Salamon Eskinazi, born in Izmir , Turkey in 1922. Studies French to highschool, American College in Istanbul and doctorate in Engineering from the Johns Hopkins University in the USA.Department Chairman at Syracuse University, Prof. Associé in Poitiers, France 1963, 1971, 1982. Lectured many world universities including Sorbonne, Oxford and Cambridge. Chevalier des Palmes Académiques, Fullbright Scholar. Author of five books in Engineering and many papers. At retirement in 1986 turned to history of the Sephardis and Art. Published Sepharad, The Embezzled Land, Computer Modeling of Color.
This author may not be the only Sephardi trying to compare the Iberian expulsions of Jews to the recent Serbian expulsion of ethnic Albanians. While both cases were unforgivable crimes, two hundred thousand Sephardis (Iberian Jews) didn't have the benefit of world relief organizations, NATO support, mechanized transportation, and international tribunals. They were left to fend for themselves in a world infected with incurable diseases and mostly hostile to Jews.
During the second half of this millennium we have heard and read much about the atrocities perpetrated against the Iberian Jews (Sephardis) by the governments and the Church of that peninsula for nearly one thousand years, from the time Christianity entered the peninsula in 587 AD until the expulsion of Jews in 1492. If there is one thing we can be thankful for to these past governments and Church of Spain and Portugal is the fact that they have kept meticulous records of their monstrous acts in yet existing archives. An explosion of recent articles and books on this subject show that a persevering researcher can dig out many of these gruesome details still buried in these archives (see for instance The Sephardi Heritage, R. D. Barnett Ed., Valentine, Mitchell 1971 and >I>Sephardica, Hommage à Haim Vidal Sephiha, Peter Lang, 1996). Many papers have been written on this subject from recent searches into these archives. In the author's opinion, one of the most important authors who was able to dig deep into these records, perhaps because he wasn't Jewish, is Jose Amador de los Rios who in 1848 published Estudios históricos políticos y literarios sobre los Judíos de España, and in 1875 the monumental work Historia de los Judíos de España y Portugal.
Yet we have heard little about the staggering amount of personal and monetary investments by Iberian Jews in that peninsula during that long period of time. In view of the heroic efforts spent by many contemporary Ashkenazi researchers who attempted to uncover the sums of moneys robbed or appropriated from Jews under Nazi occupation, this author would like to start a preliminary attempt to do the same, and account for material goods robbed or expropriated from the Iberian Jews during two important centuries beginning with the end of the 13th century to the end of the 15th century.
Perhaps the title of this paper should have been «How much of Iberia belongs to the Sephardis?» This question may not have an absolute and accurate answer because the real value of the accomplishments, investments, loss of life and material goods of the Sephardis during their millennium in the peninsula has to be so staggering that it transcends our human ability to account for it. Nevertheless, since Jews began the development of that land from a wild and barren territory without an organized government before the arrival of the Visigoths until the end of the fifteenth century and beyond, if one wishes to consider the millions of descendants of Sephardis who remained after the expulsion and converted to Catholicism, then perhaps we should ask the question, if for no other reason but to bring to light this incalculable sacrifice. All facts and figures shown in this paper are documented in archives and annals of kings and the Church (see papers cited earlier). This author focused on the extent of his investigtion to the last two centuries before the forced exodus of 1492. He is sure the dollar amounts appended to the cases he cites will be controversial and widely disputed. Some reader may find the estimates too high and others too low. Also, this author doesn't claimed that his list of cases of special taxations and appropriations of goods from the Iberian Jews is complete. Furthermore, the matter of accounting for interest on these sums of money was not included for lack of ability on the author's part. Alas! let this be a preliminary estimate that hopefully will stir others to complete the job.
