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Precolonial Mauritania, lying next to the Atlantic coast at the western edge of the Sahara Desert, received and assimilated into its complex society many waves of Saharan migrants and conquerors. Plinius wrote that the area north of the river Senegal was populated, during Augustus times, by the ''Pharusii'' and ''Perorsi'' 〔(Map with indication of the Pharusii and Perorsi )〕 Berbers moved south to Mauritania beginning in the 3rd century, followed by Arabs in the 8th century, subjugating and assimilating Mauritania's original inhabitants. Islamization took place only gradually, much later than in the Sahel, over the course of the 12th to the 17th centuries by the expansion of the Beni Hassan. From the 15th century, there was also limited European trading activity, mostly in gum arabic. The tensions between the tribal Berber groups which had established themselves before the arrival of Islam, and the Arabized and Muslim Beni Hassan came to a head in the Char Bouba war of 1644 to 1674. The resulting victory of the Beni Hassan sealed the fate of Mauritania as an Arabized Muslim territory, the last part of Africa to be acquired into the Muslim World before the Muslim expansion was checked by the European Scramble for Africa in the 19th century. There was French presence at the Senegal River from the 17th century, and by 1840, Senegal became a permanent French possession. The colonisation of Mauritania was an expansion of the area of French control over Senegal, beginning in the form of punitive expeditions against the Maures. The colonial period of Mauritania lasted for a mere two generations, from 1904 to 1960. The French authorities had difficulty in maintaining order in view of the numerous and complicated conflicts among the area's numerous factions and sub-factions. They attempted to abolish slavery in 1905, but with very limited success.〔 there were renewed efforts to ban slavery in 1981 and 2007, in spite of which Mauritania remains the country with the largest proportion of enslaved population worldwide.〕 Mauritanian independence was granted in 1960, following a 1958 referendum under the French Fifth Republic. ==Characteristics== What is now Mauritania was a dry savanna area during classical antiquity, where independent tribes like the Pharusii and the Perorsi (and the Nigritae near the Niger river) lived a semi-nomadic life facing the growing desertification of the Sahara. Romans did explorations toward this area and probably reached, with Suetonius Paulinus, the area of Adrar. There are evidences (coins, fibulas) of Roman commerce in Akjoujt and Tamkartkart near Tichit〔( Sahara in classical antiquity: Map of Roman presence and archeological findings in the Western Sahara region (p. 514) )〕 Some Berber tribes moved to Mauritania in the 3rd and 4th century, and after the 8th century some Arabs entered the region as conquerors. From the 8th century through the 15th century, black kingdoms of the western Sudan, such as Ghana Empire, Mali Empire, and Songhai Empire, brought their political culture from the south.〔Warner, Rachel. "Historical setting". In Handloff.〕 The divisive tendencies of the various groups within Mauritanian society have always worked against the development of Mauritanian unity. Both the Sanhadja Confederation, at its height from the 8th century to the 10th century, and the Almoravid Empire, from the 11th century to the 12th century, were weakened by internecine warfare, and succumbed to further invasions from the Ghana Empire and the Almohad Empire, respectively.〔 The first external influence that tended to unify the country was Islam. The Islamization of Mauritania was a gradual process that spanned more than 500 years. Beginning slowly through contacts with Berber and Arab merchants engaged in the important caravan trades and rapidly advancing through the Almoravid conquests, Islamization did not take firm hold until the arrival of Yemeni Arabs in the 12th and 13th centuries and was not complete until several centuries later. Gradual Islamization was accompanied by a process of Arabization as well, during which the Berber masters of Mauritania lost power and became vassals of their Arab conquerors.〔 From the 15th century to the 19th century, European contact with Mauritania was dominated by the trade for gum arabic. Rivalries among European powers enabled the Arab-Berber population, the Maures (Moors), to maintain their independence and later to exact annual payments from France, whose sovereignty over the Sénégal River and the Mauritanian coast was recognized by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Although penetration beyond the coast and the Senegal River began in earnest under Louis Faidherbe, governor of Senegal in the mid-19th century, European conquest or "pacification" of the entire country did not begin until 1900. France created the boundaries of contemporary Mauritania and administered it until the independence in the 1960s. Because extensive European contact began so late in the country's history, the traditional social structure carried over into modern times with little change.〔 French rule brought legal prohibitions against slavery, and an end to interclan warfare. During the colonial period, the population remained nomadic, but many sedentary peoples, whose ancestors had been expelled centuries earlier, began to trickle back into Mauritania. As the country gained independence in 1960, the capital city Nouakchott was founded at the site of a small colonial village, the Ksar, while 90% of the population was still nomadic. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Precolonial Mauritania」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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