REBELLION OF THE MORISCOES.
Disaster at Seron--Death of Quixada--Rapid Successes of Don
John--Submission of the Moriscoes--Fate of El Habaqui--Stern Temper of
Aben-Aboo--Renewal of the War--Expulsion of the Moors--Don Juan returns
to Madrid--Murder of Aben-Aboo--Fortunes of the Moriscoes.
1570, 1571.
Don John was detained some days before Galera by the condition of the
roads, which the storm had rendered impassable for heavy waggons and
artillery. When the weather improved he began his march, moving south,
in the direction of Baza. Passing through that ancient town, the scene
of one of the most glorious triumphs of the good Queen Isabella the
Catholic, he halted at Caniles. Here he left the main body of his army,
and, putting himself at the head of a detachment of three thousand foot
and two hundred horse, hastened forward to reconnoitre Seron, which he
purposed next to attack.
Seron was a town of some strength, situated on the slope of the sierra,
and defended by a castle held by a Morisco garrison. On his approach,
most of the inhabitants, and many of the soldiers, evacuated the place,
and sought refuge among the mountains. Don John formed his force into
two divisions, one of which he placed under Quixada, the other under
Requesens. He took up a position himself, with a few cavaliers and a
small body of arquebusiers, on a neighbouring eminence, which commanded
a view of the whole ground.
The two captains were directed to reconnoitre the environs, by making a
circuit from opposite sides of the town. Quixada, as he pressed forward
with his column, drove the Morisco fugitives before him, until they
vanished in the recesses of the mountains. In the meantime, the
beacon-fires, which for some hours had been blazing from the topmost
peaks of the sierra, had spread intelligence far and wide of the coming
of the enemy. The whole country was in arms; and it was not long before
the native warriors, mustering to the number of six thousand, under the
Morisco chief, El Habaqui, who held command in that quarter, came
pouring through the defiles of the mountains, and fell with fury on the
front and flank of the astonished Spaniards. The assailants were soon
joined by the fugitives from Seron; and the Christians, unable to
withstand this accumulated force, gave way, though slowly, and in good
order, before the enemy.
Meanwhile, a detachment of Spanish infantry, under command of Lope de
Figueroa, _maestro del campo_, had broken into the town, where they were
busily occupied in plundering the deserted houses. This was a part of
the military profession which the rude levies of Andalusia well
understood. While they were thus occupied, the advancing Moriscoes,
burning for revenge, burst into the streets of the town, and, shouting
their horrid war-cries, set furiously on the marauders. The Spaniards,
taken by surprise, and encumbered with their booty, offered little
resistance. They were seized with a panic, and fled in all directions.
They were soon mingled with their retreating comrades under Quixada,
everywhere communicating their own terror, till the confusion became
general. It was in vain that Quixada and Figueroa, with the other
captains, endeavoured to restore order. The panic-stricken soldiers
heard nothing, saw nothing, but the enemy.
At this crisis, Don John, who from his elevated post had watched the
impending ruin, called his handful of brave followers around him, and at
once threw himself into the midst of the tumult. "What means this,
Spaniards?" he exclaimed. "From whom are you flying? Where is the honour
of Spain? Have you not John of Austria, your commander, with you? At
least, if you retreat, do it like brave men, with your front to the
enemy."[241] It was in vain. His entreaties, his menaces, even his
blows, which he dealt with the flat of his sabre, were ineffectual to
rouse anything like a feeling of shame in the cowardly troops. The
efforts of his captains were equally fruitless, though in making them
they exposed their lives with a recklessness which cost some of them
dear. Figueroa was disabled by a wound in the leg. Quixada was hit by a
musket-ball on the left shoulder, and struck from his saddle. Don John,
who was near, sprang to his assistance, and placed him in the hands of
some troopers, with directions to bear him at once to Caniles. In doing
this the young commander himself had a narrow escape; for he was struck
on his helmet by a ball, which, however, fortunately glanced off without
doing him injury.[242] He was now hurried along by the tide of
fugitives, who made no attempt to rally for the distance of half a
league, when the enemy ceased his pursuit. Six hundred Spaniards were
left dead on the field. A great number threw themselves into the houses,
prepared to make good their defence. But they were speedily enveloped by
the Moriscoes, the houses were stormed or set on fire, and the inmates
perished to a man.[243]
Don John, in a letter dated the nineteenth of February, two days after
this disgraceful affair, gave an account of it to the king, declaring
that the dastardly conduct of the troops exceeded anything he had ever
witnessed, or indeed could have believed, had he not seen it with his
own eyes. "They have so little heart in the service," he adds, "that no
effort that I can make, not even the fear of the galleys or the gibbet,
can prevent them from deserting. Would to Heaven I could think that they
are moved to this by the desire to return to their families, and not by
fear of the enemy."[244] He gave the particulars of Quixada's accident,
stating that the surgeons had made six incisions before they could
ascertain where the ball, which had penetrated the shoulder, was lodged;
and that, with all their efforts, they had as yet been unable to extract
it. "I now deeply feel," he says, "how much I have been indebted to his
military experience, his diligence, and care and how important his
preservation is to the service of your majesty. I trust in God he may be
permitted to regain his health, which is now in a critical
condition."[245]
[Sidenote: DEATH OF QUIXADA.]
In his reply to this letter, the king expressed his sense of the great
loss which both he and his brother would sustain by the death of
Quixada. "You will keep me constantly advised of the state of his
health," he says. "I know well it is unnecessary for me to impress upon
you the necessity of watching carefully over him." Philip did not let
the occasion pass for administering a gentle rebuke to Don John for so
lightly holding the promise he had made to him from Galera, not again to
expose himself heedlessly to danger. "When I think of your narrow escape
at Seron, I cannot express the pain I have felt at your rashly incurring
such a risk. In war, every one should confine himself to the duties of
his own station; nor should the general affect to play the part of the
soldier, anymore than the soldier that of the general."[246]
It seems to have been a common opinion, that Don John was more fond of
displaying his personal prowess than became one of his high rank; in
short, that he showed more the qualities of a knight-errant, than those
of a great commander.[247]
Meanwhile, Quixada's wound, which from the first had been attended with
alarming symptoms, grew so much worse as to baffle all the skill of the
surgeons. His sufferings were great, and every hour he grew weaker.
Before a week had elapsed, it became evident that his days were
numbered.
The good knight received the intelligence with composure,--for he did
not fear death. He had not the happiness in this solemn hour to have her
near him on whose conjugal love and tenderness he had reposed for so
many years.[248] But the person whom he cherished next to his wife, Don
John of Austria, was by his bedside, watching over him with the
affectionate solicitude of a son, and ministering those kind offices
which soften the bitterness of death. The dying man retained his
faculties to the last, and dictated, though he had not the strength to
sign, a letter to the king, requesting some favour for his widow, in
consideration of his long services. He then gave himself up wholly to
his spiritual concerns; and on the twenty-fourth of February, 1570, he
gently expired, in the arms of his foster-son.
Quixada received a soldier's funeral. His obsequies were celebrated with
the military pomp suited to his station. His remains, accompanied by the
whole army, with arms reversed, and banners trailing in the dust, were
borne in solemn procession to the church of the Jeronymites in Caniles;
and "we may piously trust," says the chronicler, "that the soul of Don
Luis rose up to heaven with the sweet incense which burned on the altars
of St. Jerome; for he spent his life, and finally lost it, in fighting
like a valiant soldier the battles of the faith."[249]
Quixada was austere in his manners, and a martinet in enforcing
discipline. He was loyal in his nature, of spotless integrity, and
possessed so many generous and knightly qualities, that he commanded the
respect of his comrades; and the regret for his loss was universal.
