The foundations for the Morisco community of Seville were laid at the opening of the sixteenth century. Between 1502 and 1505 the Sevillian Moslems (Mudéjares) were converted, their mosque turned into a Christian church, and their ancient morería disbanded. In the Middle Ages these native Moslems had been confined to their own walled quarter known as the Adarvejo, located in the southeastern portion of the city. ⁽¹⁾ In 1483 the city fathers, anxious to open more land in a central part of town and to make the Moslems less conspicuous, moved them to the outlying parish of San Marcos. But the old Adarvejo continued to exist, and so there were in effect two morerías in Seville during the last years of the fifteenth century. The new converts, known as Moriscos, were free to live in any area of the city, but the two former morerías, especially San Marcos, continued to attract them throughout the century.

While these native Moriscos formed the nucleus of the Morisco community of Seville, in the second half of the sixteenth century they were far outnumbered by refugees [155] from Granada. The unsuccessful Alpujarras Rebellion (1568-1570) resulted in the dispersal of the Granadine Moriscos throughout Castile, with New Castile, La Mancha, and Andalusia receiving large numbers. Within these areas the Moriscos gravitated toward the towns where there were greater opportunities for work and anonymity. Seville with its large population and highly transient society served as a natural magnet to them. The 1570's and 1580's saw a steady influx of Granadine Moriscos into the city where by the last years of the century they became the dominant Morisco element.

Sources for a study of the Moriscos in Seville are relatively few, and they tend to be hostilely prejudiced. Fortunately, our knowledge of this important urban minorityhas been increased by the discovery in the Sevillian Municipal Archves of a census of Granadine Moriscos that apparently escaped the attention of past historians and was not utilized up to this time. ⁽²⁾ This account was compiled in 1580 after the abortive Morisco conspiracy of that year and was part of a larger effort by Sevillian authorities to place the Moriscos under stricter controls. Although much of this document has been lost, figures for five parishes are complete. Regardless of its fragmentary character, it provides valuable information about the Moriscos of Seville in the last quarter of the sixteenth century.

The extant parts of the census of 1580 contain the names, ages, marital status, and physical descriptions of all Granadine [156] Moriscos residing in the parishes of San Ildefonso, San Pedro, San Marcos, San Andrés, and San Gil. This information was obtained by means of a street-by-street, houseby-house count in a door-to-door canvass of households by specially appointed officials under the supervision of the common councilmen of each parish. Most of the census takers carefully listed all the required data, but some were careless. In San Ildefonso, for example, the ages of women and children were often omitted, and several people were listed twice, although they were only counted once. Official totals are given for San Gil, San Andrés, and San Ildefonso. Statistics for San Marcos have been deduced by a direct count, but the deteriorated character of the document regarding San Pedro makes it impossible to obtain more than approximate figures.

There were, then, according to the census of 1580, some 812 Moriscos in the five parishes under study, out of a total Morisco population of over six thousand. ⁽³⁾ Only a small percentage of this number were slaves, for the overwhelming majority of Sevillian Moriscos were free. In general, females outnumbered males, but when the slave and free Moriscos are considered as separate groups, the pattern changes. Among the free Moriscos, males had a slight edge on females, while the reverse was true for slaves. The typical free Morisco was a male between the ages of twenty and forty, and the majority, male and female, were over twenty and under sixty years of age. There were more males than females in the forty-to-sixty age group, and many of them were married to females between the ages [157] of twenty and forty. Married people predominate. The few single individuals were usually male and under twenty-five years of age. Widowers were rare (only two are mentioned), but widows with small children were common.

