Part 211

"After the reduction … of the last Mohammedan kingdom in Spain, the great object of the Spaniards became to convert those whom they had conquered [in violation of the treaty made on the surrender of Granada]. … By torturing some, by burning others, and by threatening all, they at length succeeded; and we are assured that, after the year 1526, there was no Mohammedan in Spain, who had not been converted to Christianity. Immense numbers of them were baptized by force; but being baptized, it was held that they belonged to the Church, and were amenable to her discipline. That discipline was administered by the Inquisition, which, during the rest of the 16th century, subjected these new Christians, or Moriscoes, as they were now called, to the most barbarous treatment. The genuineness of their forced conversions was doubted; it therefore became the business of the Church to inquire into their sincerity. The civil government lent its aid; and among other enactments, an edict was issued by Philip II., in 1566, ordering the Moriscoes to abandon everything which by the slightest possibility could remind them of their former religion. They were commanded, under severe penalties, to learn Spanish, and to give up all their Arabic books. They were forbidden to read their native language, or to write it, or even to speak it in their own houses. Their ceremonies and their very games were strictly prohibited. They were to indulge in no amusements which had been practised by their fathers; neither were they to wear such clothes as they had been accustomed to. Their women were to go unveiled; and, as bathing was a heathenish custom, an public baths were to be destroyed, and even an baths in private houses. By these and similar measures, these unhappy people were at length goaded into rebellion; and in 1568 they took the desperate step of measuring their force against that of the whole Spanish monarchy. The result could hardly be doubted; but the Moriscoes maddened by their sufferings, and fighting for their all, protracted the contest till 1571, when the insurrection was finally put down. By this unsuccessful effort they were greatly reduced in numbers and in strength; and during the remaining 27 years of the reign of Philip II. we hear comparatively little of them. Notwithstanding an occasional outbreak, the old animosities were subsiding, and in the course of time would probably have disappeared. At all events, there was no pretence for violence on the part of the Spaniards, since it was absurd to suppose that the Moriscoes, weakened in every way, humbled, broken, and scattered through the kingdom, could, even if they desired it, effect anything against the resources of the executive government. {2227} But, after the death of Philip II., that movement began … which, contrary to the course of affairs in other nations, secured to the Spanish clergy in the 17th century, more power than they had possessed in the 16th. The consequences of this were immediately apparent. The clergy did not think that the steps taken by Philip II. against the Moriscoes were sufficiently decisive. … Under his successor, the clergy … gained fresh strength, and they soon felt themselves sufficiently powerful to begin another and final crusade against the miserable remains of the Moorish nation. The Archbishop of Valencia was the first to take the field. In 1602, this eminent prelate presented a memorial to Philip III. against the Moriscoes; and finding that his views were cordially supported by the clergy, and not discouraged by the crown, he followed up the blow by another memorial having the same object. … He declared that the Armada, which Philip II. sent against England in 1588, had been destroyed, because God would not allow even that pious enterprise to succeed, while those who undertook it, left heretics undisturbed at home. For the same reason, the late expedition to Algiers had failed; it being evidently the will of Heaven that nothing should prosper while Spain was inhabited by apostates. He, therefore, exhorted the king to exile all the Moriscoes, except some whom he might condemn to work in the galleys, and others who could become slaves, and labour in the mines of America. This, he added, would make the reign of Philip glorious to all posterity, and would raise his fame far above that of his predecessors, who in this matter had neglected their obvious duty. … That they should all be slain, instead of being banished, was the desire of a powerful party in the Church, who thought that such signal punishment