Arab Islamic influence

The people of the Iberian Peninsula and the sub-Saharan Desert are commonly invaded by Arabs, or Islam, for their historical development.  Spain was under Islamic rule from 711 to January 2, 1492.

In the Sahara region, Islam was strengthened by Abdullah Yasin, who commanded Armorabide soldiers.

He sent troops to northern Africa, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, and southern Spain, invading one after another.  By 1054, he had conquered the Kingdom of Ghana in southern Sahara, and later built several large facilities for missionary work in the Mali Empire, as seen in Timbuktu, Djenne, and Gao.

Over time, Islamic priests and scholars began to accompany Arab caravans and preach.

The Hausa and Fulani are traditional Islamic nomads, but they carry Islamic doctrines in West African countries, now Guinea, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria. I was traveling to the south, Cameroon, etc.

Arab merchants sail the Indian Ocean and settle on the small islands of Zanzibar and Pemba along the east coast of Africa.

They brought Islam to the island and had a great cultural impact.

The Makua people in Mozambique are also influenced by them.

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Islamic Africans who lived in sub-Saharan Africa, captured, kidnapped, and sold as slaves in tribal conflicts, were taken to North, South America, and the Caribbean.

The Yoruba, Mandinga, and Makua groups, which were already strongly influenced by Islam before crossing the sea, will be part of the slave population in Cuba.

In his book History of African Slave in the New World, Jose Antonio Sako states that Spain did not allow non-Christian blacks to enter Spanish territory at the beginning of the conquest of the New World. There is.

However, in 1510, faith could not resist the benefits of the slaves, and Spain sent them out of Guinea, which has a strong Islamic color.

Spain was intolerant of Islam and banned the export of Islamic slaves to the Americas. However, neither the Guinean tribes nor the tribes of other parts of Africa were as politically wary of them as they had not done as much damage to Spain as the Moors. Spain allowed any of their African tribes' beliefs, that is, they considered their beliefs not enemies of Catholic doctrine.

The tribes that became the roots of Cuban slaves and their whereabouts

Historian Manuel Perez Beato wrote in his book The Old Havana:

Among the African slaves who came to Cuba in the first half of the 16th century were various groups of the Kishi tribe, one of the groups that settled in Cuba throughout the 16th century and was called Kishi Kubana.

Between 1578 and 1588 Havana was inhabited by various Africans. From Guinea-Bissau, Biojo, Kasanga, Bram, Nalu. From Senegambia (now Senegal and Gambia), where Islamic beliefs prevailed, the Holofo and Mandinga tribes.

In the middle of the 18th century, 21 communities of recreation and mutual aid called "Cabildo de Nation" were organized for each tribe. Each cabildo was named after a Christian saint.

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21 The breakdown of the Cabildo that was there is:

Color Bali = 5

Mina = 3

Yoruba = 2

Arara = 2

Congo = 2

Mondongo = 2

Ganga = 2

Mandinga = 1

Luango = 1

Popo = 1

They were called Mandinga Holofo and Mandinga Soso because the two tribes shared the Mandinga Cabildo building on Havana Street.   

Also, the Mandinga tribe seems to have been important in the suburban towns at that time. The names of Figras and Canyada Street were originally called Mandinga or Penarbel. For the street crossed part of the mansion of Priest Luis de Penarbel and his brother Marquis Arcos, who owned a small sugar factory.

evidence

In mid-1839, 53 slaves arrive in Havana from Africa. They were brought from Sierra Leone, Liberia, and the area was inhabited by the following tribes:

Mendy, Kishi, Bandy (Gandhi), Roma, Mandinga

In July of the same year, the owner of the slaves, Jose Luis, boarded the slaves to transfer them to Puerto Principe (now Kamaway).  During the voyage, a slave rebellion sought the ship's crew to head to Africa. However, he was arrested by the United States police and later brought to justice.

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While a British judge, Richard R. Madden, was traveling in North America, he heard a slave repeatedly uttering Arabic prayers. The prayer said: "Allah Akbar" or "God is great". Another slave greeted me like this.

