The Moors in Spain

by Stanley Lane-Poole

The long siege was over; the famished people fought with one another to buy food from the Christians. The African garrison, who still kept their proud look, though worn and enfeebled with their long struggle and privations, were condemned to slavery; the rest of the inhabitants were permitted to ransom themselves, but on these insidious terms—that all their goods should at once be paid over to the king as part payment, and that if after eight months the rest were not forthcoming, they should all be made slaves. They were numbered and searched, and then sent forth. "Then might be seen old men and helpless women and tender maidens, some of high birth and gentle condition, passing through the streets, heavily burdened, towards the Alcazaba. As they left their homes they smote their breasts, and wrung their hands, and raised their weeping eyes to heaven in anguish; and this is recorded as their plaint: O Malaga! city so renowned and beautiful, where now is the strength of thy castle, where the grandeur of thy towers? Of what avail have been thy mighty walls for the protection of thy children?... They will bewail each other in foreign lands; but their lamentations will be the scoff of the stranger." The poor people were sent to Seville, where they were kept in servitude till the eight months had expired, and then, since they had no money to pay the remainder of their ransoms, they were one and all condemned to perpetual slavery, to the number of fifteen thousand souls. Ferdinand's ungenerous ingenuity was thus rewarded.

The western part of the kingdom of Granada was now entirely in the hands of the Christians. The famous Moorish fortresses of the Serrania de Ronda and the beautiful city of Malaga held Christian garrisons. Granada itself was in the hands of Boabdil, who hastened to congratulate his liege lord and lady upon their triumph over Malaga. But in the east old Ez-Zaghal still turned a bold front to the invader, and gathered around his standard all that remained of patriotism among the disheartened Moors. From Jaen in the north, to Almeria, the chief port of Andalusia on the Mediterranean coast, his sway was undisputed; he held the important cities of Guadix and Baza; and within his dominion the rugged ridges of the Alpuxarras mountains, the cradle of a hardy and warlike race of mountaineers, sheltered countless valleys, fed with cool waters from the Sierra Nevada's snowy peaks, where flocks and herds, vines, oranges, pomegranates, citrons, and mulberry trees provided wealth for a whole province.

In 1488 Ferdinand turned his victorious arms towards this undisturbed portion of the Moorish dominion. Assembling his troops at Murcia, he marched westwards into Ez-Zaghal's territory, and attacked Baza. Here his advance was sternly checked; Ez-Zaghal's hand had not lost its ancient cunning, and he drove the Christians back from the walls of Baza, and began to retaliate by making raids into their own country. In the following year Ferdinand, nothing disheartened, renewed his attack on Baza; but instead of sacrificing his troops in vain assaults, he laid waste the fertile country round about, and so starved the city into submission. It took six months, and the Christians lost twenty thousand men from disease and exposure, joined to the accidents of war; but in December, 1489, Baza finally submitted, and with the loss of this chief city Ez-Zaghal's power was broken. The castles that dominated the fastnesses of the Alpuxarras yielded one by one to Ferdinand's prestige or gold. Ez-Zaghal perceived that the rule of the Moors was doomed: reluctantly he gave in his submission to Ferdinand, and surrendered the city of Almeria. He was allotted a small territory in the Alpuxarras, with the title of King of Andarax. He did not long remain in the land of his lost glory and present shame; he sold his lands and went to Africa, where he was cruelly blinded by the Sultan of Fez, and passed the remainder of his days in misery and destitution, a wandering outcast,—pitied by those who could recognize the hero in a mendicant's rags, or read the badge which he wore, whereon was written in the Arabic character, "This is the hapless King of Andalusia."

