ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the pamphlet literature on the “Moor” composed by Dutch and some English writers, arguing that unless European Christians adopted a measure of religious accommodation among themselves and became more positively inclined toward Jews, who played important roles in Moroccan diplomacy and trade, they would have difficulty understanding their new Muslim allies. The Dutch acceptance of a Jewish community immeasurably assisted their diplomatic efforts with the Moroccans. Spain and its allies, including the Southern Netherlands, retained an attitude of intense hostility and viewed Dutch efforts at negotiating with Muslim princes as a sign of the heretical and even diabolical nature of Protestantism. The rhetorical restraint shown by Dutch writers reviewed there is in sharp contrast to the Spanish Netherlands whose residents were compelled to be Catholic; they continued to read provocatively drafted polemics linking heretics to the Devil.
