E1345 - Less of the Moors

Spain began expel Moriscos - the descendants of Muslims who had converted, often under pressure, to Christianity - on 9th April, 1609. 

Although many had lived alongside Christian neighbours for generations, political suspicion lingered, and King Phillip III increasingly viewed them as a problem to be solved rather than a community to be integrated: expelling the Moriscos offered a way to assert religious conformity while also making practical use of naval resources no longer required for war. 

Longstanding fears, partly grounded in memory of Islamic rule in Iberia and partly in anxiety about the expanding Ottoman Em...