The Formation of North African Otherness in the Canary Islands from the 16th to 18th Centuries ; La formación de la diferenciación norteafricana en Canarias de los siglos XVI al XVIII

The current study of the North Africans of the Canary Islands during the 16th-18th centuries represents a contribution to the question of the development of the Muslim stereotype in Spain. This population with origins almost exclusively in north-western Africa, an area known at the time as Barbary, was forcibly relocated to the islands. Most of the Old Christians at the moment of the Royal Decree of 1609 expelling of the Moriscos from the Peninsula declared that the Moriscos of the archipelago were good Christians and loyal vassals. The archipelago was hence the only area of the Spanish Crown where they were not expelled. Fear served the monarchies of new emerging modern state to secure power and fashion a proto-national identity that differentiated individuals of different cultures and religions. The Moriscos of the archipelago were therefore throughout three centuries one of the main collectives singled out for religious, political and economic reasons.


INTRODUCTION
The main objective of this article is to reveal the three scenarios explaining the development of the otherness of the North African Moriscos of the Canary Islands. The first of the differences refers to blood lineage, that is, different biological origins. The second relates to religion, that is the Catholic faith. The final its roots in the kingdom's political security.
The historiography of Spain has nurtured a Manichaean perspective based on the central premise of the illegitimacy of Al-Andalus from the moment of its domination of the Peninsula. This is expressed through the notion of an Arab and Muslim "invasion" that generated violence, brutality and humiliation which simultaneously legitimised and glorified the Christian reconquest (García Sanjuán, 2016, pp. 133-135).
Activating the fear of developing the "other" as an enemy and, therefore, as a threat, leads to a strong support from authorities. At a time when the Modern State was being formed and the monarch was trying to impose itself on the feudal lords, the images of enemies as archetypal figures seated in the unconsciousness of the community to which they are directed have an integrating force and create a social consensus in favour of absolutist power. The same has happened throughout history when there has been a power crisis.
Exclusions against non-Catholic groups highlight their exclusion from any royal or ecclesiastical service. Some legal norms indicate distrust towards foreigners.
Based on this theoretical framework, our research analyses how these characteristics were reproduced in the documentation. First of all, we will analyse the general framework and then the specific particularities in the Canary Islands to verify our hypotheses.
This study resorted to written sources, for the most part from the Canary Islands, to reinforce the initial hypothesis as to the development of the Morisco otherness. Other Canarian documents such as notarial protocols, old narratives, local ordinances, records of the Inquisition were also consulted. Archives beyond the archipelago in Seville, Madrid and London were likewise consulted, as were legal records of the Ancien Régime.
The intention of this study is to determine the role of racist beliefs, a prejudice still present today, in the construction of the new society. This is carried out from the historical cultural perspective by means of information gleaned from the history of the French mentality of the Annales and from Anglo-Saxon research on the whole of social reality.
This study focuses exclusively on the Canarian Moriscos, leaving aside other non-Catholic human groups such as sub-Saharan Africans, Protestants and in particular the indigenous population as they have already been the subject of research on this phenomena. There are, in fact, many extensive studies shedding light on the integration and ensuing conflicts of the aboriginal Canarians as they were incorporated into the new island society. The findings point to integration and marginalisation depend-ant on the factor of social class. The indigenous elite were in fact adopted with relative ease while that of the lower class was fraught with obstacles (Aznar, 2002, pp. 169-183;Farrujia, 2009, pp. 54-69;Stevens-Arroyo, 1993, pp. 515-543;Baucells, 2014, pp. 139-159;Betancor, 2003).
The heterogeneity of the Canarian population in the 15 th and 16 th centuries fostered the coexistence of collective feelings of belonging that are not devoid of conflict in a certain manner and displayed by opposition to the other dialogical complementary "alterities" (complementary oppositions) leading to a progressive "insularity". The material and symbolic mechanisms of social differentiation among this mosaic of Europeans, aborigines, Moriscos and Africans ended up passing through the criterion of status rather than through ethnic or "national" identities (Onrubia & González, 2016, p. 146) transforming them little by little into "people of the islands".
There are likewise studies on the sub-Saharan Africans that arrived as slaves (Lobo, 1983), Judeoconversos (Anaya, 1996 and the Protestants (Fajardo, 1996). The affluence of last group contributed to it blending with ease into the new society.

THE OTHERNESS OF THE NORTH AFRICAN
Throughout the Ancien Régime (16 th , 17 th and 18 th centuries) a large number of images of Maghrebis were made and last until today.
1 It is since the beginning of modern times that protonational entities against new groups have emerged over Europe, among which are the Maghrebis.
