Chapter VIII: Rebellion of the Moriscoes (2)

The body of Aben-Aboo was transported to the neighbourhood of Granada, where preparations were made for giving the dead chief a public entrance into the city, as if he had been still alive. The corpse was set astride on a mule, and supported erect in the saddle by a wooden frame, which was concealed beneath ample robes. On one side of the body rode Barredo; on the other, El Senix, bearing the scimitar and arquebuse of his murdered master. Then followed the kinsmen and friends of the Morisco prince, with their arms by their side. A regiment of Castilian infantry and a troop of horse brought up the rear. As the procession defiled along the street of Zacatin, it was saluted by salvoes of musketry, accompanied by peals of artillery from the ancient towers of the Alhambra, while the population of Granada, with eager though silent curiosity, hurried out to gaze on the strange and ghastly spectacle.

In this way the company reached the great square of Vivarambla, where were assembled the president, the duke of Arcos, and the principal cavaliers and magistrates of the city. On coming into their presence, El Senix dismounted, and, kneeling before Deza, delivered to him the arms of Aben-Aboo. He was graciously received by the president, who confirmed the assurance which had been given him of the royal favour. The miserable ceremony of public execution was then gone through with. The head of the dead man was struck off. His body was given to the boys of the city, who, after dragging it through the streets with scoffs and imprecations, committed it to the flames. Such was one of the lessons by which the Spaniards early stamped on the minds of their children an indelible hatred of the Morisco.

[Sidenote: CHARACTER OF ABEN-ABOO.]

The head of Aben-Aboo, enclosed in a cage, was set up over the gate which opened on the Alpujarras. There, with the face turned towards his native hills, which he had loved so well, and which had witnessed his brief and disastrous reign, it remained for many a year. None ventured, by removing it, to incur the doom which an inscription on the cage denounced on the offender: "This is the head of the traitor Aben-Aboo. Let no one take it down, under penalty of death."[279]

Such was the sad end of Aben-Aboo, the last of the royal line of the Omeyades who ever ruled in the Peninsula. Had he lived in the peaceful and prosperous times of the Arabian empire in Spain, he might have swayed the sceptre with as much renown as the best of his dynasty. Though the blood of the Moor flowed in his veins, he seems to have been remarkably free from some of the greatest defects in the Moorish character. He was temperate in his appetites, presenting in this respect a contrast to the gross sensuality of his predecessor. He had a lofty spirit, was cool and circumspect in his judgments, and, if he could not boast that fiery energy of character which belonged to some of his house, he had a firmness of purpose not to be intimidated by suffering or danger. Of this he gave signal proof when, as the reader may remember, the most inhuman tortures could not extort from him the disclosure of the lurking-place of his friends.[280] His qualities, as I have intimated, were such as peculiarly adapted him to a time of prosperity and peace. Unhappily, he had fallen upon evil times, when his country lay a wreck at his feet; when the people, depressed by long servitude, were broken down by the recent calamities of war; when, in short, it would not have been possible for the wisest and most warlike of his predecessors to animate them to a successful resistance against odds so overwhelming as those presented by the Spanish monarchy in the zenith of its power.

The Castilian chroniclers have endeavoured to fix a deep stain on his memory, by charging him with the murder of El Habaqui, and with the refusal to execute the treaty to which he had given his sanction. But, in criticising the conduct of Aben-Aboo, we must not forget the race from which he sprung, or the nature of its institutions. He was a despot, and a despot of the Oriental type. He was placed in a situation--much against his will, it may be added--which gave him absolute control over the lives and fortunes of his people. His word was their law. He passed the sentence, and enforced its execution. El Habaqui he adjudged to be a traitor; and, in sentencing him to the bowstring, he inflicted on him only a traitor's doom.

With regard to the treaty, he spoke of himself as betrayed, saying that its provisions were not such as he had intended. And when we consider that the instrument was written in the Spanish tongue; that it was drafted by a Spaniard; finally, that the principal Morisco agent who subscribed the treaty was altogether in the Spanish interest, as the favours heaped on him without measure too plainly proved, it can hardly be doubted that there were good grounds for the assertion of Aben-Aboo. From the hour of his accession, he seems to have devoted himself to the great work of securing the independence of his people. He could scarcely have agreed to a treaty which was to leave that people in even a worse state than before the rebellion. From what we know of his character, we may more reasonably conclude that he was sincere when he told the Spanish envoy, Palacios, who had come to press the execution of the treaty, and to remind him of the royal promises of grace, that "his people might do as they listed, but, for himself, he would rather live and die a Mussulman than possess all the favours which the king of Spain could heap on him." His deeds corresponded with his words; and, desperate as was his condition, he still continued to bid defiance to the Spanish government, until he was cut off by the hand of a traitor.

