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The year 1492, in which Spain gained glory by the conquest of Granada and the discovery of America, was one of the deepest misfortune to this people, who were cruelly driven from the kingdom. The edict for this was signed by Ferdinand and Isabella at Granada, March 30, 1492, and decreed that all unbaptized Jews, without regard to sex, age, or condition, should leave Spain before the end of the next July, and never return thither under penalty of death and confiscation of property. Every Spaniard was forbidden to give aid in any form to a Jew after the date named. The Jews might sell their property and carry the proceeds with them in bills of exchange or merchandise, but not in gold or silver.

This edict came like a thunderbolt to the Israelites. At a tyrant’s word they must go forth as exiles from the land in which they and their forefathers had dwelt for ages, break all their old ties of habit and association, and be cast out helpless and defenceless, marked with a brand of infamy, among nations who held them in hatred and contempt.

Under the unjust terms of the edict they were forced to abandon most of the property which they had spent their lives in gaining. It was impossible to sell their effects in the brief time given, in a market glutted with similar commodities, for more than a tithe of their value. As a result their hard-won wealth was frightfully sacrificed. One chronicler relates that he saw a house exchanged for an ass and a vineyard for a suit of clothes. In Aragon the property of the Jews was confiscated for the benefit of their creditors, with little regard to its value. As for the bills of exchange which they were to take instead of gold and silver, it was impossible to obtain them to the amount required in that age of limited commerce, and here again they were mercilessly robbed.

The migration was one of the most pitiable known in history. As the time fixed for their departure approached the roads of the country swarmed with emigrants, young and old, strong and feeble, sick and well, some on horses or mules, but the great multitude on foot. The largest division, some eighty thousand in number, passed through Portugal, whose monarch taxed them for a free passage through his dominions, but, wiser than Ferdinand, permitted certain skilful artisans among them to settle in his kingdom.

Those who reached Africa and marched towards Fez, where many of their race resided, were attacked by the desert tribes, robbed, slain, and treated with the most shameful barbarity. Many of them, half-dead with famine and in utter despair, returned to the coast, where they consented to be baptized with the hope that they might be permitted to return to their native land.

Those who sought Italy contracted an infectious disease in the crowded and filthy vessels which they were obliged to take; a disorder so malignant that it carried off twenty thousand of the people of Naples during the year, and spread far over the remainder of Italy. As for the Jews, hosts of them perished of hunger and disease, and of the whole number expelled, estimated at one hundred and sixty thousand, only a miserable fragment found homes at length in foreign lands, some seeking Turkey, others gaining refuge and protection in France and England. As for the effect of the migration on Spain it must suffice here to quote the remark of a monarch of that day: “Do they call this Ferdinand a politic prince, who can thus impoverish his own kingdom and enrich ours?”

Spain was in this barbarous manner freed of her Jewish population. There remained the Moors, who had capitulated, under favorable terms, to Ferdinand in 1492. These terms were violated a few years later by Cardinal Ximenes, his severity driving them into insurrection in 1500. This was suppressed, and then punishment began. So rigid was the inquiry that it seemed as if all the people of Granada would be condemned as guilty, and in mortal dread many of them made peace by embracing Christianity, while others sold their estates and migrated to Barbary. In the end, all who remained escaped persecution only by consenting to be baptized, the total number of converts being estimated at fifty thousand. The name of Moors, which had superseded that of Arabs, was now changed to that of Moriscos, by which these unfortunate people were afterwards known.