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success the clemency of the besiegers, and the inhabitants were
permitted to depart unmolested, bearing with them their personal
effects, to seek a precarious asylum in cities soon to be shaken, in
their turn, by the Christian cannon, and to be exposed to the fate of
places abandoned to the fierce passions of an exasperated soldiery.
The Alcalde of Setenil and the Alguacil of Ronda, with more than a
hundred families, desiring to adopt the condition of Mudejares, or
tributary Moors, and thereby to retain their religion and their customs
under the protection of the Spanish Crown, were permitted to settle
near Seville, where, in after-years, their wealth and the heresy of
their detested belief furnished abundant profit and occupation to the
familiars of the Inquisition.
From the dungeons of Ronda, on the day of the surrender, issued
four hundred Christian captives. Their forlorn appearance, their
clothes in rags, and many of them almost naked, their hair and
beards long and tangled, their emaciated forms tottering with the
weakness of famine and confinement, their limbs laden with
ponderous fetters, excited the profound compassion of all who saw
them. In the wretched procession were many victims of the Ajarquia
disaster, and a number of noble youths who, with a devotion rare
even in the days of chivalrous self-sacrifice, had voluntarily delivered
themselves into the hands of the enemy to insure the freedom and
safety of their fathers.
The signal-fires announcing the danger which threatened Ronda
had called together from far and near the warlike peasantry of the
mountains. The beacons on the lofty summits of the Serrania were
answered by others forty miles away. At their appearance the
redoubtable Hamet-al-Zegri returned, followed by the bravest
soldiers of Malaga, but his desperate charges upon the Christian
lines were fruitless, and the duration of the siege was so short that
no time remained for more organized effort, either by assault or
stratagem. The amazing rapidity and apparent ease with which one
of the most strongly fortified cities in Europe was driven to extremity
created a profound impression upon the already disheartened
Moslems. From almost every mountain town and settlement as far
as Cartama and Marbella messengers bearing offers of submission
hastened to the Christian camp. In less than a week, fifty places of
more or less importance, and the large extent of territory controlled
by them, were added to the Spanish monarchy. The terms upon
which the Mudejares were received as tributary subjects were
exceedingly favorable, and dictated both by clerical dissimulation
and political expediency. On condition of swearing allegiance to the
sovereigns, through their chief’s and magistrates, of promising to
obey the laws, and of paying the same tribute and taxes which they
had formerly been accustomed to render to their own monarchs,
they were permitted to practise unmolested their religious rites, to
possess their own mosques, to be judged by their kadis, and to
transmit and receive by inheritance every species of property, real
and personal. It did not take many years to disclose the insincere
and perfidious motives by which these apparently humane and
generous concessions were dictated. The pathetic history of the
Mudejares, subsequently known as Moriscoes, is one of the
bloodiest chapters in the annals of the Inquisition.
From the very beginning of the war, the policy of the Catholic
sovereigns had been directed even more to depriving their enemies
of the means of sustaining hostilities than to the winning of battles,
the storming of cities, or the occupation of provinces. Every
precaution had been taken to prevent the emirs of Morocco,
connected with the dynasty of Granada by ties of blood, community
of religious belief, and bonds of friendship and sympathy, from
assisting their brethren in their extremity. The traditions of centuries
united the reigning families of Granada and Fez; and, while their
intimacy had been frequently interrupted by invasion and territorial
disputes, the general tenor of their intercourse had been far from
inimical, and the African sultans had rarely turned a deaf ear to the
supplications of their kinsmen oppressed or insulted by the
menacing encroachments of the Christian power. Thoroughly alive to
the importance of depriving their antagonists of this formidable
resource, the Spaniards had early established a vigilant patrol of
armed vessels along the southern coast of the Mediterranean. This
patrol was maintained with such rigor that, while nominally instituted
to prevent the conveyance of men and supplies to Granada, it
practically amounted to a strict blockade of every Mauritanian port,
and practically involved the confiscation of all vessels trading to that
part of the coast of Africa. Without the possession of a naval power
adequate to resist the Spanish fleet, the Emir of Fez, cut off from the
commerce of the Mediterranean, had suffered seriously in his
revenues, as well as from the deprivation of those articles of foreign
luxury essential to the pleasures of an elegant and voluptuous court.
Actuated by the powerful motives of self-interest, the African prince
despatched a splendid embassy to Cordova deploring the condition
to which the maritime interests of his kingdom had been reduced by
the unmerited harshness of the Christian monarchs, soliciting an
alliance, and requesting, in the most respectful terms, the withdrawal
of the fleet. As a proof of the good-will of his master, the Moorish
envoy brought with him many beautiful and costly gifts. The embassy
was received with every mark of distinction by the Spanish
sovereigns; assurances of friendship and consideration were
transmitted with all the pomp and formality of Castilian etiquette to
the Sultan of Fez; but the alliance was declined; and while the
strictness of the blockade was somewhat relaxed, so far as the
intercourse of neutrals was concerned, the scrutiny of the ports, and
the visitation of outgoing vessels suspected of hostile designs, were
continued with all their vexatious severity.
