The world has seen the Roma as an intrinsic part of Spanish life at least since Washington Irving wrote about them in the early 19th century. But Spain never regarded gitanos as citizens.

Spain’s nation-building created a power structure based on a “war of races” and led to the persecution of the Roma (the Spanish used the term gitanos), as well as Jews and Muslims. The “Spanish race” was defined by politico-religious institutions — the Inquisition and the Catholic monarchs. Theoretically, though not in practice, the main element of differentiation was religious affiliation, not kinship or ethnicity.

The first document recording the presence of Roma in Spain dates from 1425-6: a letter of protection from Pope Martin V, and laissez-passers, for a wandering group on a pilgrimage to Compostela, signed by the kings of Aragón, Navarre and Castile (1). For 50 years, political and religious authorities protected the Roma as pilgrims.

But when the Inquisition began in 1478, under King Ferdinand II of Aragón, nomadic Roma groups came under the supervision of religious authorities. The new system was based on a way of life and working conditions, and in a world of serfs and landlords, linked a faithful life to a local church and master. The Roma, with their nomadic life and freelance jobs as musicians, smiths, horse dealers and craftsmen, escaped the system of surveillance.

Under the Inquisition, between 1499 and 1783, kings issued decrees that varied between the extremes of extermination and integration of the Roma. The aim was the racial uniformity of the nation-state. In 1774 a royal adviser, Pedro Rodríguez de Campomanes, spelled out that “the Spanish State should unify its people and mould them into one unique body” (2).

The first racial law, issued by inquisitor Cardinal Cisneros in 1499, ordered the forced conversion to Catholicism of all Granadians, and extended this throughout the kingdom of Castile in 1502. Many Muslims and Jews converted to Catholicism, and were called “Moors” and “Pigs”, establishing the difference between “new” and “old” Catholics. In 1609 King Philip III expelled them from Spain, and also ordered the Roma out. Most Muslims and Jews migrated to North Africa, France, the Netherlands and the Ottoman Empire (3). But as the Roma had no politico-religious alliances, they had no willing hosts elsewhere; most remained in Spain as fugitives, living on charity on the edges of urban areas.

Philip III, acknowledging the existence of nomadic Roma groups, decreed in 1619: “Under penalty of death, all Roma should leave Spanish territories within six months and not return; those wishing to stay can do so if they abandon their nomadic life and move to our towns; also, they should abandon their traditional costumes, names and language” (4).

In 1749 the Marquis of the Ensenada, King Ferdinand VI’s interior minister, ordered the imprisonment of all Roma: “[Their] imprisonment must be carried out on the same day and at the same time... These people called gitanos have no religion; they must be put in prison and we will end this evil race” (5). After a mass arrest, the “Great Raid”, they were separated, all males over seven in one group, females and children under seven in another. The males were to be sent to forced labour in the arsenals or navy, the females and children to prisons and national factories. In 1763, by order of King Charles III, the Roma were notified that they would be released. But the complex absolutist administration first had to solve the problem of relocation. In 1765 the navy ordered the release of all prisoners. In 1783 some Roma who had been enslaved were finally released. But later in 1783, Charles III ordered “new rules to curb and punish the vagrancy of the Roma people known as ‘new Castellanos’ ... [they are] forbidden to use their language, costumes or maintain their nomadic way of life as they used to do until now” (6).

It can be argued that Spain, in building itself as a nation, constructed a racialised cultural and territorial entity. This led to a system of domination and discrimination that established a moral hierarchy based on ethnic belonging and religious faith, and shaped the image of Roma in Spain as evil, godless and lazy people, and the enemies of Spanish values.

All these laws and practices were the foundations of the unified Spanish nation-state. The ideological legacy may have influenced the Franco dictatorship and its anti-Roma laws, and may still contribute to anti-Roma sentiment in Spain today.