Alhambra Decree 1492
On March 31, 1492, the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, Isabella and Ferdinand, issued the Alhambra Decree, an edict requiring the expulsion or conversion of all Jews from the Crowns of Castile and Aragon by July 31 of that year. The edict was issued shortly after Ferdinand and Isabella had won the Battle of Granada, completing the Catholic Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula from Islamic forces. As noted in the decree itself, it was issued to stop Jews from trying "to subvert the holy Catholic faith" by attempting to "draw faithful Christians away from their beliefs." Unfortunately, persecution by Catholics against the Jews of the Iberian Peninsula was not a new phenomenon in 1492. One hundred one years earlier, violence against the Jews of Castile erupted in what is known as the Massacre of 1391. After 4,000 Jews were murdered in Seville, the violence spread to more than 70 cities throughout Castile, resulting in the death of thousands of Jews while thousands others converted to Catholicism so their lives might be spared.Violence, persecution, and forced conversion continued against the Jews of the Iberian Peninsula into the 1400s. Because of that persecution, by 1415 more than half of the Jews of the crowns of Castile and Aragon had converted to Catholicism. But, because of the Spanish Inquisition, conversion did not guarantee the safety of former Jews in the region. Out of distrust by "Old Christians", popular revolts against the conversos broke out in 1449 and 1474. Jews who chose exile had to sell nearly all their possessions, taking only what they could carry. Whole communities packed up and left, their homes and sacred areas quickly reclaimed by the Catholic communities that remained. The expulsion led to mass migration of Jews from Spain to Italy, Greece, Turkey, North Africa, and the Mediterranean Basin. As a result of the Alhambra Decree, over 200,000 Jews converted to Catholicism, and between 40,000 and 100,000 were expelled.
