1492: Spain expels its Jews to the Americas

Yonatan

Banned
ok, so we all know the "pin the Zion on the Euroasia" meme.
here's the thing: even though there have been several threads on different locations for Israel, or locations which could become a Jewish state somewhere in the world, I do not recall any specific thread about Spain sending its Jews to the Americas instead of a general expulsion.

now, I freely admit I do not know too much about court politics in Spain in the late 15th/early 16th centuries, or how they set their immigration policies, so my question is what would it take for the king of Spain in 1492 instead of expelling the Jews out of Spain, to wait a few months untill Columbus returns and to decide to expel the Jews to the Americas? and how would that change the history of the colonisation of the Americas?
 

Artaxerxes

Banned
It'd take ASB sadly. There were a lot of Jews and it would cost a fortune in shipping.

Easier to tell em to get out or die
 

Artaxerxes

Banned
Ah but "get out" ITTL may also mean "you may settle in the Catholic kings' domains across the seas..."
Jonathan Edelstein flirted with a similar scenario.

Or maybe they just wanted to expel the Jews to the depths of Hell...

Hmm, still doubtful, what you'd need is a later expulsion of the Jews or an earlier discovery I think. A few months after Columbus, even a few years is to soon for a realisation of just how much territory is up for grabs.

If we're hoping for the best then I could see the Pope (Alexander VI? Borgia...) encourage Isabella and Ferdinand to let the Jews go East as he was friendly to both the monarchs and the Jews.
 

Flubber

Banned
Didn't the Spaniards have incredibly strict policies on who could travel to the new world?


They very much did indeed.

People from certain parts of Spain itself, let alone the Spanish holding in Europe, were prohibited from traveling to New Spain, so the idea that Spain would ship Jews there is a non-starter without PODs that change Spain, and the discovery of the New World, out of all recognition.
 
People from certain parts of Spain itself, let alone the Spanish holding in Europe, were prohibited from traveling to New Spain, so the idea that Spain would ship Jews there is a non-starter without PODs that change Spain, and the discovery of the New World, out of all recognition.
Now that is something I didn't know. (OK, there's a lot I don't know, but this genuinely surprises me that I haven't heard of it before.) Could you offer some details and the rationale behind who could travel to New Spain and who couldn't?
 
The Alhambra Decree was issued at the end of March 1492, and expulsion was supposed to be completed by the end of July; Columbus didn't depart for what he thought was Asia for another week.
 

Flubber

Banned
Now that is something I didn't know. (OK, there's a lot I don't know, but this genuinely surprises me that I haven't heard of it before.) Could you offer some details and the rationale behind who could travel to New Spain and who couldn't?


Spain wasn't the unitary state too many people automatically assume when they think of "nation" or "kingdom". Instead, Spain was a collection of kingdoms or crowns all held by one man. As such, people from certain kingdoms were more trusted than people from other kingdoms leading to more patronage going more people from trusted regions.

One region was favored above all others and that's why everyone hated anyone from Castile. ;)

These varying levels of trust and patronage also extended to Spain's non-Iberian European holdings. People from the Spanish Netherlands, Sardinia, Naples-Sicily, and other other holdings could only advance so far in the king's service and were never officially allowed to travel to the New World.

Spain's control went as far as establishing the Casa de Contratacion, a trade board which in theory controlled all movement of goods and people between Spain and her overseas empire and even within the overseas empire. In theory, all vessels, the trade they carried, the people aboard, and the ports that could be visited were licensed.
 
Now that is something I didn't know. (OK, there's a lot I don't know, but this genuinely surprises me that I haven't heard of it before.) Could you offer some details and the rationale behind who could travel to New Spain and who couldn't?

Think of New Spainin terms of a high value respurce extraction site. It's going to be high security and the government will restrict access. Same principle.
 
Remember that Spain had multiple motives behind their expansion. We talk about "Gold, God and Glory", but people today tend to focus on the first and last part of that equation.

But there was a strong religious lobby as well, and it attempted very strongly to keep the New World "clean" of heretical ideas. All books being shipped to the New World theoretically had to be cleared by inspectors to ensure that they wouldn't corrupt the inhabitants. One of the charges levied against English smugglers in the New World was that they might try to contaminate the natives and colonists with Protestant teachings. So the idea that the Spanish would willing expel a bunch of people that aren't even considered Christian seems even less likely.
 
Now that is something I didn't know. (OK, there's a lot I don't know, but this genuinely surprises me that I haven't heard of it before.) Could you offer some details and the rationale behind who could travel to New Spain and who couldn't?

Flubber and Flocculencio hit around the right subject but not quite nail-on-head. Flubber is correct to point out that the "Spanish Empire" of the very late 15th century and the next 100 years or so was indeed a collection of previously-independent states unified under a joint sovereign. This meant that only the sovereign himself, and perhaps a handful of his closest stooges/yes-men, thought of themselves as being representative of the entire empire. Most in fact only associated with their birth nationality - whether that be Castilian, Aragonese, Dutch, German, etc, and they didn't believe that their country was any less relevant just because of its personal union.

