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The Moriscos of Salé and the Hispanic Monarchy: Power Agents and Identities to the West of the Strait of Gibraltar, 1631–1632
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 January 2024
Abstract
This article examines the multiple frontiers between Maghrebi Islam and the southern European Catholic world by focusing on a very specific episode during the struggle for control of Rabat, capital of present-day Morocco. It addresses the problem of military and political control of the Strait of Gibraltar, which was closely linked to widespread corsair raids in the early seventeenth century. It also examines moriscos’ attempts to be allowed to return to Spain. The article points to the key importance of intermediaries and their linkages across borders at a time when both the Hispanic Monarchy and the Sa’adi kingdom were undergoing great difficulties. The strategic importance of the region transformed moments of crisis into opportunities, albeit failed ones, as intermediaries articulated their own interests with those of the king of Spain.
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Translated by Ruth MacKay
References
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6 J. H. Elliott, The count-duke of Olivares: the statesman in an age of decline (New Haven, CT, 1986), pp. 409–44.
7 Archivo General Fundación Duques de Medina Sidonia (AGFCMS) leg. 2414, draft of a letter from the duke to Philip IV, in the hand of Council of War Secretary Gaspar Ruiz de Ezcaray, n.d., mid-1631.
8 Juan E. Gelabert, Castilla convulsa (1631–1652) (Madrid, 2001).
9 On the rise of the murabits and the political importance of religion after the death of Mulay Ahmad al-Mansur, see B. A. Mojuetan, ‘Legitimacy in a power state: Moroccan politics in the seventeenth century during the Interregnum’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 13 (1981), pp. 347–60, esp. pp. 355–7.
10 Salas Almela, Medina Sidonia, pp. 279–83.
11 Compare the price to the 1,350 reales considered the average ransom price in 1627–44. Daniel Hershenzon has pointed to ransom negotiations as a way of measuring the respective powers of the parties: Daniel Hershenzon, The captive sea: slavery, communication, and commerce in early modern Spain and the Mediterranean (Philadelphia, PA, 2018), pp. 71 and 168.
12 AGFCMS leg. 2414, letters from Ruiz de Ezcaray and royal writs for Medina Sidonia, Dec. 1631 to Feb. 1632; Archivo General de Simancas (AGS) Estado leg. 3446, council to duke of Alcalá, 21 Mar. 1633 (my thanks to Daniel Hershenzon for this reference).
13 Antonio Jiménez Estrella, ‘Los Mendoza y la proveeduría general de armadas y presidios norteafricanos: servicio nobiliario y función militar en el marco geopolítico mediterránea (1535–1558)’, Revista de Historia Militar, 95 (2004), pp. 123–56; Pelayo Alcaina Fernández, ‘La defensa del litoral frente a los ataques berberiscos por los dos primeros marqueses de los Vélez: D. Pedro y D. Luis’, Revista velezana, 21 (2002), pp. 33–56; Yuen-Gen Liang, Family and empire: the Fernández de Córdoba and the Spanish realm (Philadelphia, PA, 2011).
14 Luis Salas Almela, ‘Las paradojas financieras del abastecimiento de Larache y Mamora: presidios, logística militar y aristocracia, 1611–1635’, OHM: Obradoiro de Historia Moderna, 30 (2021), pp. 219–47.
15 Beatriz Alonso Acero, ‘El norte de África en las relaciones entre moriscos y mundo islámico en torno a la gran expulsión’, Estudis, 35 (2009), pp. 9–102.