With the desertion of their African brethren the cause of the
Spanish Moslems became indeed desperate. The only hope of
foreign succor lost, abandoned to their own resources, incessantly
torn by faction, their bravest warriors sacrificed to tribal enmity, with
division in the council, treason in the camp, and incompetency and
cowardice in the field, it is one of the most remarkable facts in the
history of their hopeless struggle that it could have been so long
maintained in the face of an enemy growing stronger with every
battle, of great numerical superiority, furnished with every improved
means of aggressive warfare, and supplied with provisions by a
territory ten times larger and vastly more populous than their own.
With the keen discernment born of natural shrewdness and the
strategical experience acquired in repeated campaigns, some of
them attended with serious disaster, Ferdinand and Isabella resolved
hereafter to use every resource for the reduction of the principal
remaining Moorish cities, well aware that the acquisition of any place
of importance would be immediately followed by the submission of a
large extent of contiguous and dependent territory. The most wealthy
and best fortified stronghold still held by the Moslems was Malaga.
To reduce it would require not only a numerous fleet and a powerful
army, but the subjugation of every town in the vicinity which could
either aid the garrison or obstruct the progress of the besiegers. Of
these, Marbella, from whose walls Gibraltar and Ceuta were plainly
visible, and the situation of whose harbor offered a convenient
refuge to any vessels that might escape the vigilance of the Spanish
cruisers, was the next point towards which the efforts of the Catholic
monarchs were directed. A letter was sent to the city, and a
submissive response received. But the tenor of this epistle, while
apparently ingenuous, to the Spanish mind, familiar with the crafty
stratagems of infidel duplicity, conveyed the impression that it had
been framed merely for the purpose of gaining time. As the
importance of the object to be obtained was paramount, it was
determined to move the entire army from Ronda to Marbella, a
distance of only eight leagues, but through a region never before
traversed by so numerous a force, and whose natural difficulties
were unequalled by those of any other portion of the Peninsula. As
soon as the Spaniards arrived, Marbella was evacuated;
Montemayor and twelve other towns of the district tendered their
allegiance; and the King, advancing, pitched his tent within a league
of Malaga.
The hardships endured by the troops upon this march exceeded
any to which they had hitherto been subjected, except those
resulting from the defeat of the Ajarquia. Aside from the tremendous
and unintermitting exertions required for the transportation of artillery
and munitions of war along steep paths and over almost inaccessible
mountains, the defective commissary arrangements produced a
famine. For days both men and horses were compelled to subsist on
herbs and palmettoes; and at Marbella the suffering was still intense,
as the ships laden with supplies, detained by contrary winds, were
prevented from reaching the harbor. The Moors, informed by their
scouts of the enfeebled condition of the soldiers, made a furious
attack upon the baggage-train while it was entangled in a narrow
pass between the mountains and the sea. The muleteers and their
escort, separated from their comrades, and, by the nature of the
ground, rendered incapable of successful defence, were instantly
thrown into confusion. The Grand Master of Alcantara, who
commanded the rear-guard, by dint of hard fighting finally extricated
himself from his perilous situation, where, had the Moors exhibited a
little more perseverance, a catastrophe might have ensued that
would have jeopardized the safety of the entire Christian army.
The appearance of the King of Spain with a force of imposing
numbers, and part of the siege-train which had levelled with such
ease the formidable walls of Ronda, struck with consternation the
inhabitants of Malaga, unprepared as they were for the contest
which was finally to determine the fate of their lives and fortunes. But
it soon became evident that their foes were in no condition to sustain
the labors of a siege. The privations of a long and arduous campaign
could not have reduced an army to greater distress than that now
afflicting the soldiers of Ferdinand. They tottered with weakness as
they marched, some even dropped fainting in the ranks. It was with
difficulty that the stragglers could be collected—such was the laxity
of discipline—or the sick and the exhausted be rescued from the
scouting parties of the enemy that constantly hung upon their flanks,
and whose tender mercies were slavery and death. The famishing
horses, unable to bear the weight of their riders, were led by the
bridle, and many of them were abandoned. The pack-saddles and
the carts used for the commissariat were empty. In this forlorn plight
the army, after some days, succeeded in reaching Antequera, where
an opportunity was afforded for thorough recuperation preparatory to
the resumption of hostilities.
No circumstance in the history of the Reconquest more clearly
demonstrates the decline of Moslem intrepidity and spirit than this
unmolested retreat of the Christians. In expectation of a siege, all the
available forces of the kingdom had been concentrated at Malaga.