The death of Aben-Aboo severed the last bond which held the remnant of the Moriscoes together. In a few years the sword, famine, and the gallows had exterminated the outcasts who still lurked in the fastnesses of the mountains. Their places were gradually occupied by Christians, drawn thither by the favourable terms which the government offered to settlers. But it was long before the wasted and famine-stricken territory could make a suitable return to the labours of the colonists. They were ignorant of the country, and were altogether deficient in the agricultural skill necessary for turning its unpromising places to the best account. The Spaniard, adventurous as he was, and reckless of danger and difficulty in the pursuit of gain, was impatient of the humble drudgery required for the tillage of the soil; and many a valley and hill-side which, under the Moriscoes, had bloomed with all the rich embroidery of cultivation, now relapsed into its primitive barrenness.

The exiles carried their superior skill and industry into the various provinces where they were sent. Scattered as they were, and wide apart, the presence of the Moriscoes was sure to be revealed by the more minute and elaborate culture of the soil, as the secret course of the mountain-stream is betrayed by the brighter green of the meadow. With their skill in husbandry they combined a familiarity with various kinds of handicraft, especially those requiring dexterity and fineness of execution, that was unknown to the Spaniards. As the natural result of this superiority, the products of their labour were more abundant, and could be afforded at a cheaper rate than those of their neighbours. Yet this industry was exerted under every disadvantage which a most cruel legislation could impose on it. It would be hard to find in the pages of history a more flagrant example of the oppression of a conquered race, than that afforded by the laws of this period in reference to the Moriscoes. The odious law of 1566, which led to the insurrection, was put in full force. By this the national songs and dances, the peculiar baths of the Moriscoes, the _fetes_ and ceremonies which had come down to them from their ancestors, were interdicted under heavy penalties. By another ordinance, dated October 6, 1572, still more cruel and absurd, they were forbidden to speak or to write the Arabic, under penalty of thirty days' imprisonment in irons for the first offence, double that term for the second, and for the third a hundred lashes and four years' confinement in the galleys. By another monstrous provision in the same edict, whoever read, or even had in his possession, a work written or printed in the Arabic, was to be punished with a hundred stripes and four years in the galleys. Any contract or public instrument made in that tongue was to be void, and the parties to it were condemned to receive two hundred lashes and to tug at the oar for six years.[281]

[Sidenote: FORTUNES OF THE MORISCOES.]

But the most oppressive part of this terrible ordinance related to the residence of the Moriscoes. No one was allowed to change his abode, or to leave the parish or district assigned to him, without permission from the regular authorities. Whoever did so, and was apprehended beyond these limits, was to be punished with a hundred lashes and four years' imprisonment in the galleys. Should he be found within ten leagues of Granada, he was condemned, if between ten and seventeen years of age, to toil as a galley-slave the rest of his days; if above seventeen, he was sentenced to death![282] On the escape of a Morisco from his limits, the hue and cry was to be raised, as for the pursuit of a criminal. Even his own family were required to report his absence to the magistrate; and in case of their failure to do this, although it should be his wife or his children, says the law, they incurred the penalty of a whipping and a month's imprisonment in the common gaol.[283]

Yet, in the face of these atrocious enactments, we find the Moriscoes occasionally making their escape into the province of Valencia, where numbers of their countrymen were living as serfs on the estates of the great nobles, under whose powerful protection they enjoyed a degree of comfort, if not of independence, unknown to their race in other parts of the country. Some few, also, finding their way to the coast, succeeded in crossing the sea to Barbary. The very severity of the law served in some measure to defeat its execution. Indeed, Philip, in more than one instance in which he deemed that the edicts pressed too heavily on his Moorish vassals, judged it expedient to mitigate the penalty, or even to dispense with it altogether,--an act of leniency which seems to have found little favour with his Castilian subjects.[284]

Yet, strange to say, under this iron system, the spirit of the Moriscoes, which had been crushed by their long sufferings in the war of the rebellion, gradually rose again as they found a shelter in their new homes, and resumed their former habits of quiet industry. Though deprived of their customary amusements, their _fetes_, their songs, and their dances,--though debarred from the use of the language which they had lisped from the cradle, which embodied their national traditions, and was associated with their fondest recollections,--they were said to be cheerful, and even gay. They lived to a good age, and examples of longevity were found among them, to which it was not easy to find a parallel among the Spaniards. The Moorish stock, like the Jewish, seems to have thriven under persecution.[285]