We begin our assessment with the last quarter of 13th century. As in the case of Ferdinand III of Castille who exhausted his coffers pushing back the Moors to southern territories of the peninsula, King Jaime I of Aragon, also known as a Conquistador, enlarged his independent kingdom through the conquest of Isles of Mallorca and the territories of Valencia adjoining the other kingdom of Múrcia. Jaime was also forced to keep a vast army to combat the constant intrusions of the French military into the fourth kingdom of Navarre who had united with Aragon since 1073. While immense glory was at hand, the royal coffers of these nations were empty in spite of the heavy taxation on the people. When Pedro III, known as The Great, and son of Jaime, became king of Aragon, he inherited his fathers debts and many destroyed fortifications. Nevertheless, wanting to match his father's zeal for conquest he went to war to conquer Sicily. In the midst of these financial problems, suddenly Pedro had to appear rich and free of financial burdens if King Dionís of Portugal was to agree to marry Pedro's daughter Isabel. As many kings before him had done, in the year 1281 he forced Jews in his territories to alleviate the burden of his liabilities by imposing upon them an extraordinary tax of 185,000 sueldos to be paid in the short time of two and a half month. Three years later, finding the sum collected insufficient to satisfy his needs, he ordered the same Jews to pay another 130,000 sueldos, to improve the state of his armies. A tradition had already been established since the Visigoths invaded the peninsula to have Jews finance royalty expenses when they traveled, for weddings, coronations, and banquets. These special obligations were called Cenas (meals), Camas (beds), and on special occasions bodas (weddings). Towards the end of the 13th century, these obligations varied in frequency and amount but in the Kingdom of Aragon they were in the neighborhood of 6,000 sueldos annually in addition to the standard annual taxes and the capital assessment on Jews for special royal needs. In the case of Aragon, the extraordinary taxation comes up to 315,000 sueldos and the Cenas and Camas, etc. for 200 years to 1,200,000 sueldos.
As we said earlier Ferdinand III of Castille, son of Alphonso IX of Leon, known as the unifier of the kingdoms of Castille and Leon and later known as the Conquistador of most of the land occupied by the Moors, had left that nation with a profound sense of faith in Christian power and an unshakable hope in the reunification of all Christian kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula. The Moors had occupied most of Iberia since the beginning of the 8th century. When Ferdinand died in the year 1252 he left in his nation considerable financial debts and a growing jealousy and hate against the Jews who had previously assimilated well with the vanquished Moors. Before he died he ordered in 1284 a head tax of 30 dineros per male-Jew amounting to 2,564,855 maravedis. The value of the larger currency: the maravedi was 10 dineros. From these figures we see that the number of tax paying Jewish males in Casille-Leon was close to 855,000.This level of population defended by Amador de los Rios seems large, but considering the tens of thousands of mass killings of Jews and the number of forced conversions that took place in these two centuries, this may not be too surprising.
In September 1290 King Sancho IV, son of Alphonso X of Castile, ordered a poll-tax (Padron>/I>) on the Jews in his dominion, based on a poll (capitacíon), which was to replenish the Castilian coffers before embarking, following on his farther's steps, in the conquest of the port city of Tarifa from the Moors. The tax assessed by Sancho IV, modeled after his father's formula, was in two parts : a) for services, and b) head tax. The following table lists the amounts of taxation on Jews in the various archbishoprics. The royal decree which can be found in the Archives of the Cathedral of Toledo appointed leaders of Jewish communities to collect the tax. The poll-tax was 3 gold maravedis per adult male.
| Region of Castille & Leon For services | Head | Tax | |
| maravedis | maravedis | ||
| Archbishopric of Toledo | 1,062,902 | ||
| Archbishopric of Cuenca | 146,069 | ||
| « Palencia | 65,475 | 246,948 | |
| « Búrgos | 40,902 | 168,580 | |
| « Calahorra | 26,183 | 119,609 | |
| « Osma | 22,377 | 74,486 | |
| « Placensia | 26,791 | ||
| « Sigüenza | 31,098 | 107,303 | |
| « Segovia | 15,905 | 40,747 | |
| « Avila | 14,550 | 158,718 | |
| Kingdom of Múrcia | 22,414 | ||
| Kingdom of Leon | 218,400 | ||
| Kingdom of Andalucía | 191,898 | ||
| 216,490 | 2,584,865 |
| To the Queen doña María | 50,000 |
| To the infant prince | 717 |
| To doña Teresa Gil | 4,000 |
| To Ruy Gomes, son of Gonzalo Gomez | 12,000 |
| To Ferran Arias, son of Arias Quijada | 1,180 |
| To Ferran Nuñez | 2,000 |
| To Alfon Gonsales of Valladolid | 1,600 |
It should be pointed out that in addition to the head taxes, wealthy Jews were encouraged under duress or obligated to lend the government monies for special projects mostly related to armament. According to historical records the lending arrangement was for the king to pay back the Jewish lenders four parts for every three parts he received. This comes up to 33% total interest in the lending period which varied from 3 to 4 years. In spite of the fact that the kings and queens found this source of revenues providential, there developed in the long run a hatred for the rich Jews who were constantly being accused as malevolent usurers. An example of this is when Queen María, wife of Sancho, asked from Jews of Toledo a bid to raise the sum of 20,000 gold maravedis for the naval fleet in the war against the Moors, the amount raised was considerably larger: 82,500 maravedis (Archives of the Cathedral of Toledo). It is not known if this loan was ever paid back.