They were commanded by the famous Al-Zagal, one of the greatest
captains of his time, a veteran versed in every stratagem of war, the
idol of his soldiers, the hero of many a successful expedition. The
country through which the exhausted and disorganized force must
pass was of such a character that in many localities a handful of
determined men might easily withstand a host. The condition of the
Spaniards, who were scarcely able to walk, precluded the possibility
of a formidable resistance. And yet, with every advantage on their
side, with the enemy impeded by an invaluable artillery train which
could not be defended from a bold attack, with the fascinating
prospect of a royal capture to excite the emulation of the daring, with
the certainty of valuable spoil and martial glory to inflame the
ambitious, the Moors dared not seize what was almost within their
grasp.
Of the numerous governors who had, in succession, been placed
in charge of the important fortress of Alhama, Don Gutierre de
Padilla, an official of high rank in the military order of Calatrava, now
enjoyed that responsible and perilous distinction. The absence of the
cavalry of Granada, summoned to the defence of Malaga, afforded
an opportunity for booty which the rapacious instincts of that officer
were unable to resist. A foray was made, which swept from the very
suburbs of the capital a large number of cattle and sheep and a few
unfortunate captives. During their return the Christians unexpectedly
encountered Al-Zagal with the flower of the Moslem troops. In the
engagement which followed, the Christians were utterly routed, and
the few who escaped were pursued to the gates of Alhama.
His energy, his reputation for knowledge of war, and his executive
ability, had, a short time before, gained for that old warrior the
precarious and barren honor of the crown. The people of Granada,
awed and irritated by the capture of Ronda, demanded with one
voice the recognition of Al-Zagal as king. His recent successful
exploit greatly increased his popularity. Oppressed with his growing
infirmities, Muley Hassan readily consented to abdicate, and to
surrender to his brother the shadow, as he had long enjoyed the
substance, of power. While the streets were ringing with the shouts
of the people, who hailed with enthusiasm the accession of a new
and warlike sovereign, Muley Hassan, conducted by his slaves to a
litter, left for the last time the city which had been the scene of so
many victories and so many calamities during his long and
diversified career. Almuñecar was selected as his temporary
residence, its strong position rendering it easy to be defended by
land, while its proximity to the sea left open, in case of necessity, a
way of escape to the coast of Africa. His abdication, although
recognized as a political necessity by the aged King, was too much
for his proud and sensitive spirit, broken by disease and filial
ingratitude. A few months afterwards he expired, unattended save by
his immediate family, at Mondujar, in the valley of Lecrin.
It was the request of the dying monarch that his body should be
interred, not with those of his ancestors, whose reigns had been
immortalized by the glories of arms, of arts, of letters, in the noble
pantheon of the Alhambra, but, as became his misfortunes and his
sorrows, in some solitude, far from the haunts of men. In accordance
with his wishes, the summit of the Sierra Nevada was chosen as the
place of sepulture, and there, covered with eternal snows, rest the
bones of the fierce warrior whose name was once the terror of the
frontier, while the peak of Muley Hassan forms a far more noble and
enduring monument than the splendid tombs of silver and alabaster,
long since broken and scattered to the winds, which once enclosed
the remains of the members of his royal line.
The accession of Al-Zagal was signalized by a brilliant
achievement which confirmed the wisdom of the popular movement
which had raised him to the throne. Ferdinand had formed the
project of besieging Moclin, whose proximity to Granada made it a
point of great advantage, and which, according to information
furnished by treacherous spies, was negligently guarded. With a
view to cutting off reinforcements, the Count of Cabra, with ten
thousand men, was sent forward to surround the city at night. Al-
Zagal, duly apprised of this design, anticipated the arrival of the
Christians, and with a force of twenty thousand soldiers
strengthened the garrison, and placed an ambuscade in a narrow
defile through which the path of the invaders lay. The Spaniards,
bent on plunder and scattered in confusion, were suddenly
encompassed by a host of enemies. Surprised themselves when
they had hoped to strike the enemy unawares, and demoralized by
the sudden attack in the darkness, they were slaughtered almost
without resistance, and the Count of Cabra, severely wounded,
experienced great difficulty in avoiding capture. The pursuit extended
for a league; the terrified fugitives were pierced, as they fled, with the
Moslem lances; and Al-Zagal, with a long train of prisoners and the
horses and arms secured in the skirmish, again entered the
Alhambra in triumph. As a result of this reverse the siege of Moclin
was for the time abandoned; and the arms of Ferdinand were turned
against the double fortress of Cambil and Al-Rabal near Jaen, which
region had for years been annoyed by the Moorish freebooters that
infested it, and at every opportunity swooped down upon the fertile
plains around that city, bearing away to their inaccessible stronghold
everything within their reach. The fortress resisted but a few hours
after having been subjected to the fire of the Spanish cannon; and
this success, added to the surprise of Zalea, an outpost castle near
Alhama, by the governor of the latter city, to some extent
compensated for the disaster of Moclin.
