The forced removal of Jewish populations from Spain (1492, via the Alhambra Decree) and Portugal (1497), an example AP World uses of early modern states suppressing religious diversity, in contrast to empires like the Ottomans that accommodated minority groups (Topic 4.7).
In 1492, the same year Columbus sailed, Spain's Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella issued the Alhambra Decree ordering all Jews to convert to Christianity or leave the kingdom. Portugal followed in 1497, expelling or forcibly converting its Jewish population. Tens of thousands of Sephardic Jews fled, and many of them resettled in the Ottoman Empire, where Sultan Bayezid II welcomed them for their commercial and artisan skills.
For AP World, this event is less about Spain specifically and more about a pattern. The CED says that between 1450 and 1750, some states accommodated ethnic and religious diversity to use those groups' economic, political, and military contributions, while others suppressed diversity or restricted certain groups' roles. The expulsion of Jews from Spain and Portugal is the textbook example of the suppression side of that comparison. The Ottoman welcome of those same refugees is the textbook example of the accommodation side. One event, both halves of the pattern.
This term lives in Topic 4.7 (Changing Social Hierarchies: Class and Race from 1450-1750) in Unit 4 and directly supports learning objective AP World 4.7.A, which asks you to explain how social categories, roles, and practices were maintained or changed over time. The expulsion is your go-to evidence that early modern states made deliberate choices about religious minorities, and those choices had consequences. Spain lost a productive merchant and professional class; the Ottomans gained one. It also connects to the Social Interactions and Organization theme, since religion functioned as a social category that determined who could belong, work, and own property in a state.
Keep studying AP® World Unit 4
Anti-Semitism (Unit 4)
The expulsion is the clearest early modern example of state-sponsored anti-Semitism on the AP World timeline. It shows that hostility toward Jews wasn't just popular prejudice but official policy written into royal decrees.
Akbar the Great (Units 3-4)
Akbar is the accommodation foil. While Iberian monarchs expelled religious minorities, the Mughal emperor abolished the jizya tax on non-Muslims and promoted religious tolerance. Comparing the two is exactly the kind of state-policy contrast Topic 4.7 is built on, and Aurangzeb's later reversal of Akbar's tolerance shows the same state could swing both ways.
Gunpowder Empires (Units 3-4)
The Ottoman Empire, one of the gunpowder empires, absorbed many expelled Sephardic Jews. The Ottomans organized religious minorities into self-governing communities and benefited from their skills, which is why the same refugees Spain rejected became economic assets in Istanbul and Salonika.
Casta System (Unit 4)
Both belong to Topic 4.7's bigger story about hierarchy. Spain enforced religious purity at home while building a race-based hierarchy in its American colonies. Same impulse to sort and rank people, applied to different categories.
This term shows up most often in comparison-style multiple choice. A typical stem pairs the Iberian expulsions with Ottoman acceptance of Jewish refugees, or with Aurangzeb's reversal of Mughal tolerance, and asks what recurring pattern in early modern state policy the contrast illustrates. The answer they're fishing for is that states made strategic choices to either suppress religious diversity or accommodate it for economic and political benefit. No released FRQ has used this term verbatim, but it's strong evidence for comparison and continuity-and-change essays about social hierarchies from 1450-1750. The move that earns points is never just naming the expulsion. You have to pair it with a counterexample (Ottoman millets, Akbar's policies) and explain why states chose differently.
They're related but not the same. The expulsion (1492 in Spain, 1497 in Portugal) forced Jews who would not convert to leave the kingdom entirely. The Spanish Inquisition was a church court that investigated people who stayed, especially conversos, Jews who had converted to Christianity but were suspected of secretly practicing Judaism. Think of it this way: the expulsion pushed open Jews out, and the Inquisition policed the converts who remained. On the exam, the expulsion is your evidence for restrictive state policy toward religious minorities, while the Inquisition is about enforcing conformity among nominal Christians.
Spain expelled its Jewish population in 1492 through the Alhambra Decree, and Portugal did the same in 1497, forcing Jews to convert or leave.
In AP World terms, this is the prime example of a state suppressing religious diversity, which is one half of the pattern described in learning objective AP World 4.7.A.
The Ottoman Empire welcomed many expelled Sephardic Jews, showing the other half of the pattern, where states accommodated minorities to gain their economic contributions.
The strongest exam answers pair the expulsion with a tolerance counterexample, like Ottoman policy or Akbar's Mughal reforms, to show that state treatment of minorities was a strategic choice.
The expulsion connects to the broader Topic 4.7 theme that early modern states actively built and policed social hierarchies based on religion, ethnicity, and race.
It was the forced removal of Jewish populations from Spain in 1492 (under Ferdinand and Isabella's Alhambra Decree) and Portugal in 1497. Jews had to convert to Christianity or leave, and tens of thousands fled, many to the Ottoman Empire.
No. Many converted to Christianity instead of leaving, becoming conversos. Those converts then became the main targets of the Spanish Inquisition, which suspected them of secretly practicing Judaism.
The expulsion (1492) removed openly practicing Jews from Spain entirely, while the Inquisition was a church court that investigated converted Christians, especially conversos, who stayed behind. The expulsion is about removing religious minorities; the Inquisition is about enforcing conformity among converts.
Many Sephardic Jews resettled in the Ottoman Empire, where Sultan Bayezid II welcomed them, along with North Africa and parts of Italy and the Netherlands. The Ottoman case matters on the exam because it shows a state accommodating the same minority Spain rejected.
It's the CED's clearest example of a state suppressing religious diversity in the 1450-1750 period (Topic 4.7, learning objective AP World 4.7.A). Exam questions usually use it in comparison with tolerant states like the Ottomans or Akbar's Mughal Empire.
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