Sahrawi People - Early History

Early History

Nomadic Berbers, mainly of the Sanhaja tribal confederation, inhabited the areas now known as Western Sahara, southern Morocco, Mauritania and extreme southernwestern Algeria, before Islam arrived in the 8th century AD. The new faith achieved quick expansion, but Arab immigration in the first centuries of Islamic expansion was minimal. However, they introduced the camel to the region, revolutionizing the traditional trade routes of North Africa. Caravans transported salt, gold and slaves between North Africa and West Africa, and the control of trade routes became a major ingredient in the constant power struggles between various tribes and sedentary peoples. On more than one occasion, the Berber tribes of present-day Mauritania, Morocco and Western Sahara would unite behind religious leaders to sweep the surrounding governments from power, then founding dynasties of their own. This was the case with the Almoravid dynasty of Morocco and Andalusia, and several emirates in Mauritania.

In the 11th century, the Arab bedouin tribes of the Beni Hilal and Beni Sulaym emigrated westwards from Egypt to the Maghreb region. In the early 13th century, the Yemeni Maqil tribes migrated westwards across the entirety of Arabia and northern Africa, to finally settle around present-day Morocco. They were badly received by the Zenata Berber descendants of the Merinid dynasty, and among the tribes pushed out of the territory, were the Beni Hassan.

This tribe entered the domains of the Sanhaja, and over the following centuries imposed itself upon them, intermixing with the population in the process. Berber attempts to shake off the rule of Arab warrior tribes occurred sporadically, but assimilation gradually won out, and after the failed Char Bouba uprising (1644–74), the Berber tribes would virtually without exception embrace Arab culture and even claim Arab heritage. The Arabic dialect of the Beni Hassan, Hassaniya, remains the mother-tongue of Mauritania and Western Sahara to this day, and is also spoken in southern Morocco and western Algeria, among affiliated tribes. Berber vocabulary and cultural traits remain common, despite the fact that most if not all of the Sahrawi/Moorish tribes today claim Arab ancestry; several are even claiming to be descendants of Muhammad, so-called sharifian tribes (pl. shurfa or chorfa).

The modern ethnic group is thus an Arab and Berber people inhabiting the westernmost Sahara desert, in the area of modern Mauritania, Morocco, Western Sahara, and parts of Algeria. (some tribes would also traditionally migrate into northern Mali and Niger, or even further along the Saharan caravan routes). As with most Saharan peoples, the tribes reflect a highly mixed heritage, combining Arab, Berber, and other influences, including black African ethnic and cultural characteristics. The latter were primarily acquired through mixing with Wolouf, Soninke and other populations of the southern Sahel, and through the acquisition of slaves by wealthier nomad families.

In pre-colonial times, the Sahara was generally considered bled es-Siba or "the land of dissidence" by the authorities of the established Islamic states of North Africa, such as the Sultan of Morocco and the Deys of Algeria. The Islamic governments of the pre-colonial sub-Saharan empires of Mali and Songhai appear to have had a similar relationship with the tribal territories, which were once the home of undisciplined raiding tribes and the main trade route for the Saharan caravan trade. Central governments had little control over the region, although the Hassaniya tribes would occasionally extended "beya" or allegiance to prestigious rulers, to gain their political backing or, in some cases, as a religious ceremony. The Moorish populations of today's north Mauritania established a number of emirates, claiming the loyalty of several different tribes and through them exercising semi-sovereignty over traditional grazing lands. This could be considered the closest thing to centralized government that was ever achieved by the Hassaniya tribes, but even these emirates were weak, conflict-ridden and rested more on the willing consent of the subject tribes than on any capacity to enforce loyalty.