ORIGINS

At the heart of the history of the ancient Moors of the Sahara is a tribe known as the Garamantes. According to E. W. Bovill, ethnologically the Garamantes are not easy to place, but we may presume them to have been negroid.

Their homeland was in the area later known as the Fezzan in the Sahara; their capital city, called Garama or Jerma, lay amidst a tangle of trading routes connecting the ancient cities of Ghat, Ghadames, Sabaratha, Cyrene, Oea, Carthage and Alexandria. Far from being the obscure nomadic community stereotyped in European literature, the Garamantes were one of the most redoubtable and intimidating forces of the Sahara. The origins of Garamante culture are not easily traced.

Rock engravings and paintings done by early Saharans, who in all probability became the Garamantes, are difficult to date, but some believe the oldest were executed before 5000 B.C. These rock paintings show domesticated cattle, men riding in horse-drawn chariots, and javelin-armed men riding horses and camels.

There are over 300 representations of men in horse-drawn chariots alone, a fact which supports Herodotus’ description of the fabulous Garamantes. According to E. W. Bovill, “some paintings give clear evidence of Egyptian influence.” They include weapons and dress drawn in great detail as well as images of strange dieties. The Garamantes, or their predecessors, occupied much of northern Africa and were contemporary with the ancient Egyptian civilizations. From this vantage point, they can be considered the ancestors of the true Moors.

The earliest mention of the Garamantes themselves comes from Herodotus, who described them in the 5th century B.C. as being absorbed in a rather sedentary lifestyle. However their endeavors in agriculture and commerce had already made them “very powerful. In the second century B.C. Lucien noted their habits to be far from sedentary, they were “nomads and dwellers in tents who made seasonal migrations into the remote south . . . They comprised tribes which dwell in towns and villages, and others which were pastoral and nomadic Perhaps in order to protect their trade, they developed military prowess to complement their economic power.

By the first century A.D., Tacitus called them “invincible” , and Rome was in time to learn how powerful they really were. Unable to subdue the Garamantes, they actually joined them for several trading and exploratory expedition. Again, according to Tacitus, the territory they controlled by that time constituted the lion’s share of north central Africa; “their home country ... in the heart of the Sahara . . . but their territory and inhabitants occupied the perimeter of the Syrtic Coast and to the southeast it is said their range extended to the Nile. Contemporary with the Garamantes was another group called the Libyans.

The Libyans, however, were originally Caucasian troglodytes who occupied territory in the far north central portion of Africa. Their presence has been documented since the first dynasty in Egypt, circa 3100 B.C. Dr. Rosalie David, an Egyptologist, describes them as “people with distinctive red or blond hair and blue eyes who lived on the edge of the western desert bordering Egypt. According to Gerald Massey, the Egyptians called the Lybians Tamahu. “In Egyptian, Tama means people and created. Hu is white, light ivory. Tamahu are the created white people. The Libyans role in that illuminated epoch of African history was to provide a constant irritant to lower Egypt. Several border skirmishes took place, culminating in extensive raiding during the 6th Dynasty. As DuBois notes, “there came great raids upon the Libyans to the west of Egypt. Tens of thousands of soldiers, negros particularly from the Sudan, beat this part of the land into subjection.” Sethos, a Pharaoh in the 18th Dynasty, again confronted the Libyan foe and subdued them.

The amalgamation of the Libyans with other races may be attributed to several different factors. Surrounded by darker people on all sides but the Mediterranean Sea, the fair-skinned Libyans constituted a small minority within the black African continent. In addition, nomads of the Arabian Plate fled their barren and drought-stricken homeland in search of more fertile lands to occupy. The blending of black Arab and Libyan produced a light brown or olive-skinned people who came to be known as “tawny Moors” or white Moors,” often known in history as the “Berbers.” The word Berber had its base in a Roman expression “barbari .” When the Romans encountered the Libyans they referred to them as barbarians and the coastal region they oc- cupied later came to be known as the “Barbary Coast.” The Arabs later adopted the term and changed it to Berber. Eventually, the words Libyan and Berber became synonymous.

