The Morisco Problem and the Politics of Belonging in Sixteenth-Century Valladolid

This dissertation examines how Moriscos (Spanish Muslims forcibly converted to Catholicism, and their descendants) responded to religious prosecution and assimilationist policies with both legal action and noncompliance. The Morisco problem was the failure of the early modern Spanish Crown and Church to assimilate the Moriscos into Catholicism in the wholesale and controlled manner desired by those institutions. Central to this problem was their identification: the determination of their individual and communal legal statuses and corresponding privileges, related but not equivalent to their religious “identities.” This dissertation focuses on two groups living in the Castilian city of Valladolid: Castilian Moriscos native to that region and Granadan Moriscos resettled there after 1570. Chapter One,"The fight for the barrio," looks at the Castilian Moriscos’ legal fight to remain in their long-time residential enclave, Valladolid’s Barrio de Santa María. The second chapter, “Petitioning for Grace,” explains how they mitigated Inquisitorial prosecution by petitioning the king for Edicts of Grace and negotiating with the Inquisition an annual monetary tribute designed to protect their property from confiscation. Chapter Three, “Contested Relocations,” examines how Granadan Morisco deportees relocated to Valladolid challenged prohibitions on their mobility. The fourth chapter, “Litigating for Liberty,” focuses on Moriscos enslaved as children during the Granadan rebellion and war who later won their freedom in courts of law. The final chapter, “Resisting Expulsion,” shows how Moriscos resisted and disrupted the process of their final expulsion from the Spanish Kingdoms in 1609-1614. This project’s critical intervention in the field is its focus on the textual record Moriscos generated through legal action, sources that include court records, leases, petitions and claims, tax settlements, licenses, passports, charters of Old Christian status, and letters of manumission. This thesis argues that the identification of the Moriscos was a process of negotiation in which they themselves took part. It challenges the traditional narrative of the marginalization of the Moriscos: for all the prosecution and prohibitions they faced as suspected heretics and dissidents, these documents tell a tale of significant economic industry, civic integration, and legal agency.Ph.D