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). In this new Cuarta duda.. .Respóndese que si hay commodidad de criar estos niños aun- New Testament, a corporate Spanish state que maten a los padres y a las madres, saves the children ("es bolver por los se los han de quitar para criarlos y ins- Inocentes") at the expense of their par- truirlos en la fe porque en esto no se ents ("se pueden matar en este caso") who haze agravio a los padres o madres, were already "dead" to the body of the porque ya hay derecho de matarlos nation (expulsion was consistently referred Georgina Dopico Black 95 to as "muerte civil"). But perhaps the most beliefs taught in that language, would re- immediate referent of inocente where chil- peat the infection of the national body: dren were concerned was the "martirio del "porque no hay sperança de su correction, niño Inocente de la Guarda," a highly in- antes justo rezelo y temor que bolveran a cendiary and no doubt spurious story inficionar el Reyno."7 that had fueled anti-Semitic sentiment in It is worth recalling that the threat Spain in 1491, helping promote the Jew- morisco children represented to the na- ish expulsion, and that was mobilized tional body had been discussed for years anew in the early 1600s, but now directed in a slightly different context. Pedro Aznar against the moriscos. Cardona, avid defender of the expulsion, As the actual date of the expulsion repeats the topos of the nearly legendary drew nearer, the age of the morisco chil- fertility of the moriscos: dren to be taken from their parents was progressively lowered from 10, to 7, to Casavan sus hijos de muy tierna edad, under 5. (It is not coincidental that the pareciéndoles que era sobrado tener la lowered age corresponds exactly with con- hembra onze años y el varón doze, para temporary linguistic theories about when casarse. [...] Su intento era crecer y mul- tiplicarse en número como las malas infantile mastery in language is achieved.) hierbas, y verdaderamente, que se avian In a letter of 4 August 1609, after the dado tan buena maña en España que expulsion had been signed into law, but ya no cabÃ-an en sus barrios ni lugares, before the Edicts of expulsion were made antes ocupaban lo restante y lo conta- public, Philip III asks Riberas advice on minavantodo [...]. Ymultiplicavanse the matter: por estremo, porque ninguno dexava de contraher matrimonio, y porque todavÃ-a ha parecido despues que los ninguno seguÃ-a el estado annexo a que fueren desta hedad quedaran tan estirilidad de generación carnal, po- instruydos de sus Padres en la secta de niéndose frayle, ni clérigo, ni monja, Mahoma que con dificultad se podran ni avia continente alguno entre ellos reduzir ni combertir a nuestra sancta hombre ni muger, señal clara de su fee. Y creciendo los unos y los otros si aborrecimiento con la vida honesta y viniesen a juntarse podrÃ-amos con el casta.8 disenso del tiempo aliarnos en los mis- mos inconbenientes que agora [...].s Feeding anxieties of this sort (which were fairly widespread and commonly Not only did such measures respond utilized in arguments favoring expulsion) to concerns about the intractability of re- was the fear that left unchecked, the pro- ligious belief in older children, a belief ductive sexual practices of the moriscos invariably tied to their knowledge of Ara- would replace the nation with its own bic but, moreover, to anxieties about who other, from the inside, perpetrating a kind these children might grow up to be. Un- of Moorish invasion from within (Henry derlying these anxieties was the gnawing Kamen cites censuses from 1565 and suspicion that left in Spain, these older 1609 documenting that the population children, fluent in their language and, by growth of moriscos in Valencia was in fact extension, in the Muslim practices and occurring at a faster rate than that of cris- 96 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies rÃ-anos viejos, though by no means enough 14, they were subject to persecution by to render moriscos a demographic major- the Holy Office and could be tried as ity in the peninsula [227])? adults. Between 1612 and 1619, 152 The eventual fate of the morisco chil- teens were processed by the Valencian in- dren who stayed behind in Spain is un- quisition for crypto-Muslim practices or clear, though there is no question