In addition to the head-tax, the donations, and travel expenses of the royalty, there were many other forms of taxation, ordinary or extraordinary Jews had to face. For instance the crown charged one-tenth (diezmo) of the revenues derived from mortgages, leases and commerce. Novenas in the church, building of roads, bridges, and extraordinary tolls paid by Jews using these roads, etc., were many of the other forms of extortion which varied according to regional customs. Without a doubt, in Castile, Aragon and Navarre Jews carried the heaviest burden of taxation. Many times in the long history of Spain, royal debts incurred by one king would be annulled by his successor or the terms of payment would be modified in favor of the king.
We enter now the first quarter of the 14th century. The now strong and powerful Church played a major role in developing an intense hatred against the Jews. On January 11, 1313 a set of 13 orders were issued against the Jews with severe penalties for disobeying these orders, all of which excluded the Jew from many rights of his citizenship. Never before since the attempt of Visigoth King Sesibut in the 7th century at destroying Jews such a mistreatment had been leveled at them in the entire peninsula. In Navarre alone ten thousand Jews were slaughtered and their properties taken away. In other areas if Jews weren't murdered they were heavily penalized for any action deemed by the government as undesirable.
Towards the middle of the 14th century, Alfonso IV, son of Dionís, King of Portugal reneged on all the rules his father had established in dealing with Jews. On November 15, 1352 he decreed a special edict forcing Jewish communities to give the king's treasury, besides the head tax, significant parts of the revenues from agriculture, purchases and sales. He came out with a complicated edict taxing all Jews in his territories according to a formula the details of which must have caused nightmares to the tax collectors. All male Jews older than 14 years of age, married or widowed, pay annually 20 sueldos and all females 10 sueldos. All those older than 7 years of age until 14 had to pay 2.5 sueldos. It was a complicated formula treating men and women and children in different manners whether they lived alone or under the tutelage of their parents. For the mature Jews dealing in agriculture or commerce there was a different set of formulas. The wine maker had to pay 40 sueldos. The Jew who bought grapes to make wine had to pay 6 dineros per five litres . The wine merchant had to pay 2 sueldos per five litres in such a way that for the barrel of wine he would be taxed 5 pounds. When the wine was sold to a Christian, the Jewish merchant had to pay 6 sueldos instead of 2 if it was made on the premises or 12 sueldos if it was purchased originally.
The Jew who slaughtered a one year old veal had to pay 10 sueldos per head. If the beef was older than one year he paid 20 sueldos. The sheep and goat had similar but lower taxes. Nothing that was slaughtered by Jews under the label of Kosher escaped the treasury. Selling meat to Jews or Christians had different rates of taxation. The list of taxation for other commodities was also meticulously delineated. Planting of grain or trees had its own taxation. Tired of all these taxations or unable to pay, Jews who wanted to leave the Portuguese territories were not allowed to cross the borders. What price can one put to these taxes that persisted during Dionís' reign which fortunately was not too long?
In Castile, the period of Pedro, el Cruel, son of Alphonso XI, ruled Castille in turmoil and civil war created by his bastard brothers, in particular Henry of Trastamara who claimed Pedro was not the king's son, but that he was quickly exchanged with a sister his mother had given birth. It was rumored that Alphonso XI was said to have threatened the queen María of death if she didn't give him a boy. Henry of Trastamara claimed Pedro obtained the throne illegally and against the will of God. He accused him of being a Jew because throughout his reign he was good to the Jews and cruel to his people. Pedro appointed Samuel ha-Levi as his treasurer. Though Jews began to have a freer and more respectable life during his reign, the building hatred spread by Pedro's bastard brothers will eventually plant the seed for a holocaust after Pedro was knifed to death by his bastard brother Henry. When Henry became king, he authorized in 1369 his treasurer to impose on the Jews of Toledo the tax of 20,000 gold doblas, an extraordinary amount in any period and certainly those days. He wanted the sum so fast that he ordered repossession and selling at public auction all possessions of the Jews. There were some who couldn't pay their share. They were sold as slaves until the community paid the full sum requested. This formidable sum of 20,000 gold doblas was equivalent to 880,000 maravedis .