Most striking is the large proportion of children under five years of age, in contrast to the smaller number of older children and young adults. Crude birth rates in this period were high, but life expectancy at birth was very low. The same is true at the other end of the scale; there were few people over sixty years of age and only one mention of a really old person -- a man of ninety years. Among a group that lived at subsistence level like the Moriscos, disease and malnutrition wiped out substantial numbers each year, especially the old and the young. In times of plague the demographic losses must have been disastrous so that without a high birth rate the Moriscos could not have survived. But it does not appear that they were any more prolific than the rest of the population, although contemporary opinion held this to be true. ⁽⁴⁾ The census of 1580 gives an average of two children per Morisco family, and in some parishes where there were numerous slaves it was lower. There were only 18 families out of a total of 121 in the four parishes of San Ildefonso, San Andrés, San Marcos, and San Gil who had three children and just 5 with four children. There was not one example of a family with more than four children. ⁽⁵⁾

[158] Clearly the difference between the Moriscos and the Old Christians was not in the number of children born to either group, but rather in the career orientation of their offspring. In Old Christian families a substantial number of the surviving children remained celibate; they entered the church or remained single for lack of a dowry or some other reason. Some emigrated to the New World and others served in the armed forces, where they lost their lives early. The Moriscos did not go into the army or the church. The majority married at a young age, so that in the long run they had a demographic advantage over the Old Christians. ⁽⁶⁾

The living habits of the Moriscos also contributed to the widely held contention that they bred more rapidly than others. In Seville most Moriscos lived in substandard housing -- tenement-like dwellings (casas de vecindad) and rooming houses located in the corrales (back yards) scattered throughout the poorer sections of the city. Crowded conditions typical of ghetto existence prevailed, with many people living together in narrow and inhospitable quarters. In the parishes of San Gil and San Marcos an average of from 15 to 20 Moriscos lived in a single dwelling. One [159] house on the Calle de Parras in San Gil contained 20 people, 9 of whom were children. Since 8 of these children were under five years of age, it is not surprising that popular opinion, sharpened by economic rivalry and intolerance, held that the Moriscos multiplied faster than the rest of the population.

Group solidarity among the Moriscos was very strong, as shown by their communal living patterns and their practice of endogamic marriages. There are only three instances of mixed marriage in the census of 1580, and in each case the man was an Old Christian and the wife a Morisco, an arrangement that seems to have been more frequent than the reverse. ⁽⁷⁾ Two of these couples lived in the same house in the parish of San Gil, and both men bore the same name, indicating a family relationship. All three couples were in the twenty-to-thirty age group and lived in dwellings occupied by several other Morisco families. The refusal of the Moriscos to marry outside their numbers was one of the sources of contention between them and the Old Christians. It was alleged that they used intermarriage to preserve Moslem rites and practices and to prevent any real religious assimilation. This opinion appears in most of the official documents of the period, and available evidence seems to verify it. ⁽⁸⁾

[160] The majority of the Moriscos in Seville were poor and unskilled; the popular stereotype of the "rich and avaricious Morisco" has little basis in reality. ⁽⁹⁾ Some of them were employed as domestic servants; others worked in the huertas (orchards) and hornos (baking establishments) in and around the city, where they performed unskilled and semiskilled tasks. Gardening was one of their favorite occupations, and there are frequent references to "Morisco gardeners" in the literature of the period. In the hornos they kneaded the bread and mixed the ingredients, and there is also indication that some did the actual baking. The vast majority of Moriscos earned their living as stevedores, carriers, and occasional farm laborers. ⁽¹⁰⁾ In the parish of San Gil, for example, quite a few young men were engaged in seasonal agricultural labor -- carting and reaping in the surrounding countryside -- and in temporary construction projects.

There were also Morisco tenderos (small retail tradesmen) who peddled food products such as bread, oil, fruits, and vegetables through the city streets or set up temporary stands in the market places of the outlying parishes. Other typical Morisco businessmen were the buñoleros (fritter [161] sellers) who, along with the Morisco women who sold buttercakes, roasted chestnuts, and sweets, were a common sight on the streets of Seville ⁽¹¹⁾ None of these occupations was very remunerative, but the fact that the Moriscos managed to make a living from them at all aroused popular indignation and resentment. They were accused of cornering the market in vital supplies and charging higher prices for goods than they were worth. Since they were basically parsimonious, they were able to survive and even prosper, but supposedly at the expense of the Old Christians. ⁽¹²⁾ Jealousy of the success of the Moriscos, sharpened by religious intolerance and fear, made them objects of popular hatred.

