Whether Philip saw the expulsion in these terms is not known. Though the king accepted expulsion in principle, he once again sought reassurance from Ribera and wrote to the archbishop to solicit his opinion on the prospects of converting the Moriscos, without telling him what had been decided. The patriarch left no room for ambiguity in his reply, telling the king that it would take “years, even centuries” to convert the Moriscos and that the kingdom was so poorly defended that “prudence would have us prevent wrongs and foresee danger.”
16
Perhaps sensing what was coming, some Moriscos had already begun to leave Spain of their own accord by crossing the Pyrenees and making their way to North Africa via Marseille. Still Philip continued to vacillate. In November 1608, he convened a council of Valencian theologians under Ribera’s direction to debate the theological legitimacy of expulsion, whose discussions continued until March of the following year. In the course of these debates, Ribera was strongly challenged by the Franciscan friar Antonio Sobrino, a Valencian churchman with years of experience preaching among the Moriscos. Sobrino argued that the Moriscos were capable of Christianity and that many of them had become sincere Christians despite their ruthless exploitation by Christian overlords who “treat them as slaves, and worse.” Insisting that “to expel baptized Christians would be against all good conscience,” Sobrino recommended that the Church continue its attempts to win the Moriscos over by more benevolent methods.
17
Despite Ribera’s vigorous objections, these conclusions were accepted by his fellow theologians. Yet these discussions had barely concluded when Spain’s rulers embarked on a radically different course. On April 4, 1609, only five days before the signing of a twelve-year truce in Flanders, the Council of State unanimously declared itself in favor of expulsion, beginning with the Moriscos of Valencia that autumn. Once again the reasons for this decision are difficult to fathom. Though the counselors noted the recent defeat of the Spanish-backed contender to the Moroccan throne and expressed anxiety that the victorious Muley Zidan might attack Spain in conjunction with the Ottomans and “bad Christian princes,” there was nothing to suggest that this prospect was imminent. On the contrary, the council’s deliberations suggest a common recognition that expulsion was possible precisely
because
there was no immediate threat to Spain.
18
Whatever Lerma’s own calculations, he would not have approved expulsion if he had not been reasonably confident that key members of the Valencian nobility would be willing to support it. To ensure their acquiescence, the duke proposed that they receive the property and fixed goods of their Morisco vassals as compensation for any economic losses they suffered.
These proposals were approved in principle by the king, but once again Philip appeared reluctant to implement his own decisions. Such hesitation may have been partly due to the lack of unanimity beyond the council chambers. In June of that year, Pedro de Toledo, the commander of the Spanish Mediterranean fleet, was asked by the royal secretary, Andrés de Prada, whether he approved of expulsion in principle. In a lengthy reply, Toledo made his lack of enthusiasm clear and noted that “removing from their homes so many people who had been born and bred in them” was such a thankless task that “even a dead man would need two drinks to do it.” Toledo argued that expulsion would “tarnish the reputation of Spain” and bring negative repercussions for Christians in Turkish lands, that the Morisco question required “a general remedy for the whole of Spain, and not only for the navy,” and that it would be better to treat the Moriscos with “good laws and well-executed orders” instead of expelling them.
19
In late August, Philip received an even more forthright protest from a Christian nobleman named Don Manuel Ponce de León, who urged the king to avoid measures against the Moriscos that “do not respect Christian piety; nor good moral and political practice,” such as “cutting off reproductive members,” which he condemned as “contrary to Catholic zeal, inhumane and barbarous.” Ponce de León condemned expulsion on religious, moral, and political grounds and suggested that Philip follow the example of the Ottomans with their Christian subjects by imposing a special tribute on the Moriscos that would be used to upgrade Spain’s coastal defenses.