"Salaam Aleikoum" or "May peace be with you"

And immediately repeated this.

"Aleikoun Salaam" "May you have peace with you"

Ethnologist and anthropologist Fernando Ortiz states in his book Black Magic:

The Mandinga, who are more connected to Islamic and Arab culture, wear large trousers, short jackets, and blue and pink silk turbans on the epiphany of Christ (dia de reyes) and are very luxurious. Standing out and lining up in the town of Havana.  

For many years, the Havana Carnival was called "Blue Mandinga Moro" or "Red Mandinga Moro" because of its glamorous fancy-dress parade, which, as Dr. Ortiz shows, is a black Mandinga tribe. It is a remnant of Islam that has been passed down during the period.

In 1851, Swiss writer Fredrika Bremen visited the Limonar sugar factory in Matanzas for days and met Africans of different tribes and found himself there.  

In most cases, priests and fortune-tellers are selected from the Mandinga tribe. In fact, in the Mandinga and Yoruba districts, Marabou (meaning the holy human being of Islam) occupies an important position, playing the role of priest, sage, and spiritual leader, and is believed to have supernatural powers.

Fredrika also wrote about her visit to the Congolese and Ganga Cabildos in Havana, in which she said: I saw Christian statues and symbols among them, but I couldn't find them in the Yoruba Cabildo "Our St. Barbara", which I also visited in Havana. Perhaps it is the influence of Islam. This is because idol worship is not allowed in Islamic mosques.

The Biography of a Cimarron (Fugitive Slave), written by writer Miguel Barnett, gives an interesting theme.

According to Cimarron's Esteban Montejo, Lukmi (Yoruba) are the most religious, and they get up early with the power of the morning, worship the sky, pray, and sprinkle water. He also often saw an old black man lying on the ground for more than three hours while oracleing in tribal language.  

Apparently Cimarron's Montejo referred to Muslims, whose day begins before sunrise and prays to God at least five times a day. For Muslims, the sky is God's creation, and being allowed to enter it is their greatest success in life.

Also, Montejo says that Karabari began to kill pigs to sell them, but they didn't eat them themselves. Perhaps Montejo said these Karabari were Muslims and didn't eat pigs. Because Islam prohibits eating pork.

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Another famous and definitive proof is the eastern greetings "Salaam Aleikoum" and "Aleikoum Salaam", which are now heard in Yoruba ceremonies and folk gatherings, which were brought to Cuba as slaves. It symbolizes the traces of Islamic Africans.

Creative activity by freedmen

In Cuba in the early 19th century, the human population of African origin outnumbered the white population. As a result, the whites were afraid that it would be the second dance of Haiti, where a black nation was born.  

1822 Father Felix Valera wrote in his book the need for the liberation of slaves. Among them, he said that most of the freedmen were engaged in art, many of whom could read and write, and their rights from the publications they would have in white society. He writes that there is a growing fear of rebellion among whites because they can learn that human rights do not belong to anyone else.

In fact, in 1828, a census conducted by General Commander Francisco Dionismo Vibes found that 6,754 freedmen of mixed-race and Cuban-born blacks between the ages of 18 and 100 were in 52 occupations. In many workplaces, it exceeded the number of whites and contributed significantly to economic and social development.

The rise in black social status also affected Jose Antonio Sako's non-conformists. It was published in a Havana newspaper in the summer of 1834 called "Cuba Wandering Record" and is described in a work that received an award from the Royal Havana Economic Association.  

"Art has been monopolized by blacks, and only a few areas, such as literature, remain honorary whites," Sako said. Is blaming in.

In his masterpiece "Cecilia Valdés or the Hill of Angels", Sirilo Villaberde featured musicians Claudio Brindis de Saras, Urpiano Estrada and Thomas Buerta, tailor Francisco Uribe, and blacks. As an important character as an excellent and talented artist of Estrada.  