Philip, writing to Don John, a few days after the event, remarks: "I did
not think that any letter from you could have given me so much pain as
that acquainting me with the death of Quixada. I fully comprehend the
importance of his loss, both to myself and to you, and cannot wonder you
should feel it so keenly. It is impossible to allude to it without
sorrow. Yet we may be consoled by the reflection that, living and dying
as he did, he cannot fail to have exchanged this world for a
better."[250]
Quixada's remains were removed, the year following, to his estate at
Villagarcia, where his disconsolate widow continued to reside.
Immediately after her lord's decease, Don John wrote to Dona Magdalena,
from the camp, a letter of affectionate condolence, which came from the
fulness of his heart: "Luis died as became him, fighting for the glory
and safety of his son, and covered with immortal honour. Whatever I am,
whatever I shall be, I owe to him, by whom I was formed, or rather
begotten in a nobler birth. Dear sorrowing widowed mother! I only am
left to you; and to you, indeed, do I of right belong, for whose sake
Luis died, and you have been stricken with this woe. Moderate your grief
with your wonted wisdom. Would that I were near you now, to dry your
tears, or mingle mine with them! Farewell, dearest and most honoured
mother! and pray to God to send, back your son from these wars to your
bosom."[251]
Dona Magdalena survived her husband many years, employing her time in
acts of charity and devotion. From Don John she ever experienced the
same filial tenderness which he evinces in the letter above quoted.
Never did he leave the country or return to it without first paying his
respects to his mother, as he always called her. She watched with
maternal pride his brilliant career; and when that was closed by an
early death, the last link which had bound her to this world was snapped
for ever. Yet she continued to live on till near the close of the
century, dying in 1598, and leaving behind her a reputation for goodness
and piety little less than that of a saint.
Don John, having paid the last tribute of respect to the memory of his
guardian, collected his whole strength, and marched at once against
Seron. But the enemy, shrinking from an encounter with so formidable a
force, had abandoned the place before the approach of the Spaniards. The
Spanish commander soon after encountered El Habaqui in the
neighbourhood, and defeated him. He then marched on Tijola, a town
perched on a bold cliff, which a resolute garrison might have easily
held against an enemy. But the Moriscoes, availing themselves of the
darkness of the night, stole out of the place, and succeeded, without
much loss, in escaping through the lines of the besiegers.[252] The fall
of Tijola was followed by that of Purchena. In a short time the whole
Rio de Almanzora was overrun, and the victorious general, crossing the
south-eastern borders of the Alpujarras, established his quarters, on
the second of May, at Padules, about two leagues from Andarax.
[Sidenote: NEGOTIATIONS WITH EL HABAQUI.]
These rapid successes are not to be explained simply by Don John's
superiority over the enemy in strength or military science. Philip had
turned a favourable ear to the pope's invitation to join the league
against the Turk, in which he was complimented by having the post of
commander-in-chief offered to his brother, John of Austria. But before
engaging in a new war, it was most desirable for him to be released from
that in which he was involved with the Moriscoes. He had already seen
enough of the sturdy spirit of that race to be satisfied that to
accomplish his object by force would be a work of greater time than he
could well afford. The only alternative, therefore, was to have recourse
to the conciliatory policy which had been so much condemned in the
marquis of Mondejar. Instructions to that effect were accordingly sent
to Don John, who, heartily weary of this domestic contest, and longing
for a wider theatre of action, entered warmly into his brother's views.
Secret negotiations were soon opened with El Habaqui, the Morisco chief,
who received the offer of such terms for himself and his countrymen as
left him in no doubt, at least, as to the side on which his own interest
lay. As a preliminary step, he was to withdraw his support from the
places in the Rio de Almanzora; and thus the war, brought within the
narrower range of the Alpujarras, might be more easily disposed of. This
part of his agreement had been faithfully executed; and the rebellious
district on the eastern borders of the Alpujarras had, as we have seen,
been brought into subjection, with little cost of life to the Spaniards.
Don John followed this up by a royal proclamation, promising an entire
amnesty for the past to all who within twenty days should tender their
submission. They were to be allowed to state the grievances which had
moved them to take up arms, with an assurance that these should be
redressed. All who refused to profit by this act of grace, with the
exception of the women, and of children under fourteen years of age,
would be put to the sword without mercy.
What was the effect of the proclamation we are not informed. It was
probably not such as had been anticipated. The Moriscoes, distressed as
they were, did not trust the promises of the Spaniards. At least we find
Don John, who had now received a reinforcement of two thousand men,
distributing his army into detachments, with orders to scour the country
and deal with the inhabitants in a way that should compel them to
submit. Such of the wretched peasantry as had taken refuge in their
fastnesses were assailed with shot and shell, and slaughtered by
hundreds. Some, who had hidden with their families in the caves in which
the country abounded, were hunted out by their pursuers, or suffocated
by the smoke of burning fagots at the entrance of their retreats.
Everywhere the land was laid waste, so as to afford sustenance for no
living thing. Such were the conciliatory measures employed by the
government for the reduction of the rebels.[253]
Meanwhile the duke of Sesa had taken the field on the northern border of
the Alpujarras, with an army of ten thousand foot and two thousand
horse. He was opposed by Aben-Aboo with a force which in point of
numbers was not inferior to his own. The two commanders adopted the same
policy; avoiding pitched battles, and confining themselves to the
desultory tactics of _guerilla_ warfare, to skirmishes and surprises;
while each endeavoured to distress his adversary by cutting off his
convoys and by wasting the territory with fire and sword. The Morisco
chief had an advantage in the familiarity of his men with this wild
mountain fighting, and in their better knowledge of the intricacies of
the country. But this was far more than counterbalanced by the
superiority of the Spaniards in military organization, and by their
possession of cavalry, artillery, and muskets, in all of which the
Moslems were lamentably deficient. Thus, although no great battle was
won by the Christians, although they were sorely annoyed, and their
convoys of provisions frequently cut off, by the skirmishing parties of
the enemy, they continued steadily to advance, driving the Moriscoes
before them, and securing the permanency of their conquests by planting
a line of forts, well garrisoned, along the wasted territory in their
rear. By the beginning of May, the duke of Sesa had reached the borders
of the Mediterranean, and soon after united his forces, greatly
diminished by desertion, to those of Don John of Austria at
Padules.[254]
Negotiations, during this time, had been resumed with El Habaqui, who
with the knowledge, if not the avowed sanction, of Aben-Aboo, had come
to a place called Fondon de Andarax, not far distant from the
head-quarters of the Spanish commander-in-chief. He was accompanied by
several of the principal Moriscoes, who were to take part in the
discussions. On the thirteenth of May they were met by the deputies from
the Castilian camp, and the conference was opened. It soon appeared that
the demands of the Moriscoes were wholly inadmissible. They insisted,
not only on a general amnesty, but that things should be restored to the
situation in which they were before the edicts of Philip the Second had
given rise to the rebellion. The Moorish commissioners were made to
understand that they were to negotiate only on the footing of a
conquered race. They were advised to prepare a memorial preferring such
requests as might be reasonably granted; and they were offered the
services of Juan de Soto, Don John's secretary, to aid them in drafting
the document. They were counselled, moreover, to see their master,
Aben-Aboo, and obtain full powers from him to conclude a definitive
treaty.
Aben-Aboo, ever since his elevation to the stormy sovereignty of the
Alpujarras, had maintained his part with a spirit worthy of his cause.
