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To anyone who may be reading this just know anyone who Denys that moors were black (mind you the term moor means black as in black skin as in African) does not understand history or is in denial anyone who says if there were black moors they were slaves also again doesn't understand history because moorish rule in Europe (711-1492) predates the trans-Atlantic slave trade I've seen other post and people like to say they weren't black they were Berber or Arab 1st of all the term Arab doesn't denote a race it denotes the culture of the people of Arabian peninsula who originally were black 2nd the Berbers were also black in general the term sub-Saharan African is a bull**** term people today use to make it seem as if blacks didn't inhabit north Africa which they did (along with the whole world before the European) they try to make it seem as if the people in north Africa today aren't invaders which they are the reason they became dominant was because of the Islamic calipahtes (which were mostly black until the fall of moorish power) when they invaded areas they didn't bring there women and had sex with enslaved (yes mostly white) concubines and after generations became the mixed so called "Arab" you see today also the rise of the ottoman empire (who were also mixed but were more white) had a lot to do with the change of the color but to sum it up the moors were black there's no such thing as a "sub-Saharan African" (the Sahara desert wasn't even always there duhh) Infact blacks still live in north Africa but (because of the mixed raced invader) they were pushed south of the north like in southern Egypt (ancient egyptions were also black) but anyway black Africans were trapped in lol "sub-Saharan" Africa they traveled all around the globe before Europeans did and even taught Europeans how to get to the America's I know this will shock many and many will deny it because there used to learning history through a white supremist mentality where the history is white washed black Africans did nothing and were primitive Europeans discovered everything and civilized the Africans which as I just told you is not true Infact Africans (like the moors) actually civilized Europe so this shatters the white supremist myth so many won't be able to handle it but don't get mad at me get mad at history or atleast honest history
...and thus ends any reasonable and truthful discussion on the topic. "Black washing" history is just as bad as "white washing" history. Might I suggest you read the works of S.O.Y. Keita for a far more balanced view of the topic and information on the current research. FWIW, Keita is quite open to using the terms "Berber" and "Sub-Saharan" in his work while simultaneously using genetic and anthropological evidence to show how these groups evolved and how they are linked. Though I get the feeling you are basically using the word "black" in place of the word "African" in your ramblings and attempting to infer that the social construct of "black" is the same as being anthropoligically "African". They are not one in the same.
Berbers from the Rif are still living in the Atlas mountains. They are the ones that came with Tarik in 711
Blacks in Morrocco come from black slavery in the XVIth and XVIIth Century, far later that the end of the Reconquest. In the case of Libya, Gadaffy brought them and there's no love lost between Lybians and Africans.
Medieval painting is not for real, in most cases do no reflect reality. They might paint people blue, green or purple people. Medieval painting is not realist precisely, but was intended for propaganda and fear.
Blacks were a very extreme rarity in Al Andalus and Christian Spain, it was a sign of luxury and distinction. Only the very powerful had blacks in their retinue. I have a remote ancestor that had a black servant that he used to scare peasants whenever they did not pay him taxes around 1620, sometimes I wonder what happened to him.
The only real written record we have of the presence of subsaharan blacks (not moors, that are white and come from Asia) appear in the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa.
According to legend, in 1212 the Caliph had his tent surrounded with a bodyguard of slave-warriors who were chained together as a defense. The Navarrese force led by their king Sancho VII broke through this bodyguard. The Caliph escaped, but the Moors were routed, leaving some 100,000 casualties on the battlefield. The victorious Christians seized several prizes of war: the tapestry covering the entrance to Al Nasir's tent was sent to the Abbey of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas near Burgos where it remains on display to date, and Miramamolín's tent and standard were delivered to Pope Innocent III.
Many chronics say that those chained men were his Black Guard, but since none was left alive we will never now. They also used Vikings centuries before.
Muslims respected blacks because Ali, a black slave in Meccah, became the first muezzin.
Where to begin!
We get the first physical description of ancient north africans from Herodotus in this book "the histories", this is around 500 B.C.. In it he says "Libya" which is what the Greeks called North Africa, consisted of "ethiopians" which means burnt face or burnt of skin. That was the word for a black man in his time. He did name one other group, that he did NOT call by the name "ethiopian", though he never says what their skin color was. He did say this non ethiopian group were not native to the area and had gone there from somewhere else (migrated from outside of Africa, INTO africa). We also have the same sorts of descriptions from Pliny the Elder and Strabo. You don't see anyone talking about any white skinned people in North Africa in any serious numbers until MUCH later on, roughly around 1600 or so. Thats because Black Moors brought in Millions of white slaves into North Africa and as a result the look of the people changed. This isn't to say there aren't blacks in North Africa, there are. 50% of North africa is still black to this day.
