History Furnishes Us With A Striking Example Of How The Expelled
Arabs Of Spain United With Various Adventurers Against The Berber And
North African Arabs.
In the year 1500, a thousand Andalusian cavaliers,
who had emigrated to Algiers, formed an alliance with the Barbarossas
and their fleet of pirates; and, after expelling the native prince,
built the modern city of Algiers.
And such was the origin of the
Algerine Corsairs.
The general result of these observations would, therefore, lead us to
consider the Moors of the Romans, as the Berbers or aborigines of North
Africa, and the Moors of the Spaniards, as pure Arabians; and if,
indeed, these Arabian cavaliers marshalled with them Berbers, as
auxiliaries, for the conquest of Spain, this fact does not militate
against the broad assumption.
The so-called Moors of Senegal and the Sahara, as well as those of
Morocco, are chiefly a mixture of Berbers, Arabs and Negroes; but the
present Moors located in the northern coast of Africa, are rather the
descendants from the various conquering nations, and especially from
renegades and Christian slaves.
The term Moors is not known to the natives themselves. The people speak
definitely enough of Arabs and of various Berber tribes. The population
of the towns and cities are called generally after the names of these
towns and cities, whilst Tuniseen and Tripoline is applied to all the
inhabitants of the great towns of Tunis and Tripoli. Europeans resident
in Barbary, as a general rule, call all the inhabitants of towns - Moors,
and the peasants or people residents in tents - Arabs.
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