But as he beheld town after town fall away from his little empire, his
people butchered or swept into slavery, his lands burned and wasted,
until the fairest portions were converted into a wilderness,--above all,
when he saw that his cause excited no sympathy in the bosoms of the
Moslem princes, on whose support he had mainly relied,--he felt more and
more satisfied of the hopelessness of a contest with the Spanish
monarchy. His officers, and indeed the people at large, had come to the
same conviction; and nothing but an intense hatred of the Spaniards, and
a distrust of their good faith, had prevented the Moriscoes from
throwing down their arms and accepting the promises of grace which had
been held out to them. The disastrous result of the recent campaign
against the duke of Sesa tended still further to the discouragement of
the Morisco chief; and El Habaqui and his associates returned with
authority from their master to arrange terms of accommodation with the
Spaniards.
On the nineteenth of May, the commissioners from each side again met at
Fondon de Andarax. A memorial, drafted by Juan de Soto, was laid before
Don John, whose quarters, as we have seen, were in the immediate
neighbourhood. No copy of the instrument has been preserved, or at least
none has been published. From the gracious answer returned by the
prince, we may infer that it contained nothing deemed objectionable by
the conquerors.
[Sidenote: SUBMISSION OF THE MORISCOES.]
The deputies were not long in agreeing on terms of accommodation--or
rather of submission. It was settled that the Morisco captain should
proceed to the Christian camp, and there presenting himself before the
commander-in-chief, should humbly crave forgiveness, and tender
submission on behalf of his nation; that, in return for this act of
humiliation, a general amnesty should be granted to his countrymen, who,
though they were no longer to be allowed to occupy the Alpujarras, would
be protected by the government wherever they might be removed. More
important concessions were made to Aben-Aboo and El Habaqui. The
last-mentioned chief, as the chronicler tells us, obtained all that he
asked for his master, as well as for himself and his friends.[255] Such
politic concessions by the Spaniards had doubtless their influence in
opening the eyes of the Morisco leaders to the folly of protracting the
war in their present desperate circumstances.
The same evening on which the arrangement was concluded, El Habaqui
proceeded to his interview with the Spanish commander. He was
accompanied by one only of the Morisco deputies. The others declined to
witness the spectacle of their nation's humiliation. He was attended,
however, by a body of three hundred arquebusiers. On entering the
Christian lines, his little company was surrounded by four regiments of
Castilian infantry, and escorted to the presence of John of Austria, who
stood before his tent, attended by his officers, from whom his princely
bearing made him easily distinguished.
El Habaqui, alighting from his horse, and prostrating himself before the
prince, exclaimed, "Mercy! We implore your highness, in the name of his
majesty, to show us mercy, and to pardon our transgressions, which we
acknowledge have been great!"[256] Then unsheathing his scimitar, he
presented it to Don John, saying that he surrendered his arms to his
majesty in the name of Aben-Aboo and the rebel chiefs for whom he was
empowered to act. At the same time the secretary, Juan de Soto, who had
borne the Moorish banner, given him by El Habaqui, on the point of his
lance, cast it on the ground before the feet of the prince. The whole
scene made a striking picture, in which the proud conqueror, standing
with the trophies of victory around him, looked down on the
representative of the conquered race as he crouched in abject submission
at his feet. Don John, the predominant figure in the _tableau_, by his
stately demeanour tempered with a truly royal courtesy, reminded the old
soldiers of his father the emperor, and they exclaimed, "This is the
true son of Charles the Fifth!"
Stooping forward, he graciously raised the Morisco chief from the
ground, and, returning him his sword, bade him employ it henceforth in
the service of the king. The ceremony was closed by flourishes of
trumpets and salvoes of musketry, as if in honour of some great victory.
El Habaqui remained some time after his followers had left the camp,
where he met with every attention, was feasted and caressed by the
principal officers, and was even entertained at a banquet by the bishop
of Guadix. He received however, as we have seen, something more
substantial than compliments. Under these circumstances, it was natural
that he should become an object of jealousy and suspicion to the
Moriscoes. It was soon whispered that El Habaqui, in his negotiations
with the Christians, had been more mindful of his own interests than of
those of his countrymen.[257]
Indeed, the Moriscoes had little reason to congratulate themselves on
the result of a treaty which left them in the same forlorn and degraded
condition as before the breaking out of the rebellion,--which in one
important respect, indeed, left them in a worse condition, since they
were henceforth to become exiles from the homes of their fathers. Yet,
cruel and pitiable in the extreme as was the situation of the Moriscoes,
the Spanish monks, as Don John complains to his brother, inveighed
openly in their pulpits against the benignity and mercy of the
king;[258] and this too, he adds, when it should rather have been their
duty to intercede for poor wretches who, for the most part, had sinned
through ignorance.[259] The ecclesiastic on whom his censure most
heavily falls, is the President Deza,--a man held in such abhorrence by
the Moriscoes as to have been one principal cause of their insurrection;
and he beseeches the king to consult the interests of Granada by
bestowing on him a bishopric, or some other dignity, which may remove
him from the present scene of his labours.[260]
Among those disappointed at the terms of the treaty, as it soon
appeared, was Aben-Aboo himself. At first he affected to sanction it,
and promised to all he could to enforce its execution. But he soon
cooled, and, throwing the blame on El Habaqui, declared that this
officer had exceeded his powers, made a false report to him of his
negotiations, and sacrificed the interests of the nation to his own
ambition.[261] The attentions lavished on that chief by the Spaniards,
his early correspondence with them, and the liberal concessions secured
to him by the treaty, furnished plausible grounds for such an
accusation.
According to the Spanish accounts, however, Aben-Aboo at this time
received a reinforcement of two hundred soldiers from Barbary, with the
assurance that he would soon have more effectual aid from Africa. This,
we are told, changed his views. Nor is it impossible that the Morisco
chief, as the hour approached, found it a more difficult matter than he
had anticipated to resign his royal state and descend into the common
rank-and-file of the vassals of Castile,--the degraded caste of Moorish
vassals, whose condition was little above that of serfs.
However this maybe, the Spanish camp was much disquieted by the rumours
which came in of Aben-Aboo's vacillation. It was even reported that, far
from endeavouring to enforce the execution of the treaty, he was
secretly encouraging his people to further resistance. No one felt more
indignant at his conduct than El Habaqui, who had now become as loyal a
subject as any other in Philip's dominions. Not a little personal
resentment was mingled with his feeling towards Aben-Aboo; and he
offered, if Don John would place him at the head of a detachment, to go
himself, brave the Morisco prince in his own quarters, and bring him as
a prisoner to the camp. Don John, though putting entire confidence in El
Habaqui's fidelity,[262] preferred, instead of men, to give him money;
and he placed eight hundred gold ducats in his hands, to enable him to
raise the necessary levies among his countrymen.
[Sidenote: FATE OF EL HABAQUI.]
Thus fortified, El Habaqui set out for the head-quarters of Aben-Aboo,
at his ancient residence in Mecina de Bombaron. On the second day the
Morisco captain fell in with a party of his countrymen lingering idly by
the way, and he inquired, with an air of authority, why they did not go
and tender their submission to the Spanish authorities, as others had
done. They replied, they were waiting for their master's orders. To this
El Habaqui rejoined, "All are bound to submit: and if Aben-Aboo, on his
part, shows unwillingness to do so, I will arrest him at once, and drag
him at my horse's tail to the Christian camp."[263] This foolish vaunt
cost the braggart his life.
