Historical records document that from 1492 through the early 1600's an estimated 500,000 Jews and Muslims were exiled from Spain and Portugal due to the Spanish Inquisition. However, in the 'Golden Age of the Moor' , Brunson and Rashidi record that 'over a million Moors settled in France' alone. It is known, for fact, that the family known as the 'Saulniers' were amongst these one million or less to settle in France. Hundreds of thousands of Muslim exiles escaped to their ancestral homelands in the Maghreb al Aksa - the “Farthest West” (Mainly Morocco, Mauretania, Tunisia and Algeria). The Saulniers, in particular, were amongst the Muslim Berbers, Moriscos, who made their way to France where most Moriscos became Huguenots. However, some of them converted to Catholicism to avoid execution, as the Huguenots were also a persecuted people despised by the Catholic Church under Louis XIV. Such converts were also called 'Conversos.' The Huguenots had occupied the southern-eastern provinces of France, generally an area known as Languedoc. Still in my early research, it is unknown to me, or any relative I have come across, what was the original surname of the Saulnier family. What must be taken into consideration is that it was not common for Muslims or any Arab to take a surname as opposed to the common practice of taking surnames seen on a large scale in the west. It was a common practice of the Muslims to take the first name of their father to be their ‘last’ or ‘sur-’ name. For example, you will find names such as ‘Muhammad ibn Abdallah’ or ‘Muhammad son of Abdallah’ ; or you will also find people using their place of origin as their last name, for example, ‘Muhammad al Maghrebi’ or ‘Muhammad of the Maghreb.’In this case, even it had been known what the name of the first Morisco (descendant of a Moor) to be given the title ‘Saulnier’ (Fr. ‘saule-’ + -’nier’ meaning literally, ‘people of the willow trees’, suggesting that the family at a time lived in an area largely populated by willow trees. It may also be that the name ‘Saulnier’ is a corrupted spelling of the Arbc. word ‘Saultan’ or ‘Sultan’, then the meaning of the name would suggest that they were ‘people of or from the Sultan - of Spain’) was, it would not change any understanding of the research. Though knowledge of a previous last name in which to title the Saulniers is missing, simple knowledge of the historical fact that the Saulniers are descendants of Moors who emigrated to France, fortunately, has been beneficial enough. To add, on the family crest is a picture of an Almoravid Moor. Though much is known of the account of the Saulniers after the Inquisition, I have, with great reason, decided I will not focus too much on our family history succeeding the Inquisition. It is more in my interest to explain our origins and rich heritage in Morocco and Spain, the period leading up to the Inquisition and a brief explanation of the emigration of the Saulnier family from southern France to Beaubassin (Nova Scotia). I have decided to name this work ‘From Rebat to Beaubassin’ because I find it to be the best fitting title explaining the long journey of the Saulnier family from the Rebat in Morocco to Canada (Beaubassin in Nova Scotia- New France). By this short work, I hope to encourage others of the Saulnier family to learn more about our Moroccan ancestry, and God Willing, more works and more research will be done in this area. I believe that in time, a more in-depth understanding and knowledge of our account will be sought out and acquired. I begin with stating that of the Berber Moors to occupy Spain were the Hawwara, Luwata (synonymous with Sanhadja), Nafza, Masmuda, Miknasa, Zanata (again synonymous with Sanhadja according to some scholars) and Sanhadja. It is from the Sanhadja that ‘our’story begins. The Berbers by tradition are normally divided into two historical lineages, one called Zenata and the other Sanhadja. According to Ibn Khaldun the Sanhadja of the Maghreb to whom belonged the veiled Tuareg, Lamta, Lamtuna, Kunta, Gomara and Masmuda, of the Medieval period lived in remote times “in the country near the riff of Abyssinia” and “veiled themselves with litham, a garb which distinguishes them from other peoples.” The Sanhadja, known as the Mulaththamun (people of the veil) or the Mobt-Themim (wearers of the veil), were responsible for the second significant Moorish invasion of al-Andalus (the Arabic name for Islamic Spain). Many of the Moors in Spain are known to have come from the Sanhadja by Arab historians. It is from these by which the later “Moorish” dynasties in Spain and North Africa were established. The Lamtuna of the Sanhadja, our ancestry springing from amongst these, today called Aulammiden, are the Sanhadja generally recognized by scholars on North Africa to have comprised the original Almoravid or El Murabetun Moorish peoples and dynasty. By the late 1050’s the Lamtuna lived to the South of present day Rio d’Oro in the country now called Spanish Sahara. It was within this period that a religious zealot named Youssef ibn Tashfin, a Lamtuna Berber from Adrar in what is now Mauretania, arose. He set up a rebat or hermitage in