Fear of reprisals on Christians abroad had previously held back family-breaking expulsions

Evidence

It will be recalled that the expulsion of Jews and Muslims from Portugal at the close of the previous century (see chapter 1) had served as a testbed for the policy of expulsion. Although the Muslims of Portugal had in the end been allowed to leave with their children; it had only been fear of reprisals (on Christians in Muslim lands) that had led the Portuguese to agree that Muslim families would not be broken up. (Jews, unable to carry out reprisals, were made to suffer in this way.) Now, toward the end of the sixteenth century and at the beginning of the seventeenth, such considerations weighed less heavily. The strategic balance in the world had shifted. Christendom no longer felt so exposed to retribution from the Islamic world. Expulsion might be a feasible option. — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 1355

Categorization

• XREF: The brutal comparative detail — the Jewish community’s inability to take reprisals meant their families were broken up — contextualizes why Jewish expulsions differed from Muslim ones; mirrors discussions of stateless versus state-backed minorities. — connects to: Fear of reprisal against Christians abroad softened Portugal’s treatment of Muslims
• ADDENDUM: This detail about family separation as a punishment meted out only to groups that could not retaliate speaks to the sacrifice and scapegoating themes in ‘On Sacrifice’ — the expelling state’s calculus of who is worth protecting depends on their retaliatory power.