Edict of Expulsion of the Moriscos

The Edict of Expulsion of the Moriscos is the royal decree that forces Ricote and Ana Félix away from Spain and shapes their separation, journeys, and eventual reunion. In the novel, its consequences emerge through personal testimony rather than an account of the decree’s formal provisions: Ricote describes the fear and banishment it brought, while Ana Félix recounts being carried abroad despite declaring herself a Christian. Their stories show how a collective order reaches people whose circumstances and loyalties are not the same, and how leaving one’s homeland can remain a wound even when return is forbidden.

The Decree and Its Reach

Ricote, a Morisco shopkeeper from Sancho Panza’s village, recalls that the royal proclamation filled people of his nation with terror. He believed it would be enforced by the appointed deadline, not dismissed as an empty threat. That expectation governed his decision to leave Spain before the deadline expired, and his story presents expulsion not as a distant political announcement but as a force that rearranges a family’s life.

Ricote’s account also makes clear that the order falls upon a community whose members, in his telling, are not all alike. He acknowledges that some were steadfast Christians, though he describes them as too few to counter those he believed harboured dangerous designs. He considers the banishment justified by those designs and credits the king with a resolute decision, yet also calls the penalty terrible for those driven out. His judgment is therefore divided: he accepts the case for the measure as he understands it while describing its human cost from the position of one who has lost his country.

Ricote’s Departure and Exile

Rather than take his family with him immediately, Ricote left alone to find a place where they might later settle in safety and without the haste of the general departure. He had concluded that the decree would be carried out and sought a destination before the family’s removal became unavoidable. His departure separated him from his wife and daughter, and his later return to Spain was shaped by the hope of finding them and recovering a treasure he had buried outside the village.

Ricote travelled through France and Italy before settling in Germany, where he believed his family might live with greater freedom. In Spain again, he hid his identity among German pilgrims. When he met Sancho, he explained that he had returned both to retrieve the buried valuables and to seek a way to bring his wife and daughter from Algiers to a French port, then onward to Germany. The decree thus determines the geography of his life: Spain remains the homeland he longs for, while his plans for his family depend on movement between countries and on the possibility of bringing them together elsewhere.

Ana Félix and the Cost of Collective Banishment

Ana Félix’s account reveals a different route into exile. Born to Morisco parents, she says she was a Catholic Christian, raised in that faith by her mother and brought up so that she did not consider herself a Morisco in conduct. Nevertheless, when the expulsion came, her uncles took her to Barbary against her protests. Her father had already left the village to seek refuge abroad for the family; the decree and their separation meant that Ana Félix travelled with her uncles while her father was absent.

In Algiers, Ana Félix faced further danger. The king there learned of her beauty and wealth, while her beloved, Don Gaspar Gregorio, was also at risk. She concealed his identity by presenting him as a woman, and he was taken away to live among women of rank. Ana Félix was then sent back toward Spain with a Spanish renegade and two Turks, under orders to be put ashore in Christian territory. The Turks instead pursued a possible prize along the coast. The chain of events that brings her story before the authorities begins with her forced departure: the expulsion has separated her from her father, carried her to Algiers, and left her trying to return to Spain under perilous circumstances.

Reunion and the Unresolved Meaning of Home

Ricote’s account of exile is not only a record of displacement; it is also an expression of attachment. He says that the exiles weep for Spain because they were born there and regard it as their natural fatherland. He reports that some return despite the danger, leaving wives and children behind, because their longing for the country is so strong. His own return, disguised among pilgrims, gives that longing a concrete form: he risks coming back to search for his daughter and the treasure he left buried.

The reunion occurs when Ana Félix finishes her account before the authorities. Ricote recognizes her and identifies himself as her father; she embraces him, and Sancho confirms that Ricote is the man he met after leaving his governorship and that Ana Félix is indeed his daughter. Ricote says that he recovered the treasure but finds his daughter more precious. His plea for clemency rests on the family’s innocence and on their claim not to share the aims attributed to their people. The scene does not erase the expulsion or settle the family’s future; it makes visible the personal bonds and individual claims that collective suspicion has placed under pressure.

Narrative Significance

The decree is presented through contrasting experiences rather than through a detached legal summary. Ricote’s retrospective explanation combines acceptance of the stated grounds for expulsion with grief for the homeland he has lost. Ana Félix’s testimony, by contrast, emphasizes that her declared Christian faith does not prevent her removal. Together, their accounts expose the distance between a policy applied to a whole community and the varied identities and circumstances of the people it displaces.

The return to Spain also complicates any simple division between exile and belonging. Ricote comes back in disguise; Ana Félix reaches the country in danger and under another identity’s protection. Their reunion offers a moment of relief, but it follows separation, danger, and an uncertain appeal for mercy. Through these linked stories, the Edict of Expulsion of the Moriscos becomes a continuing pressure on family life and a test of how public judgments about a group meet the claims of individual people.