Morisco in the context of "Expulsion of the Moriscos"

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⭐ Core Definition: Morisco

Moriscos (Spanish: [moˈɾiskos], Catalan: [muˈɾiskus]; Portuguese: mouriscos [mo(u)ˈɾiʃkuʃ]; "Moorish") were former Muslims and their descendants whom the Catholic Church and Habsburg Spain commanded to forcibly convert to Christianity or face compulsory exile after Spain outlawed Islam. Spain had a sizeable Muslim population, the mudéjars, in the early 16th century.

The Iberian Union mistrusted Moriscos and feared that they would prompt new invasions from the Ottoman Empire after the Fall of Constantinople, so between 1609 and 1614 they began to expel them systematically from the various kingdoms of the Union. The most severe expulsions occurred in the eastern Kingdom of Valencia. The exact number of Moriscos present in Spain before the expulsion is unknown and can only be guessed based on official records of the edict of expulsion. Furthermore, the overall number who were able to avoid deportation is also unknown, with estimates on the proportion of those who avoided expulsion or returned to Spain ranging from 5% to 40%.

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👉 Morisco in the context of Expulsion of the Moriscos

The Expulsion of the Moriscos (Spanish: Expulsión de los moriscos) was decreed by King Philip III of Spain on April 9, 1609. The Moriscos were descendants of Spain's Muslim population who had been forced to convert to Christianity. Since the Spanish were fighting wars in the Americas, feeling threatened by the Ottomans raiding along the Spanish coast and by two Morisco revolts in the century since Islam was outlawed in Spain, it seems that the expulsions were a reaction to an internal problem of the stretched Spanish Empire. Between 1609 and 1614, the Crown systematically expelled Moriscos through a number of decrees affecting Spain's various kingdoms, with varying levels of success. Between 1492 and 1610, about three million Muslims left or were expelled from Spain.

Although initial estimates of the number expelled such as those of Henri Lapeyre range between 275,000 and 300,000 Moriscos (or 4% of the total Spanish population), the extent and actual success of the expulsion order in purging Spain of its Moriscos has been increasingly challenged by modern historians, starting with the seminal studies carried out by François Martinez (1999) and Trevor Dadson (2007). Dadson estimates that, out of a total Morisco population of 500,000, a figure accepted by many, around 5 to 10% avoided expulsion altogether and tens of thousands of those expelled managed to return.

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Morisco in the context of Oruç Reis

Aruj Barbarossa (Arabic: عروج بربروس), known as Oruç Reis to the Turks, was an Ottoman corsair who became Sultan of Algiers. The elder brother of the famous Ottoman admiral Hayreddin Barbarossa, he was born on the Ottoman island of Midilli (Lesbos in present-day Greece) and died in battle against the Spanish at Tlemcen.

He became known as Baba Aruj (Father Aruj) when he transported large numbers of Morisco, Muslim and Jewish refugees from Spain to North Africa; in Europe he was known as Barbarossa.

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Morisco in the context of Republic of Salé

The Republic of Salé, also known as the Bou Regreg Republic and the Republic of the Two Banks, was a city-state maritime corsair republic based at Salé in Morocco during the 17th century, located at the mouth of the Bou Regreg river. It was founded by Moors and Moriscos from the town of Hornachos, in western Spain. The Moriscos were the descendants of Muslims who were nominally converted to Christianity, and were subject to mass deportation during Philip III's reign, following the expulsion of the Moriscos decrees. The republic's main commercial activities were the Barbary slave trade and piracy during its brief existence in the 17th century. A Moorish republic, it was culturally Arabic, Andalusian, and Berber.