Before Henry died, the coronation of John I in 1369, ten years before he became king, cost the Jews of the kingdom 40,000 gold doblas. Jews also had to buy legal and political appointments in their own communities. The Grand Rabbi had to pay yearly 600 maravedis for his title. A Rabbi in any community had to pay 120 maravedis. The position of tax collector demanded 600 maravedis. To be a surgeon the annual tax was 600 maravedis. The right to bargain and make agreements among Jewish communities was tax 120 maravedis. To have the job of insurance, securities and custody paid 100 maravedis. The assistant mayor paid 60 maravedis, etc. Court settlements of debts of Christians to Jews were deemed truthful only if another Christian supported the testimony and proof of such a debt. Many such debts were judged void. Jews had to prove ownership of homes and furniture in the homes they lived in for generations. Failing to do so amounted to the loss of a property. What price do we affix to these appropriations?
One of the worse periods of the Jews occurred during Henry's reign. Religious intolerance was at its height. Jews were murdered on the streets and highways. This was the period of Ferrand Martinez, the Archdeacon of Ecija, who preached hatred and encouraged Christians to invade synagogues, throw the Jews out and burn their Torahs throughout all cities of the kingdom. It is also the period of Vicente Ferrer who followed in the steps of Martinez's hatred and traveled through the land converting Jews by the thousands. This lead to the worse butchery of Jews in the peninsula. It was the year 1391 (see , Sepharad, The Embezzled Land, Lost Coast Press by the author). Fifty thousand Jews were exterminated in that uprising instigated by Martinez. Amador de los Rios asks: «What happen to all the raw silk factories that were the envy of other lands and the constant use of the kings and noblemen? What happened to the beautiful fancy iron works of Seville, Toledo, Lérida, and Valencia, Teruel and Mallorca? What happened to the celebrated tanneries of Córdoba, its precious gold and silversmiths, its rich factories of embossed leather and colorful woolen tapestries? What about the beautiful markets of the Jews selling products from the Orient and the West, silk from Persia and Damascus, the filigree of the Arabs?….It was all destroyed because of blindness by the fury of barbarism and fanaticism, and the desire to get rich quickly.» How does one put a price to all this destruction of wealth?
The number of murders of Sephardis in the uprising of 1391 is listed below; but the amount of destruction and robbery is incalculable. The number of forced conversions into Catholicism was immense. In Valencia alone, Zurita in his Anales puts the number of conversos to 11,000. In the entire kingdom of Aragon another author Bedariide puts the number of conversos to 100,000. De los Rios gives the following accounting:
| Region | Number killed |
| Seville | 4,000 |
| Córdoba | 2,000 |
| Toledo | 1,000 |
| Valencia | 500 |
| Barcelona | 300 |
| Lérida | 78 |
| Total | 7,878 |
As a repeat performance in Portugal, in 1357 Alfonso IV of Portugal died and left a son named Pedro I to rule the kingdom. He engaged a fugitive Jew from the killings of 1328 in Navarre by the name of Moshe Navarro to become his finance administrator (Almojarife) and Grand Rabbi. Moshe Navarro did such great things for the king that he became one of the most important royal advisors on all matters concerning the kingdom. Out of jealousy the Portuguese began to spread rumors that Christian women were being attacked and raped in Jewish quarters when they entered to shop. Afflicted by a mortal disease, Pedro I died in 1367. When his son Ferdinand became king, he abrogated all treatise with the neighboring kingdoms threatening to go to war. Armies need lots of money. Accordingly, two of the richest Jew in Portugal: Moshe Navarro and Salomon Negro were ordered by the king to pay 200 times 1,000 pounds.
In Navarre, King Charles II in 1380 imposed a 25% tax on all the Jewish holdings, inheritance, and sales or loans to Christians, and to top it all he made it retroactive fifty years back. It is estimated that the annual equivalent was of the order of 2,221 pounds. As he remained king for seven more years, the total could have been that much more. In 1387 Charles died and his son Charles III took over and appointed a Jew Abraham Aben-Juseph to be his financial manager. The archives show that in the year 1399 the revenues from head tax and services amounted to 500,000 sueldos. It is very likely that this form of taxation might have lasted 10 years, raising the total to 10 times more.