Villa Verde, which was used as the main stage of the novel in the city, had the work of Vicente Escobar. Escobar was a famous black portrait painter who died in 1834 and was highly honored as a purveyor to the Royal Parliament in Spain.  

By the time Villa Verde's novel came out in 1839, two black poets had already succeeded and gained popularity.  

The first of these is the mixed-race Gabriel de la Concepcion Valdes, known as "Placido".

In 1834, he presented his eighth work, Ciempre Viva (Permanent Flower), to the best poetry at a literary festival held in honor of the Spanish poet Francisco Mardines de la Rosa. Receive the award.  

Juan Francisco Mansano gained fame after Placido.

A poet born as a slave, he published his maiden work in 1821. Fifteen years later, Mansano published a sonnet (14-line poem) called "My 30 Years", which was highly acclaimed by the cultural circle held in the mansion of Domingo del Monte. And in that very mansion, he decided to buy freedom from his owner with the money collected from the sonnet subscription fee he announced, and in 1837 he got the right to freedom.  

Inspired by Domingo del Monte, Juan Francisco Mansano began devoting himself to writing autobiographies from 1835. It is a tragic story of slavery that comes from his own experience, and was published shortly after he gained freedom as the only work written by a slave-class man. Due to its social and political background, its very significant work remained unpublished in Cuba, but in 1940 it was translated into English along with other poems by Dr. Richard R. Madden and published in London.

In the same year, in Paris, French abolitionist Victor Schulcher published a book on abolition, in which he took up the slave poet Mansano and introduced several French translations.

Poetry and Islamic thinking

Of the millions of Africans brought into the United States and the Caribbean as slaves, a significant proportion of humans understood Arabic to some extent and kept the Koran's prayers in their memory. Therefore, the use of certain keywords and phrases was sufficient to awaken awareness as an Islamic believer, draw attention, and lead Islamic believers to the battle for freedom recovery.

  It seems that the aim of Juan Francisco Mansano and Gabriel de la Concepcion Valdes as living examples that reached the hearts of black and freedmen was there. In their work, they accused the shameful systems of slavery and tyranny, praising freedom, independence, and their homeland, and spreading Islamic symbols and thoughts.  

Around that time, in the 1830s, Christians were divided into British and American Protestants who were pushing for the liberation of slaves and Catholics who supported slavery and considered their doctrine harmful.

In an official document sent to the Spanish government by Cuban governor-general Miguel Tacon on August 31, 1835, on the activities of slave liberationists, Methodist missionaries were written in Spanish to Africans in Jamaica. He distributes the Bible and reports that he is tasked with correcting misinterpretations.

The Islamic color underlying Mansano and Placido's work did not distrust the censors. At that time, the people of Havana had the opportunity to come into contact with Arab-themed literary works and see performances in theaters.  On October 1, 1831, the Havana newspaper announced that the Ramos bookstore in the corner of Boquete had arrived the historical novel "Gomez Arias, the Moors of the Alphara" by Joaquin T. de Trueva y Cossio. ing.

According to the edict, those slaves were "arrogant, rebellious, incendiary, uncorrectable, masterminds of the black rebellion and Christian deaths in Puerto Rico and other islands."  

In Santo Domingo, a group of slaves who arrived as the first wave had roots in Senegambia, but a large-scale rebellion led by François Macandal occurred between 1753 and 1758. Macandal was an Islamic advocate of Cimarron (a fugitive slave), and French settlers were very afraid of him.  

Massive rebellions ubiquitous in Santo Domingo towards the end of the 18th century, becoming the world's first black republic and the first independent state of the new continent in 1804, and the model for the liberation movement that has since followed. ..

In August 1831, slave Nat Turner began plotting a rebellion in South Hampton, Virginia, where many slaves gathered with him, but were captured on October 30, and later 16 of him. He was hanged with his followers.

But the rebellion had a profound effect on the profound supporters of slavery in American society.   

In 1832, slaves under the command of the Muslim Mohammad Kaba Saganig uprised in the Manchester region of Jamaica.

It was an event that spurred a similar movement on this island of the Caribbean for liberation.

