A 1587 Spanish bishop proposed castrating Moriscos and exiling them to Newfoundland

Evidence

These people might be transported to the Coast of the Cod and Newfoundland (las costas de los macallaos [sic] y de Terranova). These are very broad lands and are quite uninhabited. They will die out there completely, especially if the adult and young males are castrated and the women [are sterilized]. One year the Valencians could be transported to one destination, the next the Aragonese to another, the next the Castilians to another. — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 1366

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader theme of colonial North America as dumping ground for unwanted populations, and to the pattern of ‘final solutions’ preceding the expulsion.
• SEED: An article angle: the New World as a sixteenth-century Spanish proposal site for ethnic cleansing, decades before the actual expulsion of 1609.
• CANDY: A bishop’s ‘solution’ to the Morisco problem was shipping them to Newfoundland to die out — dark, bizarre, and tweetable.