We use the concept proto-nation from the work of Maravall (1963, p. 13) as the idea of nationality was not part of the political and social framework in the Ancien Régime. The author proved that there was an active incorporation within political tasks in the kingdom of Castile and, for this reason, the neologism was introduced for the policies of the Catholic Monarchs, corresponding to a frame of mind of urban inhabitants. The nation was not constituted and the legal concept of nationality was not defined. The absolute monarchy did not govern citizens, yet subjects ((Heras Santos, 2002, p. 139), in other words, it was constituted by a local community and a community of subjects (Herzog, 2003, p. 30). Religion appeared as a profound and enduring element in the proto-national sentiment. In the Hispanic crown, the state was developed gradually in relation to cultural integration (Herzog, 2003, p. 30).
The sources used to understand the idea of the development of the Morisco collective in this period of time have been obtained through an extensive research in different archives, including indirect references to this issue in the Canary Islands; manuscripts from the British Library in London from the Additional and Egerton collections; the Regional Library of Madrid which has the novel by Caldalso in an 18th-century newspaper; the General Archive of the Indies in Seville provides us documents on the fear regarding possible North African invasions; the Centre d'Accueil et de Recherches des Archives Nationales in Paris preserves French consular reports from the Canary Islands; other local Canary archives with official data on governors and notary protocols. We have also included some relevant literature due to its value on different points of view of the era, as well as the analysis of the laws emanated in the Spanish crown throughout these centuries on the group of Maghrebis. We have chosen the most representative documents on this group that have led to several different opinions.
The presence of the non-European "other" was always decisive when developing European identities from the 16th century onwards. A correspondence between physical and moral characteristics was established. The world was divided according to race, corresponding to a division of cultures that were equally categorical. Several cultures were included in races, but since there has existed a racial variation, there was also a cultural change which gave rise to violent conflicts. The majority of times this resulted in a behaviour formed by hate and disregard towards others with defined or different physical characteristics (Todorov, 2010, pp. 115-117). Religion in this Canarian framework was logically defined as a factor leading to otherness especially since the 16 th century during the conquest and colonisation of the archipelago supplanting the original populations and the other non-Catholic groups that arrived after the Iberian occupation. The aboriginal population due to their northern African origins were assimilated with Islam by certain European authors, an exercise of ethnic simplification based on religious arguments leading them to be considered infidels, idolaters ... (Aznar, 1989, pp. 199-204 and2002, pp. 169-183;Fernández Armesto, 1997, p.: 280).
Nowadays, in the neoconservative thought, some sectors suggest that the world's dynamic is marked by "clashing", confrontation, but not between social classes or States but between towns, cultures or, as Huntington said, between civilisations. We believe that the development process of "otherness" (or the differentiation of a society) could be due to different criteria: class, towns, cultures, etc., yet we disagree that the key is in the statenation which did not exist in the Ancien Régime. Huntington, in a highly criticised and controversial work, stated that the enemy was the militant Islam and the 11 th September 2001 gave America a sense of national identity again. This author declared that, in the world of the post-cold war, flags are important, as well as other cultural identity symbols, such as crosses, half-moons or even ways of covering one's head. The reason is because culture is important and cultural identity is what is more significant for the majority of people (Rodríguez Pellejero, 2012, p. 230). Nonetheless, Huntington argued that it would be these towns that would start these confrontations and governments would follow them to fight for culture or religion. In the post-cold war world, the most important differences between towns are not ideologies, policies or economy, but culture, in accordance with Huntington's thesis (1997, p. 10-11). Besides his point of view on cultural disagreement seemingly being extracted from a categorisation from the Ancien Régime from the 20th century, from a historical perspective it is certain that collective identity of a society, or even national, in the same sense as individual personality, are defined gradually both due to knowledge or recognition of the group's characteristics, or due to the contrast in the physical or social context. Therefore, history shows us how civilisations can overlap like tectonic plates without the need of clashing (Caballero, 2014, p. 10).
Forming identities during the Ancien Régime was developed against certain "others", mainly based on the presence of different realities with relative knowledge on North Africa. The identity is a relation with the other, result of the identification that the others impose and that each affirms. As Levinás has developed, the opposition seems to be focused on the concept of rationality, "otherness" increases in its spatial dimension of those from the outside, therefore ethnic factors are important in the concept of "otherness". Developing the identity of the other, the Morisco identity in this case, helps to build our identities, as opposed to what we are not or do not want to be; idea developed by Levinas (1986, pp. 345-359). The claim of the archetype of Morisco serves to unify and materialise the Hispanic community ((Barrios Aguilera, 2004, p. 10).