20
Philip’s response to these suggestions is not recorded, but the king appears to have had his own doubts about what he had embarked upon. It was not until June 23 that he finally gave orders to begin the expulsion in Valencia. Throughout that summer, the administrative and military components required to expedite the expulsion were hastily assembled in conditions of strictest secrecy. Despite his reservations, Pedro de Toledo was nominated commander of the maritime transportation of the Moriscos to North Africa. Military operations on land were placed under the command of the veteran general Agustín Mejía, a former page of Don John of Austria who had served in virtually all Spain’s major wars during the last few decades. Mejía had a formidable array of forces at his disposal, including seasoned
tercios
from Naples and Sicily, Castilian cavalrymen, the Valencian Efectiva militia, and a paramilitary group known as the Confraternity of the Cross, which had been created at the instigation of Jaime Bleda, whose members wore white tunics emblazoned with a Crusader cross.
In August four thousand cavalry and infantrymen were ferried from their bases in Italy to Majorca for a mission whose purpose was not even explained to their own officers, while detachments of Castilian cavalrymen were discreetly positioned along the inland border with Valencia to prevent the Moriscos from escaping into the Spanish interior. Meanwhile, Spanish naval procurers scoured the ports of Europe in search of private ships to supplement its official fleet. By the beginning of September, seventy-two galleys and fourteen transport ships had been assembled in the Balearics from various nationalities, in addition to the Spanish navy’s own vessels.
While these preparations were under way, the king and his ministers were busy appointing officials, writing letters and decrees, and assembling the administrative apparatus that would direct the expulsion. On August 4, Mejía and Toledo were summoned to Segovia, where Philip attended a special mass to pray for divine assistance in the “most holy task” that he had embarked upon. He then met with Lerma, with his secretary, Andrés de Prada, and with his naval and military commanders in the historic Alcazar palace-fortress, where his parents had married, and issued the signed letters authorizing the expulsion. To maintain the blanket of secrecy, Mejía was dispatched to Valencia on the pretext of inspecting the kingdom’s fortifications. On August 20, he presented Ribera and the Valencian viceroy, Luis Carrillo de Toledo, the Marquis of Caracena, with copies of the royal letters announcing Philip’s intentions to expel the Moriscos.
After so many years of lobbying for this outcome, Ribera’s initial response was surprisingly lukewarm, and he immediately protested the fact that the Valencian Moriscos were being expelled before those of Castile. This response may have been partly due to his belated recognition of the damage that expulsion caused to his own church, a possibility suggested by his gloomy prediction to Bleda that “we may well in future have to eat bread and herbs and mend our own shoes.” But his concerns with the Moriscos of Castile were also an indication of how far he had moved from his earlier belief in assimilation to a position of intransigent bigotry, which regarded the Castilian “Moors” as an even greater threat to Spain’s religious purity than those of his own archdiocese, precisely because they were more integrated into Christian society and therefore more likely to contaminate it. In a letter to the king’s secretary on August 23, he even went so far as to claim that “the Moriscos of this kingdom are less to be feared” than those of Castile and Aragon—effectively playing down the dangers that he himself had emphasized so often over the years.
21
Ribera did not know that the king had already decided to extend the expulsion. That same day, the Council of State noted that the king had “resolved that they all leave” and recommended that the Moriscos of Andalusia, Granada, and Murcia be expelled next, followed by those of Aragon. On Lerma’s recommendation, the council agreed to keep these intentions secret and present the expulsion as if it only applied to Valencia, in order to eliminate the possibility of resistance elsewhere. Though Ribera does not appear to have been informed of these intentions, he nevertheless overcame his reticence. The following week, on August 30, he wrote to Lerma to express his support for the king’s decision to expel the Moriscos from Valencia. Though he still insisted that “What is done in Valencia will be of no importance, if the same is not carried out in all of Spain,” he claimed that the Valencian seigneurs were ready to implement the king’s instructions “with great conformity and obedience” and assured Lerma that “this kingdom will be an example to the rest of Spain.”