the desert from which to propagate Islam and to restore the Muslim people to the complete submission to the One True God and to free them from any corruption. His movement was known as El Murabetun (people of the rebat), deformed by Europeans into ‘Almoravides’, the first of three Berber dynasties. The Murabetun were Muslims who manned outposts, studied, and carried forth the word of Islam. The Rebat was the fortress or camp where Muslim warriors had traditionally trained, both for jehad (Arbc. literally meaning ‘struggle’) against ignorance and social injustice, and for inner spiritual enlightenment. After much popularity and gaining a significant amount of political support, in an incredibly short period of time, the veiled El Murabet sultans created a Berber empire which covered northwest Africa as far as Algiers and southern Spain. The El Murabetun, led by Tashfin, swept up from the desert, founded Marrakesh in 1060, captured Fez in 1069, and then pushed on into Spain. Muslim Spain, in the time of the romantic Cid Campeador Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, was divided into 23 Taifas, or petty principalities. The El Murabetun had little difficulty in dominating them on the pretext of helping to defeat Christian armies, as they did at Zallaqa near Badajoz in 1086. They took Granada, Cordoba and Seville in the south, Badajoz, Valencia and Saragossa in the north, although they were unable to hold them for long. Tashfin’s son, Ali, ruled the empire from 1120 to 1143 and it was with him that the once fierce and austere Almoravids abandoned the veil to become luxury-loving potentates in Andalusia. In a short period of a hundred years, the Almoravids lost all power in Andalusia. It was not long after that the ‘Reconquests’ had began, in which by about 1200A.D., most of the Islamic control was removed by uprising Catholic armies. Nearly all Muslim leadership fled the Iberian Peninsula, most Arabs left while nearly all Berbers remained. Some of them (the Berbers) remained scattered throughout southern Spain, however, most of them were in Granada. Parts of Moorish Spain held out until the late 1500’s, but Granada was the last Islamic stronghold in Spain. However, the collapse of the Moorish Empire did not occur overnight as it may seem. It took centuries and the wars were fought on many fronts by such renowned leaders as King Alphonso and his valiant warrior El Cid. Following the Reconquest of the Catholics, an uneasy truce was observed, during which the remaining Moors of Portugal and Spain converted to Catholicism, adopted Spanish names, kept a low profile, and like most Moors, generally practiced Islam and spoke Berber or Arabic only in the home. There is no doubt that our Moorish ancestors involved themselves in this act along with the others, as it was absolutely impossible for them to do otherwise. If our Moorish ancestors had resisted, they would’ve been burned at the stake by the Catholic Church and the so-called ‘Saulnier’ family would’ve never existed at anytime after this. The low profile kept by the Moors worked for a short while, but eventually, the Church’s pressure on the Moors grew irresistible. In 1492, Granada, the last Moorish stronghold in Spain, was taken by the soldiers of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, and the Moors were expelled from Spain. In 1496, to appease Isabella, King Manuel of Portugal announced a royal decree banishing the Moors from that portion of the peninsula. The Spanish King Philip III expelled the remaining Moors by a special decree issued in 1609. Fully 3,500,000 Moors, or Moriscos, as their descendants were called, left Spain between 1492 and 1610. Over one million Moriscos made their way to France where the vast majority of them became Huguenots. It is in France where many of the last descendants of the Almoravids, as well as other Berber groups settled. It was along with these that our Moorish ancestors made their trek into southern France, and were eventually titled by the native Franks as the ‘Saulnier’ ( also spelled Saunier, Saunie’, Sonier, Sonnier and Sonie’ ), from El Murabetun to supposedly ‘dwellers in the willow’, our Moroccan name and history and our Moorish identity soon forgotten through time. After becoming Huguenots, the family later legitimately made immigration to the Americas. Fifty-three years after the last Moors left Spain, Louis Saulnier was born in Vitre (Bretagne), France. Louis later became the first ‘Saulnier’ to set foot on American soil arriving in Acadia (Nova Scotia) in Canada in 1685. Louis was also on the 1693 census taken at Beaubassin. He and his wife, Louise Bastinaux, also known as Pelletier, had 13 children. Louis died on the 10th of March in 1709. The family eventually spread all throughout the United States in areas such as Louisiana, Massachusetts, South Carolina and California. Pierre Saulnier, of the 3rd generation, was deported to Liverpool, England, but later settled in Cayenne (French Guyana). His daughter Francoise, was also exiled to Liverpool where she married Alain Hebert while they were both prisoners in that country.
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