In 7 essays on current society by Roger Bartra (2007), he developed the idea of the ghost of the threatening otherness, of the otherness that defies us and disputes us. Or the ghost of territorial affiliation, of the alleged naturalness of the territory and the demands that they share. Foreigners, marginals, the wild and the savage represent the other that they face, threaten and reject.
Expressions of early political sentiments indicate that the proto-national community is developed within a conflictive environment with strong tensions in relation to which a new political reality has been formed. A nation entails duality, somewhat existential: the nation and what is considered to not be a nation, in other words, the other. Nations appeared in finished tributary societies (China, Egypt) in opposition to unfinished tributary societies such as European feudal states; in this continent, nations do not appear unless with capitalism, and ethnic social reality is very unclear as to be classed as a nation (Amin, 1979, p. 22). Until the 18 th century, people's daily life was much more marked by regions than superior territorial entities.
The feeling of the "other", of a foreigner, in relation to the communal existence, is one of the oldest origins in history regarding European culture. Its present in biblical books is evident and can also be observed in Ancient Greece. Those circles of different radius to which the concept of foreigners refers are preserved in Europe. Aristotle (1980, pp. 15-17) said that in order to do great things, it is necessary to be as superior as men are to women, parents are to children and masters are to slaves 2 . In Greece and Rome, the ethnic component was key in the formation of social classes and that lasted a long time, with more or less intensity until the end of Ancient Regime.
When the nation state consolidated in Europe (which did not occur until the 18th century), the autochthonous and foreign concepts for the corresponding internal and external relations was monopolised. The political approach on the topic was provided by the bishop Rodrigo Sánchez de Arévalo (1944, pp. 119-127) in the 15 th century in Suma de la política: "the presence of foreigners is not convenient in the mainland of a country as it disseminates news on other different customs, generates comparisons and leads to corruption in the town's way of life." This is a new perspective of Politics by Aristotle (1980) that the bishop updates, considering them adaptable to the proto-national state of development in his time and to the commercial and economic relations. The nation is the political form of modernity as it substitutes traditions, customs and privileges for a comprehensive national space. It corresponds politics to a culture (Touraine, 1993, pp. 178-179) and it did not exist in the Ancien Régime.
Not having an open mind towards a stranger is a fundamental human attitude that promotes primitive and irrational beliefs in the superiority of a place regarding any other. This is regarded as the myth of the "navel of the world." This attitude against foreigners, in relation to medieval times, lead to myths on defenders and liberators of people, such as Arminio, Vercingetorix, Viriathus, etc., as observed in classic manuals on national history. The historiography of Spain replicated anti-Muslim prejudice by centring on the idea of the "Reconquest", a concept bolstered during the 20th century by the ideology of National Catholicism defended by the dictatorship of General Franco. This ideology was even repeated by the staunch Catholicism and nationalism of Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz, a celebrated anti-Franco historian and statesman (García Sanjuán, 2017, pp. 308-314).
Each culture tends to absolutise its perspective, it is not able to look over herself (Byung-Chul, 2018, pp. 16-17) and as affirmed in the eighteenth century Herder, the strange is seen with contempt and disgust ( (Herder, 1959, p. 59).
In the Spanish crown almost all the Moorish population was made up by descendants of Islamised indigenous people from the Muslim conquest. Braudel (1953) raises the question regarding the Moorish population in the Mediterranean between the Hispanic and Ottoman empires.
The developments of the other as something negative tries to mark those who endanger society. It is for this reason that it will be marked and segregated (Lera Rodríguez, 2011, p. 3).

THE FRAMEWORK OF THE SPANISH CROWN
In the Hispanic Christian kingdoms there were Mudejars who could practice the Muslim religion until the beginning of the 16th century. However, from the pragmatic of the Catholic Monarchs of 12th February 1502: "The expulsion of the Moors from the kingdoms of Castile and Leon and the way in which the captives should remain" 3 , the Moorish population appears, constituted by those Muslims converted to Christianity, in a sincere way or only seemingly. From that moment we found a great amount of documentation regarding this group associated with the "evil" side of the Hispanic Crown. The Moriscos did not have a statute therefore they were exposed to what was allowed or forbidden (Domínguez Ortíz and Vincent, 1979, p. 17). In addition to the prohibition of practicing the Islamic religion, all identity symbols were gradually banned, such as their food traditions, clothing, festivities and the use of the Arabic language (Epalza 1992).
Everything the Moriscos did could be used against them, for example, if a Moor man drank alcohol it was not proof of integration but of infidelity to his principles and hypocrisy, but if he did not drink alcohol, it could be interpreted as a rejection of the Hispanic culture (Perceval, 1997, pp. 138-147) 4 .
