Beginning of the End

In Iberia, many of the ousted White nobles took refuge in the unconquered north Asturian highlands. From there they aimed to reconquer their lands from the Moors: this war of reconquest is known as the Reconquista. It began in about 900 A.D. when a small Christian enclave of Visigoths in northwestern Spain, named Asturias; initiated conflicts between Christians and Muslims. Soon after, Christian states based in the north and west slowly; in fits and starts, began a process of expansion and reconquest of Iberia over the next several hundred years. The end for the Moors came on January 2, 1492: the leader of the last Moorish City "Granada" (located in southern Spain) - surrendered to armies of a recently united Christian Spain (after the marriage of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile). This ended the 800 year reign of the Moors in Iberia.

The Surrender of Granada

By some historical accounts: In 1491, Muhammad XII was summoned by Ferdinand and Isabella to surrender the city of Granada, and on his refusal it was besieged by the Castilians. Eventually, on 2 January, 1492, Granada was surrendered. In most sumptuous attire the royal procession moved from Santa Fe to a place a little more than a mile from Granada, where Ferdinand took up his position by the banks of the Genil. A private letter written by an eyewitness to the bishop of León only six days after the event recorded the scene.

With the royal banners and the cross of Christ plainly visible on the red walls of the Alhambra: …the Moorish sultan with about eighty or a hundred on horseback very well dressed went forth to kiss the hand of their Highnesses. According to the final capitulation agreement both Isabel and Ferdinand will decline the offer and the key to Granada will pass into Spanish hands without Muhammad XII having to kiss the hands of Los Royes, as the Spanish royal couple became known. Muhammad XII indomitable mother insisted on sparing his son this final humiliation. The Moorish sultan was received with much love and courtesy and there they handed over to him his son, who had been a hostage from the time of his capture, and as they stood there, there came about four hundred captives, of this who were in the enclosure, with the cross and a solemn procession singing the Te Deum Laudamus, and their highnesses dismounted to adore the Cross to the accompaniment of the tears and reverential devotion of the crowd, not least of the Cardinal and Master of Santiago and the Duke of Cadiz and all the other grandees and gentlemen and people who stood there, and there was no one who did not weep abundantly with pleasure giving thanks to Our Lord for what they saw, for they could not keep back the tears; and the Moorish sultan and the Moors who were with him for their part could not disguise the sadness and pain they felt for the joy of the Christians, and certainly with much reason on account of their loss, for Granada is the most distinguished and chief thing in the world…

Christopher Columbus seems to have been present; he refers to the surrender on the first page of his Diario de las Derrotas y Caminos:

After your Highnesses ended the war of the Moors who reigned in Europe, and finished the war of the great city of Granada, where this present year [1492] on the 2nd January I saw the royal banners of Your Highnesses planted by force of arms on the towers of the Alhambra, which is the fortress of the said city, I saw the Moorish sultan issue from the gates of the said city, and kiss the royal hands of Your Highnesses…

Exile

Legend has it that as the royal party moved south toward exile, they reached a rocky prominence which gave a last view of the city. Muhammad XII reined in his horse and, surveying for the last time the Alhambra and the green valley that spread below, burst into tears. When his mother approached him she said: "Weep like a woman for what you could not defend as a man". The spot from which Muhammad XII looked for the last time on Granada is known as "the Moor's last sigh" (el último suspiro del Moro). (it's probably not true - as we know, White people DO tend to lie).

The Moors last sigh - Francisco Pradilla y Ortiz (1848-1921) Note the faces above: Already the move is afoot to depict the Moors as White people.

Muhammad XII was given an estate in Láujar de Andarax, Las Alpujarras, a mountainous area between the Sierra Nevada and the Mediterranean Sea, but he soon crossed the Strait of Gibraltar to Fez, Morocco. The Spanish royal secretary Fernando de Zafra mentions in his letter of 9 December 1492 that Muhammad XII and his followers leave Andarax which left one month to go to Tlemcen, where he stayed little longer. He left in September or October 1492. He explained that his wife died in Andarax is that it is buried in Mondújar.

The remaining Muslims and Turkish Khazar Jews (not Hebrews) of Iberia were forced to leave Iberia or die; or convert to Roman Catholic Christianity. Many of the Khazar Jews who were expelled from Spain and Portugal immigrated to Holland, where they set up the Dutch West Indies Company, a prime mover in the Atlantic slave trade. Ironically, eight months after the last Moorish city fell: it was in the nearby town of Palos, on the evening of August 3, 1492. That Christopher Columbus would depart from Palos on his journey to the Americas. One result of which, would be the Spanish and Portuguese Atlantic Slave trade.

The story of Black slavery in the Americas, of course begins with Christopher Columbus. It is alleged that his voyage to the Americas was not financed by Queen Isabella, but rather by the Khazar Jew Luis de Santangelo, who supposedly advanced the sum of 17,000 ducats to finance the voyage. Columbus was accompanied by five 'Maranos' (Jews who had forsworn their religion and supposedly became Catholics) Luis de Torres - the interpreter, Marco - the surgeon, Bemal - the physician, Alonzo de la Calle and Gabriel Sanchez, and a Black navigator, Pedro Alonso Niño (1468 – 1505). It is not known if Pedro Alonso Niño was a Moor or a native Gaul of Iberia. While in the Americas, it was Gabriel Sanchez, who convinced Columbus to capture 500 American Indians and sell them as slaves in Seville, Spain.

After the Moors were gone; In 1480, Isabella and Ferdinand instituted the Inquisition in Spain, as one of many changes to the role of the church instituted by the monarchs. The Inquisition was aimed mostly at Jews and Muslims who had overtly converted to Christianity but were thought to be practicing their faiths secretly — called respectively marranos and moriscos. The Inquisition also attacked heretics who rejected Roman Catholic orthodoxy, including alumbras (native people) who practiced a personal mysticism or spiritualism. They represented a significant portion of the peasants in some territories, such as Aragon, Valencia or Andalusia. In the years from 1609 to 1614, these people were systematically expelled from the country. However many of them were converted to Christianity. This is clearly indicated by a "high mean proportion of ancestry from North Africa (10.6%)" that "attests to a high level of religious conversion (whether voluntary or enforced).

At the end of the Reconquista, it is estimated that about a third of the Moorish population had been killed or enslaved, another third immediately left; while a third tried to live in Christian Spain. However, for most Moors, the persecution and forced conversion to Catholicism of the Muslim population during the time of the Christian Reconquista, caused a mass exodus. Many found life under Christian rule intolerable and passed over into north Africa. This is considered the main reason why the number of Muslims had shrunk to a relatively small fraction of the total population by 1500.

Meanwhile in Egypt: 935 A.D. ushered in the Ikhshidid dynasty of Muhammad ibn Tughj, a Turk from Uzbekistan in Central Asia. But the Ikhshidid dynasty was usurped by their Abyssinian slave tutor named Kafur; he ruled Egypt with the caliphate's sanction until his death in 968 A.D. Kafur wisely forsook White Turkish troops, and instead used Berbers as the mainstay of his army.

The Berbers have since fallen on hard times, even to loosing their identity; for today, as is the case with all of the ancient Blacks, the mixed-race people, and even the Whites, now call themselves Berbers. So here are the "Real" Berbers.