Sahrawis
The Sahrawis, or Sahrawi people (Arabic: صحراويون ṣaḥrāwīyūn), are an ethnic group native to the western part of the Sahara desert, which includes the Western Sahara, southern Morocco, much of Mauritania, and along the southwestern border of Algeria. They are of mixed Hassani Arab and Sanhaji Berber descent, as well as West African and other indigenous populations.[9]
See also: Beidane
صحراويون
~160,000[2] mostly in the Moroccan-controlled zone where they make up about 30% of the population
174,000 refugees living in the Sahrawi refugee camps at Tindouf.[3]
90,000[4]
26,000 (Refugees)[5]
As with most peoples living in the Sahara, the Sahrawi culture is a mix of Arab and indigenous African elements.[9] Sahrawis are composed of many tribes and are largely speakers of the Hassaniya dialect of Arabic.[10]
The Arabic word Ṣaḥrāwī (صحراوي) literally means "Inhabitant of the Desert". The word Sahrawi is derived from the Arabic word Ṣaḥrā' (صحراء), meaning "desert". A man is called a Sahrawi, and a woman is called a Sahrawiya. In other languages it is pronounced in similar or different ways:
History[edit]
Early history[edit]
Nomadic Berbers, mainly of the Senhaja / Zenaga tribal confederation, inhabited the areas now known as Western Sahara, southern Morocco, Mauritania and southwestern Algeria, before Islam arrived in the 8th century CE. It is not known when the camel was introduced to the region (probably in the first or second millennium BCE), but it revolutionized the traditional trade routes of North Africa. Berber caravans transported salt, gold, and slaves between North 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 united behind religious leaders to sweep the surrounding governments from power, then founding principalities, dynasties, or even vast empires 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 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 virtually without exception embraced Arab or Muslim culture and even claim Arab heritage.[17] The Arabic dialect of the Beni Ḥassān, Hassaniya, remains the mother-tongue of Mauritania and Moroccan-controlled 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 many 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.
The modern day Sahrawis are a mixed ethnic group of Arabs, West Africans & diverse Berbers. The people inhabit 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, and other influences, including ethnic and cultural characteristics found in many ethnic groups of the Sahel. The latter were primarily acquired through mixing with Wolof, 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 Blad Essiba or "the land of dissidence" by the Moroccan central government and Sultan of Morocco in Fez, and by the authorities of the Deys of Algiers. The governments of the pre-colonial Sahelian empires of Mali and Songhai appear to have had a similar relationship with the tribal territories, which were at 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 extend "beya" or allegiance to prestigious rulers, to gain their political backing or, in some cases, as a religious ceremony. The Moorish populations of what is today northern 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.[18]
European colonialism[edit]
Modern distinctions drawn between the various Hassaniya-speaking Sahrawi-Moorish groups are primarily political, but cultural differences dating from different colonial and post-colonial histories are also apparent. An important divider is whether the tribal confederations fell under French or Spanish colonial rule. France conquered most of North and West Africa largely during the late 19th century. This included Algeria and Mauritania, and, from 1912, Morocco. But Western Sahara and scattered minor parts of Morocco fell to Spain, and were named Spanish Sahara (subdivided into Río de Oro and Saguia el-Hamra) and Spanish Morocco respectively. These colonial intrusions brought the Muslim Saharan peoples under Christian European rule for the first time, and created lasting cultural and political divides between and within existing populations, as well as upsetting traditional balances of power in differing ways.
The Sahrawi-Moorish areas, then still undefined as to exact territorial boundaries, proved troublesome for the colonizers, just as they had for neighbouring dynasties in previous centuries. The political loyalty of these populations were first and foremost to their respective tribes, and supertribal allegiances and alliances would shift rapidly and unexpectedly. Their nomadic lifestyle made direct control over the territories hard to achieve, as did general lawlessness, an absence of prior central authority, and a widely held contempt for the kind of settled life that the colonizers sought to bring about. Centuries of intertribal warfare and raids for loot (ghazzu) guaranteed that the populations were well armed and versed in guerilla-style warfare. Tribes allied to hostile European powers would now also be considered fair game for cattle raids on those grounds, which tied the struggle against France and Spain into the traditional power play of the nomads, aggravating the internal struggles.
Uprisings and violent tribal clashes therefore took place with increasing frequency as European encroachment increased, and on occasion took the form of anti-colonial holy war, or Jihad, as in the case of the Ma al-'Aynayn uprising in the first years of the 20th century. It was not until the 1930s that Spain was able to finally subdue the interior of present-day Western Sahara, and then only with strong French military assistance. Mauritania's raiding Moors had been brought under control in the previous decades, partly through skilful exploitation by the French of traditional rivalries and social divisions between the tribes. In these encounters, the large Reguibat tribe proved especially resistant to the new rulers, and its fighters would regularly slip in out of French and Spanish territory, similarly exploiting the rivalries between European powers. The last major Reguibat raid took place in 1934, after which the Spanish authorities occupied Smara, finally gaining control over the last unpatrolled border territories.
The Sahrawi-Moorish tribes remained largely nomadic until the early to mid-20th century, when Franco-Spanish rivalries (as well as disagreements between different wings of the French colonial regime) managed to impose rigid, if arbitrary, borders on the previously fluid Sahara. The wide-ranging grazing lands of the nomads were split apart, and their traditional economies, based on trans-Saharan caravan trade and raiding of each other and the northern and southern Sahel neighbors, were broken. Little attention was paid to existing tribal confederations and zones of influence when dividing up the Saharan interior.