Summary: The jurisdiction of New Spain included areas of upper and lower California and large areas of the American southwest and southeast, including Florida. Karoline Cook, author of Forbidden Passages: Muslims and Moriscos in Colonial Spanish America, helps us explore some of the political, cultural, and religious history of New Spain. Specifically, how Spaniards used ideas about Muslims and a group of “new Christian” converts called Moriscos to define who could and should be able to settle in North Americ
