1492: Granada, the Expulsion and Columbus
In a single year the Catholic Monarchs take Granada, the last Muslim kingdom, expel Spain's Jews and send Columbus west across the Atlantic.
- Isabel the Queen: Life and Times — Peggy K. Liss, Oxford University Press (1992)
- Imperial Spain 1469–1716 — J. H. Elliott, Penguin (1963)
- The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision — Henry Kamen, Yale University Press (2014)
- The Jews of Spain: A History of the Sephardic Experience — Jane S. Gerber, Free Press (1992)
- Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614 — L. P. Harvey, University of Chicago Press (2005)
- A Concise History of Spain — William D. Phillips Jr. and Carla Rahn Phillips, Cambridge University Press (2010)
- Ley 12/2015, de 24 de junio, en materia de concesión de la nacionalidad española a los sefardíes originarios de España — Jefatura del Estado, Boletín Oficial del Estado (2015)
By the 1480s Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, married in 1469, ruled most of the peninsula between them. Their kingdoms kept separate laws, parliaments and currencies, but they acted together in war and religion, and the pope later gave them the title “Catholic Monarchs”.
- Isabel the Queen: Life and Times — Peggy K. Liss, Oxford University Press (1992)
- Imperial Spain 1469–1716 — J. H. Elliott, Penguin (1963)
Granada
After a ten-year war, the Nasrid sultan Muhammad XII, known to Spaniards as Boabdil, surrendered Granada on 2 January 1492. Legend says that as he looked back at the Alhambra he wept, and his mother told him to weep like a woman for what he could not defend like a man; the spot is still called “the Moor’s Last Sigh”. The surrender terms promised Muslims the free practice of their religion. Within a decade those promises were broken: after revolts, Muslims in Castile were made to choose between baptism and exile in 1501–02, and the converts, the Moriscos, were finally expelled from Spain in 1609–14, some 300,000 people.
- Muslim Spain and Portugal: A Political History of al-Andalus — Hugh Kennedy, Longman (1996)
- Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614 — L. P. Harvey, University of Chicago Press (2005)
- A Concise History of Spain — William D. Phillips Jr. and Carla Rahn Phillips, Cambridge University Press (2010)
The expulsion of the Jews
On 31 March 1492 the monarchs signed the Alhambra Decree, ordering all Jews who would not convert to leave Castile and Aragon within four months. Spain had had one of the largest and most learned Jewish communities in Europe, though it had already been shattered by massacres in 1391 and mass conversions afterwards. The decree’s stated reason was to stop Jews influencing conversos, those who had converted, whom the new Inquisition (founded in 1478) suspected of secretly practising Judaism. Historians’ estimates of how many left vary widely, from about 40,000 to well over 100,000; many others chose baptism to stay. The exiles went to Portugal (which expelled them in turn in 1497), North Africa, Italy and above all the Ottoman Empire, carrying their Judeo-Spanish language, Ladino, and the memory of Sefarad with them.
- The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision — Henry Kamen, Yale University Press (2014)
- The Jews of Spain: A History of the Sephardic Experience — Jane S. Gerber, Free Press (1992)
- Imperial Spain 1469–1716 — J. H. Elliott, Penguin (1963)
Columbus
In April, at the camp outside Granada, Isabella agreed to back the Genoese sailor Christopher Columbus, who believed he could reach Asia by sailing west. He left Palos de la Frontera on 3 August and on 12 October landed in the Bahamas. He never accepted that he had found a new continent, but his voyages opened the way to a Spanish empire across the Americas.
- Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492–1830 — J. H. Elliott, Yale University Press (2006)
- Empire: How Spain Became a World Power, 1492–1763 — Henry Kamen, HarperCollins (2003)
Why this year matters
In twelve months Spain became, in its rulers’ eyes, a single Christian realm, and turned its face from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. Many Spaniards learned to see 1492 as the moment the nation was made. Today it is also remembered for what it cost: the Jews and Muslims who had been Iberians for centuries, and the peoples of the Americas. In 2015 Spain passed a law offering nationality to descendants of the expelled Sephardic Jews, acknowledging an old wrong.
- Spanish Identity in the Age of Nations — José Álvarez Junco, Manchester University Press (2011)
- Ley 12/2015, de 24 de junio, en materia de concesión de la nacionalidad española a los sefardíes originarios de España — Jefatura del Estado, Boletín Oficial del Estado (2015)
The completion of the Reconquista and the unification of Spain under the Catholic Monarchs, followed by the discovery of a New World: the beginning of Spain's golden age.
- Isabel the Queen: Life and Times — Peggy K. Liss, Oxford University Press (1992)
- Spanish Identity in the Age of Nations — José Álvarez Junco, Manchester University Press (2011)
Unity was purchased with religious exclusion. The expulsion of the Jews and the later forced conversion of Muslims narrowed Spain's idea of itself to one faith, and the Atlantic voyage opened a conquest with devastating consequences for Indigenous peoples.
- The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision — Henry Kamen, Yale University Press (2014)
- The Jews of Spain: A History of the Sephardic Experience — Jane S. Gerber, Free Press (1992)
- Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614 — L. P. Harvey, University of Chicago Press (2005)
The loss of al-Andalus, a civilisation of learning and poetry, and the betrayal of the surrender terms that had guaranteed Granada's Muslims their faith.
- Muslim Spain and Portugal: A Political History of al-Andalus — Hugh Kennedy, Longman (1996)
- Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614 — L. P. Harvey, University of Chicago Press (2005)
Why it matters today
1492 is the hinge of Spanish history, celebrated and mourned at once. 12 October, the day Columbus reached the Caribbean, is Spain's national day; Granada still marks 2 January with a civic ceremony that has drawn both celebration and protest. In 2015 Spain offered citizenship to descendants of the expelled Sephardic Jews, an official admission of an old wrong.
The fall of Granada ended almost eight centuries of Muslim rule in Iberia. For many Muslims it is remembered with grief, and the broken promises of religious freedom that followed are part of a wider memory of loss.