In short - Castile still had its own politics, as did Aragon and the other parts of the Empire. Castile had previously had an agreement with Portugal, which due to bickering led to the Papal-negotiated Treaty of Tordesillas, where both countries were aware that there were other states out there and that they could be exploited for profit. They had already agreed between themselves that Portugal and Castile were to be the only two countries allowed to have a finger in the pie of extra-European colonisation. No other state would be allowed to have a share. That agreement kept on after the personal union bringing Castile into partnership with other states, and Castile did not view their agreement with Portugal as now encompassing the rest of the empire - if anything, they became more determined to guard their national interests. Hence, as Flocc says, they were very proscriptive of exactly who was even allowed to travel there. This was only exacerbated by the fact that Castile did not see the New World as somewhere to be colonised, they saw it as one giant quarry to be plundered of its wealth, so schemes to plant cities were simply not relevant.
 
France had a somewhat similar policy in the new world. Immigrants and others allowed to exploit the French possesions were vetted for political & religious reliability. Britain conversely used its colonies as a dump for its undesireables. Barely a century passed before the ungrateful colonials were rioting.

Practicality Check:
Consider this as a alternative to Jews in New Spain. From very early in the 16th Century west European fishermen were using Newfoundland for summer fishing camps while they exploited the Grand Banks & nearby fisheries. Perhaps the Jews directed to disappear might be able to finance a colony at or near Newfoundland? Perhaps the initial settlement there, and the later larger settlements further south?
 

Flubber

Banned
Consider this as a alternative to Jews in New Spain. From very early in the 16th Century west European fishermen were using Newfoundland for summer fishing camps while they exploited the Grand Banks & nearby fisheries. Perhaps the Jews directed to disappear might be able to finance a colony at or near Newfoundland? Perhaps the initial settlement there, and the later larger settlements further south?


So instead of, as they did in the OTL, leaving Spain for existing Jewish communities elsewhere in Europe and around the Mediterranean - and to nations like the Ottomans whose ruling Sultan eagerly welcomed them - the Sephardim cross the Atlantic to Newfoundland, an island whose coast is barely known, whose inhabitants are barely known, whose climate is completely different from Iberia, and where Mediterranean agriculture will not work?

Instead of going to places they already know about, even a few places where they're actively welcomed, they're going to bug out for an almost unknown island with a subarctic environment?

Do we really need to check the practicality of that suggestion?
 

Flubber

Banned
What if the Spanish royalty decided that the New World wasn't worth it and decided to treat it like the British did to Australia.


Once Spain hits the "jackpot" in the form of the Aztec and Incan empires, the New World is definitely going to be "worth it".

As Flocc points out, within a generation of Columbus, the New World became a high value resource extraction site which allowed Spain and the Hapsburgs to finance both a worldwide empire and superpower status in Europe. Spain can and will take steps to safeguard those resources.
 
What if the Spanish royalty decided that the New World wasn't worth it and decided to treat it like the British did to Australia.

The mere possibility of gold and a route to the Orient will keep the Spanish interested for a while, even if for some reason they don't find the Aztecs/Inca. By the time that interest wanes, even if they mysteriously still haven't heard rumors of cities of gold, etc., the Jews will already have been long expelled.

And of course, missionary/theological concerns will still be important, more so if they had less competition from wealthy hacienda owners. Historically there was quite a bit of conflict between the secular and religious powers in New Spain, and occasionally the natives attempted to play them off against each other (e.g. if the colonists were too cruel, they could complain to the Church to try to get more protective laws passed; if the Church was going on a inquisitorial rampages (before the jurisdiction was changed) the natives could try to use the secular colonists to protect their labor source). If there is less apparent wealth in the New World, the Church will probably have more power, and they won't be a fan of letting non-Christians in.
 
Once Spain hits the "jackpot" in the form of the Aztec and Incan empires, the New World is definitely going to be "worth it".

As Flocc points out, within a generation of Columbus, the New World became a high value resource extraction site which allowed Spain and the Hapsburgs to finance both a worldwide empire and superpower status in Europe. Spain can and will take steps to safeguard those resources.

Even before the Incas and Aztecs were found, however, the New world would be seen to have value in terms of a stopping point on the route to Asia. Just as Portugal wanted a monopoly on the circum-African route to the Indies, Spain saw the New World as a valuable stepping stone to the Indies from the other direction, which indeed happened with the Manila Galleon trade being hugely profitable for Spain.

Even the North American joint stock company settlements (like Jamestown et al) were initially founded with hopes of being the first points on a possible route to the Pacific. Of course these hopes got squashed when it became evident that North America was much wider than Central America.
 
Top