One of the party instantly repaired to Mecina and reported the words to
Aben-Aboo. The Morisco prince, overjoyed at the prospect of having his
enemy in his power, immediately sent a detachment of a hundred and fifty
Turks to seize the offender and bring him to Mecina. They found El
Habaqui at Burchal, where his family were living. The night had set in,
when the chieftain received tidings of the approach of the Turks; and
under cover of the darkness he succeeded in making his escape into the
neighbouring mountains. The ensuing morning the soldiers followed
closely on his track; and it was not long before they descried a person
skulking among the rocks, whose white mantle and crimson turban proved
him to be the object of their pursuit. He was immediately arrested and
carried to Mecina. His sentence was already passed. Aben-Aboo,
upbraiding him with his treachery, ordered him to be removed to an
adjoining room, where he was soon after strangled. His corpse, denied
the rights of burial, having been first rolled in a mat of reeds, was
ignominiously thrown into a sewer; and the fate of the unhappy man was
kept a secret for more than a month.[264]
His absence, after some time, naturally excited suspicions in the
Spanish camp. A cavalier, known to Aben-Aboo, wrote to him to obtain
information respecting El Habaqui, and was told, in answer, by the wily
prince, that he had been arrested and placed in custody for his
treacherous conduct, but that his family and friends need be under no
alarm, as he was perfectly safe. Aben-Aboo hinted, moreover, that it
would be well to send to him some confidential person with whom he might
arrange the particulars of the treaty,--as if these had not been already
settled. After some further delay, Don John resolved to despatch an
agent to ascertain the real dispositions of the Moriscoes towards the
Christians, and to penetrate, if possible, the mystery that hung round
the fate of El Habaqui.
The envoy selected was Hernan Valle de Palacios, a cavalier possessed of
a courageous heart, yet tempered by a caution that well fitted him for
the delicate and perilous office. On the thirteenth of July he set out
on his mission. On the way he encountered a Morisco, a kinsman of the
late monarch, Aben-Humeya, and naturally no friend to Aben-Aboo. He was
acquainted with the particulars of El Habaqui's murder, of which he gave
full details to Palacios. He added, that the Morisco prince, far from
acquiescing in the recent treaty, was doing all in his power to prevent
its execution. He could readily muster, at short notice, said the
informer, a force of five thousand men, well armed, and provisioned for
three months; and he was using all his efforts to obtain further
reinforcements from Algiers.
Instructed in these particulars, the envoy resumed his journey. He was
careful, however, first to obtain a safe-conduct from Aben-Aboo, which
was promptly sent to him. On reaching Mecina, he found the place
occupied by a body of five hundred arquebusiers; but by the royal order
he was allowed to pass unmolested. Before entering the presence of "the
little king of the Alpujarras," as Aben-Aboo, like his predecessor, was
familiarly styled by the Spaniards, Palacios was carefully searched, and
such weapons as he carried about him were taken away.
He found Aben-Aboo stretched on a divan, and three or four Moorish girls
entertaining him with their national songs and dances. He did not rise,
or indeed change his position, at the approach of the envoy, but gave
him audience with the lofty bearing of an independent sovereign.
Palacios did not think it prudent to touch on the fate of El Habaqui.
After expatiating on the liberal promises which he was empowered by Don
John of Austria to make, he expressed the hope that Aben-Aboo would
execute the treaty, and not rekindle a war which must lead to the total
destruction of his country. The chief listened in silence; and it was
not till he had called some of his principal captains around him, that
he condescended to reply. He then said, that God and the whole world
knew it was not by his own desire, but by the will of the people, that
he had been placed on the throne. "I shall not attempt," he said, "to
prevent any of my subjects from submitting that prefer to do so. But
tell your master," he added, "that, while I have a single shirt to my
back, I shall not follow their example. Though no other man should hold
out in the Alpujarras, I would rather live and die a Mussulman than
possess all the favours which King Philip can heap on me. At no time,
and in no manner, will I ever consent to place myself in his
power."[265] He concluded this spirited declaration by adding, that, if
driven to it by necessity, he could bury himself in a cavern, which he
had stowed with supplies for six years to come, during which it would go
hard but he would find some means of making his way to Barbary. The
desperate tone of these remarks effectually closed the audience.
Palacios was permitted to return unmolested, and to report to his
commander the failure of his mission.
The war, which Don John had flattered himself he had so happily brought
to a close, now, like a fire smothered, but not quenched, burst forth
again with redoubled fury. The note of defiance was heard loudest among
the hills of Ronda, a wild sierra on the western skirts of the
Alpujarras, inhabited by a bold and untamed race, more formidable than
the mountaineers of any other district of Granada. Aben-Aboo did all he
could to fan the flame of insurrection in this quarter, and sent his own
brother, El Galipe, to take the command.
The Spanish government, now fully aroused, made more vigorous efforts to
crush the spirit of rebellion than at any time during the war. Don John
was ordered to occupy Guadix, and thence to scour the country in a
northerly direction. Another army, under the Grand-Commander Requesens,
marching from Granada, was to enter the Alpujarras from the north, and
taking a route different from that of the duke of Sesa, in the previous
campaign, was to carry a war of extermination into the heart of the
mountains. Finally, the duke of Arcos, the worthy descendant of the
great marquis of Cadiz, whose name was so famous in the first war of
Granada, and whose large estates in this quarter he had inherited, was
entrusted with the operations against the rebels of the Serrania de
Ronda.
[Sidenote: RENEWAL OF THE WAR.]
The grand-commander executed his commission in the same remorseless
spirit in which it had been dictated. Early in September, quitting
Granada, he took the field at the head of five thousand men. He struck
at once into the heart of the country. All the evils of war in its most
horrid form followed in his train. All along his track, it seemed as if
the land had been swept by a conflagration. The dwellings were sacked
and burned to the ground. The mulberry and olive groves were cut down;
the vines were torn up by the roots; and the ripening harvests were
trampled in the dust. The country was converted into a wilderness.
Occasionally small bodies of the Moriscoes made a desperate stand. But
for the most part, without homes to shelter or food to nourish them,
they were driven, like unresisting cattle, to seek a refuge in the
depths of the mountains, and in the caves in which this part of the
country abounded. Their pursuers followed up the chase with the fierce
glee with which the hunter tracks the wild animal of the forest to his
lair. There they were huddled together, one or two hundred frequently in
the same cavern. It was not easy to detect the hiding-place amidst the
rocks and thickets which covered up and concealed the entrance. But when
it was detected, it was no difficult matter to destroy the inmates. The
green bushes furnished the materials for a smouldering fire, and those
within were soon suffocated by the smoke, or, rushing out, threw
themselves on the mercy of their pursuers. Some were butchered on the
spot; others were sent to the gibbet or the galleys; while the greater
part, with a fate scarcely less terrible, were given up as the booty of
the soldiers, and sold into slavery.[266]
Aben-Aboo had a narrow escape in one of these caverns, not far from
Berchul, where he had secreted himself with a wife and two of his
daughters. The women were suffocated, with about seventy other persons.
The Morisco chief succeeded in making his escape through an aperture at
the farther end, which was unknown to his enemies.[267]
Small forts were erected at short intervals along the ruined country. No
less than eighty-four of these towers were raised in different parts of
the land, twenty-nine of which were to be seen in the Alpujarras and the
vale of Lecrin alone.[268] There they stood, crowning every peak and
eminence in the sierra, frowning over the horrid waste, the sad
memorials of the conquest. This was the stern policy of the victors.
Within this rocky girdle, long held as it was by the iron soldiery of
Castile, it was impossible that rebellion should again gather to a head.
The months of September and October were consumed in these operations.
Meanwhile the duke of Arcos had mustered his Andalusian levies, to the
number of four thousand men, including a thousand of his own vassals. He
took with him his son, a boy of not more than thirteen years of
age,--following in this, says the chronicler, the ancient usage of the
valiant house of Ponce de Leon.[269] About the middle of September he
began his expedition into the Sierra Vermeja, or Red Sierra. It was a
spot memorable in Spanish history for the defeat and death of Alonso de
Aguilar, in the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, and has furnished the
theme of many a plaintive _romance_ in the beautiful minstrelsy of the
South. The wife of the duke of Arcos was descended from Alonso de
Aguilar, as he himself was the grandson of the good count of Urena, who,
with better fortune than his friend, survived the disasters of that day.
