Relationships Between Muslims and Christians in Colonial Latin America

Contesting belonging: Relationships between Muslims and Christians in colonial Latin America

Karoline Cook

In the early modern period, Muslims and Moriscos (Iberian converts from Islam to Catholicism) played an often overlooked role in social and reli- gious transformations in colonial Latin America. More scholarly atten- tion has been paid to their presence in Brazil and the Caribbean, where a significant population of enslaved African Muslims who laboured in sugar production rose up in a series of well-documented rebellions dur- ing the 19th century.1 In contrast to the Portuguese, British, and French empires, the Spanish Crown prohibited the passage of Muslims, converts from Islam, and their descendants to the lands it claimed in the western hemisphere. The legal restrictions faced by Muslims and Moriscos in Spanish America, and the ways the Crown projected its image glob- ally as a Catholic empire, had a direct impact on everyday relationships between Muslims and Christians in the ‘New World’. By the late 15th century, the Spanish and Portuguese Crowns were in competition for control over Atlantic maritime routes. They negotiated a series of treaties and each sought papal support to bolster their claims. Competition intensified following Christopher Columbus’s return to Castile in March 1493, as news of distant islands across the Atlantic, thought to be located near the shores of East Asia, prompted a new round of negotiations. When Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabel of Cas- tile approached Pope Alexander VI (r. 1492-1503), he issued the Bull Inter caetera (1493) upholding the Spanish Crown’s jurisdiction over any peoples they encountered.2 The text of Inter caetera made explicit

1 For Brazil and the Caribbean, see especially J.J. Reis, Slave rebellion in Brazil. The Muslim uprising of 1835 in Bahia, Baltimore MD, 1993; M. Barcia, West African warfare in Bahia and Cuba. Soldier slaves in the Atlantic world, 1807-1844, Oxford, 2014. For an excel- lent work on enslaved Muslims in the Americas, see S.A. Diouf, Servants of Allah. African Muslims enslaved in the Americas, New York, 1998. On Muslims and Moriscos in Spanish America, see K.P. Cook, Forbidden passages. Muslims and Moriscos in colonial Spanish America, Philadelphia PA, 2016. 2 A copy of the Bull Inter caetera in Spanish translation, thought to have been printed in 1511, is held at the John Carter Brown Library in Providence, Rhode Island, Copia dela 726 contesting belonging reference to Ferdinand and Isabel’s recent conquest of the Nāṣrid Emir- ate of Granada in 1492, making them well-suited as the self-styled ‘Catho- lic monarchs’ to continue the expansion of Christianity overseas. The Spanish and Portuguese monarchs subsequently negotiated the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) to divide their respective authorities in the western and eastern hemispheres along a meridian located 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands. Granted jurisdiction over the lands west of the meridian, the Spanish Crown soon issued legislation that would promote Christian settlement of the Caribbean islands and any other lands to be ‘discovered’ by them. The privileged status bestowed on the Spanish monarchs by the bull Inter caetera formed the basis not only of the Crown’s ongoing interest in evangelisation, but also of its policies shaping emigration and the devel- opment of colonial society. As noted by Alexander VI in Inter caetera, privileges over the islands and mainland to be discovered by future expe- ditions were granted to Spain in recognition ‘that you [the Catholic monarchs] have long since dedicated to this purpose your whole soul and all your endeavours – as witnessed in these times with so much glory to the Divine Name in your recovery of the kingdom of Granada from the yoke of the Saracens – we therefore are rightly led, and hold it as our duty, to grant you … those things, whereby with effort each day … you may be enabled for the honour of God himself and the spread of the Christian rule to carry forward your holy and praiseworthy purpose so pleasing to immortal God.’3 Assuming the role of ‘Catholic monarchs’, Ferdinand and Isabel emphasised the conversion of indigenous peoples to Christianity to justify Spain’s jurisdiction over the Americas. Facing growing challenges from England and France by the 16th century over their claims to the continent, Spain’s rulers continued to promote policies that included restricting emigration to ‘old Christians’ who could prove they had no Muslim or Jewish ancestors. From the early 16th century, the Spanish Crown issued royal decrees or cédulas prohibiting Mus- lim and Morisco presence in the Americas.4 bula dela concession q[ue] hizo el papa Alexandre sexto al Rey [y] ala Reyna nuestros señores: de las Indias: In nomine d[omi]ni. Amen. Nouerint vniuersi hoc presens publicu[m] trasumptu[m] inspecturi q[uo]d nos Jacobus co[n]chillos dei [et] apostolice sedis gratia e[pisco]pus Cathaniensis. 3 Translated in F.G. Davenport (ed.), European treaties bearing on the history of the United States and its dependencies to 1648, Washington DC, 1917, p. 61. 4 The entry on ‘Legislation restricting Muslim presence in colonial Spanish America’ in this volume provides further detail concerning the royal decrees and their significance.