Although the census of 1580 does not mention any Moriscos as skilled artisans, some of them were. Other sources indicate that some Granadine Moriscos worked in the ceramic industry in Triana; others fashioned objects out of hemp and esparto grass, including the popular alpargates (hempen sandals). ⁽¹³⁾ Nevertheless, it seems that the majority of skilled workers were native rather than Granadine Moriscos. The basic picture of the Granadine Moriscos in Seville remains one of an impoverished, unskilled people whose standard of living was lower than that of the Old [162] Christians and whose very survival under such adverse conditions was both puzzling and insulting to most Spaniards.

Despite their feelings of group consciousness, the Moriscos conformed outwardly to Sevillian life. In daily life they mingled freely with the Old Christians in a way that surprised many contemporaries, like the Marquis of San Germán, who in 1609 remarked that "they were very well mixed (mezclados) with the Old Christians." ⁽¹⁴⁾ But this apparent integration was deceiving, for the Moriscos were indeed different. They retained their own language (algarabía) and such traditional customs as abstention from pork and wine that set them apart from the rest of the population. Finally, in what to most Spaniards was the basic fact of existence -- their faith -- the Moriscos remained unconvinced. In 1588 a Sevillian official, Alonso Gutiérrez, claimed that they were real Moslems like those in North Africa and that they exercised the Christian religion only when forced and for purposes of subterfuge. ⁽¹⁵⁾ In the last analysis, their religion made the Moriscos different from other Spaniards. There was no room in Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries for Spaniards of different faiths. Spanishness was equivalent to Catholicism, and since the Moriscos seemingly refused to accept Christianity, they remained unassimilated.

[163] At the opening of the seventeenth century the structure and composition of the Morisco community of Seville had not changed substantially since the 1580's. Even the population had grown little, for in 1609 there were a total of 7,503 Moriscos in the city, just 848 more than twenty years before. ⁽¹⁶⁾ The Morisco population, like that of Seville in general, reached its height in the 1580's and then leveled off in the 1590's. The plague of 1599-1607 must have attacked the Moriscos with great fury due to the crowded and unsanitary conditions under which they lived. This epidemic especially ravaged Triana and several other districts in which they were congregated, and it must have so decisively reduced their numbers that they had not recovered by 1609.

Triana, the second largest Sevillian district, contained in 1609 the greatest concentration of Moriscos in the city, some 2,779, or roughly 29 percent of their total number in Seville. Unfortunately, statistics are lacking for Triana in 1580, but other sources indicate that a similar concentration existed there in the sixteenth century. In 1580, for example, sailors from the Sicilian fleet, which had been anchored in the Guadalquivir off Triana, invaded the quarter, attacking the Moriscos, and carrying many of them off as galley slaves. The Sevillian authorities, angered and shocked by this incident and fearful of its consequences for public order, decreed the immediate freeing of the Moriscos [164] and the restoration of their property. Furthermore, they wrote a detailed account of the episode to Philip II, who eventually directed the commander of the fleet to comply with the orders of the Seville city council. ⁽¹⁷⁾

Outside of Triana, the second largest contingent of Moriscos lived in the parish of San Lorenzo (603), followed by San Julián (547), Omnium Sanctorum (537) and Santa María (492). With the exception of Santa María (the business section of the city), all were periphery parishes whose total population increased enormously in the second half of the sixteenth century. These four parishes and Triana contained 67 percent of all the Moriscos in Seville in 1609. The remaining 33 percent were distributed throughout the poorer parishes in groups of from 200 to 400 each with the largest contingents in the parishes of San Gil and Santa Marina.

The separateness and distinct existence of the Moriscos in Seville was of grave concern to both municipal and ecclesiastical authorities, who realized that under such conditions assimilation would be difficult, even impossible. Attempts were made by the city government to break the inner coherence of the Morisco community through legislation, for example, prohibiting the cohabitation of more than a specific number of Moriscos in one building or in certain city districts and by strictly enforcing existing royal decree against the practice of Moslem customs. These regulations were also aimed at combating crime in areas of Morisco concentration where it apparently flourished. The reports of the common councilmen (jurados) during the second [165] half of the sixteenth century contain frequent references to Morisco outlaw bands that terrorized their own sections and were responsible for countless crimes of violence -- murder, robbery, and assault -- all over the city and surrounding countryside. ⁽¹⁸⁾ But the municipality lacked the men and resources to enforce effectively its laws, and as a result its efforts were in vain.