The route of the army led directly across the fatal field. As they
traversed the elevated plain of Calaluz, the soldiers saw everywhere
around the traces of the fight. The ground was still covered with
fragments of rusty armour, bits of broken sword-blades, and heads of
spears. More touching evidence was afforded by the bones of men and
horses, which, in this solitary region, had been whitening in the blasts
of seventy winters. The Spaniards knew well the localities, with which
they had become familiar from boyhood in the legends and traditions of
the country. Here was the spot where the vanguard, under its brave
commander, had made its halt in the obscurity of the night. There were
the faint remains of the enemy's entrenchments, which time had nearly
levelled with the dust; and there, too, the rocks still threw their dark
shadows over the plain, as on the day when the valiant Alonso da Aguilar
fell at their base in combat with the renowned Feri de Ben Estepar. The
whole scene was brought home to the hearts of the Spaniards. As they
gazed on the unburied relics lying around them, the tears, says the
eloquent historian who records the incident, fell fast down their iron
cheeks; and they breathed a soldier's prayer for the repose of the noble
dead. But these holier feelings were soon succeeded by others of a
fierce nature, and they loudly clamoured to be led against the
enemy.[270]
The duke of Arcos, profiting by the errors of Alonso de Aguilar, had
made his arrangements with great circumspection. He soon came in sight
of the Moriscoes, full three thousand strong. But, though well posted,
they made a defence little worthy of their ancient reputation, or of the
notes of defiance which they had so boldly sounded at the opening of the
campaign. They indeed showed mettle at first, and inflicted some loss on
the Christians. But the frequent reverses of their countrymen seemed to
have broken their spirits; and they were soon thrown into disorder, and
fled in various directions into the more inaccessible tracts of the
sierra. The Spaniards followed up the fugitives, who did not attempt to
rally. Nor did they ever again assemble in any strength, so effectual
were the dispositions made by the victorious general. The insurrection
of the Sierra Vermeja was at an end.[271]
The rebellion, indeed, might be said to be everywhere crushed within the
borders of Granada. The more stout-hearted of the insurgents still held
out among the caves and fastnesses of the Alpujarras, supporting a
precarious existence until they were hunted down by detachments of the
Spaniards, who were urged to the pursuit by the promise from government
of twenty ducats a head for every Morisco. But nearly all felt the
impracticability of further resistance. Some succeeded in making their
escape to Barbary. The rest, broken in spirit, and driven to extremity
by want of food in a country now turned into a desert, consented at
length to accept the amnesty offered them, and tendered their
submission.
[Sidenote: EXPULSION OF THE MOORS.]
On the twenty-eighth of October Don John received advices of a final
edict of Philip, commanding that all the Moriscoes in the kingdom of
Granada should be at once removed into the interior of the country. None
were to be excepted from this decree, not even the _Moriscos de la
Paz_, as those were called who had loyally refused to take part in the
rebellion.[272] The arrangements for this important and difficult step
were made with singular prudence, and, under the general direction of
Don John of Austria, the Grand-Commander Requesens, and the dukes of
Sesa and Arcos, were carried into effect with promptness and energy.
By the terms of the edict, the lands and houses of the exiles were to be
forfeited to the crown. But their personal effects--their flocks, their
herds, and their grain--would be taken, if they desired it, at a fixed
valuation by the government. Every regard was to be paid to their
personal conveniences and security; and it was forbidden, in the
removal, to separate parents from children, husbands from wives; in
short, to divide the members of a family from one another;--"an act of
clemency," says a humane chronicler, "which they little deserved; but
his majesty was willing in this to content them."[273]
The country was divided into districts, the inhabitants of which were to
be conducted, under the protection of a strong military escort, to their
several places of destination. These seem to have been the territory of
La Mancha, the northern borders of Andalusia, the Castiles, Estremadura,
and even the remote province of Galicia. Care was taken that no
settlement should be made near the borders of Murcia or Valencia, where
large numbers of the Moriscoes were living in comparative quiet on the
estates of the great nobles, who were exceedingly jealous of any
interference with their vassals.
The first of November, All-Saints' Day, was appointed for the removal of
the Moriscoes throughout Granada. On that day they were gathered in the
principal churches of their districts, and after being formed into their
respective divisions, began their march. The grand-commander had
occupied the passes of the Alpujarras with strong detachments of the
military. The different columns of emigrants were placed under the
directions of persons of authority and character. The whole movement was
conducted with singular order,--resistance being attempted in one or two
places only, where the blame, it may be added, as intimated by a
Castilian chronicler, was to be charged on the brutality of the
soldiers.[274] Still, the removal of the Moriscoes on the present
occasion was attended with fewer acts of violence and rapacity than the
former removal, from Granada. At least this would seem to be inferred by
the silence of the chroniclers; though it is true such silence is far
from being conclusive, as the chroniclers, for the most part, felt too
little interest in the sufferings of the Moriscoes to make a notice of
them indispensable. However this may be, it cannot be doubted that,
whatever precautions may have been taken to spare the exiles any
unnecessary suffering, the simple fact of their being expelled from
their native soil is one that suggests an amount of misery not to be
estimated. For what could be more dreadful than to be thus torn from
their pleasant homes, the scenes of their childhood, where every
mountain, valley, and stream were as familiar friends,--a part of their
own existence,--to be rudely thrust into a land of strangers, of a race
differing from themselves in faith, language, and institutions, with no
sentiment in common but that of a deadly hatred? That the removal of a
whole nation should have been so quietly accomplished, proves how
entirely the strength and spirit of the Moriscoes must have been broken
by their reverses.[275]
The war thus terminated, there seemed no reason for John of Austria to
prolong his stay in the province. For some time he had been desirous to
obtain the king's consent to his return. His ambitious spirit, impatient
of playing a part on what now seemed to him an obscure field of action,
pent up within the mountain barrier of the Alpujarras, longed to display
itself on a bolder theatre before the world. He aspired, too, to a more
independent command. He addressed repeated letters to the king's
ministers,--to the Cardinal Espinosa and Gomez de Silva in
particular,--to solicit their influence in his behalf. "I should be
glad," he wrote to the latter, "to serve his majesty, if I might be
allowed, on some business of importance. I wish he may understand that I
am no longer a boy. Thank God, I can begin to fly without the aid of
others' wings, and it is full time, as I believe, that I was out of
swaddling-clothes."[276] In another letter he expresses his desire to
have some place more fitting the brother of such a monarch as Philip,
and the son of such a father as Charles the Fifth.[277] On more than one
occasion he alludes to the command against the Turk as the great object
of his ambition.
His importunity to be allowed to resign his present office had continued
from the beginning of summer, some months before the proper close of the
campaign. It may be thought to argue an instability of character, of
which a more memorable example was afforded by him at a later period of
life. At length he was rejoiced by obtaining the royal consent to resign
his command and return to court.
[Sidenote: MURDER OF ABEN-ABOO.]
On the eleventh of November, Don John repaired to Granada. Till the
close of the month he was occupied with making the necessary
arrangements preparatory to his departure. The greater part of the army
was paid off and disbanded. A sufficient number was reserved to garrison
the fortresses and to furnish detachments which were to scour the
country and hunt down such Moriscoes as still held out in the mountains.
As Requesens was to take part in the expedition against the Ottomans,
the office of captain-general was placed in the hands of the valiant
duke of Arcos. On the twenty-ninth of November, Don John, having
completed his preparations, quitted Granada and set forth on his
journey to Madrid, where the popular chieftain was welcomed with
enthusiasm by the citizens, as a conqueror returned from a victorious
campaign. By Philip and his newly-married bride, Anne of Austria, he was
no less kindly greeted; and it was not long before the king gave a
substantial proof of his contentment with his brother, by placing in his
hands the baton, offered by the allies, of generalissimo in the war
against the Turks.