Three years later, in 1835, in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, Islamic slaves rebelled for the liberation of slaves, the end of Christianity, and the establishment of Islamic forces.

In Cuba, two major slave uprisings in the 1840s were Matanzas, causing casualties and financial losses for both blacks and whites.  

On the night of March 26th and 27th, 1843, a rebellion of slaves working at the Alcancia sugar factory in Cardenas, Matanzas broke out. This move was called the "Lukmi Rebellion" because most of the people working on the farm at the time were Lukmi (Yoruba). Of the 340 people who participated in the rebellion, 220 (168 men and 52 women) were Rukumi, accounting for 63% of the total.  

Colonial police reported that the rebellion used a long-handled, pointed, sharp-edged sword called Carabosso, and used raw animal skin as a shield for defense. But their main weapon was fire, the candle. The arson of sugar cane pomace storage signaled the start of a rebellion at the Alcancia sugar factory, and the flames swallowed sugar cane fields, juice huts, boiler houses, etc. on other farms in the area and spread. rice field. The Rukmi may have rebelled in the Quran's passage, "A burning flame is prepared for those who do not believe in Allah and his apostle Mahomet" (Victory, chapters 48, 13). I suspect there isn't.  

On November 5, the same year, a rally was held at the Triumbiraat sugar factory near the city center of Matanzas, and a rebellion by the largest African slaves in Cuba's history began. The rebellion, commanded by two Rukumi and one Ganga, ignited sugar cane fields, sugar factories, and even nearby farms.  These two resistance movements had a great impact on the minds of slavery-supporting settlers, critics of the era said:

  "In this case, the blacks were not satisfied by igniting a sugar cane field and fleeing into the mountains, as was the case in a similar case, killing six whites and moving to a nearby farm. He called on the slaves working there to uprising and declared the liberation of all colored races. It must then be understood that these recurring rebellions are of a different nature and origin than any previous rebellion. '

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Meanwhile, Domingo Ardama, the owner of the Santa Rosa sugar factory and a wealthy farmer whose factory was set on fire in the rebellion of slaves in the Cardenas region, reported to Cuba's commander on March 2, 1844. Is going.

In 1833 and 1840, the four-act tragedy "Abufar, the Arab Family" was translated, edited and staged by the poet Jose Maria Heredia for the Cuban theater in Havana.

In March 1838, Fraternity Publishing published a two-act melodrama (musical drama) called the Arabs of Galias to perform at the theater of Alameda de Paula.

In 1841, Torres Publishing's bookstore at 113 Obispo Street offered Miguel Cervantes' Don Quixote de la Mancha. At the root of this book are the themes of "Captive Christians" and "Exiled Morisco (formerly Muslims)."

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  ~~ Omitted ~~

What Faith Brings to Africa

In the first half of the 19th century, there were frequent struggles to uphold Islamic teachings and important movements proclaiming the liberation of African nations. There is no doubt that these movements influenced the souls of slaves brought to the Americas and the Islam-inspired abolitionist movement.

Between 1804 and 1808, a holy war was fought in what is now Nigeria by the Sokoto Caliphate Usman dan Fodio.

In 1817, when Usman died, his son Muhammad Bello took the position of Caliph and took over the will of his father Usman.

Senegalese politician and Islamic scholar El Haji Umar Tar became the caliph of the Tijaniya sect in 1826, and ten years later moved to what is now Guinea's Fouta Jaron, against French Christian Bambala animists. Start preparing for Jihad.  

In 1830, France invaded Algeria, but two years later, a holy war against the French army was initiated by Emile Abdel Kadel and continued until 1847. A Cuban newspaper published information on the struggle in the country in northern Africa, including a speech by Emile in November 1939.

"When the crescent moon in December appears, my horse will drink water at the drinking fountain at the entrance to Ba Bell Wed and will soon die. But Alger's door will be opened to my voice. I will remind you of Mahomed's promise and preach the Quran by eliminating the heathens in the Great Mosque. '

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During the French invasion of Algeria, the tragedy of Mansano "Zafira" was performed in Cuba in 1842. The stage is exactly in northern Africa, Mauritania around the 16th century. It was a play on the theme of exploitation of Islamic territory by the Christian forces. Is this really a coincidence?

