Spain's Road to Empire Read online

  In their different ways, the ten-year-long Granada campaign and the pioneering voyages of Columbus were the first significant steps in the move towards an imperial enterprise. The voyages, however, elicited little or no reaction for very many years. By contrast, the wars had a resounding impact and propelled Castile to the forefront of international attention. An enthusiastic Castilian writer, Fray Iñigo de Mendoza, imagined that King Ferdinand would not stop with the conquest of Granada but would extend his successes to conquering Africa, defeating the Turks and dominating the world.

  Last remnant of the Muslim power that had once covered three-quarters of the Iberian peninsula, the emirate of al-Andalus in the 1480s had a population of some half-a-million people, immersed in small conflicts with neighbouring Christians and rent by its own political and clan divisions. In 1482 a border quarrel led to Christians seizing the Muslim town of Alhama. The action escalated tensions and initiated a campaign which the crown adopted as its own and subsequently transformed into a drive to conquer the whole territory. For a decade the struggle harnessed the energies of the population of southern Spain in providing soldiers and producing food and supplies. The medieval wars against the Muslims had come to an end over two hundred years before, but the old antagonism now took on new life.

  By themselves the Castilians were not equipped to achieve the conquest of Granada: they had insufficient money, men and weapons. As in other European states the armed forces were not permanent but recruited only for a campaign or for a season. The forces confronting al-Andalus were made up of independent units – supplied by the crown, the nobles, the Church, and the towns of the Hermandades of Castile –that served for limited periods and disbanded after each phase of the campaign. Most surprising of all, the Castilians did not possess adequate naval power, and never launched concerted attacks on the vulnerable seacoast; all their campaigns were land-based.20 A number of Genoese vessels were contracted to reconnoitre the coastline, in case of intervention from Muslim Africa. The only substantial naval support appears to have been supplied by Ferdinand's subjects, the Catalans, with support from the Neapolitans.21 The fleet of galleys was commanded by Galcerà de Requesens, who enjoyed the Neapolitan title of count of Trivento. Their presence was especially notable at the siege of Málaga. ‘The royal fleet’, recorded a chronicler of this time, the curate of Los Palacios near Seville, ‘laid siege to Málaga with a host of galleys and vessels and caravels, carrying many soldiers and arms. It was a wonderful sight to see the royal army before Málaga by land, while at sea the great armada kept up a continuous siege.’22 The war was by no means a continuous one, but rather – like most medieval wars – a long-drawn-out series of clashes and encounters, with extended intervals when nothing happened or when quite simply the soldiers went home to rest or to escape the heat of the summer. There were no pitched battles;23 attention centred on capturing specific towns, and the conflict took the form of skirmishes, raids and sieges. Periods of hostility alternated with periods of normal, peaceful contact.

  Success was assured by international support, for the war also excited the imagination of Christian Europe. The crown's prestige was enormously enhanced by the campaign, which took on the status of a European crusade, blessed by the papacy and with funds from all over the continent. Ferdinand was intelligent enough deliberately to exploit the religious motive. In 1481 he declared that his aim was ‘to expel from all Spain the enemies of the Catholic faith, and dedicate Spain to the service of God’. In 1485 he claimed that ‘we have not been moved to this war by any desire to enlarge our realms, nor by greed for greater revenues’. The popes from 1482 onwards granted generous funds (through a levy known as the cruzada or ‘crusade’, conceding special graces to those who contributed to or took part in the campaign). ‘Without such subsidies’, reported the Florentine diplomat Francesco Guicciardini, who was resident in Castile shortly after, ‘this king could not have taken Granada.’ A recent historian has confirmed that three-quarters of the crown's costs in the war were covered by Church taxes conceded by the papacy.24 Extra funds also came from the financiers in the Jewish community of Castile. Italian financiers, already resident and active in Seville, paid for entire campaigns: the crucial siege of the city of Baza, for example, was financed by forty Genoese from Seville and over twenty from Cadiz.25