There was still one Morisco insurgent who refused to submit, and who had
hitherto eluded every attempt to capture him, but whose capture was of
more importance than that of any other of his nation. This was
Aben-Aboo, the "little king" of the Alpujarras. His force of five
thousand men had dwindled to scarcely more than four hundred. But they
were men devoted to his person, and seemed prepared to endure every
extremity rather than surrender. Like the rest of his nation, the
Morisco chief took refuge in the mountain caves, in such remote and
inaccessible districts as had hitherto baffled every attempt to detect
his retreat. In March, 1571, an opportunity presented itself for making
the discovery.
Granada was at this time the scene of almost daily executions. As the
miserable insurgents were taken, they were brought before Deza's
tribunal, where they were at once sentenced by the inexorable president
to the galleys or the gibbet, or the more horrible doom of being torn in
pieces with red-hot pincers. Among the prisoners sentenced to death, was
one Zatahari, who was so fortunate as to obtain a respite of his
punishment at the intercession of a goldsmith named Barredo, a person of
much consideration in Granada. From gratitude for this service, or
perhaps as the price of it, Zatahari made some important revelations to
his benefactor respecting Aben-Aboo. He disclosed the place of his
retirement and the number of his followers, adding, that the two persons
on whom he most relied were his secretary, Abou-Amer, and a Moorish
captain named El Senix. The former of these persons was known to
Barredo, who, in the course of his business, had frequent occasion to
make journeys into the Alpujarras. He resolved to open a correspondence
with the secretary, and, if possible, win him over to the Spanish
interests. Zatahari consented to bear the letter, on condition of a
pardon. This was readily granted by the president, who approved the
plan, and who authorized the most liberal promises to Abou-Amer in case
of his co-operation with Barredo.
Unfortunately--or, rather, fortunately for Zatahari, as it proved,--he
was intercepted by El Senix, who, getting possession of the letter,
carried it to Abou-Amer. The loyal secretary was outraged by this
attempt to corrupt him. He would have put the messenger to death, had
not El Senix represented that the poor wretch had undertaken the mission
only to save his life.
Privately the Moorish captain assured the messenger that Barredo should
have sought a conference with him, as he was ready to enter into
negotiations with the Christians. In fact, El Senix had a grudge against
his master, and had already made an attempt to leave his service and
escape to Barbary.
A place of meeting was accordingly appointed in the Alpujarras, to which
Barredo secretly repaired. El Senix was furnished with an assurance,
under the president's own hand, of a pardon for himself and his friends,
and of an annual pension of a hundred thousand maravedis, in case he
should bring Aben-Aboo, dead or alive, to Granada.
The interview could not be conducted so secretly but that an intimation
of it reached the ears of Aben-Aboo, who resolved to repair at once to
the quarters of El Senix, and ascertain the truth for himself. That
chief had secreted himself in a cabin in the neighbourhood. Aben-Aboo
took with him his faithful secretary and a small body of soldiers. On
reaching the cave, he left his followers without, and, placing two men
at the entrance, he, with less prudence than was usual with him, passed
alone into the interior.
There he found El Senix, surrounded by several of his friends and
kinsmen. Aben-Aboo, in a peremptory tone, charged him with having held
a secret correspondence with the enemy, and demanded the object of his
late interview with Barredo. Senix did not attempt to deny the charge,
but explained his motives by saying that he had been prompted only by a
desire to serve his master. He had succeeded so well, he said, as to
obtain from the president an assurance that, if the Morisco would lay
down his arms, he should receive an amnesty for the past, and a liberal
provision for the future.
Aben-Aboo listened scornfully to this explanation; then, muttering the
word, "Treachery!" he turned on his heel, and moved towards the mouth of
the cave, where he had left his soldiers, intending probably to command
the arrest of his perfidious officer. But he had not given them, it
appears, any intimation of the hostile object of his visit to El Senix;
and the men, supposing it to be on some matter of ordinary business, had
left the spot to see some of their friends in the neighbourhood. El
Senix saw that no time was to be lost. On a signal which he gave, his
followers attacked the two guards at the door, one of whom was killed on
the spot, while the other made his escape. They then all fell upon the
unfortunate Aben-Aboo. He made a desperate defence. But though the
struggle was fierce, the odds were too great for it to be long. It was
soon terminated by the dastard Senix coming behind his master, and with
the butt-end of his musket dealing him a blow on the back, of his head
that brought him to the ground, where he was quickly despatched by a
multitude of wounds.[278]
The corpse was thrown out of the cavern. His followers, soon learning
their master's fate, dispersed in different directions. The faithful
secretary fell shortly after into the hands of the Spaniards, who, with
their usual humanity in this war, caused him to be drawn and quartered.
The body of Aben-Aboo was transported to the neighbourhood of Granada,
where preparations were made for giving the dead chief a public entrance
into the city, as if he had been still alive. The corpse was set astride
on a mule, and supported erect in the saddle by a wooden frame, which
was concealed beneath ample robes. On one side of the body rode Barredo;
on the other, El Senix, bearing the scimitar and arquebuse of his
murdered master. Then followed the kinsmen and friends of the Morisco
prince, with their arms by their side. A regiment of Castilian infantry
and a troop of horse brought up the rear. As the procession defiled
along the street of Zacatin, it was saluted by salvoes of musketry,
accompanied by peals of artillery from the ancient towers of the
Alhambra, while the population of Granada, with eager though silent
curiosity, hurried out to gaze on the strange and ghastly spectacle.
In this way the company reached the great square of Vivarambla, where
were assembled the president, the duke of Arcos, and the principal
cavaliers and magistrates of the city. On coming into their presence, El
Senix dismounted, and, kneeling before Deza, delivered to him the arms
of Aben-Aboo. He was graciously received by the president, who confirmed
the assurance which had been given him of the royal favour. The
miserable ceremony of public execution was then gone through with. The
head of the dead man was struck off. His body was given to the boys of
the city, who, after dragging it through the streets with scoffs and
imprecations, committed it to the flames. Such was one of the lessons by
which the Spaniards early stamped on the minds of their children an
indelible hatred of the Morisco.
[Sidenote: CHARACTER OF ABEN-ABOO.]
The head of Aben-Aboo, enclosed in a cage, was set up over the gate
which opened on the Alpujarras. There, with the face turned towards his
native hills, which he had loved so well, and which had witnessed his
brief and disastrous reign, it remained for many a year. None ventured,
by removing it, to incur the doom which an inscription on the cage
denounced on the offender: "This is the head of the traitor Aben-Aboo.
Let no one take it down, under penalty of death."[279]
Such was the sad end of Aben-Aboo, the last of the royal line of the
Omeyades who ever ruled in the Peninsula. Had he lived in the peaceful
and prosperous times of the Arabian empire in Spain, he might have
swayed the sceptre with as much renown as the best of his dynasty.
Though the blood of the Moor flowed in his veins, he seems to have been
remarkably free from some of the greatest defects in the Moorish
character. He was temperate in his appetites, presenting in this respect
a contrast to the gross sensuality of his predecessor. He had a lofty
spirit, was cool and circumspect in his judgments, and, if he could not
boast that fiery energy of character which belonged to some of his
house, he had a firmness of purpose not to be intimidated by suffering
or danger. Of this he gave signal proof when, as the reader may
remember, the most inhuman tortures could not extort from him the
disclosure of the lurking-place of his friends.[280] His qualities, as I
have intimated, were such as peculiarly adapted him to a time of
prosperity and peace. Unhappily, he had fallen upon evil times, when his
country lay a wreck at his feet; when the people, depressed by long
servitude, were broken down by the recent calamities of war; when, in
short, it would not have been possible for the wisest and most warlike
of his predecessors to animate them to a successful resistance against
odds so overwhelming as those presented by the Spanish monarchy in the
zenith of its power.