In Aragon Peter IV instituted the practice of payments for the kings, noblemen, and even government civil servants travel and celebration expenses (Cenas y Camas) to be paid by the Jewish communities in addition to their head tax assessment. From his rise to king in 1336 the aljama of Zaragoza had to pay 400 suelos, that of Teruel 300 suelos, that of Tarazona and Daroca 200 each, and 50 by Calatayud. The aljamas of Barcelona had to pay 24,000 sueldos, and Gerona 3,300, and Lérida 11,000. Gerona paid an additional 500 sueldos for banquets and an equal amount for the coronations, repairing fortifications and defense walls (muralla) around cities. Additionally, the king, who was a lover of wild animals, requested gifts of African animals from his Jewish communities. This total comes up to 39,750 sueldos. There is no mention how many years this assessment took place. Peter had a long reign of 50 years.
As we enter the 15th century, King Henry III of Castile died in 1406 at the age of 27. His son John II succeeded him. Vicente Ferrer was still going strong in converting Jews all through the peninsula. This was also the period of the Antipope Benedict XIII and his protégé convert and hater of Jews Yehoshua ha-Lorquí who took the Christian name of Jerónimo de Santa Fé. After long disputations in the town of Tortosa in Aragon between a group of Rabbis and the Church that claimed Judaism was no longer relevant because Jesus was the Messiah Jews awaited, the antipope declared Jews had lost their case and they had to convert to Christianity. He imposed 16 rules of law forbidding the practice of Judaism. In Aragon alone 100,000 Jews coverted to Catholicism. Since the year 1391 to this period, estimates of the number of Jews killed vary with authors. Some accounts put it to 250,000 killed in Spain alone. Unforgivable as this was, can the loss of goods and wealth of these martyrs be estimated? Perhaps.
In the Kingdom of Navarre Charles III, The Noble, became king in 1390. Charles loved to travel with his court entourage. A trip to Rome paid by his Jewish subjects cost them 12,000 gold florins. Shortly after, he went to Paris with an entourage of 324 courtesans, officials, two physicians and one Jewish astronomer. That trip cost 50,000 gold florins. In his second trip to Paris, he resided there for three years with 140 courtesans. The cost of that extravaganza required a new taxation of 50,000 gold florins.
Many Jews that seeking refuge from the persecutions of 1391 crossed the border to Portugal and neighboring kingdoms. The entry into those kingdoms was not free. Head taxes of 10-70 sueldos were imposed to each immigrant running away for his life. Twenty years later in an edict of 1411 by King John I of Portugal they were persecuted, their wealth and goods taken away, and forced to be baptized. Any Jew over 15 years of age who was found outside the Jewish quarters was fined 5,000 pounds the first time, and 10,000 pounds the second time. The third time he was whipped in public square. Our estimate is that if 50,000 crossed the border at an average of 40 sueldos per person, this may have totaled to 200,000 sueldos of entry tax alone. We suspect the sum to be too low only because it is well known that when Jews crossed the Portuguese border once again in 1492, the revenues from the entry tax was many folds larger than the annual budget of the kingdom (see last table). The emergence of tens of thousands of forced converts in the peninsula brought a different but equally intolerable problem for the loyal Jews, the converts, and the Christians. Though converts were protected as Christians by the Pope, they were hated even more than the Jews by the older Christians claiming they were still Jews at heart, practicing the Hebrew rituals in their homes and in secrecy. Now as New-Christians, these converts were able to occupy positions in the government and other professions not permitted to Jews. The contribution of the New-Christians to the political, economic, commercial and the arts in the following fifty years has been immense. Many were elevated to the prestigious positions of judges, courtesans, bishops, and high officials in the Castilian and Aragonese courts. With the jealousy and hatred at its highest level, a Jew named Shelomo ha-Leví, converted during the persecutions of 1391, took the name of Pablo de Santa Fé. He became a strong churchman who lived passed 82 years o age. He charged Jews of Satanical persuasions and that the killings of 1391 was an act of God inspiring the Christian masses to avenge the blood of Christ. In Aragon don Alvaró de Luna, the steward of the infant King John II, tried to protect Jews from these agitations. But the opposition was so strong that in 1453 don Alvaró was decapitated in Valladolid. In the aftermath of this set back for the Jews, the power of Pablo de Santa María and his equally anti-Semitic sons grew not only in Aragon, in Castille but in the entire peninsula.