One would be glad to find any authentic data for an account of the actual population at the time of their expulsion from Granada. But I have met with none. They must have been sorely thinned by the war of the insurrection and the countless woes it brought upon the country. One fact is mentioned by the chroniclers, which shows that the number of the exiles must have been very considerable. The small remnant still left in Granada, with its lovely _vega_ and the valley of Lecrin, alone furnished, we are told, over six thousand.[286] In the places to which they were transported they continued to multiply to such an extent that the Cortes of Castile, in the latter part of the century, petitioned the king not to allow the census to be taken, lest it might disclose to the Moriscoes the alarming secret of their increase of numbers.[287] Such a petition shows, as strongly as language can show, the terror in which the Spaniards still stood of this persecuted race.

Yet the Moriscoes were scattered over the country in small and isolated masses, hemmed in all around by the Spaniards. They were transplanted to the interior, where, at a distance from the coast, they had no means of communicating with their brethren of Africa. They were without weapons of any kind; and, confined to their several districts, they had not the power of acting in concert together. There would seem to have been little to fear from a people so situated. But the weakest individual, who feels that his wrongs are too great to be forgiven, may well become an object of dread to the person who has wronged him.

The course of the government in reference to the Moriscoes was clearly a failure. It was as impolitic as it was barbarous. Nothing but the blindest fanaticism could have prevented the Spaniards from perceiving this. The object of the government had been to destroy every vestige of nationality in the conquered race. They were compelled to repudiate their ancient usages, their festivals, their religion, their language,--all that gave them a separate existence as a nation. But this served only to strengthen in secret the sentiment of nationality. They were to be divorced for ever from the past. But it was the mistake of the government that it opened to them no future. Having destroyed their independence as a nation, it should have offered them the rights of citizenship, and raised them to an equality with the rest of the community. Such was the policy of ancient Rome towards the nations which she conquered; and such has been that of our own country towards the countless emigrants who have thronged to our shores from so many distant lands. The Moriscoes, on the contrary, under the policy of Spain, were condemned to exist as foreigners in the country,--as enemies in the midst of the community into which they were thrown. Experience had taught them prudence and dissimulation; and in all outward observances they conformed to the exactions of the law. But in secret they were as much attached to their national institutions as were their ancestors when the caliphs of Cordova ruled over half the Peninsula. The Inquisition rarely gleaned an apostate from among them to swell the horrors of an _auto da fe_; but whoever recalls the facility with which, in the late rebellion, the whole population had relapsed into their ancient faith, will hardly doubt that they must have still continued to be Mahometans at heart.

Thus the gulf which separated the two races grew wider and wider every day. The Moriscoes hated the Spaniards for the wrongs which they had received from them. The Spaniards hated the Moriscoes the more, that they had themselves inflicted these wrongs. Their hatred was further embittered by the feeling of jealousy caused by the successful competition of their rivals in the various pursuits of gain,--a circumstance which forms a fruitful theme of complaint in the petition of the Cortes above noticed.[288] The feeling of hate became in time mingled with that of fear, as the Moriscoes increased in opulence and numbers; and men are not apt to be over scrupulous in their policy towards those whom they both hate and fear.

With these evil passions rankling in their bosoms, the Spaniards were gradually prepared for the consummation of their long train of persecutions by that last act, reserved for the reign of the imbecile Philip the Third,--the expulsion of the Moriscoes from the Peninsula,--an act which deprived Spain of the most industrious and ingenious portion of her population, and which must be regarded as one of the principal causes of the subsequent decline of the monarchy.

[Sidenote: MARMOL--CIRCOURT.]

An historian less renowned than Mendoza, but of more importance to
one who would acquaint himself with the story of the Morisco
rebellion, is Luis del Marmol Carbajal. Little is known of him but
what is to be gathered from brief notices of himself in his works.
He was a native of Granada, but we are not informed of the date of
his birth. He was of a good family, and followed the profession of
arms. When a mere youth, as he tells us, he was present at the
famous siege of Tunis, in 1535. He continued in the imperial
service two-and-twenty years. Seven years he was a captive, and
followed the victorious banner of Mohammed, Scherif of Morocco, in
his campaigns in the west of Africa. His various fortunes and his
long residence in different parts of the African continent,
especially in Barbary and Egypt, supplied him with abundant
information in respect to the subjects of his historical inquiries;
and, as he knew the Arabic, he made himself acquainted with such
facts as were to be gleaned from books in that language. The fruits
of his study and observation he gave to the world in his
"_Descripcion General de Africa_," a work in three volumes folio,
the first part of which appeared at Granada in 1573. The remainder
was not published till the close of the century.