Between 1768 and 1774, José Cadalso (1984) wrote the Moroccan Letters (Cartas marruecas), which, no doubt, was based on the Persian Letters by Montesquieu (1754), with his epistolary method, but in this case the speaker is a Moroccan man, and, although the objective is to speak about the Spanish Crown and not Morocco, through this work, we can see several of the author's ideas regarding the Moroccans. Nevertheless, the Academy paralysed its publication due to a regulation that prevented the printing of anything related to Africa. For that reason, Cadalso died without seeing them published, although we know that the manuscripts were disseminated. In 1789 the novel was finally published in a newspaper Correo de los Ciegos or Correo de los Ciegos de Madrid 5 . The first edition of the book was released in 1796 6 . In addition, in 1766 an ambassador of the Emperor of Morocco, Sidi Hamet Al Gazzali, who was called Al Gazel in the Gaceta de Madrid, arrived to the Peninsula. His trip aroused the curiosity of the Spaniards as evidenced by the engravings by some painters such as Salvador Carmona and Antonio González Velázquez.
Most pieces, present arguments linked to Islamophobic attitudes, from the imputation of heresy on the part of new Christians, former Muslims, along with the supposedly traitorous and conspiratorial behaviour against faith and the State in favour of the Ottoman enemy "... my clothes and conversation caused a bit of surprise, but after another three or four nights, I was as familiar to them as anyone else..." ( (Cadalso, 1984, pp. 88). In other words, we see an instrumentalisation of ethnic, racial and religious prejudices for political purposes ( (Belloni, 2012, p. 36).
The Moriscos were forced to leave the Spanish Crown between 1609 and 1614 during the reign of Felipe III. On the 9 th of December 1609 "all Moorish inhabitants in these kingdoms" were expelled and "they were forbidden to return to them" 7 . The measure was generally applauded, except for those who were affected because they worked on their land. As well as religious and political motivations, there is a social component.
In the manual on Africa that children had to learn in schools in 1783, during the reign of Carlos III, it was said that the Kingdom of Morocco was subject to legislation and civil bodies, as well as the republics of Algiers, Tunisia and Tripoli. It was claimed that they were feudatories of the "Grand Turk", ruling independently according to their particular laws 8 .
In addition, schoolchildren had to learn about the descriptive geography of the continent. It is of great interest for us to analyse this manual, as it provides details on the north of Africa and what should be known about the area. Once the continent was divided into three parts, from north to south, in the northern area called the Barbary coast, which in turn consisted of two other regions, on the one hand, the aforementioned republics, where the Spanish Crown had the presidium and stronghold of Oran with the port of Mazalquivir and, on the other hand, the kingdoms of Fez and Morocco, where Hispanics had Ceuta, Melilla, Peñón de Vélez and Alhucemas. Regarding the latter, the manual tells us that Ceuta was the main city, an Episcopal city with a well-fortified stronghold. Melilla is defined as a city, although quite small. Finally, Peñón de Vélez and Alhucemas contained two fortresses located on two islets, each with the necessary garrison 9 .
The Spanish Crown in the Ancien Régime was a centralised and powerful Catholic State willing to carry out an "ethnic cleansing", which they called blood cleansing, of a racial minority defined in racial terms (Vázquez García, 2009, p. 111). Therefore, religious rejection coexisted with a stigmatisation based on blood. In the modern state, blood transmitted through descents was a fundamental identification element that allowed to naturalise the hierarchical differences between crowns and those from North Africa, who were considered to have impure blood (Vázquez García, 2009, p. 112). Nonetheless, the Moriscos, as Muslims, descended from the impure branch of the lineage of Abraham, of his son Ishmael, born from illicit relations with an Egyptian slave called Hagar, therefore, they come from slavery and "meat", whereas the old Christians come from Isaac who was his legitimate son with Sara, a free woman. That is why the plague epidemic suffered by the Hispanic territories was interpreted as punishment for the sins of the sons of Ishmael (Martínez, 2000, p. 2).
In the 19 th century, from 1813, the Spanish State managed in Vienna a definitive solution to the problem of the Berber Corsican, by means of an international punitive expedition against the North African regencies. The taking of Algiers by the French in 1830 saw the beginning of a new phase of European interests in North Africa. 19 thcentury colonial desires, implying the effective domination of African territory, practically put an end to the Berber Corsican phenomenon and the fear of North African invasions ended with it.

WHO WERE THE CANARIAN MORISCOS?
The term "Morisco" in the Canary Islands was applied differently when compared to the rest of the Spanish Crown given that Islam had made no inroads into the archipelago before its conquest (1402-1496). Certain aboriginal Canarians, especially from the upper classes who considered themselves as veritable Christians, renounced their African origin so as to avoid being linked to the "infidels" or to the Barbary slaves brought to work in the plantations and in the sugar cane mills.