16 Guillermo Gozalbes Busto, ‘La república andaluza de Rabat en el siglo XVII. Contribución al estudio de la Historia de Marruecos’, Cuadernos de la Biblioteca Española de Tetuán (Tetuán, 1974); Hossain Bounizeb, La alcazaba del Buregreg. Hornacheros, andaluces y medio siglo de designios españoles frustrados (Madrid, 2006), pp. 29–34; Alberto González Rodríguez, Hornachos, enclave morisco: peculiaridades de una población distinta (Mérida, 1990); Esteban Mira Caballos, ‘Los moriscos de Hornachos: una revisión histórica a la luz de nueva documentación’, in XXXVIII Coloquios Históricos de Extremadura, I (Badajoz, 2010), pp. 17–54; Mercedes García-Arenal, ‘Los moriscos en Marruecos: de la emigración de los granadinos a los hornacheros de Salé’, in Mercedes García-Arenal and Gerard Albert Wiegers, eds., Los moriscos: expulsión y diáspora: una perspectiva international (Valencia, 2016), pp. 276–311; Rafael Benítez Sánchez-Blanco, ‘La expulsión de los moriscos’, in XLI Jornadas de Historia Marítima: la expulsión de los moriscos y la actividad de los corsarios norteafricanos (Madrid, 2011), pp. 11–20; Manuel Lomas Cortés, ‘Gobierno, ejército y finanzas en el reinado de Felipe III. El proceso de expulsión de los moriscos (1609–1614)’ (Ph.D. diss., Universidad de Valencia, 2009).
17 García-Arenal, ‘Los moriscos’, pp. 306–10; Mira Caballos, ‘Los moriscos’, pp. 34–5; Bounizeb, La alcazaba, pp. 37–8; Lorenzo Corcobado Navarro, ‘Los moriscos de Hornachos. 400 años de su expulsión. Pasado y presente’, in XXXVIII Coloquios Históricos de Extremadura, I, pp. 55–75, at p. 70.
18 Gozalbes Busto, ‘La república’, pp. 60–3.
19 García-Arenal, ‘Los moriscos’, p. 307; Bounizeb, La alcazaba, pp. 41–2.
20 Jerome Bruce Weiner, ‘Fitna, corsaires, and diplomacy: Morocco and the maritime states of the West’ (Ph.D., Columbia University, 1976); Mojuetan, ‘Legitimacy’, p. 348; R. Mantran, ‘North Africa in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’, in P. M. Holt, Ann K. S. Lambton, and Bernard Lewis, eds., The Cambridge history of Islam, IIA, part VII (Cambridge, 1977), pp. 238–65, at p. 247.
21 António de Saldanha, Crónica de Almançor, sultão de Marrocos (1578–1603), ed. António Dias Farinha (Lisbon, 1997); Bounizeb, La alcazaba, pp. 16–17.
22 Roger Coindreau, Les corsaires de Salé (Rabat, 1993; orig. edn 1948); Miguel Ángel Bunes Ibarra, ‘Relaciones económicas entre la Monarquía Hispánica y el Islám en la época de Cervantes’, Revista de Historia Económica, 23 (2005), pp. 163–8.
23 García-Arenal, ‘Los moriscos’, p. 308, says the person who presided over the divan was called a grand admiral, not a governor.
24 For recent discussion concerning Philip III’s foreign policy, see Miguel Ángel Bunes Ibarra, ‘La expulsión de los moriscos en el contexto de la política mediterránea de Felipe III’, in García-Arenal and Wiegers, eds., Los moriscos, pp. 45–66; Miguel José Deyá Bauzá, ‘La política mediterránea de Felipe III vista desde el archipiélago balear (1601–1608)’, in Carlos Mata Induráin and Anna Morozova, eds., Temas y formas hispánicas: arte, cultura y sociedad (Pamplona, 2015), pp. 69–83, esp. pp. 69–71.
25 AGS Estado leg. 495, ‘Papel de Juan Ludovico Ro’, n.d., no city.
26 See Weiner, ‘Fitna’, p. 145; and Leila Maziane, Salé et ses corsaires (1666–1727): un port de course marocain au XVIIe siècle (Caen, 2007), pp. 38–9.
27 AGS Estado leg. 495, ‘Papel de Juan Ludovico Ro’; in the same legajo, see a letter from Agustín Mexía to Ro asking him to explain his position (‘desmenuzase la plática’); Weiner, ‘Fitna’, pp. 160–3; Maziane, Salé et ses corsairs, p. 28.