The death of Muley Hassan, so far from having a tendency to
reconcile the clashing interests of faction, seemed to threaten the
inauguration of scenes of even greater atrocity than had hitherto
disgraced the civil wars of the kingdom. The restless and malignant
Ayesha urged her son, inert at Cordova, to again assert his claim to
the throne. At her instigation, it was publicly asserted that Muley
Hassan had been poisoned by Al-Zagal, whose following soon
became seriously diminished by the corrupt and seditious efforts of
her enterprising partisans. Another bloody struggle, that would have
soon exhausted the remaining strength of the distracted monarchy
and precipitated the disaster, which, though imminent and inevitable,
was still regarded as remote, was averted by the plausible but
impolitic suggestion of an influential faqui, who proposed a division
of territory between the two contending princes. Nothing but the
desperate nature of the contest and the universal apprehension of
impending ruin could have reconciled the minds of the people to the
adoption of such an extraordinary and suicidal measure. To accept it
might prolong for a time the independence of a nation whose
existence was already precarious; its rejection was certain to
speedily entail the most fatal consequences. No one endowed with
the smallest measure of ordinary discernment could imagine that two
claimants to the crown, each accustomed to consider the other as an
usurper and an enemy, could reconcile their adverse interests or
even long maintain a suspicious neutrality by a partition of dominion
dictated by mutual fears and apparent necessity. The complacency
with which the proposition was received by both discloses to what
degradation the descendants of the royal line of the Alhamares had
fallen. With equal facility the conditions relating to the several
divisions of and jurisdiction over the different provinces were
adjusted. To Al-Zagal was allotted the territory from the limits of the
district of Almeria to the bridge of Tablate, including the Alpujarras
and the cities of Malaga, Almeria, Velez, and Almuñecar; all of the
remainder was to belong to his nephew. Granada was to be the
common residence of both sovereigns,—to Boabdil was assigned
the Alcazaba, of old the political focus of his party; the residence of
Al-Zagal was established in the Alhambra.
This unwise arrangement made by Boabdil with an implacable
enemy of his suzerain placed him in an ambiguous and
compromising position. He had received his crown under the implied
condition of defending it. By a previous treaty, concluded with the
most solemn ceremonies and ratified under oath, he had voluntarily
declared himself a vassal and tributary of the Spanish sovereigns. If
he failed in his duty as the protector of his subjects, he was liable to
be murdered, and certain to be deposed. His voluntary surrender of
half of the dominions he claimed by the right of inheritance and now
held as a fief to a prince whom his recent negotiations had devoted
to perpetual hostility, made him subject, under feudal law, to the
penalties of treason. To add to his embarrassment, he had no sooner
reached Granada than he received from Ferdinand a stern
communication reproaching him with duplicity, asserting that his
compromise with Al-Zagal was an act of treachery and a breach of
his obligations as vassal; that he had forfeited all right to the
consideration or protection of his lords, who would hereafter hold him
responsible for the public distress which must result from the
renewal of hostilities consequent on the violation of his allegiance.
The rising fame of Ferdinand and his daily increase of power
convinced him that he could now dispense with the royal puppet,
with whose pretensions he had distracted the attention of the Moors
from the preservation of that unity of national feeling and singleness
of purpose which alone could render them formidable. The
denunciation of the Castilian King had followed a submissive epistle
of Boabdil reiterating his protestations of obedience, which the
indignation of Ferdinand led him to declare was violated without
excuse. Nothing remained now for the discredited vassal, the
ungrateful son, and the vacillating monarch, who had obtained a
crown at the expense of his country’s prosperity and freedom, and
which, in a few years, he must have legally acquired in the course of
nature, but to attempt, by a determined resistance, to atone in some
measure for the misery he had inflicted and the lives he had
sacrificed.
There are few royal personages in history so impotent and
contemptible as Boabdil, and who at the same time have been
endowed with such a capacity for mischief. With singular propriety
was he termed by his countrymen Al-Zogoibi, The Unfortunate. Born
in the purple, he fought and negotiated for a throne which he
eventually lost under circumstances of the deepest humiliation.
Indisputably brave, he never won a battle. During his entire career
the most inauspicious prognostics foretold, to a people deeply
versed in the science of omen and augury, the disastrous result of
every martial enterprise. In Spain he unconsciously contributed to
the enthralment of his subjects by their most vindictive and
uncompromising enemy; in Africa, whither he was driven by
relentless fate, he fell, by the hands of barbarians, in defence of a
stranger prince, who, alone among sovereigns, was willing to accord
to a royal exile the rites of hospitality.
CHAPTER XXII
TERMINATION OF THE RECONQUEST
1486–1492