Great Gypsy Round-up

The Great Gypsy Round-up (Spanish: Gran Redada de Gitanos), also known as the general imprisonment of the Gypsies (prisión general de gitanos), was a raid authorized and organized by the Spanish Monarchy that led to the arrest of most Roma in the region and the genocide of 12,000 Romani people. Although a majority were released after a few months, many others spent several years imprisoned and subject to forced labor. The raid was approved by the King Ferdinand VI of Spain, and organized by the Marquis of Ensenada, and set in motion simultaneously across Spain on 30 July 1749.

Since a royal edict by Charles II in 1695, Spanish Romani had been restricted to certain towns. An official edict in 1717 restricted them to only 75 towns and districts, so that they would not be concentrated in any one region.

As Nicolás Jiménez González argues, "It should be highlighted that the 1749 Great Round-Up is the oldest-known attempted genocide against the Roma people carried out in the Spanish territories. To understand this better, a note of clarification is necessary. The term “genocide” did not yet exist in the language of the time; in official documents, the term “extermination” was used. However, the authorities did not intend to immediately “exterminate” the Roma population in prisons. Instead, they wanted the destruction of Roma people to be the consequence of imprisoning men and women separately, making it impossible for a new generation of Roma to be conceived. Therefore, from today’s perspective, the General Imprisonment complies with the contemporary definition of the term 'genocide'.