Morisco/as in New Spain
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A Morisco/Morisca is someone of North African heritage who was Muslim but then forcibly converted to Christianity in order to avoid persecution. Despite, their conversion, Moriscos were looked at with suspicion in Spain and not considered equal to Spaniards. They were expelled from Spain during la Reconquista. On their arrival in New Spain, they hoped to escape from the mistrust and discrimination but it followed them. Their arrival was seen as a threat to the creation of a unified Catholic community by the Spanish empire, who believed that they would undermine efforts to proselytize Indigenous peoples or even betray the Spaniards and side with the Ottomans, due to their shared religious heritage.
This fear of being mistrusted and denounced made many Moriscos want to proactively confess, as can be seen in the example of Maria Ruiz, who confessed to still following and believing in Islam despite having converted. In my opinion, the reason she could have done this is to ease her internal anxieties of having to keep her religion a secret. This prompted the friars to give her milder punishments and keep her discretions private.
On the other hand, Moriscos who engaged in iconoclasm, i.e. the rejection and ridicule of Catholic symbols were publicly reprimanded. Their lack of belief in the Trinity and their non-worship of saints was something that united them with the Protestants, to the dismay of the Spanish Catholic empire. Both of these groups with their outspoken disdain of Catholic practices, were seen as a common enemy. Their public rejection of Catholic practices was often done in the presence of Indigenous peoples who were working on their land, as members of these 2 groups were encomienderos, thus undermining efforts at proselytization and the creation of “a uniform Catholic empire across new Spain”. Thinking about it on a deeper level, these Protestant and Morisco encomienderos were actually a foil to the same empire they were propping up - as in they extracted land and labour from Indigenous people, but refused to facilitate their conversion (according to Spanish standards) - this could probably be a testament to the exploitative nature of colonialism, as opposed to the guise of bringing the “benevolent Christian faith” to Indigenous peoples.