  With the help of Italian financiers the king contracted Swiss mercenaries, the most respected infantrymen in Europe, whose battle tactics won the admiration of Castilian military commanders. Foreign volunteers arrived from all over Europe to serve in the holy war. ‘Many foreigners’, reported a sixteenth-century soldier, ‘came to Spain from France, Italy, Germany and England’,26 seeking their glory in Spain. Among the foreign detachments was an English one of some three hundred archers, commanded by Sir Edward Woodville, brother of the queen of England.27 Perhaps the most decisive foreign help came in the form of heavy artillery, imported from Italy and Flanders and operated mainly by Milanese and German technicians. Used regularly from 1487, so that by 1491 the army had over two hundred units, the cannon were able to demolish medieval fortifications and eventually ensured victory over the Muslims. In the early years of the struggle the latter had no similar weapons but subsequently obtained and also used them to great effect.28

  The war created a common purpose that brought the peoples of Iberia together. It was, after the medieval anti-Muslim wars known to us as the ‘Reconquest’, the first great military enterprise on peninsular soil in two hundred years. The conflict encouraged the several nations of ‘Spain’ to forget their differences and accept the leadership of the crown, whose prestige was enhanced with the aid of suitable propaganda. Catalans, Valencians and Aragonese volunteered to take part in a struggle that was in theory the responsibility of Castile. Money came from the Crown of Aragon, both from the Cortes and from sale of the cruzada bull. In 1488, for example, the Cortes of Aragon in Saragossa voted sums ‘for the war against the Muslims’.29 ‘Who would have thought’, remarked Peter Martyr d'Anghiera when he observed the Christian army, ‘that the Galician, the proud Asturian and the rude inhabitant of the Pyrenees, would be mixing freely with Toledans, people of La Mancha, and Andalusians, living together in harmony and obedience, like members of one family, speaking the same language and subject to one common discipline?’30 The collaboration among Spaniards – and the significant reliance on a common language, Castilian – set an important precedent for subsequent co-operation in wars, explorations, and settlements. Spaniards fought side by side in the struggle for Granada, and would continue to fight together in Italy and later in America. Writers of the time were quick to accept the feeling of a common identity, among them Diego de Valera, who dedicated his Chronicle of Spain to ‘the lady Ysabel, queen of Spain’.

  The increasing sense of unity among embattled Spaniards was accompanied, at the same time, by an increased distancing from the peoples they were fighting to subdue. The notion of a ‘crusade’, backed up by the papacy, helped to convince them that their cause alone was just, and that the enemy ‘infidels’ deserved no quarter. From 1488 many of the Spanish soldiers wore crusader crosses on their uniform, and a huge silver cross (sent to Ferdinand by the pope) was carried before the troops. In a way that had occurred under the classic civilizations of Greece and Rome, the victors during the Granada campaign also castigated some of the defeated by reducing them to slavery. Enslavement was a long-known practice in Mediterranean warfare between Muslims and Christians, and normally meant the temporary loss of liberty rather than a permanent change of status. It became a significant addition to the very small degree of domestic slavery (mainly of blacks from sub-Saharan Africa) that had existed in late medieval Spain.