In February 1443 Alphonso IV of Aragon mounted a military invasion on the kingdom of Naples, supposedly with the encouragement of Princess Juana II of Naples. As noble as the act of invasion might have appeared to the Aragonese, the mission was costly and as usual the only institutions with money to lend were the Jews. History shows that this victory couldn't have been accomplished without their financial help. Armies had to be raised with ‘thousand horses and men and thousand infantrymen'. The Jews of Alcañiz lent 2,225 gold florins. Zaragoza contributed 60,000 pounds and 10,656 gold florins. There is no record if these loans were ever paid. These contributions were in addition to the head tax Jews had to pay in the entire kingdom under the same historical aegis we discussed earlier. In Aragon the annual collection per head was from 33 to 400 sueldos depending on the localities. In Valencia it was from 30 to 100 sueldos, in Cataluña, mainly Gerona were large communities of Jews lived it was 550 sueldos. This sum mounted easily to 10,000,000 sueldos.
In Castile, John II became king in 1406 after the death of his father Henry III. He had a long reign of 47 years. For the most part he kept his kingdom out of wars, but the power of the Church grew stronger than ever. The drive to convert the Jews continued for years after the 1391 holocaust. To encourage the remaining Jews to convert, in 1442 heavier taxes were imposed upon them. The head and service tax was raised to 45 maravedis per house owner and head of household. There were approximately 12,000 home owners. The city of Toledo had the highest occupants, followed by the regions of Andalucía, Placensia, and Palencia in the north. The total collection in the archbishoprics of Castile alone was 451,000 maravedis. Records indicate that in 1442 there were approximately 210,070 avowed Jews still left in Castile. In Portugal during the reign of Duarte's son Alphonso V he re-instituted a previous law governing mixed contracts (contratos mixtos). The word ‘mixed' referred to contracts between Jews and Christians. This abusive law specified that unless Jews had a complete and absolute proof of debts to Christians, they legally lost all their money. The obligation of proof rested on the Jew and the cost of litigation as well. The same law precluded any legal penalty to Christians who robbed Jews (Archives of Municipal Chamber of Lisbon).
The second half of the 15th century is the beginning of the end for the Jews in Spain. It is also the beginning of the union of Church and State in a systematic eradication of the New-Christians called conversos or marranos, the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition, the conquest of the last vestiges of the Moors, and finally The Edict of Expulsion of the Jews.
This period began with the death of John II of Castile in 1453 and the rise to power of his three children: Henry IV, Isabella the Catholic, and the youngest and sick son Alphonso XII. Although Henry ruled 21 years, he was not a popular and liked king for three reasons: 1) He dared to declare war to the Moorish Kingdom of Granada without a decent army and lost every battle. 2) He surrounded himself and his government with educated marranos and Jews who had to buy high offices at very high annual leases. 3) He couldn't produce a male heir to the throne.
During Henry's reign the Church run its immense propaganda and drive to finally cleanse the land and the peninsula of all non-Christian elements. This drive was first directed at the Moors. In the second half of the fifteen century Marranos were added to the list and towards the end of the 15th century the Sephardis were also added to that list. The hate for Henry IV grew so bad that Castilians were asking for his abdication in favor of his sister Isabella, surnamed The Catholic. Angry Henry tried to marry her off to Juan II of Portugal. The unification Spaniards had been thinking for centuries, was not with Portugal but with Aragon. A group of supporters whisked Isabella to the north of Spain and arranged a marriage with Ferdinand of Aragon. His father King John II was old and had already assigned many of the royal duties to his son Ferdinand. It appeared that the two had the same political goals for the future of the peninsula.
