Ghostly Remains: Valencia, 1609
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Ghostly Remains: Valencia, 1609 Georgina Dopico Black Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies, Volume 7, 2003, pp. 91-100 (Article) Published by University of Arizona DOI: 10.1353/hcs.2011.0214 For additional information about this article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/hcs/summary/v007/7.dopico-black.html Access provided by New York University (16 Mar 2014 22:39 GMT) Ghostly Remains Valencia 1609 Georgina Dopico Black is As- sociate Professor in the De- partment of Spanish and Por- tuguese at New York Univer- sity. She is author o/Terfect Wives, Other Women. Adul- tery and Inquisition in Early Modern Spain (Duke U Press, 2001) and co-editor of Sebastián de Covarrubias's Suplemento al Tesoro de la lengua española (Polifemo, 2001). She has authored nu- merous articles on early mod- ern Spain and cohnial Latin America. Pere Oromig, Embarque de los moriscos en el Grau de Valencia, detail (1612). Illustration 1 The scene appears, on the whole, benign, even sentimental. A man with indistinguishable fea- tures kneels before a young girl who opens her Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies Volume 7, 2003 92 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies arms to him: a father, perhaps, embrac- But the tragedy of this separation is ing his daughter as he departs on a trip, at once intensified and diminished by its or greeting her as he returns home from virtual repetition, by the thousands, by one: an affectionate farewell, a warm wel- the tens of thousands, of similar partings come. that surround father and daughter, as the inscriptions at the top of the painting Illustration 2 dutifully record. The cartouche at the top Stepping back from the detail we left corner documents the specific subject realize, however, that the scene is not quite of the canvas, quite possibly the very first what we imagined: that not only is this of all the morisco expulsions from Spain: no homecoming but that the separation the exile that began in the early days of we are witnessing is both final and irre- October 1609 from the Grau de Valencia. versible. A Spanish morisco father takes The 1612 painting, by Valencian artist leave of his daughter for the last time. His Pere Oromig, is titled Embarque de los words, whispered close, or shouted above moriscos en el Grau de Valencia; it is the the din, are somehow unimaginable, first of a series of seven oil paintings de- drowned by their finality: never again will picting the most important scenes of the Pere Oromig, Embarque de bs moriscos en el Grau de Vakncia (1612). she hear her Arabic name, her mother Valencia diaspora: the first and the larg- tongue, her father's voice. Visually, he is est of the morisco expulsions from Spain, already little more than a blur: red shirt, accounting for somewhere between dark hair and dark eyes, by which his 120,000 to 130,000 of the 300,000 Span- daughter may one day remember him. ish moriscos exiled between 1609 and Georgina Dopico Black 93 1614.l They are extraordinary paintings: mendados a los curas o a otras perso- radically ambivalent in their ideological nas de confiança. charge, and teeming with visual anecdotes that demand a story as much as they tell 2. Que si en los padres, o madres de one, like the poignant scene of parting los dichos mochachos o mochachas uviere tanta repugnancia en dexarlos, between father and daughter.2 [que] siguiendo los ministros que han The anecdote is, in this case, his- de executar esta expulsion la orden de torically accurate: in compliance with one su Magestad, uviessen de degollar a of the most controversial provisions of the los tales padres en pena de su resisten- 1609 Edict of Expulsion, the young cia, o de mover algún grave scandalo, morisca girl in this painting, like all morisco que en tal caso se deve permitir que children under the age of five, is to be left lleven los padres a los que fueren ma- behind in Spain in the custody of the state, yores de cinco años por que se juzga perhaps to be adopted by a family of que ya en aquella edad avran sido en- señados de sus padres y madres de la cristianos viejos, more likely, to be made secta de Mahoma y asi se puede temer their servant.3 The language of the "Bando que se conservaran en ella y en la de expulsión," meant to quiet morisco fears aversion a nuestra santa fe [...]