  The decisive factor that ensured the defeat of Granada was the collaboration of the Muslims in their own downfall. It was a story that would be repeated time and again, in various forms, during the long saga of Spain's empire. Since the 1460s there had been a serious split in the ruling Nasrid dynasty between the ruler, Abu'l-
Hasan Ali, and his son Muhammad (whom the Castilians knew as Boabdil). The latter had seized Granada in 1482, leaving his father to rule the kingdom from Málaga; both, however, continued to defend themselves against attacks launched from Christian territory. In 1483 Boabdil was captured by the Christians during a daring incursion his men made towards Lucena. From this event, a Muslim chronicler commented later, ‘stemmed the ruin of our homeland’.31 The reason was that Boabdil accepted the opportunity to ally himself secretly with Ferdinand in order to overthrow the opposition to him in Granada, led now by Abu'l-Hasan's brother and successor Muhammad, known as al-Zagal. For many Muslims, there was no problem in collaborating with Christians; it had been part of the medieval pattern of coexistence in Spain. Ferdinand, indeed, continued the pattern by promising to ‘preserve the law of Muhammad’ in the towns that surrendered to the Christians during the 1480s. From 1485 Boabdil, now free, established himself in the Albaicin sector of Granada, and led an internal struggle against al-Zagal's supporters in the rest of the city. Whether or not he remained a secret ally of the Christians was of little importance. The civil conflict that he provoked made it almost impossible for al-Zagal to conduct an adequate defence of the other cities of al-Andalus. The most lamentable loss on the Muslim side was the city of Málaga, which surrendered in August 1487 after a bloody four-month siege, an immense loss of lives and the sale into slavery of virtually all the surviving population, including women and children.32

  The city of Baza surrendered in 1489 after its leaders had obtained favourable conditions for themselves (not, of course, for all the inhabitants) and the guarantee of their lands and property. This now became the pattern for what little remained of independent al-Andalus. In December al-Zagal handed over Almeria and Guadix on similar terms. Many Muslim leaders remained in the country and accepted conversion as the best guarantee of possession of their estates. In this way, as the Muslim chronicler reported, in the year 1489 ‘the land of al-Andalus finally fell into the hands of the ruler of Castile and entered into obedience to him. The only district remaining in Muslim hands was the city of Granada and the villages in its vicinity.’33 By that year the war was, for all practical purposes, over. The sudden collapse of the Muslim cause had a ready explanation. Seeing that little was to be gained by further resistance, the angry al-Zagal wished to save what could be saved but at the same time he wished to punish Boabdil. ‘He wanted to cut Granada off, so as to destroy it in the way the rest of the country had been destroyed’,34 reported the Muslim chronicler. Immediately afterwards, al-Zagal and his followers took ship for North Africa.

  Granada was already ripe for plucking, torn by dissension between the supporters and the enemies of Boabdil. There had already been contacts between Boabdil and Ferdinand's negotiators, led by one of his commanders, Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba. In the winter of 1490–91 the Christians began constructing a new settlement, significantly named Santa Fe (‘Holy Faith’), in the plains six miles to the west of the city. It was here that the final conditions were discussed for the journey to be made across the Atlantic by the Genoese sailor Columbus. In October 1491 negotiations began for a possible surrender of Granada. The talks, held secretly at night in the besieged city, were led on the Christian side by Gonzalo de Córdoba. The rulers of the city were evidently in favour of a settlement, but could not be rushed because of fears of a negative reaction from the people. Boabdil, above all, wished to survive as a king, albeit under Christian rule.

  Eventually both sides ratified the conditions in Santa Fe in November 1491. As had been traditional in medieval wars between Christians and Muslims, the submission took the form of ‘capitulations’, or surrender on agreed terms.35 In return for delivering the city, the inhabitants were guaranteed their customs, property, laws and religion. The last of these was to be guaranteed ‘for ever more’. The notion of ‘conquest’ was wholly absent: the Muslims were even allowed to keep all weapons except firearms. It was agreed to allow Christian troops to enter secretly on the night of 1 January and occupy key points. The date for the formal handing over was fixed for the following day, 2 January 1492, when in a glittering ceremony the king and queen, attired in Moorish dress and at the head of their assembled host, accepted the keys of the Alhambra from its last Muslim king. Four days later the new rulers of Granada officially entered their city.

