While listening to the journalistic bombardment on the border crisis the last few weeks (months? years?) and how that’s going to demolish Biden, Trump, or Haley in the race for the presidency, I kept, of course, hearing about Texas.
I think the last thing was the Governor of Texas telling the Federal Government that they’re not getting their hands on the Texas National guard, and dozens of other governors (all Republicans to now, but maybe a few Democrats have joined the rebellion) with him. It sounded like Texans are fed up enough to go off and establish their own independent republic.
You did know from your exposure to American history at all levels of education in our country that Texas was an independent republic for nine years, didn’t you? Here’s a snippet from the Britannica online: Texas Revolution, war fought from October 1835 to April 1836 between Mexico and Texas colonists that resulted in Texas’s independence from Mexico and the founding of the Republic of Texas (1836–45).
You can read a lot more online these days, or perhaps did at one time in your education in a textbook you may have been assigned sometime between the fourth grade and college. Who knows what they may have taught you in the world of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) that rules and reigns in today’s schools and colleges.
But, let’s leave DEI aside for the moment. What attracted my attention to Texas once again in my career as an historian was the city of Matamoros in northern Mexico, just across the Rio Grande River from the Texas city of Brownsville.
Let’s jump to the lesson for today. Matamoros translates as “kill Moors,” and it would be, accordingly, the City of KillMoors in English.
Kill Moors? What in the world are we writing about? What’s a Moor? It’s a Spanish word for a Muslim, or Islamicist, someone worshipping the prophet Muhammad who has embraced Islam as their faith, their religion.
In 711 A.D. the rapid spread of Islam over the Mediterranean shores of Africa reached the Straits of Gibraltar. And they asked themselves: why stop here? Islam was an evangelical religion demanding its followers to be active in converting others to their version of the true religion, and so they swept across the narrow waters of the Straits and moved into Hispania, the old Roman name for the land we call Spain. It is also sometimes called Iberia. James Michener wrote a great history of that nation and people, Iberia. Read it. Like all of Michener’s books, it is wonderful, entertaining prose, and immensely well researched.
So the Moors crossed the Straits and swept through Spain, converting and fighting and conquering all the way to the Pyrenees mountains separating Spain from France. And they asked themselves the same question: why stop here?
Tarik, Ṭāriq ibn Ziyād, Leader of the Moorish Invasion of Spain, 711 A.D.
They crossed the Pyrenees and started in France but were met at the Battle of Tours by a determined Christian army led by Charles Martel, the grandfather of one of the greatest rulers of the early Middle Ages, Charlemagne. The Moors returned to Spain and settled down to rule. A few small Christian kingdoms in the far north of Spain facing the Bay of Biscay and the Atlantic Ocean, remained unconquered and from those small kingdoms, the reconquest of Spain for Christendom began about the year 1000 A.D.
This Reconquest waxed hot and cold for the next almost five hundred years, sometimes Moors and Christians fighting, sometimes living at peace with each other, albeit always wary that their old enemy was still there. Sometimes, in fact, they lived not only in a discreet harmony, but also worked together as scholars and teachers, translating some of the great pieces of ancient literature from Greek civilization for example and so preserving for a Europe gone stagnant in the Middle Ages with great ancient writings on politics, society, philosophy and even religion.
They even borrowed religious architecture from each other. When Seville was reconquered by the Christians in 1248, they kept the magnificent tower of the mosque, la Giralda, and built the Christian cathedral around the Giralda. It is still there today.
The Reconquest ended in 1492, a date familiar to the discovery of America by Ferdinand Columbus. In that same year, the last Moorish Kingdom of Granada left in Spain fell to siege of the armies of the sovereigns of Spain, Queen Isabella of Castile and King Ferdinand of Aragon. Their marriage in 1469 had united Spain dynastically. The battle cry of the Spanish armies was “Santiago y Matamoros,” or St. James and Killmoors. St. James was the patron saint of Spanish warriors.
The discoveries of Columbus launched Spain into the conquest of the newly being discovered islands and lands of the Americas. Back home the Christian monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand still had to deal with Moors in Granada who were rebellious under the rule of the increasingly intolerant Christians. It’s a long and fascinating story, but in 1502 the Moors were given the choice: go into exile or convert to Christianity. Many converted but more chose exile.
Less than forty years later Spanish warriors reached even into Alabama if you are curious about the origins of Hernando de Soto. And their battle cry as they engaged Chief Tuskaloosa at Mavila was “Santiago y Matamoros!” Not many Moors around here, but in war, logic not a big principle at stake.
Posted on January 28, 2024
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