A review of the chronicles confirms this reality. Abreu Galindo explicitly states that the Moriscos differ from the Moors in spite of sharing the same African origin. This author likewise compares the pre-conquest aboriginal traditions of polygamy with that of Muslims in that men of the 'depraved sect of Muhammed' could marry seven women (Abreu Galindo, 1848, pp. 18-19, 154). No relationship of this type was identified in the texts of other chroniclers such as Espinosa (1592) or Núñez de la Peña (1679). The notion of the Morisco was reserved for the individuals arriving subsequent to the 15th century who followed Islam and maintained their original culture. Most were second generation Moriscos, true Canarians who had never left the archipelago. The Court of the Inquisition prosecuted 11.3% of them, mostly males (82% to 17.8% females) of an average age of 35.3, for practicing Mohammedanism. Only seven Canarian aborigines were summoned between 1506 and 1820, a value corresponding to a trifling0.3% of the total. Moreover, of this group, only one was processed for Mohammedanism (Fajardo 2003, pp. 51, 54). This insignificant value therefore cannot serve to establish relations between the original indigenous Canarians and the Muslims.
These Canarian Moriscos, who came mainly from the Atlantic Barbary Coast, mainly dedicated their professional life to grazing goats as recorded in some 16th-century testimonials, as they used to do the same job in their places of origin.
Given the importance and usefulness of these groups in the Archipelago, the pragmatic on the 12 th of February 1502 by the Catholic Monarchs that demanded the Moors to abandon the Spanish Crown or renounce to Islamism 10 was not applied within the Canary Islands.
Another important difference regarding the Moriscos of the Iberian Peninsula is that on the Islands (at least in those belonging to the crown, Gran Canaria, Tenerife and La Palma) they were allowed to have slaves 11 .
However, in 1818, Marcial Ruiz in the name of the Moriscos of Fuerteventura and Lanzarote, asked the Chamber of Castile for the collective naturalisation of all of them and stop supporting the insults of old Cristians, supported the request in the service of the ancestors in the defence of the Canaries against Moors and English, many of them are fourth generation in the archipelago. Nevertheless, nor living 100 years in the Canary Islands was enough to convert the North Africans neighbours into Castilian natives (O'Scea, 2018, pp.19-20).
During the 16 th century, on the two islands closest to the mainland, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, they did not live with the old Christians, but they were separated in their douars. They lived in their tents, met at night around the light of their fires, sang in their language and danced. Cadalso gathered this information from the 18th century for the entire Spanish Crown: "We dressed as our predecessors dressed two thousand years ago; the house furniture is just as old as the clothes; the same applies to our tables, servant's suits and everything else ... " (Cadalso, 1984, p. 141).
As indicated by Caro Baroja (1957), the Moriscos visibly displayed caste features on their costumes, in their customs, artistic tastes (dances, music, masonry, architecture), language and preferred trades. In addition, they were identified by their religious ambiguity.
Travellers who visited the archipelago in the 18 th century highlighted the matter of Moriscos who were seen on the streets, recognised for their clothing, with red turbans and leather boots (Dumont D' Urville, 1990, p. 118) 12 .
The Frenchman Saint-Vicent (1804), while travelling through the Canary Islands at the beginning of the 19 th century, tells us that the houses had Gothic or Moorish drawings and ornaments, which shows the Moorish influences on art and housing on the islands.
The history of the relations between the two communities is fundamentally a drama. The most common feelings between them were contempt, fear and hatred.
The mistrust against the Moriscos came from the suspicion that they continued to practise their old beliefs, as converting to Catholicism was an indispensable condition imposed on freedmen, as well as many slaves (Santana, 1995). There was a general and absolute difference with regard to the Moriscos, mainly developed by the practices and discourses of a Christianity that aspired to abolish particular and specific differences considered to be intolerable. The assimilation strategy also involved a whole set of practices parallel to intensive evangelisation (Vázquez García, 2009, p. 110).
The Maghrebis did not belong to the structured society that surrounded them; and not only due to ideological and political reasons, but because profound organic differences separated them. There were no recognised hierarchy, legal privileges or dependency relationships. The old Moorish-Christian opposition was so strong that it relegated the other internal class conflicts. "In the Moroccan empire, we are all equally despicable in the concept of the emperor and despised in that of the plebs: or rather, we are all the plebs. A distinction between one and another individual is very accidental..." (Cadalso, 1984, p. 66).
The Moorish groups closest to being integrated preferred to live in groups on special streets and continue to be buried in their traditional cemeteries. In the towns of mixed population, snooping, betrayal and heavy mockery were part of the usual climate. Yet in the field of material coexistence, the services of the Moriscos were appreciated. Hostility rarely reached the point of using weapons. The expulsion of the minority from the Iberian Peninsula was not an inevitable fact, it was not a requirement of the Christian majority, but a measure imposed from above and accepted without enthusiasm, and on some occasions with some passive resistance.