The Castilian chroniclers have endeavoured to fix a deep stain on his
memory, by charging him with the murder of El Habaqui, and with the
refusal to execute the treaty to which he had given his sanction. But,
in criticising the conduct of Aben-Aboo, we must not forget the race
from which he sprung, or the nature of its institutions. He was a
despot, and a despot of the Oriental type. He was placed in a
situation--much against his will, it may be added--which gave him
absolute control over the lives and fortunes of his people. His word was
their law. He passed the sentence, and enforced its execution. El
Habaqui he adjudged to be a traitor; and, in sentencing him to the
bowstring, he inflicted on him only a traitor's doom.
With regard to the treaty, he spoke of himself as betrayed, saying that
its provisions were not such as he had intended. And when we consider
that the instrument was written in the Spanish tongue; that it was
drafted by a Spaniard; finally, that the principal Morisco agent who
subscribed the treaty was altogether in the Spanish interest, as the
favours heaped on him without measure too plainly proved, it can hardly
be doubted that there were good grounds for the assertion of Aben-Aboo.
From the hour of his accession, he seems to have devoted himself to the
great work of securing the independence of his people. He could scarcely
have agreed to a treaty which was to leave that people in even a worse
state than before the rebellion. From what we know of his character, we
may more reasonably conclude that he was sincere when he told the
Spanish envoy, Palacios, who had come to press the execution of the
treaty, and to remind him of the royal promises of grace, that "his
people might do as they listed, but, for himself, he would rather live
and die a Mussulman than possess all the favours which the king of Spain
could heap on him." His deeds corresponded with his words; and,
desperate as was his condition, he still continued to bid defiance to
the Spanish government, until he was cut off by the hand of a traitor.
The death of Aben-Aboo severed the last bond which held the remnant of
the Moriscoes together. In a few years the sword, famine, and the
gallows had exterminated the outcasts who still lurked in the fastnesses
of the mountains. Their places were gradually occupied by Christians,
drawn thither by the favourable terms which the government offered to
settlers. But it was long before the wasted and famine-stricken
territory could make a suitable return to the labours of the colonists.
They were ignorant of the country, and were altogether deficient in the
agricultural skill necessary for turning its unpromising places to the
best account. The Spaniard, adventurous as he was, and reckless of
danger and difficulty in the pursuit of gain, was impatient of the
humble drudgery required for the tillage of the soil; and many a valley
and hill-side which, under the Moriscoes, had bloomed with all the rich
embroidery of cultivation, now relapsed into its primitive barrenness.
The exiles carried their superior skill and industry into the various
provinces where they were sent. Scattered as they were, and wide apart,
the presence of the Moriscoes was sure to be revealed by the more minute
and elaborate culture of the soil, as the secret course of the
mountain-stream is betrayed by the brighter green of the meadow. With
their skill in husbandry they combined a familiarity with various kinds
of handicraft, especially those requiring dexterity and fineness of
execution, that was unknown to the Spaniards. As the natural result of
this superiority, the products of their labour were more abundant, and
could be afforded at a cheaper rate than those of their neighbours. Yet
this industry was exerted under every disadvantage which a most cruel
legislation could impose on it. It would be hard to find in the pages of
history a more flagrant example of the oppression of a conquered race,
than that afforded by the laws of this period in reference to the
Moriscoes. The odious law of 1566, which led to the insurrection, was
put in full force. By this the national songs and dances, the peculiar
baths of the Moriscoes, the _fetes_ and ceremonies which had come down
to them from their ancestors, were interdicted under heavy penalties. By
another ordinance, dated October 6, 1572, still more cruel and absurd,
they were forbidden to speak or to write the Arabic, under penalty of
thirty days' imprisonment in irons for the first offence, double that
term for the second, and for the third a hundred lashes and four years'
confinement in the galleys. By another monstrous provision in the same
edict, whoever read, or even had in his possession, a work written or
printed in the Arabic, was to be punished with a hundred stripes and
four years in the galleys. Any contract or public instrument made in
that tongue was to be void, and the parties to it were condemned to
receive two hundred lashes and to tug at the oar for six years.[281]
[Sidenote: FORTUNES OF THE MORISCOES.]
But the most oppressive part of this terrible ordinance related to the
residence of the Moriscoes. No one was allowed to change his abode, or
to leave the parish or district assigned to him, without permission from
the regular authorities. Whoever did so, and was apprehended beyond
these limits, was to be punished with a hundred lashes and four years'
imprisonment in the galleys. Should he be found within ten leagues of
Granada, he was condemned, if between ten and seventeen years of age, to
toil as a galley-slave the rest of his days; if above seventeen, he was
sentenced to death![282] On the escape of a Morisco from his limits, the
hue and cry was to be raised, as for the pursuit of a criminal. Even his
own family were required to report his absence to the magistrate; and
in case of their failure to do this, although it should be his wife or
his children, says the law, they incurred the penalty of a whipping and
a month's imprisonment in the common gaol.[283]
Yet, in the face of these atrocious enactments, we find the Moriscoes
occasionally making their escape into the province of Valencia, where
numbers of their countrymen were living as serfs on the estates of the
great nobles, under whose powerful protection they enjoyed a degree of
comfort, if not of independence, unknown to their race in other parts of
the country. Some few, also, finding their way to the coast, succeeded
in crossing the sea to Barbary. The very severity of the law served in
some measure to defeat its execution. Indeed, Philip, in more than one
instance in which he deemed that the edicts pressed too heavily on his
Moorish vassals, judged it expedient to mitigate the penalty, or even to
dispense with it altogether,--an act of leniency which seems to have
found little favour with his Castilian subjects.[284]
Yet, strange to say, under this iron system, the spirit of the
Moriscoes, which had been crushed by their long sufferings in the war of
the rebellion, gradually rose again as they found a shelter in their new
homes, and resumed their former habits of quiet industry. Though
deprived of their customary amusements, their _fetes_, their songs, and
their dances,--though debarred from the use of the language which they
had lisped from the cradle, which embodied their national traditions,
and was associated with their fondest recollections,--they were said to
be cheerful, and even gay. They lived to a good age, and examples of
longevity were found among them, to which it was not easy to find a
parallel among the Spaniards. The Moorish stock, like the Jewish, seems
to have thriven under persecution.[285]
One would be glad to find any authentic data for an account of the
actual population at the time of their expulsion from Granada. But I
have met with none. They must have been sorely thinned by the war of the
insurrection and the countless woes it brought upon the country. One
fact is mentioned by the chroniclers, which shows that the number of the
exiles must have been very considerable. The small remnant still left in
Granada, with its lovely _vega_ and the valley of Lecrin, alone
furnished, we are told, over six thousand.[286] In the places to which
they were transported they continued to multiply to such an extent that
the Cortes of Castile, in the latter part of the century, petitioned the
king not to allow the census to be taken, lest it might disclose to the
Moriscoes the alarming secret of their increase of numbers.[287] Such a
petition shows, as strongly as language can show, the terror in which
the Spaniards still stood of this persecuted race.
Yet the Moriscoes were scattered over the country in small and isolated
masses, hemmed in all around by the Spaniards. They were transplanted to
the interior, where, at a distance from the coast, they had no means of
communicating with their brethren of Africa. They were without weapons
of any kind; and, confined to their several districts, they had not the
power of acting in concert together. There would seem to have been
little to fear from a people so situated. But the weakest individual,
who feels that his wrongs are too great to be forgiven, may well become
an object of dread to the person who has wronged him.
