The Black Guard (in Arabic, Abid عبد, from a root meaning "slave") were the corps of black-African slave-soldiers assembled by the Alaouite sultan of Morocco Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco (المملكة المغربية, al-Mamlakah al-Maġribiyya, Tagldit Umrruk), is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of nearly 32 million and an area just under 447,000 square kilometres (173,000 sq mi). Its capital is Rabat, and its largest city is Casablanca. Morocco has a coast on, Moulay Ismail (reigned 1672-1727). The Black Guard descended from black captives brought to Morocco from sub-Saharan Africa, who were settled in a special colony and given wives; their male offspring would be pressed into military careers at the age of sixteen. Considered more reliable than Arab Arab people or Arabs (العرب al-ʿarab) are a panethnicity of peoples of various ancestral origins, religious backgrounds and historic identities, whose members, on an individual basis, identify as such on one or more of linguistic, cultural, political, or genealogical grounds. Those self-identifing as Arab, however, rarely do so on their own or Berber Iberians, Saami people warriors because of their lack of tribal loyalties, Ismail's black soldiers formed the bulk of his standing army and numbered 150,000 at their peak[1].
The Black Guard were charged with fighting Ismail's campaigns against the European-controlled fortress enclaves dotting his empire's coast (such as Tangier Tangier or Tangiers [pronounce] is a city of northern Morocco with a population of about 700,000 (2008 census). It lies on the North African coast at the western entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Spartel. It is the capital of the Tangier-Tétouan Region, taken over after the English withdrew from it and distressed it in 1684 in response) and with patrolling Morocco's unstable countryside: They crushed rebellions against Ismail's rule not only by Moroccan Berber clans but also by Ismail's seditious sons, who defected from service as his provincial governors to insurrection as would-be usurpers of his throne.
Moulay Ismail always went about his court surrounded by a bodyguard of eighty black slave-soldiers, with muskets and scimitars at the ready in case of any attempt on the sultan's life. At his throne, Ismail was attended by a slave charged with twirling a parasol above the sultan at all times (a legend says that on at least one occasion, Ismail pulled out his sword and murdered an attendant who had allowed the sun to briefly fall upon his skin). Two more slaves fanned the flies away from his face, while a third held a napkin beneath his chin to collect his spittle.
Though the Black Guard were fiercely loyal, they remained just as vulnerable to their commander's fits of rage as his European slaves and Moorish subjects. When the French ambassador Pidou de Saint-Olon was granted an audience with Moulay Ismail, the latter arrived at this meeting with his sleeves drenched in blood up to the elbows, after having slit the throats of two of his favorite black attendants on a whim. When Ismail's Barbary pirates The Barbary Corsairs, sometimes called Ottoman Corsairs or Barbary Pirates, were Muslim pirates and privateers who operated from North Africa from the time of the Crusades until the early 19th century. Based in North African ports such as Tunis, Tripoli, Algiers, Salé, and other ports in Morocco, they sailed mainly along the stretch of northern brought in a Portuguese ship they had just captured, Ismail was presented a beautiful handcrafted hatchet found on board: the sultan immediately struck and killed a Black Guard for no other reason than to test the blade.
Despite endless civil wars and civil slaughter, the Black Guard remained brutally loyal and disciplined through the turmoil of Ismail's reign. More than any other factor did they enable the sultan to remain on Morocco's throne for half a century[2].
The Black Guard name was changed to Moroccan Royal Guard after Morocco gained its independence in 1956.
Contents |
See also
Further reading
- Wilfrid Blunt, Black Sunrise: The Life and Times of Mulai Ismail, Emperor of Morocco 1646-1727
- Giles Milton, White Gold: The Extraordinary Story of Thomas Pellow and North Africa's One Million White Slaves
Notes
- ^ "...A la fin du règne de Moulay Ismaïl, qui resta au pouvoir pendant 57 ans, la garde noire comptait 150000 combattants...", p39 of "Des Tranchés de Verdun à l'église Saint Bernard" by Bakari Kamian edition KARTHALA
- ^ "...A la fin du règne de Moulay Ismaïl, qui resta au pouvoir pendant 57 ans...", p39 of "Des Tranchés de Verdun à l'église Saint Bernard" by Bakari Kamian edition KARTHALA
References
- Bakari Kamian. (2001). Des Tranchés de Verdun à l'église Saint Bernard.
Categories: Private armies | Military history of Morocco
Quad City Times
Black Hawk College basketball player Matt Bush will continue his career at Illinois-Chicago, where the 6-foot-4 guard from Quincy will be a preferred ...