The church did not follow a consistent policy toward the Moriscos; they were alternately ignored due to apathy and persecuted with vigor. Sizable numbers of them could be found at every auto de fe held in Seville during this period. It was generally agreed that most Moriscos were ignorant of the basic tenets of the Catholic faith and that a program of indoctrination was badly needed, but while much was said, little was done until 1604. In that year Archbishop Niño de Guevara assigned special priests to teach the Moriscos and to guide their religious life, but it was too late to overcome the barrier of hatred and indifference created by years of neglect and intolerance. ⁽¹⁹⁾

The resistance of the Moriscos to assimilation was but one part of the total problem; of equal importance was what the city fathers believed to be the security problems arising from their presence and numbers. It was feared that such conditions would ultimately lead to a Morisco rebellion, [166] aided by the Turks and Barbary pirates who, it was assumed (and with sufficient evidence), were in contact with the Moriscos. In 1580 the worst fears of the city government became a reality when a Morisco conspiracy abetting invasion from North Africa was uncovered. The leader of this abortive revolt was Fernando Enríquez, also known as Fernando Muley, who is described in the documents as "a clever man of medium height, with dark hair and slightly bald, whose polished speech and manner belied his Morisco origin." ⁽²⁰⁾ Enríquez held numerous secret meetings in his home attended by Moriscos from Cordova, Ecija, and other towns. According to the official accounts in the Sevillian Archives, the plotters expected to seize Seville and several neighboring cities and then to extend their control over the rest of Andalusia with the aid of the North Africans and Turks. In case of failure they planned to escape to Portugal or to the mountains around Granada, from where they could eventually make their way to North Africa. After the discovery of the plot, Enríquez and several of his associates tried to flee, but were quickly apprehended and punished. ⁽²¹⁾ Although nothing more serious than stricter police regulations for the Moriscos resulted from this event, it inflamed public opinion and convinced most Sevillians that the Moriscos did indeed harbor treasonable intentions.

The possibility of a Morisco insurrection continued to obsess Sevillian governing authorities in the 1590's. The [167] English attack on Cadiz in 1596 created a new crisis. When the news of this event reached Seville, the city fathers took immediate steps to prepare the city against what they believed was an imminent Morisco uprising in collusion with the English. A curfew was established for Moriscos, and armed men were stationed in the districts where they were concentrated. ⁽²²⁾ Two years later, with the threat of another English attack and Morisco collaboration with the enemy still present, the city council seriously considered a plan to draft all able-bodied Moriscos into the army and to force the whole Morisco population of Seville to wear some kind of identifying badge, but these proposals were shelved in face of royal opposition. ⁽²³⁾

In 1600 tensions were again brought to the breaking point when rumors circulated through the city that the Moriscos in Triana were ready to rise up in a coordinated effort with those of Cordova and that both groups had assurances of English aid. If this incident passed quickly and peacefully, it was only because several well-known Moriscos, led by a certain García Montano, succeeded in convincing the city council that there were no foundations to the rumors. ⁽²⁴⁾ By this time, however, many prominent Sevillians began to insist that the Moriscos' movements should be restricted along the lines of the proposals of 1589. In 1600 the Marquis of Montesclaros, Asistente of Seville, wrote the king that many responsible people in Seville favored the drafting of the Moriscos as a means of controlling [168] them and also of filling the Sevillian quotas, but that he did not agree with this idea. He suggested instead that their wealth should be tapped, and he presented a plan to accomplish this through dissimilation. He proposed to ask the Moriscos to contribute a contingent of men for the army, knowing full well that they would refuse and offer money instead. The suggestions of Montesclaros were avidly accepted by Philip III, who in August 1601 gave him permission to effect his plan. At the same time the king reiterated his position that he was interested in "the money not the person of the Moriscos" and that since it was not feasible to use them in the army, they should be made to support it financially, especially if the money would be used to equip the Sevillian levies. ⁽²⁵⁾ But just a few years later, not even the Moriscos' money could influence the king and his advisers to reverse what they believed was the only solution to the problem of a potentially treasonous and unassimilated minority -- their expulsion from Spain.