The course of the government in reference to the Moriscoes was clearly a
failure. It was as impolitic as it was barbarous. Nothing but the
blindest fanaticism could have prevented the Spaniards from perceiving
this. The object of the government had been to destroy every vestige of
nationality in the conquered race. They were compelled to repudiate
their ancient usages, their festivals, their religion, their
language,--all that gave them a separate existence as a nation. But this
served only to strengthen in secret the sentiment of nationality. They
were to be divorced for ever from the past. But it was the mistake of
the government that it opened to them no future. Having destroyed their
independence as a nation, it should have offered them the rights of
citizenship, and raised them to an equality with the rest of the
community. Such was the policy of ancient Rome towards the nations which
she conquered; and such has been that of our own country towards the
countless emigrants who have thronged to our shores from so many distant
lands. The Moriscoes, on the contrary, under the policy of Spain, were
condemned to exist as foreigners in the country,--as enemies in the
midst of the community into which they were thrown. Experience had
taught them prudence and dissimulation; and in all outward observances
they conformed to the exactions of the law. But in secret they were as
much attached to their national institutions as were their ancestors
when the caliphs of Cordova ruled over half the Peninsula. The
Inquisition rarely gleaned an apostate from among them to swell the
horrors of an _auto da fe_; but whoever recalls the facility with which,
in the late rebellion, the whole population had relapsed into their
ancient faith, will hardly doubt that they must have still continued to
be Mahometans at heart.
Thus the gulf which separated the two races grew wider and wider every
day. The Moriscoes hated the Spaniards for the wrongs which they had
received from them. The Spaniards hated the Moriscoes the more, that
they had themselves inflicted these wrongs. Their hatred was further
embittered by the feeling of jealousy caused by the successful
competition of their rivals in the various pursuits of gain,--a
circumstance which forms a fruitful theme of complaint in the petition
of the Cortes above noticed.[288] The feeling of hate became in time
mingled with that of fear, as the Moriscoes increased in opulence and
numbers; and men are not apt to be over scrupulous in their policy
towards those whom they both hate and fear.
With these evil passions rankling in their bosoms, the Spaniards were
gradually prepared for the consummation of their long train of
persecutions by that last act, reserved for the reign of the imbecile
Philip the Third,--the expulsion of the Moriscoes from the
Peninsula,--an act which deprived Spain of the most industrious and
ingenious portion of her population, and which must be regarded as one
of the principal causes of the subsequent decline of the monarchy.
[Sidenote: MARMOL--CIRCOURT.]
An historian less renowned than Mendoza, but of more importance to
one who would acquaint himself with the story of the Morisco
rebellion, is Luis del Marmol Carbajal. Little is known of him but
what is to be gathered from brief notices of himself in his works.
He was a native of Granada, but we are not informed of the date of
his birth. He was of a good family, and followed the profession of
arms. When a mere youth, as he tells us, he was present at the
famous siege of Tunis, in 1535. He continued in the imperial
service two-and-twenty years. Seven years he was a captive, and
followed the victorious banner of Mohammed, Scherif of Morocco, in
his campaigns in the west of Africa. His various fortunes and his
long residence in different parts of the African continent,
especially in Barbary and Egypt, supplied him with abundant
information in respect to the subjects of his historical inquiries;
and, as he knew the Arabic, he made himself acquainted with such
facts as were to be gleaned from books in that language. The fruits
of his study and observation he gave to the world in his
"_Descripcion General de Africa_," a work in three volumes folio,
the first part of which appeared at Granada in 1573. The remainder
was not published till the close of the century.
The book obtained a high reputation for its author, who was much
commended for the fidelity and diligence with which he had pushed
his researches in a field of letters into which the European
scholar had as yet rarely ventured to penetrate.
In the year 1600 appeared, at Malaga, his second work, the
"_Historia del Rebelion y Castigo de los Moriscos del Reyno de
Granada_," in one volume, folio. For the composition of this
history the author was admirably qualified, not only by his
familiarity with all that related to the character and condition of
the Moriscoes, but by the part which he had personally taken in the
war of the insurrection. He held the office of commissary in the
royal army, and served in that capacity from the commencement of
the war to its close. In the warm colouring of the narrative, and
in the minuteness of its details, we feel that we are reading the
report of one who has himself beheld the scenes which he describes.
Indeed, the interest which, as an actor, he naturally takes in the
operations of the war, leads to an amount of detail which may well
be condemned as a blemish by those who do not feel a similar
interest in the particulars of the struggle. But if his style have
somewhat of the rambling, discursive manner of the old Castilian
chronicler, it has a certain elegance in the execution, which
brings it much nearer to the standard of a classic author. Far from
being chargeable with the obscurity of Mendoza, Marmol is
uncommonly perspicuous. With a general facility of expression, his
language takes the varied character suited to the theme, sometimes
kindled into eloquence and occasionally softened into pathos, for
which the melancholy character of his story afforded too many
occasions. Though loyal to his country and his faith, yet he shows
but few gleams of the fiery intolerance that belonged to his
nation, and especially to that portion of it which came into
collision with the Moslems. Indeed, in more than one passage of his
work we may discern gleams of that Christian charity which, in
Castile was the rarest, as it was, unhappily, the least precious of
virtues, in the age in which he lived.
In the extensive plan adopted by Marmol, his history of the
rebellion embraces a preliminary notice of the conquest of Granada,
and of that cruel policy of the conquerors which led to the
insurrection. The narrative, thus complete, supplied a most
important hiatus in the annals of the country. Yet notwithstanding
its importance in this view, and its acknowledged merit as a
literary composition, such was the indifference of the Spaniards to
their national history, that it was not till the close of the last
century, in 1797, that a second edition of Marmol's work was
permitted to appear. This was in two volumes, octavo, from the
press of Sancha, at Madrid,--the edition used in the preparation of
these pages.
The most comprehensive, and by far the most able history of the
Moors of Spain with which I am acquainted, is that of the Count
Albert de Circourt,--"_Histoire des Arabes en Espagne_." Beginning
with the beginning, the author opens his narrative with the
conquest of the Peninsula by the Moslems. He paints in glowing
colours the magnificent empire of the Spanish caliphs. He dwells
with sufficient minuteness on those interminable feuds which,
growing out of a diversity of races and tribes, baffled every
attempt at a permanent consolidation under one government. Then
comes the famous war of Granada, with the conquest of the country
by the "Catholic Kings;" and the work closes with the sad tale of
the subsequent fortunes of the conquered races until their final
expulsion from the Peninsula. Thus the rapidly shifting scenes of
this most picturesque drama, sketched by a master's hand, are
brought in regular succession before the eye of the reader.
In conducting his long story, the author, far from confining
himself to a dry record of events, diligently explores the causes
of these events. He scrutinizes with care every inch of debateable
ground which lies in his path. He enriches his narrative with
copious disquisitions on the condition of the arts, and the
progress made by the Spanish Arabs in science and letters; thus
presenting a complete view of that peculiar civilization which so
curiously blended together the characteristic elements of European
and Oriental culture.
If, in pursuing his speculations, M. de Circourt may be sometimes
thought to refine too much, it cannot be denied that they are
distinguished by candour and by a philosophical spirit. Even when
we may differ from his conclusions, we must allow that they are the
result of careful study, and display an independent way of
thinking. I may regret that in one important instance--the policy
of the government of Ferdinand and Isabella--he should have been
led to dissent from the opinions which I had expressed in my
history of those sovereigns. It is possible that the predilection
which the writer, whether historian or novelist, naturally feels
for his hero when his conduct affords any ground for it, may have
sometimes seduced me from the strict line of impartiality in my
estimate of character and motives of action. I see, however, no
reason to change the conclusions at which I had arrived after a
careful study of the subject. Yet I cannot deny that the labours of
the French historian have shed a light upon more than one obscure
passage in the administration of Ferdinand and Isabella, for which
the student of Spanish history owes him a debt of gratitude.