The book obtained a high reputation for its author, who was much
commended for the fidelity and diligence with which he had pushed
his researches in a field of letters into which the European
scholar had as yet rarely ventured to penetrate.

In the year 1600 appeared, at Malaga, his second work, the
"_Historia del Rebelion y Castigo de los Moriscos del Reyno de
Granada_," in one volume, folio. For the composition of this
history the author was admirably qualified, not only by his
familiarity with all that related to the character and condition of
the Moriscoes, but by the part which he had personally taken in the
war of the insurrection. He held the office of commissary in the
royal army, and served in that capacity from the commencement of
the war to its close. In the warm colouring of the narrative, and
in the minuteness of its details, we feel that we are reading the
report of one who has himself beheld the scenes which he describes.
Indeed, the interest which, as an actor, he naturally takes in the
operations of the war, leads to an amount of detail which may well
be condemned as a blemish by those who do not feel a similar
interest in the particulars of the struggle. But if his style have
somewhat of the rambling, discursive manner of the old Castilian
chronicler, it has a certain elegance in the execution, which
brings it much nearer to the standard of a classic author. Far from
being chargeable with the obscurity of Mendoza, Marmol is
uncommonly perspicuous. With a general facility of expression, his
language takes the varied character suited to the theme, sometimes
kindled into eloquence and occasionally softened into pathos, for
which the melancholy character of his story afforded too many
occasions. Though loyal to his country and his faith, yet he shows
but few gleams of the fiery intolerance that belonged to his
nation, and especially to that portion of it which came into
collision with the Moslems. Indeed, in more than one passage of his
work we may discern gleams of that Christian charity which, in
Castile was the rarest, as it was, unhappily, the least precious of
virtues, in the age in which he lived.

In the extensive plan adopted by Marmol, his history of the
rebellion embraces a preliminary notice of the conquest of Granada,
and of that cruel policy of the conquerors which led to the
insurrection. The narrative, thus complete, supplied a most
important hiatus in the annals of the country. Yet notwithstanding
its importance in this view, and its acknowledged merit as a
literary composition, such was the indifference of the Spaniards to
their national history, that it was not till the close of the last
century, in 1797, that a second edition of Marmol's work was
permitted to appear. This was in two volumes, octavo, from the
press of Sancha, at Madrid,--the edition used in the preparation of
these pages.

The most comprehensive, and by far the most able history of the
Moors of Spain with which I am acquainted, is that of the Count
Albert de Circourt,--"_Histoire des Arabes en Espagne_." Beginning
with the beginning, the author opens his narrative with the
conquest of the Peninsula by the Moslems. He paints in glowing
colours the magnificent empire of the Spanish caliphs. He dwells
with sufficient minuteness on those interminable feuds which,
growing out of a diversity of races and tribes, baffled every
attempt at a permanent consolidation under one government. Then
comes the famous war of Granada, with the conquest of the country
by the "Catholic Kings;" and the work closes with the sad tale of
the subsequent fortunes of the conquered races until their final
expulsion from the Peninsula. Thus the rapidly shifting scenes of
this most picturesque drama, sketched by a master's hand, are
brought in regular succession before the eye of the reader.

In conducting his long story, the author, far from confining
himself to a dry record of events, diligently explores the causes
of these events. He scrutinizes with care every inch of debateable
ground which lies in his path. He enriches his narrative with
copious disquisitions on the condition of the arts, and the
progress made by the Spanish Arabs in science and letters; thus
presenting a complete view of that peculiar civilization which so
curiously blended together the characteristic elements of European
and Oriental culture.

If, in pursuing his speculations, M. de Circourt may be sometimes
thought to refine too much, it cannot be denied that they are
distinguished by candour and by a philosophical spirit. Even when
we may differ from his conclusions, we must allow that they are the
result of careful study, and display an independent way of
thinking. I may regret that in one important instance--the policy
of the government of Ferdinand and Isabella--he should have been
led to dissent from the opinions which I had expressed in my
history of those sovereigns. It is possible that the predilection
which the writer, whether historian or novelist, naturally feels
for his hero when his conduct affords any ground for it, may have
sometimes seduced me from the strict line of impartiality in my
estimate of character and motives of action. I see, however, no
reason to change the conclusions at which I had arrived after a
careful study of the subject. Yet I cannot deny that the labours of
the French historian have shed a light upon more than one obscure
passage in the administration of Ferdinand and Isabella, for which
the student of Spanish history owes him a debt of gratitude.