Henry IV died, the collection of these taxes were as follows:
| Different Archbishoprics | Maravedis |
| Búrgos | 30,700 |
| Calahorra | 30,100 |
| Palencia | 54,500 |
| Osma | 19,600 |
| Sigüenza | 15,500 |
| Segovia | 19,050 |
| Avila | 39,950 |
| Salamanca & Ciudad Rodrigo | 12,700 |
| Zamora | 12,300 |
| Leon and Astorga | 37,100 |
| Toledo | 65,300 |
| Plasencia | 57,000 |
| Andalucía & Extremadura | 59,800 |
| TOTAL | 453,600 |
Henry IV, King of Castille, died in 1474 and John II, king of Aragon, died five years later. Henry's sister Isabella The Catholic was enthusiastically selected to the throne. She was already married to Ferdinand who waited for his father to die. The fever of the unification of Castille and Aragon, originating years earlier, was also at a climax. Ultimately, the marriage and the unification of the two kingdoms gave the Spanish people an enormous confidence that the future of the land would be finally purged of non-Christians. To add to this confidence, a priest named Tomás de Torquemada, a descendant of conversos and fierce anti-Semite, became the queen's confessor. Torquemada' first priority was to cleanse the nation of conversos who had become much too powerful during the reign of Henry IV.
With the consent of the Queen he was able to convince the Church and the Vatican that Spain needed the institution of the Inquisition in order to track down and punish conversos who were suspected of being unfaithful to their new religion. He organized one witch-hunt after another to catch conversos in any act attributed to jewishness. In the next 25 years of Isabella's reign he destroyed nearly the entire rich population of marranos taking their wealth, annulling inheritances and contracts, digging graves of deceased marranos to find proof of judeazing and taking away inherited assets from their children. This total wealth was divided half for the State and half for the Church. Some marranos fled the country to northern European lands. The total amount of wealth this witch-hunt produced for the State and the Church was in the millions of gold currencies. To avoid further controversy these sums are not taken into account here, for some readers may feel that they were no longer Jews.
Towards the end of the century, serious attempts were made by Ferdinand to expel the Moors from the kingdom of Granada in the southeastern part of the peninsula. It must be pointed out that this kingdom had been paying, for years, immense annual sums to Castile for a promise of peaceful coexistence. Towards the end of the century a young and courageous Moorish King Abûl-Hassan refused to pay that tribute declaring it offensive to his nation. With the financial help of Jews and the military assistance from abroad, on January 1492 Ferdinand managed to conquer the last vestiges of that Moorish kingdom.
A month or two later, an agreement was completed between the Queen and Christopher Columbus that she had agreed to finance his historical expedition into the West Atlantic and inadvertently the discovery of America. Castile's treasury was broke after the war of Granada. The queen pawn jewelry to many rich Jews promising great returns if they lent her money to pay for Columbus' expedition. She knew she had no way of paying back these loans. So, three months later, ebullient with the success of conquering Granada and the successful purge of the rich marranos, it was time to exploit the Jews. In March 31 1492 an Edict of Expulsion was proclaimed against the Sephardis. They had to leave the land by July 31 of the same year. They could take with them only minimum survival goods across the borders. All homes, furnishings, farms, businesses, jewelry, hard currency, of 200,000 Sephardis had to remain in the peninsula. This was a sure way to forfeit on the loans the queen made them to pay for Columbus' expedition.
We spoke earlier of the horrors of exiling ethnic Albanians from Kosovo. Most of them didn't have to go very far to find safe refuge. In 1492 there were no planes, buses, tractors to leave Spain. Besides, very few countries in Europe allowed them to resettle. Lands of the Ottoman Empire who welcomed them were much too far for affordable travel in safety. Portugal granted temporary entry provided Jews paid 8 cruzados per person across the border. Six hundred rich families paid 60,000 cruzados each to qualify for a permanent residency which ultimately was revoked. Records show that as many as 120,000 Jews crossed the Portuguese borders during the expulsion. This makes 960,000 cruzados just for entry fees. The cost of residency for a period of five or six years cost the rich 36 million cruzados. It is well documented that the total revenues from the refugees was many times larger than the annual budget of Portugal. The value of goods that richer conversos had left behind was at least equal if not more. The Granadians must have left behind not only personal wealth but also state wealth in excess of each of these figures.
In concluding, we shall attempt to put an estimated dollar value to each of these cases cited in this paper. It becomes a difficult task to translate currencies of old times to that of current US dollar value. The value of gold and more so the inflation or buying power of goods and labor have changed so drastically since the Middle Ages. We know the value of gold has changed nearly fifteen fold in our century. We assume very conservatively a twenty fold change since the Spanish exodus. In this accounting we are not taking into account the normal annual taxes that every citizen had to pay since they are viewed as general services for being a citizen. And as we mentioned earlier we don't know how to account for the staggering interest income on these sums of money. This author proposes the estimate of Sephardi losses in the two centuries prior to the expulsion.