Rebellion of the Alpujarras (1568–1571)

The second rebellion of the Alpujarras (Arabic: ثورة البشرات الثانية; 1568–1571), sometimes called the War of the Alpujarras or the Morisco Revolt, was the second such revolt against the Castilian Crown in the mountainous Alpujarra region and on the Granada Altiplano region, northeast of the city of Granada. The rebels were Moriscos, the nominally Catholic descendants of the Mudéjares (Muslims under Castilian rule) following the first rebellion of the Alpujarras (1499–1501).

By 1250, the Reconquest of Spain by the Catholic powers had left only the Emirate of Granada, in southern Spain. In 1492, Granada city fell to the Catholic Monarchs—Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon—and under the terms of capitulation the whole Muslim-majority region came under Christian rule.

The Muslim inhabitants of the city, however, soon revolted against Christian rule in 1499, followed by the mountain villages: this revolt was suppressed by 1501. The Muslims under Christian rule (until then known as Mudejares) were then obliged to convert to Christianity, becoming a nominally Catholic population known as "Moriscos".

Discontent among the new "Moriscos" led to a second rebellion, led by a Morisco known as Aben Humeya, starting in December 1568 and lasting till March 1571. This violent conflict took place mainly in the mountainous Alpujarra region, on the southern slopes of the Sierra Nevada between Granada city and the Mediterranean coast, and is often known as the War of the Alpujarras.

When a rumor spread in 1568 that the Ottomans had finally come to liberate them, Muslims near Granada, “believing that the days under Christian rule were over, went berserk. Priests all over the countryside were attacked, mutilated, or murdered; some were burned alive; one was sewed inside a pig and barbequed; the pretty Christian girls were assiduously raped, some sent off to join the harems of Moroccan and Algerian potentates.”

Most of the Morisco population was then expelled from the Kingdom of Granada and was dispersed throughout the Kingdom of Castille (modern-day Castile, Extremadura, and Andalusia). As this left many smaller settlements in Granada almost empty, Catholic settlers were brought in from other parts of the country to repopulate them.