Esther M. Zimmer Lederberg
Embarco (Expulsion) Moriscos en el Grau de Valencia
The music is Morisco music, found on Iberian Garden, Vol. 1 by
Altramar. The piece is Muwashshah: Mā li-l-muwallah, 1113-1198.
This music takes place at the beautiful gardens along the Guadalquiver, near Cordoba.
This is during the "convivencia" under Alfonso X (El Sabio - The Wise), the time
before Granda fell: when Christians, Moslems and Jews lived at peace with each
other. Muwashshah are songs in poetic form, with instrumental interludes in the
form of Ibn Bājja (Avempace): 1470-1520. This is Morisco art.
Click images or captions to view pages
Embarco (Expulsion) Moriscos en el Grau de Valencia Return
There being 80,000 Spaniards [Moriscos and Mudéjares, and a
small percentage of Huguenote Lutherans], crazed by being torn from
their wives and children and stripped of their property; they would
at once return [to Spain} to regain them." This was no small logistics
problem: food, water, illness, plague, etc. Upon debarcation, would there
not be more logistics problems? 1
Order would require troops (tercios, c. 8000) to overcome resistance, the
troops transported by galleys, timed properly to arrive at the embarcation
ports. 2 Several groups
of people would require multiple embarcations and take time (months).
Moriscos would charter separate vessels, some ship masters and crew engaging
in piracy (extortion of property, murder of Moriscos, enslaving of Moriscos,
separation of children from parents, landing the Moriscos or desert islands),
requirements of thousands of nodrizas (wet nurses for infants).
3 Troops required to
protect Moriscos from Old christians robing and murdering them for their
property. 4
Rapacious soldiers expected plunder, sacked Morisco villages, murdered the men
or sold the men as galley-slaves, outraged the women, sold women and children
into slavery. 5 Crown
commissioners fleeced the Moriscos, making them pay for drinking water in
the brooks or for the shade of trees during their journey to ports of
embarcation. 6 "The king,
who was deriving large sums from confiscations and exactions imposed on those
whom he was driving from their homes, ...". "[R]eturned exiles [were]
despatched some to galleys, others to the quicksilver (Mercury) mines of
Almaden ..." 7
However, there still remained Moriscos in Mallorca, Menorca, the Canaries
and Sardinia. 8
1
"The Moriscos of Spain: Their Conversion amd Expulsion", Lea, Henry; p. 311
Website Terms of Use