. and hence reduce the possibility of a mass uprising (about which there was tremen- 3. Si los niños o niñas fueren menores dous anxiety on the crown's part), simply de cinco, o seys años, se deven reservar states: con resolución, no obstante qualquiera repugnancia de sus padres o madres. que los mochachos y mochachas me- nores de quatro años que quisieren 4. Si la repugnancia de los mochachos quedarse, y sus padres, o curadores o mochachas que fueren de diez años (siendo huérfanos) lo tuvieran por abaxo fuese de los mismos mochachos bien, no serán expelidos, (GarcÃ-a Are- o mochachas, y no de sus padres, deven nal 254) ser custodiados en la cárcel o en otra parte hasta averse executado la expul- as if the decision would be left up to two and three-year olds themselves. A docu- ment (not intended for public consump- Under no circumstances were children tion) simply titled "La orden que se ha de under the age of five to be permitted egress dar," accompanying a 1609 letter from from Spain; children between six and ten Philip III to Valencia archbishop Juan de years of age were allowed to leave only in Ribera, more explicitly stipulates the those cases in which forcing them to stay terms of separation. Parents who resisted would incite a riot, as it was assumed that were to be put to death; children who re- many of them were already "contami- sisted were to be imprisoned until the ex- nated." These measures were understood pulsion was complete. by the crown not as further punishment on the moriscos but, on the contrary, as a 1. Que se procure con todo cuydado concession, a way to ease the king's con- que los niños y niñas de diez años science. (One of the arguments put forth abaxo se queden en los lugares enco- by anti-expulsionists was that exiling the 94 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies moriscos to Africa would condemn inno- como a traydores y también como cent children, already baptized in the apostatas incorregibles y hay también faith, to a life of apostasy, never anticipat- en este caso nuevo derecho de parte ing perhaps this type of solution.) In de los niños porque siendo baptizados Valencia alone, thousands of children were como lo son les harÃ-an grande injuria sus padres y madres en querérselos lle- effectively kidnapped from their parents var, y impedirles la educación en la fe a by either local enforcers of the royal pro- la qual por el baptizmo tienen dere- visions (Spanish troops had been mobi- cho y deffenderles este derecho contra lized to each of the expulsion ports to pre- sus padres es bolver por los Innocentes, vent uprisings) or by Christian families Y asi pues el derecho de matar los pa- who took matters into their own hands. dres y madres es claro por las razones The state's right to execute morisco dichas, y asi mismo lo es el destos ni- parents who resisted giving up their chil- ños siendo baptizados poique es de- dren was precariously founded on two ffender a los Innocentes no hay duda sino que se pueden matar los padres y points. In the first place, supposed crimes madres en este caso.5 against the Spanish nation were indis- criminately charged against all morisco adults. It was in fact an accusation of trea- The policy and the legal argument be- son, lesa majestad, against majesties both hind it are of considerable interest for early human and divine that had been used to modern legal history; it is one of the first instances of parens patriae, of a modern legitimate the expulsion decision, which state assuming custodial rights over mi- had no standing on theological grounds. nors of parents deemed unfit. The basis (Rome—in the persons of Clement VIII on which the argument is founded is of and Paul V—refused to approve the mea- no less interest: affirming a kind of hy- sure, insisting on the moriscos' status as brid national-religious citizenship (statu- neophytes.) Second, and more interest- tory rights are conferred by baptism but ing for a reading of and from remains, on recognized and enforced by the state, not the rights of the child once baptized: the church) that takes precedence over "rights" that could be exercised by the state familial ties. The alleged "rights" granted on behalf of children against their own children by the patria, in this case, trump parents. Another document of 1609 re- those oÃ- patria potestad. The argument is sponds to "doubts" raised about the le- framed, moreover, as a rewriting of the gality of the state's adoption of morisco texts of Exodus 1:16 (Pharao's murder of children. The fourth article specifically all male Hebrew children in the Old Tes- addresses the question of the rights of minors: tament) and of its recasting in Matthew 2:16 (Herod's slaying of the innocent babes in the New Testament).