THE STORY OF THE HORNACHEROS AND THE FOUNDING OF THE CORSAIR REPUBLIC OF SALÉ – PART 2

(This post is a continuation of The Story of the Hornacheros and the Founding of the Corsair Republic of Salé – Part 1. If you haven’t done so already, it’s best to read that post before continuing on here.)

In his first royal expulsion edict, the Spanish King Philip III had expressly forbidden exiled Moriscos from liquidating their property before departing the country (the state and well-connected individuals would acquire it). Departing Moriscos were permitted to bring with them only what they could carry. Subsequent royal edicts, however, stated that Moriscos in Old Castile, New Castile, La Mancha, and Extremadura would be granted a special thirty-day grace period during which, if they chose to leave Spain voluntarily, they could sell their property and possessions and then take the proceeds out of the country with them.

The Hornacheros took advantage of this opportunity (Hornachos was in Extremadura), or perhaps they simply had a lot of ready cash to hand. Whatever the case, when, in late January, 1610, they were forcibly escorted by soldiers out of their village en mass and marched off to Seville, they took with them considerable money and possessions—including their weapons.

Before they left, though, they had one final calamity to face: their young children were taken from them—to be adopted by Catholic families and reared as good Catholics. There is no way of knowing the details of how this was done, whether by brute force or negotiation or subterfuge. But done it was, and when the Hornacheros left their ancestral home, they did so without their young children.

It is not entirely clear how many Hornacheros took part in this exodus. Estimates of the population of the town of Hornachos and environs at the time vary from about 2,500 to 4,000 or 5,000. A figure of about 3,000 people—men, women, and not-so-young children—seems reasonable.

This is a sizeable group to march off down the road. But, with armed soldiers goading them, they set off.

The driving distance, today, between Hornachos and Seville is about 100 miles (160 kilometers). In 1610, however, there was nothing remotely equivalent to a modern highway system, and the route would have been less direct, amounting to a distance of perhaps 125 to 150 miles (200 – 240 kilometers) or more. Marching such a distance with several thousand people burdened with their possessions—and grieving for their lost lives and their lost children—must have been a complicated, difficult process. It took them several weeks to reach Seville.

Ships lay waiting there to take them across the Strait of Gibraltar to Morocco. They had to face one final indignity before boarding, though: they were forced to pay for their passage. After this was somehow dealt with—one can only imagine the scene—the several thousand Hornacheros embarked aboard the waiting ships and set sail for Moroccan. (See the map below for the geography of all this.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is not entirely clear where the Hornacheros were disembarked, but it was likely Tangier, one of the presidios—armed forts under Spanish control, surrounded by hostile locals—that the Spanish maintained along the North African coast. Once off the ships, the Hornacheros would have been hustled though the presidio itself and thrust out into the countryside.

Northern Morocco was in general not a welcoming place for newly arrived expulsados. Mostly, they were seen by the local population as suspect Muslims and unwelcome strangers. There was one place where expulsados might expect to be accepted, though: Tetouan, located about 40 miles (65 kilometers) southeast of Tangier. During the diaspora that followed the defeat of the last Muslim kingdom in Spain—al-Andalus—in 1492, a sizable population of Spanish Muslims had settled in Tetouan. A hundred years or so later, the city still had a majority Andalusian population and so was far more welcoming to the new wave of Morisco expulsados than most of the other settlements in northern Morocco.

So the Hornacheros headed for Tetouan.

It would not have been an easy trip.

If they made the journey overland, they would have had to traverse the Riff Mountains, fending off attacks along the way by local tribesmen who would have considered them legitimate prey. If they managed to hire ships to make the voyage, they would surely have had to pay outrageous prices. One way or another, though, they made the trip and arrived in Tetouan.

Once there, they face a whole new problem.

Morocco was in the middle of a very nasty civil war. Back in 1603, the Moroccan Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur had died (of plague). Al-Mansur had three sons. After his death, all three fought bitterly against each other for possession of the throne. Moreover, not only was it three brothers, each against each: their sons took part in the fight as well. This violent fratricidal struggle for power tore Morocco apart. When the Hornacheros arrived, they found themselves in the middle of a stirred-up hornets’ nest.

Their solution was to align themselves with one of the three warring brothers: Moulay Zaydan. This proved a wise—or lucky—choice, for Moulay Zaydan would end being the only surviving brother and so, by default, eventually ascended the throne. (As we’ll see in a future post in this series, though, the bloody chaos of the fratricidal civil war had so shattered Moroccan society that Moulay Zaydan was never able to establish control over more than a small portion of the country.)

When the Hornacheros arrived in Tetouan, Moulay Zaydan was just beginning what would eventually be his rise to ascendency. Things were still very uncertain, though. Because the struggle for the Moroccan throne had devolved into a violent clash of brother against brother, cousin against cousin, neighbor against neighbor, Moulay Zaydan had few local allies he could fully trust. His solution was to recruit Morisco troops—who had no local allegiances to corrupt them—to bolster his military forces.

Moulay Zaydan had laid claim to Salé, on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, but he maintained only a token presence there, no more than a garrison of perhaps a few dozen men. He needed a larger force to hold the place for him but could not spare the men.

The arrival of several thousand newcomers from Spain—well armed, well financed, with no local ties—presented him with an unexpected opportunity.

Moulay Zaydan offered the Hornacheros a deal.

He offered them Salé as a place they could settle. The deal was that the Hornacheros could make the town their own, but they had to hold it for Moulay Zaydan and be loyal subjects to him.

The Hornacheros, of course, readily agreed.

Sometime in the spring or early summer of 1610, they gathered up their belongings and set off determinedly for their new home, making an overland trek of about 170 miles (275 kilometers), a considerable portion of it through mountainous country held by fractious tribesmen.

Somehow, they made it, hanging on to most of their people and their wealth.

Finally arriving at Salé, weary from the long journey, the Hornacheros presented themselves to the local inhabitants as representatives of Moulay Zaydan.

They received no welcome from the locals, however, who wanted nothing to do with them. Like Moroccans further north, they saw the Hornacheros as suspect—alien foreigners who spoke an uncouth form of Arabic, dressed in strange, ugly clothes and who no doubt held heretical religious views.

The Hornacheros ignored them and settled in anyway.

It was not a good beginning.

For more on how the Hornacheros became instrumental in launching the (in)famous corsair republic of Salé, see The Story of the Hornacheros and the Founding of the Corsair Republic of Salé – Part 3.