The great exodus from Seville began in January 1610, when all Moriscos, except slaves who were excluded from the expulsion decree, were given twenty days to arrange their affairs and leave the country. As far as we know, some 7,503 Moriscos left Seville at this time, although a few of the more prosperous had abandoned the city earlier. Padre Bleda reported seeing a large group of Sevillian Moriscos in Narbonne (France) much before the expulsion decree. ⁽²⁶⁾

[169] Most Moriscos went directly to North Africa, but because of the royal prohibition against taking children under seven years of age to non-Christian lands, others were forced to go first to Marseilles or some other European port. But the risks and hazards of such a journey through other Christian countries seemed so great to some Moriscos that they were willing to give up their young children rather than undertake it. A total of three hundred Morisco children abandoned by their parents were turned over to the ecclesiastical authorities, who distributed them among the clergy and pious laymen. ⁽²⁷⁾

The harsh terms of the expulsion decree reflected the mood of the Spanish people, for there was great joy at the departure of the Moriscos. The consequences of this event have never fully been determined. Most contemporaries believed that the expulsion of the Moriscos had little effect on the economy of the country, but the judgment of history has been different. Historians have generally held that their removal was a grave mistake from an economic viewpoint, but this opinion was often based more on subjective reasoning than on facts. Since the economic importance of the Moriscos varied from one area to another, no real evaluation can be made until more is known about them on a regional basis. The majority of Sevillian Moriscos were not rich, nor did they represent the most enterprising members of the community. They were mainly engaged in menial and unskilled tasks, but since many of these jobs were indispensable, especially in the port area, their removal from the scene must have created a short-lived labor crisis. In the long run, however, Sevillian economic life was only temporarily [170] affected by their departure, for their places were taken by other marginal groups, such as slaves (Negro and Moorish), who continued to be numerous in Seville and who had always done most of the menial labor anyway, and displaced peasants from the surrounding countryside. Even the Morisco vendors of chestnuts and sweets were soon replaced by gypsies. ⁽²⁸⁾ On the other hand, the expulsion, coming as it did just ten years after the great plague of 1599-1607, accelerated the demographic crisis that the city was facing at that time. In the last analysis, the economic disruptions caused by the expulsion of the Moriscos from Seville seem to have been far less than the demographic ones, which were permanent and irreversible.

1. For a description of the Adarvejo, see C. López Martínez, Mudéjares y Moriscos sevillanos (Seville, 1935), p. 12.

2. AMS, Varios Antiguos, no. 334, "Padrón de los Moriscos del Reino de Granada que residen en esta ciudad de Sevilla." C. Guillén noted the existence of this document in his "Padrón de conversos," pp. 49-89, but he did not use it.

3. Figures for the total Morisco population of Seville in 1580 are an estimate based on those given by Lapeyre for 1589. See H. Lapeyre, La Géographie de l'Espagne morisque (Paris, 1959), p. 135.

4. In 1590, for example, the Council of State seriously considered a plan to force all able-bodied Mqriscos to serve a period of paid service in the galleys so as to reduce their prolificness (Braudel, La Méditerranée, p. 128).

5. After studying a census of Segovian Moriscos of 1594, C. and J.-P. Le Flem concluded that the average Morisco family consisted of four persons. In Segovia there were 2.04 children per family, 2 in Salamanca, 1.99 in Valladolid, and 7.77 in Avila (Claude and Jean-Paul Le Flem, "Un censo de Moriscos en Segovia en 1594," Estudios Segovianos, XVI [1964], 437).

6. In 1588 a Sevillian official, Alonso Gutiérrez, had a clear understanding of the problem: "Ansí considerando que como no ay saca de esta gente tienen en grandísima multiplicación lo qual es en los cristianos viejos por la ordinaria que hay de ellos para Ytahia, Flandes, Yndias y jornadas hordinaria" (A. Gutiérrez, "Informe acerca de la cuestión morisca," 6 de septiembre de 1588, as quoted in P. Bornat y Barrachina, Los moriscos españoles y su expulsión [Valencia, 1901], p. 634).