Granada alone remained to the Moors. Boabdil had been well pleased to see his old rival Ez-Zaghal dethroned by their Catholic Majesties: "Henceforth," he cried to the messenger who brought him the news, "let no man call me Zogoiby, for my luck has turned:" to which the other made answer that the wind which blew in one quarter might soon blow in another, and the king had best reserve his rejoicings for more settled weather. Boabdil, though he heard his name cursed in the streets of his capital as a traitor in league with the infidels, indulged in blind confidence, now that his detested uncle was powerless; as the vassal of Ferdinand and Isabella he believed that he had nothing to fear. He had forgotten that when, in his fatuous hatred of Ez-Zaghal, he incited the Christian sovereigns to subdue his rival's dominions, he had engaged by treaty that should Ferdinand succeed in reducing Ez-Zaghal's country, with the cities of Guadix and Almeria, he would on his part surrender Granada. He was not, however, long left without a spur to his memory. Ferdinand wrote to inform him that the conditions named in the treaty had been fulfilled on his side, and demanded the surrender of Granada in accordance with the terms then laid down. Boabdil in vain implored delay; the king was determined, and threatened to repeat the example of Malaga if the capital were not immediately given up. Boabdil did not know what to reply; but the people of Granada, led by Mūsa, a brave and gallant knight, took the matter into their own hands, and told his Catholic Majesty that if he wanted their arms he must come and take them!

When these bold words were said, the beautiful Vega of Granada was waving with crops and fruit; it had recovered from the devastations which accompanied the struggle between Ez-Zaghal and Boabdil, and a splendid harvest was awaiting the sickle. Ferdinand saw his opportunity, and, adopting his usual tactics, poured his troops, twenty-five thousand strong, over the Vega, and for thirty days abandoned it to their destroying hands. When he turned back towards Cordova, the Vega was one great expanse of desolation. It was enough for one season; yet once more was the cruel work of destruction carried out in that year of grace 1490.

Boabdil had at last been roused to a desperate courage. Guided by Mūsa, whose mettle was of the finest, he girded on his armour, and began to carry the war into the enemy's quarters. The Moors round about, who had given in their submission to Ferdinand, were heartened by the sight of the King of Granada once more on the war path, and, hastily consigning their promises to the winds, rose up and joined him. It really seemed as if the good old days of Granada were returning; some fortresses were recovered from the Christians, and the Moorish army ravaged the borders. It was but the last gleam of light before the final setting of the sun. In April, 1491, Ferdinand and Isabella set forth upon their annual crusade, resolved not to return till Granada was in their power. The king led an army of forty thousand foot and ten thousand horse, with such commanders as the famous Ponce de Leon, Marquess of Cadiz, the Marquess of Santiago, the Counts of Tendilla and Cabra, the Marquess of Villena, and the redoubtable knight, Don Alonzo de Aguilar. Boabdil held a council in the Alhambra, whence the clouds of dust raised by Christian horsemen could be seen on the Vega; some urged the futility of resistance, but Mūsa got up and bade them be true to their ancestors and never despair while they had strong arms to fight and fleet horses wherewith to foray. The people caught Mūsa's enthusiasm, and there was nothing heard in Granada but the sound of the furbishing of arms and the tramp of troops.

Mūsa was in chief command, and the gates were in his charge. They had been barred when the Christians came in view; but Mūsa threw them open. "Our bodies," he said, "will bar the gates." The young men were kindled by such words, and when he told them, "We have nothing to fight for but the ground we stand on; without that we are without home or country," they made ready to die with him. With such a leader, the Moorish cavaliers performed prodigious feats of valour in the plain which divided the city from the Christian camp. Single combats were of daily occurrence; the Moors would ride almost among the tents of the Spaniards, and tempt some knight to the duel, from which he too often did not return. Ferdinand found his best warriors were being killed one by one, and he straitly forbade his knights to accept the Moors' challenge. It was hard for the Spanish chivalry to sit still within their tents, while a bold Moorish horseman would ride within hail and taunt them with cowardice; and when at length one of the Granadinos waxed so venturesome that he cast a spear almost into the royal pavilion, Hernando Perez de Pulgar, surnamed "He of the Exploits," could no longer contain himself, but gathering a small band of followers, rode in the dead of night to a postern gate in the walls of Granada, and, surprising the guards, galloped through the streets till he came to the chief mosque, which he forthwith solemnly dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, and in token of its conversion nailed a label on the door inscribed with the words Ave Maria. Granada was awake by this time, and soldiers were gathering in every direction; but Pulgar put spurs to his horse, and, amid the amazement of the people, plunged furiously through the crowd, overturning them as he galloped to the gate, and, fighting his way out, rode back in triumph to the camp. The Pulgars ever after held the right to sit in the choir of the mosque-church during the celebration of High Mass.