscos would ally with either North Africans or French Protestants who were active in the Mediterranean, prompted some Spaniards to fear increasingly that Moriscos would become a fifth column in Spain.¹⁸ The Crown and local authorities issued further restrictions and enforced them more rigorously. In Valencia anxieties had already taken hold in the 1540s as peace with the Ottomans failed and North African corsairs conducted raids along the coast. Valencian authorities issued laws distinguishing between local Moriscos and those born in Granada, Aragon, and North Africa.¹⁹ In 1560 a royal decree barred Moriscos from owning African slaves. In addition, any African slaves who had previously belonged to Moriscos were prohibited from being taken to the Americas.²⁰ In Granada, increasing restrictions on the Morisco population contributed to the second Alpujarras uprising of 1569–72. News of the revolt spread across the Spanish world, and fears of Morisco presence extended with it. Once the rebellion had been suppressed and the remaining Moriscos were expelled from Granada and resettled across Castile, suspicion extended to Morisco communities across Spain. Moriscos were now conflated increasingly with the Granadans and cast as rebels and apostates.²¹

By the mid-sixteenth century the Crown continued to express concern over the arrival of converts from Islam and their descendants in the Spanish Americas and intensified its efforts. Charles V issued a series of decrees during the 1550s that illustrate the difficulties of enforcing royal policies toward emigration. It is evident from these cédulas that Moriscos and North African Muslims had been able to evade the controls on emigration and disappear across the vast continent. The decrees also reflected ongoing official concerns with the religiosity of indigenous peoples, as they expressed preoccupation with their status as neophytes to the Catholic faith. In 1550 Charles V addressed a royal provision to the judges of the audiencias in the Americas. Drawing from a previous cédula that he issued in 1543 following a meeting of the Council of the Indies to discuss the subject of Muslim presence in the Spanish territories, Charles V further emphasized the need to expel North African slaves from the Americas: “We are informed that there have passed and pass daily to these parts some North African slave men and women as well as free persons newly converted from Islam and their children, although it is prohibited by us. They should in no way pass because of the many inconveniences that have followed … [and] because in such a new land as this in which the faith is freshly planted it is expedient that all opportunity [to pass] should be removed so that there cannot be sown or made public in it the sect of Muhammad or any other … that undermines our holy Catholic faith.”²² By the mid-sixteenth century, shortly after the adoption of the purity of blood statutes, religious restrictions on emigration were increasingly enforced. Ordinances for the Casa de Contratación issued in 1552 specified that no new converts from Judaism or Islam could travel to the Americas without a royal license. Furthermore, anyone convicted by the Inquisition was also barred from emigrating.²³ These new regulations required prospective emigrants like the shoemaker Diego Herrador to provide documentation proving their limpieza de sangre or old Christian status in order to obtain a license.

Subsequent royal decrees reveal that the clandestine movement of people continued. In 1559, a new cédula addressed to the bishops and archbishops in the Spanish American dioceses further emphasized the Crown’s need to restrict emigration to the Americas: “Because … the Devil is so solicitous to sow heresies in Christendom, some Lutherans and others who are of the caste of Muslims and Jews who want to live in observance of their law and ceremonies have come to these parts. It is expedient that where our Catholic faith is now newly planted there be great vigilance so that no heresy can be sown…. If any is found it should be extirpated, undone and punished with rigor.”²⁴ In this decree Philip II urged the bishops and archbishops to investigate whether any suspected Muslims, Jews, Protestants, or heretics had settled in their dioceses, and to mete out exemplary punishment to those they found. He also ordered the viceroys, governors, and judges of the audiencias to aid the bishops and archbishops in their search for heretics. Because this decree was issued before the establishment of the Holy Office’s tribunals in the Indies, the king ordered that any Muslims, Jews, or Protestants who were found be sent for trial to the Supreme Council of the Inquisition in Spain.²⁵

In 1565, Philip II reissued to the judges of New Spain and the governor of Guatemala a 1511 decree of Queen Juana, that children and grandchildren of quemados and reconciliados could not hold offices in the Americas.²⁶ The 1511 cédula extended the restrictions on officeholding that were current in the Spanish kingdoms to the newly claimed territories in the Caribbean. Philip II did not refer to local specificities—he only reissued the cédula—but Juana’s decree stated that she was informed of new Christians on Hispaniola, and the Crown wanted to ensure that the laws restricting officeholding in the Spanish kingdoms also applied to them. During the early sixteenth century, some conversos and Moriscos had gained positions of authority in the Caribbean islands and in New Spain, as recorded in the earlier cases of the Morisco interpreters.²⁷ By the time of Philip II’s decree, conversos and Moriscos continued to represent competition for those without prestigious public offices, and officials moved forcefully to condemn their presence.