that beliefs.12 thousands did. Original plans called for Some of the younger children-par- their adoption by Christian families ticularly those who were still nursing-did throughout Spain: strategic dispersal and not survive the separation from their assimilation. In a letter of 1 November mothers; others still did not survive even 1610, however, a full year after the Valen- the threat of separation. Contemporary cia expulsion began, the king writes to paintings and expulsion literature chroni- Ribera, asking if the children might pro- cle the acts of joint suicide and infanti- visionally stay in the Levante, suggest- cide committed by morisca mothers, moth- ing that their prospects in Castilla, at least, ers for whom the idea of leaving their chil- were less than certain: dren or their country behind was so in- tolerable that they chose death—their en esse Reyno se hallan (como saveis) own, their babies'—over separation. The cantidad de niños y niñas hijos de Rebelión de L· Mueh de Cortes oil, one of Moriscos en poder de diferentes per- two paintings in the series depicting the sonas y en otra forma y aunque se ha most important morisco rebellions in the tratado de que se repartiesen en Castilla Valencia area, records at least one such todavÃ-a pot si esto tuviesse alguna di- scene. ficultad holgare de saver si se podrÃ-an quedar en esse Reyno en poder de las personas que agora las tienen para criar- Illustration 3 los y doctrinarlos [...].10 From the close up we can just make out that it is not a woman alone who is Other letters and memoranda from jumping to her death from the cliff being this same period make reference to the stormed by Spanish troops, but a mother schools and monasteries at which the with a small child in her arms. Gaspar morisco children were interned; others still Aguilar's 1610 Expulsión de los moros de mention service—almost a kind of inden- España gives a poetic account of such sui- ture, very akin to, if not modeled on, the cides, which were not, apparently, infre- Indian encomiendas overseas (a model that quent: had been implemented in Granada after the 1568 Alpujarras revolt)11—whereby Quanras pobres moriscas mal logradas slightly older children worked for their por ver los suyos de defensa faltos con sus tiernos hijuelos abracadas keep and a small salary, perhaps eventu- se despeñaron de los montes altos. ally earning their freedom. Some of the Y quantas bellas mocas delicadas children who stayed in Spain reappear in por huir de los fieros sobresaltos Inquisitorial records. Once girls reached rindieron a los rÃ-os sus despojos the age of 12 and boys reached the age of salidos por ventura de sus ojos. Georgina Dopico Black 97

We might think of these flights of despair one hand, between nation and language, by "moriscas mal logradas [...] con sus on the other. Contamination is here a mat- tiernos hijuelos abracadas" in the terms ter of cultural and linguistic contact as that Homi Bhabha sets forth in his read- ing of Toni Morrison's Beloved. Citing Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, he reminds us that infanticide (along with murder and self-mutilation) is at the core of the "psy- chological dynamics of all resistance" (16). The thousands of morisco children who were made to stay behind and were invisibly folded in to the nation's memory pose a challenge to received notions of national definition in early modern Spain. Assimilated into the canon, but only be- latedly, their incorporation speaks a vio- lent exclusion, a cut that ttoubles the nation's borders, unsettling its founding definitions. If the operative model of the corporate state in seventeenth-century Spain was by and large a physiological one, proponents of the expulsion tended to link health with limpieza and disease with raza (understood at the time as a trace of Semitic or Muslim blood), appealing to an argument of hereditaria apostasia. Within this racial (or ethno-racial) essen- tialist paradigm, it was what we might (anachronistically) term a genetic form of contamination that predominated: even the slightest trace of non-Christian im- purity was deemed enough to pollute a line. This was the justification for expel- ling all Spanish moriscos on a universal charge of lesa majestad, and not just those found guilty (or even suspected) of actual crimes of treason