22
This was exactly what Philip and Lerma wanted to hear, and Ribera was immediately given the task of resolving the fate of the Morisco children, whose theological status was still a source of anguished discussion among clerics and theologians. In early September, Ribera proposed that all baptized Morisco children under the age of ten or eleven should remain behind “even if their parents ask for them” and be brought up as servants of Christians. These conclusions were challenged by Mejía and Viceroy Caracena, who were concerned that the Moriscos might revolt if their children were forcibly taken from them, pointing out the practical difficulties of caring for so many children, particularly babies.
These contradictory considerations produced the usual earnest and convoluted debates. One cleric suggested that Morisco mothers remain in Spain long enough to wean their babies, after which time they could be expelled and their children taken from them. Another proposed that Christian wet nurses be assigned two Morisco infants each and issued supplies of animal milk until they were weaned. The royal confessor, Luis de Aliaga, argued that wet nurses were not a priority, because baptized Morisco infants who died in Spain would be given a Christian burial.
While theologians discussed how best to save the souls of Morisco children, the officials entrusted with removing their parents’ bodies completed their preparations. Despite the official secrecy, the movements of ships and soldiers were beginning to attract attention in Valencia. On September 5, a deputation of Christians demanded an explanation for this activity from the viceroy, who told them that “whatever His Majesty did was for the good of his loyal subjects.” These reassurances did not calm the Christian populace, who began bringing women and children into the capital for their safety.
The Valencian nobility also attempted to sound out Caracena’s intentions, only to be given a similarly evasive response. On September 16, the Estaments Militar—the forum that represented the interests of the nobility in the Valencian parliament—held a tumultuous meeting in the capital to debate the rumors of expulsion, in the course of which a swordfight nearly broke out and one Christian lord died of a heart attack. The attitude of many Valencian nobles was summed up by the Count of Castellar, who warned that such a policy would lead to “the universal ruin and devastation of this Kingdom.” But by this time, the economic arguments against expulsion were no longer as clear-cut as they had once been. While the landowning aristocracy in Valencia were still largely dependent on their Morisco vassals, many barons had taken out loans known as
censos
from Christian creditors, using the rents exacted from their vassals as collateral.
By the early seventeenth century, these rents had stagnated to the point where some lords were spending more on debt payments and interest than they were receiving from their vassals. For the more heavily indebted landlords, therefore, expulsion offered a potential escape from their creditors; it would allow them to declare themselves bankrupt and wipe the slate clean. Some barons at this meeting were undoubtedly familiar with the Crown’s promise of compensation. For these reasons, they were unable to present a united front and agreed only to send two emissaries to Madrid to argue the case against expulsion. Unbeknownst to them, the time for such representations had already passed. Only the previous day, the Council of State had met in the rare presence of Philip himself and agreed that the expulsion would begin the following week. At the same meeting, it was agreed that the Moriscos of Castile would also be expelled, the timetable depending on how events unfolded in Valencia. On September 22, Caracena summoned the leading nobles, magistrates, and officials in Valencia to inform them of the king’s orders. By the time the two Valencian nobles reached Madrid, Spain had already begun to implement the solution that its rulers had debated for so many years.
18
The “Agreeable Holocaust”
On the morning of September 24, 1609, town criers in the city of Valencia proclaimed the decree of expulsion to a fanfare of drums, horns, and trumpets. In it Philip accused the entire Morisco population of Valencia of heresy, apostasy, and “divine and human lèse-majesté” and announced his intention to expel them to Barbary in order to ensure the “conservation and security” of his realms.
1
All Moriscos were given three days to withdraw to their houses and wait for the royal commissioners to lead them to their assigned ports of embarkation. There were some exemptions: Moriscos who had lived among Old Christians for two years or had received Holy Communion with the consent of their priests were allowed to remain, despite Ribera’s insistence that there were no Moriscos who belonged to either category; six out of every hundred Morisco households would remain behind temporarily in order to maintain agricultural production and provide expertise and instruction to Old Christian settlers; Morisca women with Old Christian husbands could stay, though Morisco men with Christian wives could not,
2
while Morisco children under the age of four who “wanted to stay” in Spain were permitted to do so with their parents’ consent—a clause whose absurdity was clearly lost on its authors.