Accident of Birth
There have been gypsies in Spain since at least the early fifteenth century. They first entered the country as pilgrims. As pilgrims they were awarded a safe conduct, allowing them to travel in Spain with the protection of the King. They travelled in groups, as they had ever since they had left northwestern India, probably around fifteen hundred years ago. In Europe they settled mostly in modern-day Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Slovakia, and Hungary. But groups did reach all the other western European countries. The local population looked favorably on them at first, and there is genetic evidence that they intermarried in those first years. But then the Catholic Monarchs defeated the last Moorish kingdom of Granada, and they set out to homogenize Spain as much as possible. That included the expulsion of the Jews and later of the remaining Moors who wouldn't convert to Catholicism. And the obligation of the Gypsy nomads to settle down in one spot, work in a profession, and serve th...