HOW MUCH ARABIC BLOOD IS THERE IN CALABRIANS?

     Some friends have jokingly said to me several times that we Calabrians are “Moors,” that is Africans. In saying so, they erroneously assume that in the past all of Calabria was conquered by the African Saracens and that they remained in Calabria in large numbers, after their defeat by the Normans. Is this really the case?

     One mistake made by my friends is to assume that the history of Calabria is essentially the same as that of Sicily, which was indeed conquered totally by the Saracens who ruled over it for about two hundred years  and where “some” Arabs indeed remained after their defeat.

     Calabria’s experience with the Saracens was quite different. Although some cities were conquered and controlled “temporarily,” the Saracens never succeeded in conquering the whole region and colonizing it as they did in Sicily.

     As stated above, some areas were conquered by the Saracens, such as  Reggio, in the southernmost part of Calabria; Tropea, Amantea and the Rocca Fortress on the south-western side; Squillace, Santa Severina,  and Catanzaro on the Central-Eastern side and Cosenza, and Rossano  on the northern side.

     Reggio was conquered by the Saracens in 902. This conquest lasted a few months and a new conquest was attempted in 918 after which they forced the people to pay a yearly due of 22.000 nomismata, which was later halfed by 924. By 934 Reggio stopped the payment. In 951 the Saracens crossed  the straight and conquered Reggio and forced them to pay again. In 978-981 Reggio and other centres were sacked again. Finally all attacks ceased in 1031 with the advent of a civil war in Sicily.[i]

     Catanzaro had a worse fate than Reggio. The city was conquered and controlled and was made an emirate, but not without resistance.

During this period the city rebelled various times. In 929, as a result of a new revolt and a refusal to pay tributes, Catanzaro was heavily sacked by the Saracen general Al- Mahdi. In the year 1000 Catanzaro rebelled against the Saracen dominion returning biefly to under Byzantine control. [ii]

     Other parts of calabria were invaded as well and wherever they went their aim was to pillage and destroy.

From the ninth century the Saracen's started their incursions in Calabria...in 868 they occupied various areas in Calabria... In 906 the Saracens of Squillace, led by their leader, Olbek, having taken Catanzaro by night, killed part of the population and took the remaining ones as slaves to Squillace they took all the gold, silver and anything precious.[iii]

      In spite of the seemingly hopeless state of affairs, Calabrians did not take the invasions lying down. In same areas they revolted and fought the invaders bravely.

In 921 an insurrection of Calabrian Christians against the Saracens forced them to abandon Calabria; but the following year, led by a certain Mikael (Asklabio), or chief of the Saracens of Calabria, returned to our lands that they sacked and destroyed, until on 934, after a Christian Calabrian revolt they were finally and conclusively forced  out of Calabria....[iv]

     But the incursions did not end. Our people were in a state of ongoing terror for a long time still. The Saracens could appear at any time, unannounced, to pillage, destroy and take slaves, until they were finally defeated by Catholic forces and pushed back to Africa

     Therefore, the assertion that Calabrians are in large part “Moors” is unfounded. The Saracens used Calabria as an area to pillage and to take young people away as slaves. They did not settle there as a people, nor did they create large colonies as they did in Sicily. The reason was simple: their people would have been in danger by the Byzanthines who ruled "most" of Calabria,  by the Normans that followed them and by angry locals who did not take invasions by non-Christians as acceptable and rebelled whenever they could.

     Historian, Augusto Placanica synthesizes the struggle between the Saracens and the Byzantines in Calabria in the following statement:  "Calabria… was a systematic battlefield…in the mortal challenge between the Arabs and the Eastern Empire."[v] The calabrian areas that were temporarily conquered were simply Arab military “arrowheads” into enemy territory; they were strategic locations from where future expansions were to take place. Some places, like Tropea, Amantea and Rocca Angitola became simply military fortresses kept for strategic purposes.

    Whatever their strategic move, as Norman Douglas summarized in his classic work, Old Calabria, "...their methods involved appalling and enduring evils." Yet, as he clearly understood, "...they never attained their end, the subjection of the mainland."(vi)

     Our people's response to the Saracen arrival was to fight back when they could or simply move inland, which is the main reason why countless villages were created on the mountanous regions, away from the coast.

     Carmelo Martorana, a 19th century Sicilian historian who saw the Saracens as part of his ancestry, and who held them in the highest esteem, wrote the following about the Saracens' attitude toward Calabria in particular and toward the rest of Italy in general.

(After having subjugated Sicily, the Saracens) “…put forth such strength, that the riches of the Italic territory and its peoples waited for two centuries as prepared prey of the Sicilian Saracens as a meal specifically destined to fatten those our peoples. Thus the Sicilian emirs invested ever-increasing concern to denuding that land with incursions and thefts instead of subjugating them with sieges and with judiciously prepared battles. Furthermore the Arab historians especially praise the Sicilian governors, for having enriched the nation (Sicily) and filled the treasury with ransacking and the tributes they oppressed Calabrians with.”(vii)

     The Saracens, therefore, proved to be more interested in sporadic pillaging than conquering; pillaging that went on for decades which impoverished the Calabrians, while enriching the Sicilian Saracens.

     In spite of the ongoing incursions, Calabria stood firm against the Saracens. The Orthodox Byzantines, the Catholic Normans and the fiery Calabrians, created a barrier the Saracens tried to totally penetrate in vain. Finally they were pushed back into their ships and were forced to go back to where they originated from.

© Copyright, Michael Caputo, 2010

Contact the author at: mcaputo4163@rogers.com

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