New book about Blanca

Commenting the content of this book, we see that chapter 1 treats the daily life in           Blanca before the expulsion. We so will have a better idea on the way in which our ancestors lived. Special attention has been put in this chapter to the clothes of the moriscoes.

Chapter 2, that treats about the demography, demonstrates that the moriscoes women from Blanca were not as prolific as they were used to say in those times. Another very special fact is that the moriscoes men from Blanca did not want to marry with the Christian women, however moriscoes women from Blanca did not bother in having a Christian husband.

Chapter 3 describes in all details the reality of the expulsion of the moriscoes from Blanca. We do not have the lists of the moriscoes that were to be expelled, but we think that at least 75% had to leave their village. We see that many moriscoes of Blanca were going away to live in the village Granja, in the kingdom of Valencia, event that was not known to the scholar Antonio Rocamora Sanchez, priest of Granja de Rocamora.             Others went to Majorca. The moriscoes of Blanca had permission of the Count of Salazar to go away to other kingdoms of Spain, and more than one morisco took advantage of this authorization. Thanks to a more a more liberal policy of Felipe IV in 1624 the moriscoes were not persecuted any longer and could return to their native places. In this way many of them entered Blanca again and the result was that the Christians, who the authorities o Murcia had put in Blanca for the control, left Blanca little by little. In this way the village Blanca returned to be an equal morisco's place like before the expulsion, but with many less inhabitants.

We described the paper of the church in chapter 4. The maximum authorities, according to our criterion, were much guilty of the expulsion. The church and the State were one. The church influenced in practically everything in what the State did. A battle of religions was the battle of Lepanto in 1571, the expulsion was another battle of the catholic church against the islamic one. One of the maximum authorities in charge was the archbishop Juan de Rivera, distant cousin and advisory of Felipe II. If we remember that this archbishop was declared Saint only 41 years ago, that is to say in 1960, it is       not strange to us that the catholic church loses members. Happily the present              Pope, Juan Pablo II, is changing everything, although the sabotages have not              been scarce in this change against him. The different historians comment that              the Pope Paulo V in 1609 was not informed about the expulsion and therefore absent of any fault or responsibility. What they do not comment is that the same Pope appointed cardinal in 1619 to the Duke of Lerma, advisor and right hand of Felipe III,              another person in charge of the expulsion and corrupt man. Those days were other    times. Although the performance of the maximum authorities of the church was              ominous, it is not possible to say the same of the local church of Blanca and the              ecclesiastical authorities of Murcia. They lived daily with the moriscoes and the              documents prove that they did everything in their powder to help their poor parishioners. Regrettable, and very little righteous for that reason, was the murder of a Blanca's priest, by its moriscoes' neighbors, in the year 1620, which matter maintained without punishment. The solidarity of the moriscoes of Blanca did not have any limit in matters of culpability, solidarity in the good sense of the word, that still is to be noted between its neighbors nowadays.

Chapter 5 shows the official registers to us of the different villages of the valley as from the years 1557 to 1633.

The confirmations between 1584 and 1604 of the parish of Blanca we will find in chapter 6, as well as all the neighbors mentioned in the process of the public notary Pedro Cachopo in the year 1583.

Due to lack of public registers just before the expulsion, we have indicated in chapter 7 the public deeds of Ricote and Ojós, in order to have an idea of the sales and gifts of the moriscoes properties.

Little people know that Cervantes wrote about the morisco Ricote and for that reason in chapter 8 the episodes of Cervantes are repeated that have to do with Ricote.

The official documents, some of them in relation to the daily life of the moriscoes of Blanca and the majority treating on the expulsion, are all in chapter 9.

Consulting chapter 10 of this book we can see that, according to my hypothesis, Blanca had, between the years 1609 - 1613, at least 908 neighbors. Most of them were really      moriscoes from Blanca, but I suspect that some relatives of them from other places entered in Blanca looking for refuge in these difficult years. Also there was a great amount of marriages celebrated between the years 1609 and 1613, sothat it was not        possible for me to detect the second surname and consequently to know their real originin. All the fiancees had surnames as figuring in Blanca, but as I have indicated previously, I suspect that many of them were relatives who lived in other places and had looked for refuge in Blanca.

On the other hand, we see in chapter 11 that 419 moriscoes of Blanca returned to their home after the expulsion in 1613, sothat I consider that around 55% that was expelled, that shows a number of 489 moriscoes, which are reflected in the exile list I of chapter 12.              .

With a purpose to know the true origin of the moriscoes or the Christians of the inhabitants in Blanca that stayed or returned, we have constructed the necessary          genealogical trees, which all are reflected in chapter 13. We cannot forget that              nowadays people are interested in his origin and that every day there are more groups that are potentiating the genealogy and the heraldry.

In chapter 14 we mention the surnames of the oldest book that Blanca has in its archive. It is the military service book of 1640 and many of its facts helped to construct the corresponding genealogical trees, such as mentioned in the previous chapter.

The following chapter, 15, is also interesting, since we describe that in 1654 still 80% of the census of the church are moriscoes.

In chapter 16 there are different tables from weddings, marriages and children, necessary to write chapter 2 of the demography of Blanca.

Jose Miguel Cutillas de Mora expressed his desire to see a study of the origins and meanings of the surnames of the inhabitants of Ricote in the newspaper "La Opinion" of Murcia, on the 20th January of 1999, when describing the annual celebrations of Ricote. Something similar pointed Javier Castillo Fernandez already out in its article, exactly a year earlier. Then, considering this need we have made the same, but at the moment only for the Blanca's neighbors, in chapter 17 of this book, in order that many              inhabitants from Blanca can also know the origin of their surnames.

We are finishing the book with chapter 18 that treats on the Bibliography.

The investigation during the last the five years has me taken to the conviction that we really do not know anything about the history of the village of Blanca. The consulted documents have been so many that it is not possible to summarize them all, and this determines that it is necessary to work only with the most important ones. Consequently there are going to be left lagoons in this study, but in spite of this disadvantage, the most important ones are studied and Blanca has so another book on its history.

If in 1654 Blanca had 80% of moorish blood, Blanca nowadays continues having great part of this blood, with the difference that now the neighbors do not belong to the Islamic religion but to the catholic one. The proofs are in this book and it would not surprise me that the same is happening in other many villages of Spain, since many moriscos returned to their native places after 1624.