would work good by striking terror into the heretics of every nation. Bleda, the celebrated Dominican, one of the most influential men of his time, wished this to be done, and to be done thoroughly. He said, that, for the sake of example, every Morisco in Spain should have his throat cut; because it was impossible to tell which of them were Christians at heart, and it was enough to leave the matter to God, who knew his own, and who would reward in the next world those who were really Catholics. … The religious scruples of Philip III. forbade him to struggle with the Church; and his minister Lerma would not risk his own authority by even the show of opposition. In 1609 he announced to the king, that the expulsion of the Moriscoes had become necessary. 'The resolution,' replied Philip, 'is a great one; let it be executed.' And executed it was, with unflinching barbarity. About 1,000,000 of the most industrious inhabitants of Spain were hunted out like wild beasts, because the sincerity of their religious opinions was doubtful. Many were slain, as they approached the coast; others were beaten and plundered; and the majority, in the most wretched plight, sailed for Africa. During the passage, the crew, in many of the ships, rose upon them, butchered the men, ravished the women, and threw the children into the sea. Those who escaped this fate, landed on the coast of Barbary, where they were attacked by the Bedouins, and many of them put to the sword. Others made their way into the desert, and perished from famine. Of the number of lives actually sacrificed, we have no authentic account; but it is said, on very good authority, that in one expedition, in which 140,000 were carried to Africa, upwards of 100,000 suffered death in its most frightful forms within a few months after their expulsion from Spain. Now, for the first time, the Church was really triumphant. For the first time there was not a heretic to be seen between the Pyrenees and the Straits of Gibraltar. All were orthodox, and all were loyal. Every inhabitant of that great country obeyed the Church, and feared the king. And from this happy combination, it was believed that the prosperity and grandeur of Spain were sure to follow. … The effects upon the material prosperity of Spain may be stated in a few words. From nearly every part of the country, large bodies of industrious agriculturists and expert artificers were suddenly withdrawn. The best systems of husbandry then known, were practised by the Moriscoes, who tilled and irrigated with indefatigable labour. The cultivation of rice, cotton, and sugar, and the manufacture of silk and paper were almost confined to them. By their expulsion all this was destroyed at a blow, and most of it was destroyed for ever. For the Spanish Christians considered such pursuits beneath their dignity. In their judgment, war and religion were the only two avocations worthy of being followed. To fight for the king, or to enter the Church was honourable; but everything else was mean and sordid. When, therefore, the Moriscoes were thrust out of Spain, there was no one to fill their place; arts and manufactures either degenerated, or were entirely lost, and immense regions of arable land were left uncultivated. … Whole districts were suddenly deserted, and down to the present day have never been repeopled. These solitudes gave refuge to smugglers and brigands, who succeeded the industrious inhabitants formerly occupying them; and it is said that from the expulsion of the Moriscoes is to be dated the existence of those organized bands of robbers, which, after this period, became the scourge of Spain, and which no subsequent government has been able entirely to extirpate. To these disastrous consequences, others were added, of a different, and, if possible, of a still more serious kind. The victory gained by the Church increased both her power and her reputation. … The greatest men, with hardly an exception, became ecclesiastics, and all temporal considerations, all views of earthly policy, were despised and set at nought. No one inquired; no one doubted; no one presumed to ask if all this was right. The minds of men succumbed and were prostrate. While every other country was advancing, Spain alone was receding. Every other country was making some addition to knowledge, creating some art, or enlarging some science, Spain numbed into a death-like torpor, spellbound and entranced by the accursed superstition which preyed on her strength, presented to Europe a solitary instance of constant decay."