  The end of al-Andalus and of Muslim power in the peninsula was celebrated with joy throughout Christian Europe. But it also created important new problems of imperial control. The vulnerable Muslim population soon found that defeat brings its own consequences, as changes were made in the economy and politics of the region, in clear violation of the capitulations. Many of the élite found life under Christian rule intolerable and passed over into North Africa. Reorganization of the territory was entrusted to Iñigo López de Mendoza, second count of Tendilla and later first marquis of Mondéjar. Hernando de Talavera, the confessor of Queen Isabella, was appointed first archbishop. He encouraged conversions by means of charitable persuasion, respect for Mudéjar language and culture, and the use of Arabic during religious services. A Morisco leader, who in his youth was page to Talavera, recalled how the archbishop went through the mountains of Granada to preach and say mass. Since there was no organ for music he made the natives play the zambra (a traditional dance), and during mass always said the greeting ‘The Lord be with you’ in Arabic. ‘I remember this’, the Morisco reminisced, ‘as if it were yesterday.’36

  The most confrontational changes occurred in religion, when in the period after 1500 many clergy began to impose Christianity by coercion. The policy of mass baptisms was encouraged by the head of the Castilian Church, Cardinal Cisneros. It provoked a brief revolt in December 1499 in the Albaicin, the Muslim quarter of Granada, which was appeased only through the good offices of Tendilla and Talavera. There were further scattered revolts in other parts of the south, through most of 1500 and into the early weeks of 1501. They presented the government with a serious policy problem. Some, including Tendilla and Cisneros, favoured harsh measures. Cisneros's view was that by rebellion the Mudéjars had forfeited all rights granted by the terms of capitulation and they should be offered a clear choice between baptism and expulsion. His personal preference was ‘that they be converted and enslaved, for as slaves they will be better Christians and the land will be pacified for ever’.37 Ferdinand, by contrast, favoured moderation. ‘If your horse trips up’, he told his councillors, ‘you don't seize your sword to kill him, instead you give him a smack on his flanks. So my view and that of the queen is that these Moors be baptised. And if they don't become Christians, their children and grandchildren will.’38

  Over the next few months the Muslims of Granada were systematically baptized; a few were allowed to emigrate. By 1501 it was officially assumed that the kingdom had become one of Christian Muslims – the Moriscos. They were granted legal equality with Christians, but were forbidden to carry arms and were subjected to pressure to abandon their culture. A huge bonfire of Arabic books, ordered by a royal decree of October 1501,39 was held in Granada. It was the end of the capitulations and of Muslim al-Andalus. ‘If the king of the conquest does not keep faith,’ lamented a contemporary Arab leader and scholar, Yuce Venegas, at that time resident on his estates near Granada, ‘what can we expect from his successors?’40 Gradually the minority Muslims found themselves being deprived of their identity, culture and religion; they were the earliest victims of the new imperial attitude. Thanks to these pressures, from about 1501 Granada ceased to exist as a free Muslim society and was converted into a conquered realm.

  The Granada war, with its histories of suffering and heroism, was – even more than the expedition to the Canary Islands – the prototype of Castile's imperial experience. It brought Castilians into continuous conflict with their traditional enemy and encouraged them to pursue the practice of military adventure. It created a confrontation of cultures whereby Castilians disdained the customs and beliefs of the conquered. It stimulated
a substantial migration: between 1485 and 1498 some forty thousand Christian Spaniards, mostly from other parts of southern Spain, entered and settled in the former emirate of Granada. Above all, it fortified the leadership of the monarchy, and convinced the nobility that they had to collaborate with their rulers. Finally, it gave Spaniards of all regions and classes a pride in the emerging nation to which they belonged. The crushing of Muslim Granada invigorated the concept of a Christian Spain.

  There was a small but significant corollary to the war. The acquisition of Muslim Granada stimulated the religious authorities to reconsider the question of the Jews in southern Spain. Since 1480 the Inquisition (founded that year) had been accumulating information about the religious practices of Spaniards of Jewish origin, who were known as conversos. After several years of persecution of conversos, and the execution of scores on the charge of heresy,41 the inquisitors appear to have felt that the fall of Granada would be a fitting moment for the crown to bring about the conversion of the Jews.