28 Leila Maziane, ‘Entre Salé et les Provinces-Unies au XVIIe siècle, une complicité haute en couleur’, in Ana Crespo Solana and Manuel Herrero Sánchez, eds., España y las 17 provincias de los Países Bajos (Córdoba, 2002), I, pp. 255–67, at pp. 261–2.
29 On Duke Manuel Alonso and Africa, see Salas Almela, Medina Sidonia; and Bounizeb, La alcazaba, p. 27.
30 Mojuetan, ‘Legitimacy’, p. 349; Mantran, ‘North Africa’, pp. 247–8.
31 AGS Estado leg. 2647, letters from the governor of Mamora, 16–18 Sept. 1629, and a letter from the marquis of Villafranca, concerning his meeting with a French official in Rota on 14 Oct. 1629. On Razilly’s mission, see Weiner, ‘Fitna’, p. 204; and Bounizeb, La alcazaba, pp. 55–6.
32 For example, see AGS Estado leg. 2646, 6 Apr. and 27 Apr. 1627; and leg. 2647, consulta dated 19 Oct. 1629 summarizing a letter from Medina Sidonia.
33 Starting with Coindreau, it has been said that the Andalusians were somehow less Islamic than those from Hornachos; Coindreau, Les corsaires, pp. 44–5; and Gozalbes Busto, ‘La república’, p. 69. For conflicts between the two communities, see AGS Estado leg. 2647, 14 and 30 Sept. 1629.
34 Maziane, Salé et ses corsairs, p. 30.
35 This was confirmed in ‘Relación de novedades…en la alcazaba de Salé’, written in Mamora, 16–18 Sept. 1629, in AGS Estado leg. 2647, unfoliated; see also AGS Estado leg. 2650, no. 25, memorandum attached to consulta from the Councils of State and War, Apr. 1632.
36 AGS Estado leg. 2668, ‘Sumario de lo que ha pasado en las cosas de la alcazaba de Salé desde el año de [1]619 hasta el de [1]632’, a document used in detail by Bouzineb.
37 AGFCMS leg. 2414, Arce to Medina Sidonia, 23 Feb. 1630, describing the mood at the Council of State, in large part inspired by Medina Sidonia himself.
38 AGFCMS leg. 2414, Villanueva to Medina Sidonia, 4 Aug. 1631; Philip IV letter dated 16 Aug. 1625.
39 AGFCMS leg. 2414, Medina Sidonia to Pedro Coloma, n.d., Aug.–Sept. 1631.
40 Antonio Romeu de Armas, Cádiz, metrópoli del comercio con África en los siglos XV y XVI (Cádiz, 1976).
41 In June 1632, Diego de la Rasa was specially appointed as judge to investigate the situation in Larache and Mamora and the roles of Governors Sebastián Granero and Toribio de Herrera, respectively. Medina Sidonia was aware of the appointment, and both the king and Ruiz de Ezcaray requested his assistance; see AGFCMS leg. 2415, 26 June 1632.
42 AGS Guerra y Marina leg. 1051, 8 July (consulta with king’s reply on 28 July) and 17 Aug. 1632.
43 Weiner, ‘Fitna’, pp. 203–10.
44 Coindreau, Les corsaires, pp. 35–58; Bounizeb, La alcazaba, pp. 53–9, 63; José Manuel Gutiérrez de la Cámara Señán, ‘Los corsarios de Salé’, in XLI Jornadas de Historia Marítima, pp. 71–81, at pp. 76–7.
45 AGS Estado leg. 2650, no. 22, 26 Oct. 1631; see also Weiner, ‘Fitna’, pp. 210–13.
46 AGS Estado leg. 2648, copy of a consulta, Council of War, 7 Nov. 1631.
47 AGS Estado leg. 2650, no. 17, 30 Nov. 1631.
48 AGS Estado leg. 2650, no. 16, 7 Dec. 1631.
49 AGS Estado leg. 2650, no. 11, Tangier, 10 and 31 Dec. 1631.
50 On 13 Dec., Mascarenhas wrote to Philip IV to say he was obeying Medina Sidonia’s orders as best he could; AGS Estado leg. 2650, no. 12, Tangier, 31 Dec. 1631.