Another factor in the racial blending of Lybians and so-called blacks was the roman intervention along the northern coast which forced thousands of these Berbers into the desert seeking protection and aid from its indigenous black inhabitants. The alliance of these racially different groups laid the foundation for the racial diversity which in later centuries would characterize the Sahara.

As E. W. Bovill notes, “The Romans . . . antagonized the tribes of the northern Sahara and the desert became both a refuge and a recruiting ground for all who rebelled against Rome. The best documented example of this is that of Tacfarinas, a Roman-trained Libyan soldier, who appealed to the Garamantes for aid in 17 A.D. According to Bovill, “for several years Tacfarinas successfully defied the alien overlords during which time he was twice compelled to seek refuge in the desert. On the second occasion, if not the first, it was the Garamantes who gave him shelter. Bovill also speaks of a Berber tribe known as the Zenta who, under Roman military pressure, migrated into deeper areas of the Sahara. So in time the Sahara came to be occupied by two distinct groups of people: the original Maurs or Moors and the Berbers who later became Tawny Moors. The rest of North Africa, from Egypt through the Fezzan and the west of the Sahara to “Mauretania” (Morocco and Algeria) were peopled by black Africans, also called Moors by the Romans and later by the Europeans.

Eventually, these Moors would join with Arabs and become a united and powerful force. A period of cultural dormancy, characterized by the treachery and violence of tribal rivalry, concluded in the 6th century A.D. when a commanding and mystic figure arose from Arabia. Known as the prophet Mohamet, he brought religious and cultural cohesiveness to the sword-wielding nomads of the Sahara, as he had done in his native land. “The prophet Mohamet turned the Arab tribes, . . . into the Moslem people, filled them with the fervour of Martyrs, and added to the greed of plunder the nobler ambition of bringing all mankind to the knowledge of the truth.

Arabia itself had first been populated by black people. As Drusilla Houston states in her classic text, Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Cushite Empire, the Cushites were the original Arabians . . .,” for Arabia was the oldest Ethiopian colony. According to Houston, ‘‘Ancient literature assigns their first settlement to the extreme southwestern point of the peninsula. From thence they spread northward and eastward over Yemen, Hadramaut and Oman. In fact the Ancient Greeks make no distinction between the mother country and her colony, calling them both “Ethiopia”.

Houston uses linguistics and physiognomy to support her contention. “A proof that they [the original Arabs] were Hamites [descendants from the Biblical Ham, from whom the black race is said to have sprung] lay in the name Himyar, or dusky, given to [those that were] the ruling race. The Himyaritic language, now lost, but some of which is preserved, is African in origin and character. Its grammar is identified with the Abyssinian” (Abyssinia being another name for Ethiopia). Finally, Houston quotes the Encyclopedia Britannica's article on Arabia; “The inhabitants of Yemen, Hadramaut, Oman and the adjoining districts [in Arabia], in shape of head, color, length and slenderness of limbs and scantiness of hair, point to an African origin. Stone engravings thousands of years old as well as modern photographs of Arabians bear testimony to the black African characteristics bequeathed Arabia by the original Arabians, the Cushite Ethiopians. According to Houston, “The culture of the Saracens and Islam arose and flourished from ingrafting Semitic blood upon the older Cushite root. As may be expected, W. E. B. DuBois makes some interesting points regarding the use of the word “Arab.” Having noted that many Arabs are “darkskinned, sometimes practically black, often have Negroid features, and hair that may be Negro in quality,” DuBois reasons that “the Arabs were too nearly akin to Negros to draw an absolute color line Finally, DuBois concludes that the expression Arab has evolved into a definition that is more religious than racial. “The term Arab is applied to any people professing Islam, . . . much race mixing has occurred, so that while the term has a cultural value it is of little ethnic significance and is often misleading. In his native Arabia, Mohamet rallied great numbers of warriors and set out to subdue the east. Mohamet’s death in 632 A.D. did not stop the tremendous onslaught of his Arabian knights. They would eventually reach west to the Atlantic Coast of Africa, northwest to France and Spain, north to Russia and east to India. The jihads or crusades through north Africa claimed Egypt in 638, Tripoli in 643 and southwest Morocco in 681. With the bulk of north Africa united in the name of Allah, Mohamet’s followers looked north to Iberia, “land of rivers,” now known as Spain and Portugal. The Arab followers of Mohamet had found converts among the African Moors, both black and tawny, and both Arab and Moorish officers were later to lead the predominantly Moorish soldiers into Iberia. In fact, the followers of Mohamet amassed their greatest armies and some of their most outstanding military leaders from the Moors.