CONFLICTS WITH THE CAPTURED AND ENSLAVED
The document sources allow us to observe the constant dialectical relationship between the community of old Christians, in other words, those who could demonstrate that all their ancestors had been Christians, and, on the other hand, the Moriscos, who either their ancestors or they directly had professed Islam.
From the Canary Islands there were pillage operations that were called "troop of riders", which sometimes appear generalised, they consisted of attacks on boats and attacks on land. Both of them generated several loots (Aznar Vallejo, 2005, p. 111) and imprisonment of individuals.
Throughout the 17 th century we can find several transactions with Maghrebi slaves, as in the case of some Englishmen who were being transported in a Moorish ship off the Barbary Coast and managed to take control of the boat and reach the Canary Islands where they sold two Moors (who did not risk returning in a boat): a mulatto, called Almanzor and the other white man, called Cator; each one at the price of 400 reals in cash 13 . We also see other sales-purchases of this kind, such as the one made by the lieutenant to the chaplain of the cathedral, who paid 1,200 reals 14 .
Some were left as inheritance in wills 15 . However, others did not resign themselves to their fate and managed to escape, in an attitude of rebellion against their captors. A significant number of captured people on the Barbary Coast, and nominally Christians, tried to return to their land and were prosecuted by the Inquisition (Anaya Hernández, 2006, p.120-138) 16 . We obtained information from the certification given by Francisco de Oliveira, warden of the castle of Arguín in 1585, of a Moor named Bartolomé Fernández, who pretended to be a Christian in Gran Canaria and was captured in Cape Bojador three months prior. 17 We have also found cases of fugitives returning to their primitive lands, such as the case of the Moor Pedro González, who was prosecuted for fleeing to the Barbary Coast with another Moor and two Indian shell collectors. When responding in 1548 to Inquisitor Padilla about whether he went to mosques, he claimed: "There are no mosques where he went, they walked in fields from one end to another and that they did not have set place" 18 .
The Moriscos population was conditioned by almost constant confrontations that influenced their economic activity and social development. Thus, there was always a climate of suspicion towards the Moriscos that led to slavery in several situations in the 16th century and the idea was to expel all of them. This led to the Ordinances of the island of Tenerife including under title XXV a section called "Of the Moriscos and slaves" that significantly limited their activities. They could not glean 19 or carry weapons, in addition: the indigenous Canarians, which explains why the Cabildo de Tenerife in 1514 strictly prohibited bearing arms. These laws, nonetheless, were enacted at an early date, only 18 years after the conquest of Tenerife when certain groups of Guanches had yet to submit to Castilian rule.
A reference to about 200 'fighting Guanches' was brought up in a session of the Cabildo of Tenerife on May 20, 1514. The reference alludes to the five belligerent indigenous kingdoms during the conquest as opposed to the four peaceful groups. In any case, the aboriginal fighters were resisting and inflicting damage on livestock and haciendas. This led to their prohibition, whether they be slaves or freedmen, of bearing weapons (spears, darts and swords). This group thought to form part of Guanche slave uprising were given a period of 10 days to deliver their arms under penalty of perpetual exile and 3,000 maravedís.
Five days later Antón Azate filed an appeal on behalf of the Guanches noting that most in Tenerife did not commit crimes and that they should be allowed to carry their weapons to defend themselves. Hence the Adelantado of the island (the highest authority at that time) decided that the ordinance only apply to the Guanches living in the mountains who had not submitted to Castilian rule. The arguments were recapitulated once again on May 26, and on May 28, that is, eight days after the original writ, a differentiation was made between the peaceful and the rebellious Guanches. The first were allowed to retain their weapons in their homes 'like any other neighbour' while the second was to be hunted down 20 .
These measures of control nonetheless soon disappeared with the decline of the threat of a revolt. Most of the indigenous folk, together with the Moriscos and sub-Saharan Africans, occupied the lowest rank of the social scale and continued to be prohibited from joining certain institutions even when benefitting from the protection of religious orders such as the Dominicans.
The document continues by establishing the sentences for this crime, being greater than other similar ones in the group of Catholics for similar crimes and, furthermore, favouring betrayal among the rest of the population.
... penalty of one hundred lashes for each time and pay two thousand Maravedis to share between the person who reported the crime and the other half for the judge; and any other white person who incurs in said two thousand Maravedis for the first time should distribute them in such way, and for the second time a year of exile, in addition to said penalty, and the penalties established by law regarding it. 21 Both in the ordinances of this island and as in Gran Canaria, there are many sections in which free Moriscos are regarded the same as slaves.