7. C. and J.-P. Le Flem found a similar situation in Segovia where out of a total Morisco population of 5,049 there were only 11 Old Christian men married to Morisco women, and 4 Old Christian women married to Morisco men (Le Flem, "Moriscos en Segovia," p. 439). See also A. Domínguez Ortiz, "Notas para una sociología de los Moriscos españoles," Miscelánea de estudios árabes y hebráicos (1962), pp. 39-54.

8. It is a constant theme in the reports of the common councilmen (jurados) (AMS, Varios Antiguos, Moriscos). A. Gutiérrez also held this opinion (as quoted in Bornat y Barrachina, Los moriscos españoles, p. 635).

9. "Estos moriscos poseen grandes riqueças, aunque no lo muestran exteriormente por ser como son generalmente mezquinos, y el real que una vez entra en su poder no saven trocarle." (Gutiérrez, quoted in Bornat y Barrachina, Los moriscos españoles, p. 635). This same idea is similarly expressed by Cervantes; see El coloquio de los perros, p. 317.

10. AMS, Varios Antiguos, Moriscos; ibid., Escribanías del Cabildo, siglo XVI, tomo 4, no. 45; Gutiérrez, as quoted in Bornat y Barrachina, Los moriscos españoles, p. 635.

11. Matute y Gaviria, Noticias, p. 53; BNM, MS. 18735, "Informe de Sevilla para su magested sobre los moriscos que ay en ella."

12. This was the opinion of the city council (AMS, Varios Antiguos, Moriscos). See also BNM, MS. 18735, and Gutiérrez, as quoted in Bornat y Barrachina, Los moriscos españoles, p. 635.

13. AMS, Varios Antiguos, Moriscos; Gutiérrez, as quoted in Bornat y Barrachina, Los moriscos españoles, p. 635. For information about Morisco artisans, see Gestoso and, by the same author, Historia de los Barros vidriados sevillanos (Seville, 1903).

14. Lapeyre, L'Espagne morisque, p. 151.

15. Gutiérrez, as quoted in Bornat y Barrachina, Los moriscos españoles, p. 635. Their feelings of repugnance toward pork and wine became a frequent pun in the literature of the period as did the distorted Spanish that many of them spoke. A good example of their typical speech is in the Entremés del Gabacho, Nueva Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, XVII, 185-b.

16. Statistics for the Morisco population in 1609 have been taken from BNM, MS. 9577, "Sumario general de los moriscos que habían en las distintas colaciones de Sevilla (1609)." This document has also been published by M. Serrano y Sanz, "Nuevas datos sobre la expulsión de los moriscos andaluces," Revista contemporánea, XC (1893), 120.

17. This incident is described in López Martínez, Mudéjares y Moriscos, pp. 64-66.

18. AMS, Varios Antiguos, Moriscos.

19. In the Seville auto de fe of 1559 three Moriscos were burned and eight reconciled with sanbenito and prison; of these, six were also scourged, including three women (BM, MS. Add. 2 1.447, fol. 93, "Relación de las personas que salieron al auto de fe que se celebró en la plaça de San Francisco en esta muy insigne ciudad de Sevilla domingo veinte e quatro días del mes de setiembre de 1559 años"). See also Domínguez Ortiz, Orto y Ocaso, pp. 57-58.

20. AMS, Varios Antiguos, Moriscos; López Martínez, Mudéjares y Moriscos, p. 64.

21. The Count of Villar, Asistente of Seville in 1580, mentions this conspiracy and the dangerous situation it created in Seville in his "Relación de sus servicios y méritos," BNM, MS. 9372 = Cc-42.

22. Serrano y Sanz, "Nuevos datos," p. 179.

23. Gestoso y Pérez, Curiosidades, p. 307.

24. Francisco de Ariño, Sucesos de Sevilla de 1592 a 1604 (Seville, 1873), p. 112.

25. BNM. MS. 3207, "Cartas del Marqués de Montesclaros, Asistente de Sevilla," folios 618, 658-659.

26. J. Bleda, Coronica de los moros de España (Valencia, 1618), p. 1042. Figures for the expelled Moriscos come from BNM, MS. 9577, and are the same ones given by Serrano y Sanz and Lapeyre.

27. Hazañas y La Rua, Vázquez de Leca, pp. 254-256.

28. Matute y Gaviria, Noticias, p. 53; BNM, MS. 18735.