An Arab general named Musa Nosseyr was appointed Governor of Northern Africa in 698 A.D. Although he cast covetous eyes towards Iberia, he hesitated, knowing that a campaign on Iberia could exhaust his armies. The Visigoths, who had earlier toppled the Roman Empire in Iberia, had ruled for over two hundred years. The Visigoths were a vigorous, rather barbaric people who, as Christians, believed in religious compensation for their vices. Over time they had become “quite as corrupt and immoral as the Roman nobles who had preceded them.

Although it is generally assumed that the movement of Africans into Europe, in significantly large numbers and into positions of real power, did not occur until the Muslim invasion of Spain in 711 A.D.

In Al-Makkary ’s History ofthe Mohammedan Dynasties'in Spain , however, we learn of a great drought that afflicted Spain about three thousand years ago, a catastrophe that was fol- lowed not long afterwards by an invasion from Africa. This, of course, had nothing to do with the medieval Moors.

Yet another obstacle stood between Musa and Iberia. An outpost of the Greek Empire, the fortress of Ceuta, rested on the northern tip of Morocco. This door to Iberia was guarded by Count Julian, an ally of Roderick, ruler of Iberia. Count Julian fought off all Arab/Moorish attacks, and his fortress remained impregnable until Julian, for personal reasons, switched his alle- giance from Roderick of the Visigoths to Musa Nosseyr of the Moors.

Tradition has it that Roderick, while responsible for Julian’s daughter’s welfare during her training at his court, broke his trust and took advantage of her sexually. Julian, furious at this betrayal, quickly reclaimed his daughter and sought out Musa. Julian proclaimed to the Arab governor his intent totally himself completely with Musa for the purpose of conquering the rich lands of Spain. He offered his own ships along with his knowledge of Roderick’s defenses. While consulting with his Khalif, Musa sent an exploratory mission, of five hundred soldiers led by the black Moor Tarif.

After the reconnaissance mission returned, a success, in July of 710, Musa prepared to conquer Spain in earnest. Sources indicate that Musa selected another black Moor to lead the attack on Spain. DuBois writes “Tarik-bin-Ziad . . . became a great general in Islam and was the conqueror of Spain as the commander of the Moorish army which invaded Spain.” Stanley Lane-Poole, author of The Moors in Spain, also makes reference to “the Moor Tarik with 7000 troops, most of whom were also Moors [were sent] to make another raid . . .” On April 30, 711 A.D., Tariq crossed the straits of Hercules with his 7000 men, of which “6700 [were] native [Moorish] Africans and 300 [were] Arabs.” After landing on the Spanish coast, Tariq seized a great cliff and a portion of land around it. Deeming it strategically important, he directed the building of a fortress on the site. Tradition holds that his men named the fortress after him out of admiration and respect. The name Gabel Tariq, or General Tariq, was later corrupted to “Gibraltar”, and its fortress known as the “Rock of Gibraltar.” Tariq, leaving his fortress, ventured on to capture Algeciras and Carteya.

Along his way through the country-side, he found many Spanish natives eager to join him against the ruling Visigoths. His army, rather than diminishing through attrition, actually swelled in size. “On 18th July of the same year, 711, Tariq with about 14,000 troops engaged Roderick at the head of some 60,000 troops at the Janda Lagoon by the mouth of the Barbate.” Before the battle, knowing they were greatly outnumbered, Tariq addressed his solders: “My men, whither can you flee? Behind you lies the sea and before you the foe. You possess only your courage and constancy for you are present in this country poorer than orphans before a greedy guardian’s table. It will be easy to turn this table on him if you will but risk death for one instance."