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Uprising of slaves in the Americas and the Caribbean

From the beginning of the Spanish colonization of the Americas, there has been a rebellion by African slaves. The characteristic of the rebellion is that the Herofes, who have roots in Senegambia, actively participated in the rebellion.

That is how the first slave rebellion in Santo Domingo in 1521 took place.

Ten years later, the Governor-General of Puerto Rico has urged the Herofes and Berbers not to move in, as they would cause a rebellion in the neighboring Caribbean islands.  

From September 28, 1532, "Herofe, Middle Eastern tribes, and even Muslim-raised people from Guinea must not be sent to the Indian Islands without permission," the Kingdom said. A warning was given to the trading center by the edict.

In it, he states: "In the cargo arriving from Africa, there was a behavior that made me think that a highly educated slave about what was needed in the colony at that time might have come among other Africans. Yes, they probably have enough knowledge to come up with other actions against slavery. '

Supported evidence

Shortly after the Turiumbirato rebellion, Cuban commander Leopoldo O'Donnell began to confront blacks with fear and oppression, and police arrested more than 4,000 people.

The breakdown is:

2126 Black Freedmen

972 slaves

74 Caucasians

800 foreigners and unidentified people.

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Among those suspected of participating in a plot called "Staircase Collusion" were the poet Mansano and Placido, who would be shot dead later. Among the arrests was Juan Jose Calvo, a mixed-race freedman from the Mandinga tribe.

He was 28 years old in 1800. Named Juan Jose Mandinga, he was a slave working at a factory in the Guines region called Nueva Holland. Then, 12 years later, in July 1812, he gained freedom with money.

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  Juan Jose Calvo has been accused of having frequent meetings at home with Matanzas Moreno (a mixed-race person) and Andres Otello. Otello was very close to the poet Placido.

Police chief in the southern district of Gwyneth reported that when police arrested him at home, he found documents "believed to have been written by shorthand." In an interrogation by the Military Commission, the old Mandinga man explained that they were written by himself according to his hometown tradition and acted according to that tradition when he was at home.

That is, it contains the words of prayer he is doing to thank the Supreme Being and seek mercy at bedtime, waking up, sunrise, dining, going to work, etc. There was.  

The paper on which this prayer was written was found in the documents of the relevant departments of the Military Commission.

The committee also retains the minutes of the interrogation, signed by Juan Jose Calvo with an Arabic prayer.

  And this document is the basis for this treatise.

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Conclusion

The Islamic Africans, who were brought to the New World as slaves by the slave traders, were deprived of their hometown, culture, and everything but their religious beliefs.

Although they remembered the Koranian prayers they had learned in their hometown, it was difficult to practice their teachings, disciplines, and traditions in Cuba and other Spanish colonies. Because Roman Catholicism, which was worshiped in Spain, was systematically intolerant of Islamic believers.

Therefore, it is almost impossible to obtain documents and information on Islam in Japan.  

The Koran's prayer words, written by Mandinga's slave Juan Jose, relying on his own memory while in Cuba, are the only useful reference we can introduce.

His practice of praying five times a day is one of the daily obligations of the Prophet Mahomet followers, or Islamic believers.  

Juan Jose Carbo's confession reveals that African beliefs such as Regras de Ocha (Santeria) and Regras de Ifa, who perform rituals in Yoruba in Cuba, are practiced. From there we were able to confirm that there are blacks who believe in Islam in Cuba.  

They are always among the abolitionists, and they wrote the tragedy "Zafira" by Juan Francisco Mansano, who spread Islamic thoughts and hymns to freedom, and Placido, who wrote the tragedy dealing with the Orient. Gabriel de la Concepcion Valdes may have been inspired and inspired by it.  

Traces of Islamic slaves remain in the social and political ideas of African Cubans in the first half of the 19th century.