Before delving into the repercussions of the Portuguese migrations and drawing a collective portrait of rank-and-file converso immigrants, we must consider the historical context in which the migrations occurred. The three sections that follow outline the social and economic conditions that awaited Portuguese newcomers in Spain at the beginning of the seventeenth century—and awaited converso returnees throughout that period. A majority of the returnees I have studied were merchants who traveled to and from Madrid, and were living there at the time of their arrest or self-surrender. Consequently I devote the second of the three sections to an overview of conditions in the Spanish capital during the 1600s. The third section pays special attention to the network of commercial roads that converso merchants used, including the highways that linked the metropolis to New Castile, to the rest of Spain, to the neighboring kingdom of Portugal, and to the most accessible of all converso havens in Europe: southwestern France.
Spain at the End of the Golden Age
Historians have referred to the period from 1500 to 1650 as Spain’s Golden Age (edad de oro) or Golden Century (siglo de oro). Among other things, these terms remind us of the fact that during that period Castile extracted vast quantities of gold from America and spent them lavishly in Europe.19 Arguably Spanish dominance in the European continent, like the empire itself, would have been impossible to maintain without continuous access to the mineral treasures of the New World. At the very least it is evident that the flow of American gold and silver helped the Habsburgs to keep the Spanish economy afloat, to finance an ambitious foreign policy, and to fight several wars.20
The sheer bulk of the treasure that Spain absorbed during the Early Modern Period tells its own tale. According to a recent study by Jean-Paul Le Flem, the Spanish economy imported an astonishing 151,561 kilograms of gold and close to 7.5 million kilograms of silver from 1503 through 1600.21 Especially during the middle decades of the sixteenth century, this unprecedented influx of precious metals triggered a steep increase in prices across Iberia and ultimately throughout western Europe. Despite the resulting inflation, the overall effect of gold and silver imports on the Spanish economy was beneficial at first because Spain’s productive capacities and its population had reached a peak in the 1550s. In other words, during the later 1500s there was sufficient demand for food and services that the bullion fueled an economic boom. Higher prices led to increased profits. Inflation also spurred trade and production, and brought more money into circulation. This, among other things, resulted in lower rates of interest and an increase in productive investment.22
Throughout the Golden Century various Spanish thinkers interpreted their country’s political success and newfound wealth as a sign that Spaniards were God’s chosen people. They believed that España was the standard bearer of Christianity, since Spaniards had “discovered” and Christianized remote regions of the world while resisting internal and external threats to the (supposed) religious homogeneity of the country. These threats included Moorish power (during the reconquista) and Protestant “heresies.” In light of Spanish faithfulness, the argument went, was it not right and proper that Spain was the world’s strongest Christian state and the avant-garde of the Counter Reformation?23
In 1601, for example, the Jesuit political observer Pedro de Rivadeneira explained that God had rewarded Spain with good fortune because in 1492 Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabel of Castile had previously expelled Moors and Jews from Spanish domains. Specifically, Rivadeneira argued that God had showed his pleasure by forever “cleansing” Spain of heretical Christian sects (such as the Protestant groups), and by “giving [Spanish kings] new realms, discovering with His hand a new world with treasures so many and so great that it is one of the greatest miracles that He has bestowed.”24
From such heroic conceptions of nationhood other commentators inferred that Spaniards would redeem the world in a proximate future. For instance, in 1619 the commentator (and friar) Juan de Salazar concluded that the Spanish nation was heir to God’s scriptural promise to the chosen people.25 “It is very consistent with reason,” Salazar wrote, “… that at the world’s end Spain should be the seat of the Universal Monarchy, which … all nations must obey….”26 To underscore the supposed validity of his prediction, Salazar adduced several items of “proof.” The first six of these items are typical of the adulatory triumphalism that gripped many Spaniards of his generation:
First … [we know that Spain will redeem the world because of] the situation of the Catholic King [Philip III], which, more than that of any other Christian prince, puts him in position to obtain [the universal monarchy], because he is lord of so many lands and provinces and of so many rich and great realms and states in all four corners of the world.…
Second … [we can infer the king’s divine mission from] the title that the Church has given him, Most Catholic King, which means and signifies universal king.
Third, [we know of Spain’s divinely ordained role from] the solid and fundamental causes (godliness, prudence, and fate) that concurred in the creation of the Spanish monarchy.…
Fourth … [we can infer Spain’s divine role from] the catholic and sincere faith that [Philip] professes, without admixture of error or heresy, and [from] the singular obedience he shows to the pope, Vicar of Christ on earth, which…is the foundation and principal basis of the augmentation and conservation of all empires and kingdoms.
Fifth … as [the Hebrew prophet] Daniel maintains … total dominion will be given to the saintly people of the Most High. [As we have seen,] the Spanish nation is God’s beneficiary in the Law of Grace [meaning the New Testament], and has assumed the place that the elect [the Jews] had in the time of Scripture [the Old Testament] because it has (like the Israelites themselves) conformed best to the rule of faith enunciated by St. Paul, according to which a Christian’s actions must be measured.
Sixth, [we can infer Spain’s messianic role from] the prophecies and prognostications [of the prophets Daniel, Obadiah, and others] concerning the diminution of the Ottoman house and the enlargement of that of Spain, which according to common knowledge are the two [houses] that aspire to the universal monarchy.… We have already seen fulfilled the first part of [these prophecies] in the marvelous expulsion of the moriscos (last vestiges of the Mohammedans), which the majesty of Philip III accomplished in 1610[;] we may rest assured that the second part [of the prophecies], concerning the ruin of the Turk will also be fulfilled. As Gregory the Great affirms, when many things are announced to us, it is a good sign to see many of them fulfilled, because [this means that] the others too will take their intended effect.27
Notwithstanding the hubris and messianic delirium of imperial power, the stark fact remained that Spanish political might rested on a relatively fragile economic base. Numerous events exposed and aggravated this problem during the seventeenth century.
Historians disagree as to what specific incidents triggered the so-called Spanish “decline” of the 1600s.28 However, there is little dispute about the existence of a multifaceted crisis with economic roots (or, more specifically, a chain of related crises) that brought Spain from its towering position as the military and religious hegemon of the western world to that of an impoverished, second-rate power.
Augured by the state’s bankruptcies of 1575, 1596, and 1627, the economic exhaustion of Spain was blatant by the end of the seventeenth century.29 Gold and silver imports from America diminished considerably throughout the latter 1600s, so much so that in 1654 even the royal court could not find adequate means to pay or feed all of its members.30
Perhaps the most obvious symptom of the crisis was the demise of Spain’s political supremacy in Europe. Downfall came principally via the revolt and secession of Portugal (1640), the signing of the Peace of Westphalia (1648), and the unfavorable conclusion of war with France (1659). The first of these events revealed that Hispania was a romantic illusion. The second event effectively ended the French wars of religion