Indeed, we could call him a knight in shining armor. He was a Black saint in an area then and now that has very few Black inhabitants.

Of all the many Black men in the history of Europe, few have excited the imagination more than Saint Maurice. The Black Saint Maurice: Knight of the Holy Lance Primary Christian sources relating to the conquest, particularly the Primera Cronica General of Alfonso X, make the following observation regarding the Moors: “Their faces were black as pitch, the handsomest amongst them was as black as a cooking pot.” There is really no need to speculate on the ethnicity of these early invaders of the conquest period. Tarik himself, at the conclusion of his illustrious military career, retired to the distant East, we are informed, to spread the teachings of Islam. So eager were they to come that some are said to have floated over on tree-trunks. In the aftermath of these brilliant struggles, thousands of Moors flooded into the Iberian Peninsula. Within a month’s time, General Tarik ibn Ziyad had effectively terminated European dominance of the Iberian Peninsula. Wasting no time to relish his victory, Tarik pushed on with his dashing and seemingly tireless Moorish cavalry to the Spanish city of Toledo. “My brethren, the enemy is before you, the sea is behind whither would ye fly? Follow your general I am resolved either to lose my life or to trample on the prostrate king of the Romans.” On the eve of the battle, Tarik is alleged to have roused his troops with the following words: In August 711, Tarik won paramount victory over the opposing European army. In 711, the bold Tarik crossed the straits and disembarked near a rock promontory, which from that day since has borne his name - Djabal Tarik (“Tarik’s Mountain”), or Gibraltar. Tarik was in command of an army of at least 10,000 men. It is clear, however, that the conquest of Spain was undertaken upon the initiative of Tarik ibn Ziyad. Tarif, an important port city in southern Spain, is named after him. In July 710, Tarif, with 400 foot soldiers and 100 horses, all Berbers, successfully carried out a mission in southern Iberia.

Following this, they crossed over from Morocco over to the Iberian Peninsula where their swift victories and remarkable feats soon became the substance of legends. Nowhere is this more the case than the African presence in Medieval and Renaissance Europe.Īccording to the Oxford English Dictionary, the Moors, as early as the Middle Ages and as late as the 17th century, were “commonly supposed to be black or very swarthy, and hence the word is often used for Negro.”Įarly in the eighth century, after a grim and extended resistance to the Arab invasions of North Africa, the Moors joined the triumphant surge of Islam. The history of African people - Black people - is rich and comprehensive, inspiring and, often, little known. In this study we realize that slavery alone is not African history and that African history is everybody’s history. The study of the African presence in history, whether in the African Diaspora or Africa itself, is a richly rewarding endeavor.

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