_H. T. Buckle, History of Civilization, volume 2, chapter 8._

ALSO IN: _W. H. Prescott, History of the Reign of Philip II., book 5, chapters 1-8 (volume 3)._

_R. Watson, History of the Reign of Philip III., book 4._

_J. Dunlop, Memoirs of Spain, 1621-1700, volume 1, chapter 1._

See, also, INQUISITION: A. D. 1203-1525.

MOORS: 15-19th Centuries. The kingdom of Marocco.

See MAROCCO.

MOORS: End--------

MOPH.

See MEMPHIS.

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MOQUELUMNAN FAMILY, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MOQUELUMNAN FAMILY.

MOQUIS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PUEBLOS.

MORA, The.

The name of the ship which bore William the Conqueror to England, and which was the gift of his wife, the Duchess Matilda.

MORAT, Battle of (1476).

See BURGUNDY (THE FRENCH DUKEDOM): A. D. 1476-1477.

MORAVIA: Start--------

MORAVIA: Its people and their early history.

See BOHEMIA: ITS PEOPLE, &c.

MORAVIA: 9th Century. Conversion to Christianity. The kingdom of Svatopluk and its obscure destruction.

"Moravia has not even a legendary history. Her name appears for the first time at the beginning of the 9th century, under its Slav form, Morava (German 'March,' 'Moehren'). It is used to denote at the same time a tributary of the Danube and the country it waters; it is met with again in the lower valley of that stream, in Servia, and appears to have a Slav origin. During the 7th and 8th centuries there is no doubt Moravia was divided among several princes, and had a hard struggle against the Avars. The first prince whose name is known was Moïmir, who ruled at the beginning of the 9th century. … During his reign Christianity made some progress in Moravia. … Moïmir tried to withstand the Germans, but was not successful; and in 846 Louis the German invaded his country, deposed him, and made his nephew Rostislav, whom the chroniclers call Rastiz, ruler in his stead. … The new prince, Rostislav, determined to secure both the political and moral freedom of his country. He fortified his frontiers and then declared war against the emperor. He was victorious, and when once peace was secured he undertook a systematic conversion of his people. Thus came about one of the great episodes in the history of the Slavs, and their Church, the mission of the apostles Cyril and Methodius. … After having struggled successfully for some time against the Germans" Rostislav was "betrayed by his nephew and vassal, Svatopluk, into the hands of Karloman, duke of Carinthia and son of Louis the German, who put out his eyes and shut him up in a monastery. Svatopluk believed himself sure of the succession to his uncle as the price of his treachery, but a very different reward fell to his lot, as Karloman, trusting but little in his fidelity to the Germans, threw him also into captivity. The German yoke was, however, hateful to the Moravians; they soon rebelled, and Karloman hoped to avert the danger by releasing Svatopluk and placing him at the head of an army. Svatopluk marched against the Moravians, then suddenly joined his forces to theirs and attacked the Germans. This time the independence of Moravia was secured, and was recognized by the treaty of Forcheim (874). … Thenceforward peace reigned between Svatopluk and Louis the German. … At one time he [Svatopluk] was the most powerful monarch of the Slavs; Rome was in treaty with him, Bohemia gravitated towards the orbit of Moravia, while Moravia held the empire in check. … At this time [891] the kingdom of Svatopluk … included, besides Moravia and the present Austrian Silesia, the subject country of Bohemia, the Slav tribes on the Elbe and the Vistula as far as the neighbourhood of Magdeburg, part of Western Galicia, the country of the Slovaks, and Lower Pannonia." But Svatopluk was ruined by war with his neighbor, Arnulf, duke of Pannonia. The latter "entered into an alliance with Braclav, a Slovene prince, sought the aid of the king of the Bulgarians, and, what was of far graver importance, summoned to his help the Magyars, who had just settled themselves on the Lower Danube. Swabians, Bavarians, Franks, Magyars, and Slovenes rushed simultaneously upon Moravia. Overwhelmed by numbers, Svatopluk made no attempt at resistance; he shut up his troops in fortresses, and abandoned the open country to the enemy, who ravaged it for four whole weeks. Then hostilities ceased; but no durable peace could exist between the two adversaries. War began again in the following year, when death freed Arnulf from Svatopluk. … At his death he left three sons; he chose the eldest, Moïmir II., as his heir, and assigned appanages to each of the others. On his death-bed he begged them to live at peace with one another, but his advice was not followed. … Bohemia soon threw off those bonds which had attached her as a vassal to Svatopluk; the Magyars invaded Moravian Pannonia, and forced Moïmir into an alliance with them. … In the year 900 the Bavarians, together with the Chekhs, invaded Moravia. In 903 the name of Moïmir disappears. As to the cause of his death, as to how it was that suddenly and for ever the kingdom of Moravia was destroyed, the chronicles tell us nothing. Cosmas of Prague shows us Moravia at the mercy of Germans, Chekhs, and Hungarians; then history is silent, towns and castles crumble to pieces, churches are overthrown, the people are scattered."

_L. Leger, History of Austro-Hungary, chapter 4._

ALSO IN: _G. F. Maclear, Conversion of the West: The Slavs, chapter 4._

MORAVIA: A. D. 1355. Absorption in the kingdom of Bohemia.

See BOHEMIA: A. D. 1355.

MORAVIA: End----------

MORAVIAN OR BOHEMIAN BRETHREN (Unitas Fratrum): Origin and early history.

See BOHEMIA: A. D. 1434-1457; and 1621-1648.

MORAVIAN OR BOHEMIAN BRETHREN (Unitas Fratrum): In Saxony and in America. The Indian Missions.

"In 1722, and in the seven following years, a considerable number of these 'Brethren,' led by Christian David, who were persecuted in their homes, were received by Count Zinzendorf on his estate at Berthelsdorf in Saxony. They founded a village called Herrnhut, or 'the Watch of the Lord.' There they were joined by Christians from other places in Germany, and, after some time, Zinzendorf took up his abode among them, and became their principal guide and pastor. … In 1737, he consecrated himself wholly to the service of God in connection with the Moravian settlement, and was ordained a bishop. … Zinzendorf had before been received into the Lutheran ministry. The peculiar fervor which characterized his religious work, and certain particulars in his teaching, caused the Saxon Government, which was wedded to the traditional ways of Lutheranism, to exclude him from Saxony for about ten years (1736-1747). He prosecuted his religious labors in Frankfort, journeyed through Holland and England, made a voyage to the West Indies, and, in 1741, another voyage to America. {2229} New branches of the Moravian body he planted in the countries which he visited. … It was a church within a church that Zinzendorf aimed to establish. It was far from his purpose to found a sect antagonistic to the national churches in the midst of which the Moravian societies arose. … With a religious life remarkable as combining warm emotion with a quiet and serene type of feeling, the community of Zinzendorf connected a missionary zeal not equalled at that time in any other Protestant communion. Although few in number, they sent their gospel messengers to all quarters of the globe."