51 AGS Estado leg. 2650, nos. 2 and 14, Mamora, 11 Dec. 1631.
52 AGS Estado, leg. 2650, no. 4, Mamora, 11 Dec. 1631.
53 On moriscos expelled to France, see Bernard Vincent, ‘The geography of the morisco expulsion’, in Mercedes García-Arenal and Gerard. A. Wiegers, eds., The expulsion of the moriscos from Spain (Leiden, 2014), pp. 19–36.
54 AGS Estado leg. 2650, no. 3, Mamora, 25 Nov. 1631.
55 AGS Estado leg. 2650, 25 Nov. 1631, also with the Arabic date of 28 zafar 1040.
56 AGS Estado leg. 2650, no. 1, testimony taken in Mamora, 22 Dec. 1631.
57 Zubialde said he had heard that a Dutch ship had recently arrived in Salé loaded with enough weapons and gunpowder to last a year; AGS Estado leg. 2650, no. 1, testimony taken in Mamora, 22 Dec. 1531. This was probably the 1629 shipment referred to by Maziane, ‘Entre Salé et les provinces’, pp. 261–2.
58 AGS Estado leg. 2650, no. 1, testimony taken in Mamora, 22 Dec. 1631.
59 AGS Estado leg. 2650, nos. 5, 7, and 8, letters dated 9, 13, and 28 Dec. 1631.
60 AGS Estado leg. 2650, nos. 13 and 15, letters to king, 21 Dec. 1631; AGFCMS leg. 2414, Medina Sidonia to Philip IV, 21 Dec. 1631.
61 AGS Estado leg. 2650, no. 10, letter, Sanlúcar, 28 Dec. 1631.
62 The duke had suggested the names of men to replace him in case he got much worse or died; AGFCMS leg. 2415, letters 12 and 25, (3) Jan. 1632.
63 AGS Estado leg. 1650, no. 21, copy of letter from Pedro de Barrionuevo, 14 Jan. 1632.
64 This reciprocity, offering political gain in exchange for improved living conditions for captives, is a direct and express complement to reciprocity based on generic cultural principles. On unwritten principles governing the treatment of captives on both sides, see Hershenzon, The captive sea, pp. 118–39.
65 AGS Estado leg. 2650, no. 21, Barrionuevo to ‘the captains…of the alcazaba’, Mamora, 13 Jan. 1632; copies of the four letters and guarantee for communication between Salé and the presidio.
66 Weiner, ‘Fitna’, p. 149.
67 AGS Guerra y Marina leg. 1048, letters 1–4, 26, 27 (2), and 29 Jan. 1632.
68 AGS Guerra y Marina leg. 1048, consulta Council of War, 2 Feb. 1632.
69 Miguel Ángel de Bunes Ibarra, ‘La defensa de la cristiandad: las armas en el mediterráneo en la Edad Moderna’, Cuadernos de Historia Moderna. Anejos, 5 (2006), pp. 77–99, at pp. 95–6.
70 AGFCMS leg. 2415, letter, 29 Feb. 1632.
71 For the council’s request, AGS Estado leg. 2650, no. 30, consulta, 11 Feb. 1632.
72 AGS Guerra y Marina leg. 1049, consulta, 23 Mar. 1632.
73 AGFCMS leg. 2415, Ruiz Ezcaray to Medina Sidonia, 23 and 30 Mar. 1632.
74 For the report on the Spanish presence in Salé from 1619, see Bounizeb, La alcazaba, pp. 43–69.
75 AGS Estado leg. 2650, no. 25, consulta, plenary session of the Councils of War and State, 30 Apr. 1632.
76 Elliott, The count-duke, pp. 439–41.
77 AGS Estado leg. 2650, nos. 120 and 124, Medina Sidonia to Felipe IV, 10 May 1632.
78 AGS Estado leg. 2650, nos. 32 and 132, king to Ruiz de Ezcaray and Manuel de Hinojosa, both in Madrid, 30 June 1632.
79 Already on 1 July, Jerónimo de Villanueva had returned Hinojosa’s writ to Ruiz de Ezcaray so the secretary of the Council of War could process it immediately; AGS Estado leg. 2650, no. 130, note on 1 July 1632.