Someone mentioned Shomarka Keita and his talk about what people looked like in ancient times. He is a geneticist, he isn't a time traveller. He has no idea what people would have looked like 1,000 yrs ago, he wasn't there. He can only tell you what genetics are present. He clearly says even in white looking berbers, the over whelming majority of the DNA for Y is sub saharan africans. He says on the X you have a larger amount of european DNA than you do on the Y, however the majority of DNA on both X and Y is sub saharan african. Why? Because again, AFricans brought in Slaves, millions of them. Lots of them were women and used for concubines. Moors were in Europe from 700 AD till about 1400 AD. Thats 700 years of bringing in white men, women and children. That is going to be enough DNA to change the look and feel of any place.
Now you get some silly Geneticist making claims about DNA being present back to the Holocene, blah blah blah. I call bull crap on those claims. DNA doesn't tell you when it was introduce and how long ago, just that it is present. There was a great article written a year or two ago by a geneticist that was scolding other geneticist for making claims about how long DNA has been present in a population. His point was to show that there is no way to say that for certain and it really shows a lack of professionalism to make such claims.
Good video of Shomarka, and he mentions berbers in it
This is 1 hr and 42 minutes long. Watch when you have time.
Anyone denying that there moors were black africans are nothing more than people drinking the Eurocentric kool aid.
Oh and just to cut the argument off at the pass. I know some may say "but what about the Phoenicians in Carthage". Hate to break this news to you, but you need to read what Herodotus said about who and what the Phoenicians were, give you a hint it, rhymes with "fallopian" lol. That book the Histories should be a must read for any one who claims to have any real love for history. He was there, he saw these people with his own eyes. Strabo is another one to read. People should also read a book called "Black Athena" by Bernal. While some of what he says is Eurocentric in my view and untenable given history, he does address a lot of things which would put some of these terrible assumptions people have come to believe in, to rest.
You can get all the volumes via google books for free.
it should also be mentioned you get TWO waves of Moors. The first was a mix of berbers (BLACK amazighs from north africa) and Arabs. They then take and carve up Spain. Then that alliance starts to show stress and cracks and then one of the largest empires the world has seen constitues the second wave. This was the Almohavid from northern Senegal/Southern Mauritania. These were purely 100% black Africans and they take over large portions of west africa, north africa, spain and I would even say sicily (or parts of it).
To further refute the ridiculous idea that North Africans were anything else other than black originally, there are thousands and thousands of rock art paintings through out the caves in the Sahara desert and funny enough you would be hard pressed to find one that isn't of some black skinned person. Do these white north africans just magically appear in 1600? There is a reason they are there and its slavery of europeans.
If I remember right, I think one of the Kings in Chad or Cameroon employed 300 european slaves in his army. I believe the Malian Emperor did the same, but don't remember the number of european slaves he used.
Ancient Rock Art in North Africa, showing you what the people looked like link <--- see video
^^ notice too that they had chariots. Sorta flies in the face of the origin of the wheel as taught by Eurocentric academics.
Again, whenever we talk about North Africa prior to 700 A.D. you are going to be face with a overwhelming majority of black people, not the "melting pot" we see today.
I just got done watching a special about the dark ages and in the reenactments they show the moors that invaded Spain and Italy as looking Mediterranean or Arab. I've always been under the belief that the moors started out more black than Arab looking from the paintings and other art work I've seen.
Some were "Blacks" of the sub-Saharan variety but most were North African. In the Middle Ages Black was an all encompassing term to describe anyone even other Europeans who had a slightly darker hue.
You cannot use America's definition of race and apply it to global history. Many people who Americans would consider Black would bristle at such a description.
One thing is for certain is that whatever the color of the Moors or how one chooses to describe them they had no connection to African Americans. So this insistence by some on here to claim them as their own is laughable.
The simple answer is this....if someone plucked the average "moor" from the 12th century North Africa and dropped them into 20th century America then that "moor" would have been classified as a "Negro".
I don't think the Moors had sub-saharan 'African' features; this is not seen in Spain where the Moors assimilated to a certain degree. Interestingly, my Colonial ancestors in New Hampshire had Moor as a first name. Strange for men of the landowning class in New England to be calling themselves by this first name.
You can look stuff like this up with little trouble.
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