page_title: Expulsion of the Moriscos
section_title: Expulsion of Moriscos and population genetics
hierarchical_section_title: Expulsion of the Moriscos / Expulsion of Moriscos and population genetics
caption_attribution_description: English: Map illustrating the extent and pattern of recent gene flow between European and African populations using SNP data from seven North African populations, together with data from 30 European populations, two European Jewish populations, one Near Eastern population (29), and HapMap3 Sub-Saharan African populations. Allele frequencies are used to estimate North African ancestry proportions in European populations. To quantify the variance in ancestry in European populations and obtain bounds on the time since admixture, a quantitative model is used for the decrease in ancestry variance with the time since admixture. Gene flow between populations is also detected by analyzing long haplotypes shared identically by descent (IBD) with high-density SNP genotyping data. A significant latitudinal gradient of North African ancestry within Europe characterized by a dramatic difference between the Iberian Peninsula and the neighboring regions.
context_page_description: The Expulsion of the Moriscos was decreed by King Philip III of Spain on April 9, 1609. The Moriscos were descendants of Spain's Muslim population that had converted to Christianity by coercion or by royal decree in the early 16th century. Since the Spanish were fighting wars in the Americas, feeling threatened by the Turks raiding along the Spanish coast and by two Morisco revolts in the century since Islam was outlawed in Spain, it seems that the expulsions were a reaction to an internal problem of the stretched Spanish Empire. Between 1609 through 1614, the Crown systematically expelled Moriscos through a number of decrees affecting Spain's various kingdoms, meeting varying levels of success.
  Although initial estimates of the number expelled such as those of Henri Lapeyre range between 275,000 and 300,000 Moriscos, the extent and actual success of the expulsion order in purging Spain of its Moriscos has been increasingly challenged by modern historians, starting with the seminal studies carried out by François Martinez and Trevor J. Dadson.
context_section_description: Spain's Morisco population was the last population who self-identified and traced its roots to the various waves of Muslim conquerors from North Africa. Modern population genetics generally assume Moriscos to have had both significant Iberian and North African ancestry, even if, after centuries of presence and intermarriage in the Iberian peninsula they were unlikely to differ significantly in ethnic terms from the wider Spanish population. For this reason, studies in population genetics which aim to ascertain Morisco ancestry in modern populations search for Iberian or European genetic markers among contemporary Morisco descendants in North Africa, and for North African genetic markers among modern day Spaniards.
  A wide number of recent genetic studies of modern-day Spanish and Portuguese populations have ascertained an unusually high level of North African admixture as compared to the rest of the European continent, approximately 5% of Spaniards have E-M81 Y-haplogroup, which is the characteristic haplogroup of the population of North Africa or Berber which is generally attributed to Islamic rule and settlement of the Iberian peninsula. Common North African genetic markers which are relatively high frequencies in the Iberian peninsula as compared to the rest of the European continent are Y-chromosome E1b1b1b1(E-M81) and MtDna Haplogroups L and U6. Studies coincide that North African admixture tends to increase in the South and West of the peninsula, peaking in parts of Andalusia, Extremadura and North West Castile. Distribution of North African markers are largely absent from the northeast of Spain as well as the Basque country. The uneven distribution of admixture in Spain has been explained by the extent and intensity of Islamic colonization in a given area, but also by the varying levels of success in attempting to expel the Moriscos in different regions of Spain, as well as forced and voluntary Morisco population movements during the 16th and 17th centuries.
  As for tracing Morisco descendants in North Africa, to date there have been few genetic studies of populations of Morisco origin in the Maghreb region, although studies of the Moroccan population have not detected significant recent genetic inflow from the Iberian peninsula. A recent study of various Tunisian ethnic groups has found that all were indigenous North African, including those who self-identified as Andalusians.
caption: Map of North and Sub-Saharan African admixture in European populations
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