Archival History:

Biography / Administrative history:

Name of the creator(s):

Consejo de Estado (España. 1521-1834)

Scope and Content:

The expulsion of the Moorish from the Spanish Kingdoms was not only a major event in the history of Spain but also, according to the period's own data, the biggest migration in the Early Modern Age.

It was the final result of a process started with the conquest of Granada in 1492, growth along all the 16th century until the revolt of Alpujarras in 1568-1570 and the subsequent eviction and dispersion of the Moorish people throughout the Peninsula, after years of deliberations which lead to what finally was appointed like the only way for reach an endpoint to what was considered an insoluble problem. Unlike the rest of Europe Spain did not endure the religion's wars, but the expulsion of the Moorish deeply damaged the country, focused in the political goal (common to all the European nations) of religious uniformity as guarantee of unity.

The expulsion was not a single administrative act, but a series of specific decrees enacted in turn for each kingdom. Although the main subject of all of them was the same order of expulsion, each decree disposed specific measures relative to the terms and conditions for the eviction of the Moorish of each kingdom.

The first one was the decree for the Kingdom of Valencia, that counted the most important number of Moorish, and was followed by the decrees for Andalusia (1/10/1610), Catalonia (4/10/1610), Aragon (5/29/1610), Castille and Extremadura (7/10/1610), ending with the decree for the Kingdom of Murcia (10/08/1610).

The decree for the Kingdom of Valencia was divided in 13 points containing the expulsion conditions. The key elements were set out in the first point: an order to be ready in three days to begin the journey to the assigned shipping ports and authosiation to take them away only the personal belongings they could carry by their own.

A task of such magnitude required, in addition to years of deliberations and queries inside all the decision-making bodies of the Spanish Monarchy, months of arrangements and a huge mobilisation of its military and administrative resources for a five-years term. This preparatives left behind a huge amount nof documentation that can be traced through the fonds of all the corporate bodies of the period, the firsts of them the fonds of the council-system.

The cost in population, labour, craftsmen, etc. of this decision for the Spanish kingdoms, as well as the humanitarian disaster, has been profusely studied and documented by historians from around the world through the ages.

General accessibility conditions:

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Image accessibility condition:

Images/documents have no access restrictions

Language and Scripts:

Español (Alfabeto latino).  Writing type: Impresa. 

Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements:

Binded in a volume with all the rest of documents of the whole bundle.

Description Indices:

Carrillo de Toledo, Luis (1564-1626)

Expulsión de los moriscos, 1609-1614

Valencia (reino, jurisdicción antigua, España)

Medium/Archival Material:

Digitized 

Fuentes:

Marchena Ruiz, E.; Rodríguez de Diego, J. (coords).. Los moriscos: españoles trasterrados.. Madrid: Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. 2009.

Lomas Cortés, Manuel. El proceso de expulsión de los moriscos de España (1609-1614). Valencia: Universidad de Valencia. 2011.