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Morisco in the context of Inquisition

An inquisition was a Catholic judicial procedure in which ecclesiastical judges could initiate, investigate and try cases in their jurisdiction. Popularly the Inquisition became the name for various medieval and reformation-era state-organized tribunals whose aim was to combat heresy, apostasy, blasphemy, witchcraft, and customs considered to be deviant, using this judicial procedure. Violence, isolation, certain torture or the threat of its application, have been used by inquisitions to extract confessions and denunciations. Inquisitions with the aim of combatting religious sedition (e.g. apostasy or heresy) had their start in the 12th-century Kingdom of France, particularly among the Cathars and the Waldensians. The inquisitorial courts from this time until the mid-15th century are together known as the Medieval Inquisition. Other banned groups investigated by medieval inquisitions, which primarily took place in France and Italy, include the Spiritual Franciscans, the Hussites, and the Beguines. Beginning in the 1250s, inquisitors were generally chosen from members of the Dominican Order, replacing the earlier practice of using local clergy as judges.

Inquisitions also expanded to other European countries, resulting in the Spanish Inquisition and the Portuguese Inquisition. The Spanish and Portuguese inquisitions often focused on the New Christians or Conversos (former Jews who converted to Christianity to avoid antisemitic regulations and persecution), the Marranos (people who were forced to abandon Judaism against their will by violence and threats of expulsion), and on the Moriscos (Muslims who had been forced to convert to Catholicism), as a result of suspicions that they had secretly maintained or reverted to their previous religions, as well as the fear of possible rebellions, as had occurred in previous times (such as the First and Second Morisco Rebellions). Spain and Portugal also operated inquisitorial courts not only in Europe, but also throughout their empires: the Goa Inquisition, the Peruvian Inquisition, and the Mexican Inquisition, among others. Inquisitions conducted in the Papal States were known as the Roman Inquisition.

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Morisco in the context of Luis del Mármol Carvajal

Luis del Marmol Carvajal (Granada, Spain, 1524 - Velez Malaga, Spain, 1600) was a Spanish chronicler living many years among the formerly Moorish Granada kingdom morisco's inhabitants and in the North African regions in the mid 16th century.

Carvajal was born in Anatolia. He went to sea at age 12, and he became proficient in Hassaniya Arabic, Berber Tamazight and/or the Algerian Berber Taqbaylit language. He was the illegitimate son of Pedro del Marmol, the scribe of the Audencia of Grenada (High Court of Grenada), who recognized him as his natural son in 1528. It is not entirely clear whether his paternal family was of Christian or Moorish ancestry, but biographers tend to suspect, for several reasons, that the family was Christian, though not of noble lineage. Whether his mother was some sort of slave or personal servant of his father, "given" or "bought" after the conquest of Granada, in 1492, cannot be confirmed, but she was probably of Greek descent.

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Morisco in the context of Mancebo de Arévalo

The Young Man of Arévalo (Spanish: el Mancebo de Arévalo) was a Morisco crypto-Muslim author from Arévalo, Castile, who was the most productive known Islamic author in Spain during the period after the forced conversion of Muslims there. He traveled widely across Spain to visit crypto-Muslim communities and wrote several works about Islam which includes accounts from his travels. His real identity and dates of birth and death are unknown, but most of his travels took place in the first half of the sixteenth century.

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Morisco in the context of Morisco rebellions in Granada

The second rebellion of the Alpujarras (Arabic: ثورة البشرات الثانية; 1568–1571), sometimes called the War of the Alpujarras or the Morisco Revolt, was triggered by Philip II of Spain's Pragmática Sanción de 1567 [es] and was the second Morisco revolt against the Castilian Crown in the mountainous Alpujarra region and on the Granada Altiplano region, northeast of the city of Granada. The rebels were Moriscos, the nominally Catholic descendants of the Mudéjares (Muslims under Castilian rule) following the first rebellion of the Alpujarras (1499–1501).

By 1250, the Reconquest of Spain by the Catholic powers had left only the Emirate of Granada, in southern Spain. In 1492, Granada city fell to the Catholic MonarchsIsabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon—and under the terms of capitulation the whole Muslim-majority region came under Christian rule.

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