The existence of free Moriscos caused concern in Tenerife and Gran Canaria. The Cabildo in Tenerife asked the king to expel them in 1530. In Gran Canaria, the governor and the Cabildo had decreed it in 1538, but those who had voluntarily arrived to the Canary Islands to convert to Christianity gained authorisation to stay.
For many of these Moriscos, physical environment was preferable to that of the desert, as demonstrated by the voluntary arrival to the Archipelago. The general excuse of such arrival was converting to Christianity. The standard of living was higher there and there were more arrivals in periods of drought, which were frequent on the continent. Their number had been high, leading to a Royal Decree by the Catholic Monarchs who tried to limit their arrival, which was described as a "peaceful invasion" (Anaya Hernández, 1991, p. 70), although we know that they were allowed to continue living on the Islands.
Towards 1530 it was considered that it was not convenient for the internal security of Tenerife to preserve the Moorish population due to the fear of reprisals on the part of the Berbers 22 . In the request made by the council, justice and regiment of the island to the king, as well as exaggerating the number of Moriscos present in Tenerife (forming two thirds of the total population), they accuse them of rescuing other Moors, hiding and taking advantage of the island's geography to then flee to the Barbary Coast. Despite this, the governor of Tenerife, Alonso Yanes Dávila, ended up reporting in favour of the Moriscos, therefore they were not expelled. In this same sense, at the beginning of 1541 the authorities of Gran Canaria arranged for the free Moriscos to leave the island. It was at this moment that some of them travelled to Tenerife. They came across several problems there as they were accused of not being sincere in their religious conversion and that they passed on information to the enemy at the slightest opportunity. For that reason, the lieutenant general ordered for them to be expelled. The Moriscos presented writings at the Cabildo and, finally, Carlos V passed a Royal Decree on 25 October 1541, by which he ordered that no impediments be placed on the Moors ((Peraza de Ayala, 1988b, pp. 422-426).
They were constantly accused of stealing cattle and being highway robbers, as one representative claimed at the Cabildo meetings in Tenerife 23 .
In general, the relations with the Christian population were bad because of the hostility towards them due to the condition of many slaves, of being a culturally different minority and, in addition, due to fear that they would constitute a fifth column of the North African countries. This concern of invasion, mainly Barbary Corsairs, was constant and had consequences in the important port cities.
As of 1618, Berber expeditions on land were generally limited to incursions in sparsely inhabited places 24 far from the cities. However, fear of an invasion was constant. The Canary Islands was still a frontier 25 land, a fundamental element to understand its evolution during the Ancien Régime.
Although Barbary Corsairs declined in the 18 th century, they continued harassing until the end of the century. In 1755 the French consular reports still referred to this constant threat 26 , as there was fear of retaliation from the North Africans.
The danger of the attacks from Africans resulted in a risk even for the inter-island navigation: "... due to inevitable navigations, and not all of them are strong enough, as well as the fear towards the Moors, who often infect the seas" 27 . Nonetheless, these apprehensions decreased throughout the 18th century.
Due to all of the aforementioned, fear increased and a set of measures was adopted against the Maghrebis, as in the rest of the Spanish Crown, such as the prohibition of living near the coast or carrying arms.

THE INQUISITION: AN INSTRUMENT OF POWER AGAINST THE MORISCOS
The Moriscos from the Canary Islands continued to keep in contact with their Muslim family members who lived on the Barbary Coast, as in the case of Alonso de Fátima, burned in a statue by an apostate who was the son and brother of Muslims (Santana, 2013, p. 585).
The documentation of the Inquisition on the repression of the Moriscos is abundant, however, it includes escape attempts and reflects the alleged acts of Islamisation.
We consider this to be the most distinctive concept when it comes to deliberate religious practices or cultural patterns without a real intention to Islamise.
We are going to come across many Moriscos associated with the Canarian Inquisition due to their behaviour and beliefs.
They will not always appear as reported, but we can also see them as complainants, although this occurs in few cases. Only 1.8% of cases are related to witchcraft, while when they are reported, the figure is multiplied by nine, coming to 16.64% of the total.
In all the courts of the Holy Office, of which we have reliable studies, we can observe that among the Moorish victims there is a majority of women.
The presence of Moriscos among those accused of magical practices reaches relatively high values in the 16 th century. The number decreases later. According to Francisco Fajardo, who has studied the subject in depth, it is likely that it resulted in not distinguishing them as such, even if they had blood from that origin, which undoubtedly must have happened with many women from Lanzarote and Fuerteventura in the second half of the 17 th century and the 18 th century. The activity of these female Moors has much to do with the subsistence crises of the islands, therefore we believe that the use of witchcraft is due to the marginal condition they suffered, more than their own culture patterns (Fajardo Spínola, 1992, pp-318, 324, 390-391).