_G. P. Fisher, History of the Christian Church, pages 506-507._

The first settlement of the Moravians in America was planted in Georgia, in 1735. "But Oglethorpe's border war with the Spaniards compelled him to call every man in his colony to arms, and the Moravians, rather than forsake their principles [of non-resistance, and dependence upon prayer], abandoned their lands and escaped to Pennsylvania [1740]. Here some of their brethren were already fixed. Among the refugees was the young David Zeisberger, the future head of the Ohio missions. Bethlehem on the Lehigh became, and is yet, the centre in America of their double system of missions and education. They bought lands, laid out villages and farms, built houses, shops, and mills, but everywhere, and first of all, houses of prayer, in thankfulness for the peace and prosperity at length found. The first mission established by Zinzendorf in the colonies was in 1741, among the Mohican Indians, near the borders of New York and Connecticut. The bigoted people and authorities of the neighborhood by outrages and persecution drove them off, so that they were forced to take refuge on the Lehigh. The brethren established them in a new colony twenty miles above Bethlehem, to which they gave the name of Gnadenhütten (Tents of Grace). The prosperity of the Mohicans attracted the attention and visits of the Indians beyond. The nearest were the Delawares, between whom and the Mohicans there were strong ties of affinity, as branches of the old Lenni Lenape stock. Relations were thus formed between the Moravians and the Delawares. And by the fraternization between the Delawares and Shawanees … and their gradual emigration to the West to escape the encroachments of Penn's people, it occurred that the Moravian missionaries, Zeisberger foremost, accompanied their Delaware and Mohican converts to the Susquehanna in 1765, and again, when driven from there by the cession at Fort Stanwix, journeyed with them across the Alleghanies to Goshgoshink, a town established by the unconverted Delawares far up the Alleghany River." In 1770, having gained some important converts among the Delawares of the Wolf clan, at Kuskuskee, on Big Beaver Creek, they transferred themselves to that place, naming it Friedenstadt. But there they were opposed with such hostility by warriors and white traders that they determined "to plunge a step further into the wilderness, and go to the head chief of the Delawares at Gepelmukpechenk (Stillwater, or Tuscarawi) on the Muskingum. It was near this village that Christian Frederick Post, the brave, enterprising pioneer of the Moravians, had established himself in 1761, with the approbation of the chiefs. … By marriage with an Indian wife he had forfeited his regular standing with the congregation. His intimate acquaintance with the Indians, and their languages and customs, so far gained upon them that in 1762 he was permitted to take Heckewelder to share his cabin and establish a school for the Indian children. But in the autumn the threatened outburst of Pontiac's war had compelled them to flee." Early in 1772 the Moravian colony "was invited by the council at Tuscarawi, the Wyandots west of them approving it, to come with all their Indian brethren from the Alleghany and Susquehanna, and settle on the Muskingum (as the Tuscarawas was then called), and upon any lands that they might choose." The invitation was accepted. "The pioneer party, in the removal from the Beaver to Ohio, consisted of Zeisberger and five Indian families, 28 persons, who arrived at this beautiful ground May 3, 1772. … The site was at the large spring, and appropriately it was named for it Shoenbrun. In August arrived the Missionaries Ettwein and Heckewelder, with the main body of Christian Indians who had been invited from the Alleghany and the Susquehanna, about 250 in number. … This, and further accessions from the east in September, made it advisable to divide the colony into two villages. The second [named Gnadenhütten] was established ten miles below Shoenbrun. … In April, 1773, the remnants of the mission on the Beaver joined their brethren in Ohio. The whole body of the Moravian Indians … was now united and at rest under the shelter of the unconverted but … tolerant Delaware warriors. … The population of the Moravian villages at the close of 1775 was 414 persons. … The calamity of the Moravians was the war of the American Revolution. It developed the dangerous fact that their villages … were close upon the direct line between Pittsburgh and Detroit, the outposts of the two contending forces." The peaceful settlement became an object of hostility to the meaner spirits on both sides. In September, 1781, by order of the British commander at Detroit, they were expelled from their settlement, robbed of all their possessions, and sent to Sandusky. In the following February, a half-starved party of them, numbering 96, who had ventured back to their ravaged homes, for the purpose of gleaning the corn left standing in the fields, were massacred by a brutal American force, from the Ohio. "So perished the Moravian missions on the Muskingum. Not that the pious founders ceased their labors, or that these consecrated scenes knew them no more. But their Indian communities, the germ of their work, the sign of what was to be accomplished by them in the great Indian problem, were scattered and gone, Zeisberger, at their head, labored with the remnants of their congregation for years in Canada. They then transferred themselves temporarily to settlements on the Sandusky, the Huron, and the Cuyahoga rivers. At last he and Heckewelder, with the survivors of these wanderings, went back to their lands on the Tuscarawas, now surrounded by the whites, but fully secured to them by the generosity of Congress."

_R. King, Ohio, chapter 6._

ALSO IN: _D. Cranz, History of the United Brethren._

_F. Bovet, The Banished Count (Life of Zinzendorf)._

_E. de Schweinitz, Life and Times of David Zeisberger._

_D. Zeisberger, Diary._

_D. Berger, United Brethren (American Church History), volume 12._

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