80 AGS Estado leg. 2650, no. 33, Philip IV to Medina Sidonia, 3 July 1632.
81 AGS Estado leg. 2650, no. 34, Philip IV to Olivares, 3 July 1632.
82 AGS Estado leg. 2650, no. 31, copy in AGFCMS leg. 2415, Madrid, 23 July 1632.
83 AGFCMS leg. 2415, Medina Sidonia to the king through Ruiz de Ezcaray, 8 Aug. 1632.
84 AGFCMS leg. 2415, cédula to Medina Sidonia, 12 Oct. 1632.
85 AGS Guerra y Marina leg. 1049, consulta, Council of War, 24 Nov. 1632.
86 Luis Salas Almela, ‘La agencia en Madrid del VIII duque de Medina Sidonia, 1615–1636’, Hispania, 224 (2006), pp. 909–58; Luis Salas Almela, The conspiracy of the duke of Medina Sidonia: an aristocrat in the crisis of the Spanish empire (1641), trans. Ruth MacKay (Leiden, 2013).
87 AGFCMS leg. 3094, duke to Pedro de Maya, his accountant in Seville, regarding the levy, 27 Apr. 1633.
88 AGS Guerra y Marina leg. 1073, Medina Sidonia to the council, 20 Feb.; council meeting, 18 Mar. 1633.
89 Mercedes García-Arenal, Fernando Rodríguez Mediano, and Rachid el Hour, eds., Cartas marruecas: documentos de Marruecos en archivos españoles (siglos XVI–XVII) (Madrid, 2002), pp. 145–6; Luis Salas Almela, ‘“Traer moros por segunda vez”: de la defensa de Andalucía a la conjura de Medina Sidonia (1578–1641)’, Estudis: Revista de Historia Moderna, 47 (2021), pp. 77–101.
90 Salas Almela, Medina Sidonia, pp. 328–34.
91 Salas Almela, ‘Las paradojas financieras’.
92 Weiner, ‘Fitna’, pp. 154–7.
93 Antonio Domínguez Ortiz and Bernard Vincent, Historia de los moriscos: vida y tragedia de una minoría (Madrid, 1978), ch. 10. See also Elliott, The count-duke, pp. 255–7.
94 Antonio Domínguez Ortiz, ‘Felipe IV y los moriscos’, Miscelánea de estudios árabes y hebraicos, 8 (1959), pp. 55–65; on conversations regarding expulsion during the reign of Philip II, see Benítez Sánchez-Blanco, ‘La expulsión’, p. 11. For the glorification of the expulsion in the seventeenth century, see Antonio Feros, ‘Rhetoric of the expulsion’, in García-Arenal and Wiegers, eds., The expulsion, pp. 60–101.
95 This opinion was delivered at a Council of State meeting concerning the expulsion of certain freed Muslim or Maghrebi slaves called cortados from Andalusia; AGS Estado leg. 2645, n.f., 28 Nov. 1626. See also Seth Kimmel, Parables of coercion: conversion and knowledge at the end of Islamic Spain (Chicago, IL, 2015).
96 Alonso Acero, ‘El norte de África’, pp. 102–14; Enrique Soria Mesa, Los últimos moriscos: pervivencias de la población de origen islámico en el reino de Granada (siglos XVII–XVIII) (Valencia, 2014).
97 Mira Caballos, ‘Los moriscos’, pp. 23–32.