against the state. The crown's insistence on keeping Vicent Mestre, Rebelión de bs mioriscos en L· morisco children within its borders sug- Mueb de Cortes, detail. gests, however, a different model, one that radically destabilizes racial or ethno-racial opposed to genetic descent. Contagion essentialist nationalism, appealing instead becomes almost métonymie: a question of to the links between nation and natio on nurture and not nature. There is nothing 98 Arizona fournal of Hispanic Cultural Studies particularly redeeming about this second Cameno's analysis of "La colección pictórica sobre model, particularly when its material ef- la expulsión de los moriscos" is indispensable read- fects were to wrest young children from ing. I would like to express my gratitude to Fran- their mothers and fathers, leaving them cisco Borras of the Fundación Bancaja por grant- ing me access to the Fundación's private collection orphaned, making the bitterness of exile in order to see first-hand this extraordinary series infinitely harder to bear for their parents. of paintings. I am also grateful to José Miranda for But among its no doubt unintentional generously providing me with a copy of the cata- consequences is that it explicitly gives the log. On the number of moriscos expelled from lie to a limpieza de sangre ideology and, Spain, see DomÃ-nguez Ortiz and Vincent. with it, to any arguments denying the 2 I have written elsewhere on the Valencia Spanishness of the moriscos. National defi- expulsion oils. See Dopico Black, "Espectros de la nition itself is revealed as a radically con- nación: la serie pictórica de La expuhión de bs tingent (which is not to say exclusively moriscos del reino de Vakncia" discursive), construction, the product of 3 Part of the argument I make here concern- ing the relation of morisco children who were made accidents of place of birth and, more cru- to stay in Spain after the expulsion and questions cially, language. If children of moriscos of Spanish national definition appears, in an ex- could be somehow saved for Spain, it was panded form, in my "Lengua e imperio: Sueños de because even the state recognized them as la nación en los Tesoros de Covarrubias" in Spanish: "que en fin nacimos en ella y es Suplemento al Tesoro de b lengua españob casteüana nuestra patria natural," in the words of de Sébastian de Covarrubias, Georgina Dopico Black Cervantes's Ricote. and Jacques Lezra, eds. There are no ghost stories to nar- 4 Archivo de la Biblioteca del Colegio de Cor- rate the plight of these morisco children pus Christi, 1-7-8-27. left in Spain—those who survived their 5 Archivo de la Biblioteca del Colegio de Cor- pus Christi, 1-7-8-30. parents' expulsion, those who did not sur- 6 Archivo de la Biblioteca del Colegio de Cor- vive the flight, the fall, to the literal bed- pus Christi, 1-7-8-30. rock of the nation. These children, whose 7 Archivo de la Biblioteca del Colegio de Cor- "impure" blood would of course be in- pus Christi, 1-7-8-30. corporated into the national body, are 8 The passage continues: not only the flesh and blood remains of Todos se casavan, pobres y ricos, sa- the bodies lost to Spain by the expulsion nos y coxos, no reparando como los but also, the ghostly remains that haunt christianos viejos que si un padre de the Spanish imaginary, at once spectral familias tiene cinco o seys hijos, con casar dellos el primero o la mayor délias and material supplements of national definition. se contentan, procurando que los otros sean clérigos, o monjes, o frayles, o soldados, o tomen estado de beatas, y Notes continentes. Y lo peor era que algu- 1 On the Valencia expulsion painting series, nos christianos viejos, aun presumien- see the stunning 1997 catalog prepared by Jesús do algo de hidalgos, por no nada de Villalmanzo Cameno. The catalog contains im- interesse, se cassavan con moriscas, y portant studies by Manuel Ardit ("Los moriscos maculavan lo poco limpio de su lina- valencianos") and Nuria Blaya ("Retratos") and an je, y plegué a Dios, no llegue la man- invaluable documentary appendix. Villamanzo cha al alma (n. pag.) Georgina Dopico Black 99

