THE LAND OF THE VANDALS… a short history of Andalucia

The Iberian peninsular was a Roman colony for 600 years up to 409 AD. Roman provinces included Baetica and the legendary Lusitania. The soldiers came with ´vulgar Latin´, which is still the basis of the language today. They made dams and aqueducts, roads and bridges, which were the wonder of the civilized world and can still be seen today in places like Mérida, Carmona and Segovia, as well as myriad of smaller surviving sites. Then came the Vandals.

The Vandals were aggressive tribes from the North who tried to rule Spain as the Roman Empire collapsed. They found the land inhospitable and quickly disappeared into North Africa. So came the Visigoths, a Christian race whose occupancy left few visible signs, save a few old churches in the North. Then came the Moors.

In 711 AD, Tariq Ibn Zyadd, a Persian General, under orders from Damascus, crossed the straits and set up camp on a rock called Calpe, and promptly renamed it Jebel Tariq (Gibraltar). In two brief years his army hacked its way through Spain and across the Pyrenees into France. All the land they conquered, they named… AL ANDALUS … The land of the Vandals. They brought with them a comparatively new religion called Islam.

Almost immediately they were driven back southwards. The further they retreated the smaller became Al Andalus, until all that was left of Islamic Spain was what we now know as ANDALUCIA. A word that still conjures up a feeling of oriental sensuality.

This retreat from North to South took 800-years. First they were chased from France across the Pyrenees until, in 718, they were trounced by the Visigoth King Pelayo at Covadonga, in the mountains of Asturia. This was the beginning of what is called the Christian re-conquest of Spain.

It was another 300 years before the Visigoth capital Toledo was recaptured in 1085.

200 years later at the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, the reigning tribe of Almohads were vanquished by an alliance of the kings of Castile, Navarre and Aragon. The great caliphate of Cordoba founded by Abd arhaman fell to the Christians in 1236 and, Seville collapsed in 1248. The squabbling Moors clung to what was left for another 250 years.

Finally in 1492, the year Columbus discovered America, Granada, last bastion of Islam in Spain, fell to the Christian Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella.

Boabdil, the last Caliph, relinquished the city keys to the Christian Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella on January 2^nd 1492. He left the Alhambra by the Gate of the Seven Floors having been promised a fiefdom and freedom to continue his religion in the mountains of the Alpujaras. Taking one last look at Granada from a place thereafter called the Pass of the Last Sigh of the Moor, tears rolled down his face. His mother commented, “You do well to cry like a woman for what you failed to defend as a man!” His exile in the Alpujaras lasted two years. The Christian Monarchs had broken every promise they made and he returned, a broken man, to Morocco where he died shortly afterwards.

In 800 years the Moors had transformed the life of Andalucia. They invested it with irrigation systems that were the wonder of the world. Great acequias stretching for mile upon mile, magically greening up the parched hillsides with olives, vines, pomegranates and figs. In the fertile river valleys they grew oranges and lemons. Water was their lifeblood, a sacred resource direct from Allah.

Though known as Moors, suggesting Moroccans, they were in fact a bickering mix of Arabs, Berbers, Syrians and other nomadic tribes all united under Islam. From the moment they arrived they began breeding a new mixed race. The peculiar mix is more truly Afro/Arab/Iberian than Moorish. This mix may be seen today in the faces of its people. Andalucia is the place where Europe and Africa united long enough to make a difference.

The land itself is full of immense geographical contrasts. Its tallest peak is Mulhacen, in the Sierra Nevada. It holds the vast inaccessible mountain rages of Almijara, Alpujara and Morena.

Today it is to the Alhambra that people flock in thousands, anxious to experience the unassuming beauty of Islam’s last foothold in Europe.

As the Moors were ousted, the land was carved up into great ´latifundias´. Land was given as prizes to the Christian warlords who had helped Ferdinand and Isabella establish a wholly catholic Spain. A result of this redistribution of land meant workers became slaves to a system of sharecropping which lasted well into the 20^th century and was the most singular cause of the Spanish Civil War which began in July 1937, when, once again, Moors crossed the straits.

This time they were under the command of a Spaniard called Franco. With men and machines from Nazi Germany and Italy in tow, he began his painstaking elimination of Spain´s second attempt at democracy by bombing his own people. He ruled for 40 years re-establishing the status quo and instituting cruel reprisals, censorship and economic sanctions against republican sympathizers. Spain lay outside European politics for four decades, despite American support for the regime.

With Franco´s death in 1975, Spain´s economic and spiritual recovery could begin. The growth of tourism along the Costa del Sol did much to aid this process in Andalucia.

The soul of Andalucia has transcended forty years of Fascism. Traditional cuisine persists despite the incursion of Hamburger bars. Family life survives despite the movement of labour from Pueblo to Costa. The Catholic Church thrives, despite its past services to Franco.

Andalucia is the land of Flamenco, and cante jondo, of castles on hilltops, great wonders of Roman engineering and, from the Moors, tinkling fountains, fantastic gardens, carmens, cool courtyards, minarets. Its charming white villages, its great cities such as Seville, Cordoba and Granada, and the unending variety of its geography are a magnet for visitors from all over the world. Now a democratic monarchy under King Juan Carlos, The Land of the Vandals thrives today as never before.

compiled by our good friend David Goodland.

Potted History