We have an example of processes from the Inquisition in the Edict of 20 July 1587, in which they summon three families and two Morisco slaves from the island of Lanzarote 28 .
The main reason was to flee servitude and become free again. In the Inquisition we have some testimonials from Moor slaves who wanted to flee the Canary Islands 29 .
The escapes had to be carried out in groups, because the system was based on monitoring a ship that was preferably anchored at a solitary port, to attack it by surprise and by force in case it was watched or steal it if it was alone.
These fugitives, except in one case, were always slaves, and sometimes women and children attempted to escape (Anaya Hernández, 1984).
Defending religion was an aspect of resistance to assimilation, an element of collective identity and cohesion, and even satisfaction against contempt and humiliation. Hostility was fuelled by anti-Muslim expressions, which were sometimes answered. Some of the difficult situations to eradicate seem to have been the sexual customs and marriage practices in terms of repudiation, divorce and polygamy. "Polygamy among us is not only authorised by the government but mandated expressly by religion. Among these Europeans, religion forbids it and tolerates public custom ..." (Cadalso 1984, pp. 84-85).
In the same way, the Moroccan Letters (Cartas marruecas) continue to comment on the assumptions of gender and sexual considerations among Muslims, with regard to the guidelines of Hispanic Catholics: "Muslims do not treat the beautiful half of the human race worse ... the relaxation of customs is great; it is without doubt, but not totally. There are still plenty of matrons worthy of respect ... " (Cadalso, 1984, p. 86).
There was a different way of living sexual relationships, from which regarding sexual relationships as sinful was absent. Hence, the Inquisition's judgements on the immorality of female Moriscos or the references of a kind of prostitution. Circumcision, salah (respect that accompanies prayers), not drinking wine or eating pork, or eating animals that had not been slaughtered by cutting their throat and bled ... they were practices which were reported before the Inquisition ((Fajardo Spínola, 2005, p. 52).

CONCLUSIONS
There were three perspectives against the Moriscos: regarding their blood, faith and the preservation of the kingdom. All three often appear in the extensive literature regarding this conflict.
This situation has been reflected in the collective imagination from the Modern Age to the present. We have several expressions, such as "moros en la costa" (Moors on the coast) or "da más miedo que una lancha de moros" (it is scarier than a boat full of Moors). As these attacks originated from culturally different groups, fear became a common element in the development of the "other" as an enemy.
Nonetheless, an integration process took place that intensified in the 17 th century when relations with the Barbary Coast were interrupted.
Although Barbary Corsairs declined in the 18 th century, they continued harassing until the end of the century.
There was fear of retaliation by the Berbers, so the population wanted to prevent attacks on neighbouring African coasts. This situation finally ended in the first third of the 19th century, when the new international order imposed by Europe attacked the North African regencies.
Islam in the Canary Islands was a product of its proximity to Africa. Due to economic reasons, there was generally a voluntary inflow of Berber population to the Archipelago, but many people arrived by force.
These Moors were subject to surveillance. Their distinction was related to cultural elements: language, family structure, eating habits, clothing, parties, mortuary rituals...
The degree of Islamisation of these groups is difficult to determine, especially if we take into account the continuous flow of captives that made assimilation difficult. Those who firmly stood by their faith often opted to try to return to their countries, which in the case of those from Lanzarote should not have been difficult because this island was invaded by their coreligionists five times over 49 years.
Those who stayed kept frequent contact with the Barbary Coast, either participating in the rides and rescues or through new captives.
When in 1609 the expulsion of the Moors from the Peninsula was decreed, most of the old Christians from the Canary Islands said that the Moors here were good Christians and loyal vassals, claiming they were against their expulsion.
Nonetheless, a wall poster from 1725 placed in a convent of nuns in the Canary Islands said: Aunque más abonos haga, Morisco siempre ha de ser, Que esta raza no se acaba, Por más que el tiempo la lava, Mas vuelve a reverdecer 30 .
(No matter how much this race is cleansed, Moriscos continue to appear and bloom).
In other words, the conflict continued, the Moriscos remained being others, despite the fact that for generations they had been born and lived in the Canary Islands, and these images have been perpetuated in the island's culture up to the present time.
This process of development of otherness with ample historical background, exemplified in the case of the Canary Islands, may be similar to that which has occurred in other European areas where socio-political disagreements with certain cultural groups go back centuries. Therefore, this article studies the deep historical roots that the development of certain otherness contains.  18, pp. 8-16.