9 Concerns over the incontinent, inseminatory porque cuando sean grandes no aspi- sexuality of moriscos were so acute that one solu- ren a más de aquello que les hubieren tion proposed to Philip II—by, among others the enseñado. (Cited in Boronat II, 525) Bishop of Segorbe, MartÃ-n de Salvatierra—was 12 See DomÃ-nguez Ortiz and Vincent 247 and the expulsion and castration οι morisco males, both GarcÃ-a Cárcel 150. See also Epalza 1998 and 1992. young and old: esta gente se puede llevar a las costas Works Cited de los macallaos y deTerranova, que Aguilar, Gaspar. La expulsión de los moriscos de son amplÃ-simas y sin ninguna pobla- España por S. C R Magestaddel rey don Phelipe ción, donde se acavarán a todo pun- Tercero. Valencia, 1610. to, specialmente capando los másculos Aznar Cardona, Pedro. Expuhión justificada de bs grandes y pequeños. ("Parescer de don moriscos españoles, y suma de las excellencies MartÃ-n de Salvatierra obispo de Chrisitnas de nuestro Rey Don Felipe el Cató- Segorbe del Consejo del Rey Nuestro lico, Tercero deste nombre. Huesca, 1612. N. Señor, dado por mandato de S.M. pag- [acerca] del estado en questan los Bhabha, Homi, ed. Nation and Narration. Lon- moriscos del Retno de Valencia y de don: Routledge, 1990. la reformación e instrucción que se Bleda, Jaime. Coránica de bs moros de España. Va- trata de darles, 1587"). (Boronat y lencia, 1618. Barrachina 1,633-34) Boronat y Barrachina, Pascual. Los moriscos españoks It is important to note that there are voices of y su expuhión. Valencia: Vives y Mora, 1901. opposition as well. A letter of August 1609 ad- Covarrubias, Sebastián de. Suplemento al Tesoro de dressed to the king by anti-expulsionist don L· lengua españoL· casteüana de Sebastián de Manuel Ponce de León, for example, harshly criti- Covarrubias. Ed. Georgina Dopico Black and cizes such measures as unchristian and barbaric: Jacques Lezra. Madrid: Polifemo, 2001. "el cortarles miembros aptos a la generación, [es DomÃ-nguez Ortiz, Antonio, and Bernard Vin- cosa] ageno del celo católico, inhumano y bárbaro cent. Historia de los moriscos. Vida y tragedia [...] y no usado jamás aun entre Naciones bárbaras" de una minorÃ-a. Madrid: Alianza, 1997. (GarcÃ-a Arenal 240). It also attests to the fact that Dopico Black, Georgina. "Espectros de la nación: "mutilación de miembros" was more than a fringe la serie pictórica de La expuhión de bs moriscos solution, but one advocated forcefully enough by del reino de Valencia!' Américo Castro y h des- some as to be given consideration even at the level memoria histórica. Madrid: Libertarias, 2003. of the Council of State. 179-99, 235-46. 10 Archivo de la Biblioteca del Colegio de ------. "Lengua e imperio: Sueños de la nación Corpus Christi, 1-7-3-93. en los Tesoros de Covarrubias." Supkmento al 1 ' A Consulta deliberated upon by the Consejo Tesoro de b kngua españob casteüana de Sebas- de Estado on 1 September 1609 states: tián de Covarrubias. Ed. Georgina Dopico En el décimo (punto se acordó) que, Black and Jacques Lezra. Madrid: Polifemo, pues el exemplo de lo que se hizo con 2001. CCXLIII-CCLXXXIV. los moriscos de Granada mostró que Epalza, MÃ-kel de. Los moriscos antes y después de b el expediente de repartir los niños para expulsión. Madrid: Mapfre, 1992. criarlos y servirse dellos hasta la edad ------. "Los moriscos y sus descendientes, después de 25 años por solo el comer y el vestir de la expulsion." La expuhión de bs moriscos. salió bien, se podrá agora hacer lo mis- Ed. José Miranda. Valencia: Fundación mo, dándolos a officiales mecánicos que Bancaja, 1998. 43-74. no sean armeros no cosa de letras o la- GarcÃ-a Arenal, Mercedes. Los moriscos. Granada: bradores para la cultura del campo Universidad de Granada, 1996. 100 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies

GarcÃ-a Cárcel, Ricardo. "Los moriscos y la inqui------. "La orden que se ha de dar." Unpublished sición." La Expuhión de bs moriscos. Ed. José order accompanying letter to Archbishop Miranda. Valencia: Fundación Bancaja, Juan de Ribera. 1609.1-7-8-27. Archivo de 1997: 145-68. la Biblioteca del Corpus Christi, Valencia. Kamen, Henry. The Spanish Inquisition. A His- Ribera, Juan de. Letters to King Philip III. Archivo torical Revision. New Haven: Yale UP, 1998. de la Biblioteca del Corpus Christi, Valencia. Philip III. Letters to Archbishop Juan de Ribera. Villalmanzano Cameno, Jesús, ed. La expuhión de 1-7-8-30,1-7-3-93. Archivo de la Biblioteca los moriscos del reino de Vakncia. Valencia: del Corpus Christi, Valencia. Fundación Bancaja, 1997.