Morisco

Moriscos (Spanish: [moˈɾiskos], Catalan: [muˈɾiskus]; Portuguese: mouriscos [mo(u)ˈɾiʃkuʃ]; "Moorish") were former Muslims and their descendants whom the Catholic Church and Habsburg Spain commanded to forcibly convert to Christianity or face compulsory exile after Spain outlawed Islam. Spain had a sizeable Muslim population, the mudéjars, in the early 16th century. The Iberian Union mistrusted Moriscos and feared that they would prompt new invasions from the Ottoman Empire after the Fall of Constantinople, so between 1609 and 1614 they began to expel them systematically from the various kingdoms of the Union. The most severe expulsions occurred in the eastern Kingdom of Valencia. The exact number of Moriscos present in Spain before the expulsion is unknown and can only be guessed based on official records of the edict of expulsion. Furthermore, the overall number who were able to avoid deportation is also unknown, with estimates on the proportion of those who avoided expulsion or returned to Spain ranging from 5% to 40%. The large majority settled on the western fringe of the Ottoman Empire and in the Kingdom of Morocco. The last mass prosecution against Moriscos for crypto-Islamic practices occurred in Granada in 1727, with most receiving relatively light sentences. In the Spanish language and unrelated to the Moriscos of Spain (who were European Muslims), the term Morisco was used In colonial-era documentation in Spanish America to denote mixed-race castas: the children of Spanish men and women of European-Mulata ancestry.