Valencia’s Moriscos went first because their coast was a potential invasion bridgehead

Evidence

The decision as to how precisely to begin the implementation of the policy of expulsion was governed by considerations of broad strategy. The Valencian Moriscos were the largest coherent group, the only one in a position to threaten to take over a port or landing zone. They had already been discovered to have been in contact with England and, above all, with Henry IV’s France. And in the early seventeenth century, just as nowadays in the twenty-first, the Valencian coast was wide open to clandestine contacts with the Magrib. (The crossing near the Straits of Gibraltar would be shorter, of course, but effective coastguard surveillance was far easier to maintain.) Militarily, the first priority for Spain in any operation to carry out the Expulsion would be to deprive its enemies of the possibility of establishing a bridgehead to supply a counterattack. Inland Moriscos and others might safely be left to be mopped up later. Valencia was the strategic key. — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 1426 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

These were the Moriscos who would have been best able to cause trouble for the Spanish authorities. Many of them were still speakers of Arabic, and they often lived in large Morisco communities in remote rural areas: in such circumstances their sense of group solidarity was strong. It was for this reason that they had been singled out to be dealt with first. Once they had gone, it became much easier to deal with the rest piecemeal. In a sense the die was cast by December 1609. — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 1461 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Vulnerability to seaborne invasion made Valencia the first expulsion target — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 1426; Spanish authorities ejected the most cohesive Moriscos first to fragment resistance — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 1461

Broader Connections

• Vulnerability to seaborne invasion made Valencia the first expulsion target #corroborates (0.97) — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 1426
• Spanish authorities ejected the most cohesive Moriscos first to fragment resistance #complicates (0.75) — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 1461