Moors

Formerly the natives of Mauri tan i a (which see), but afterwards the name given to the Numidians and others, and now applied to the natives of Morocco and the neighborhood. They a isted Genseric and the Vandals in the invasion of Africa, 429, and frequently rebelled against the Roman emperors. They resisted for a time the progre of the Arab Mohammedans, but were overcome in 707, and in 1019 by them introduced into Spain, where their arms were long victorious. In 1063 they were defeated in Sicily by Robert Guiscard. The Moorish kingdom of Granada was set up in 1237, and lasted till 1492, when it fell before Ferdinand V. of Castile. The expulsion of the Moors from Spain was decreed by Charles V., but not fully carried into effect till 1609, when the bigotry of Philip III. inflicted this great injury on his country. About 1518 the Moors established the piratical states of Algiers and Tunis. In the history of Spain the Arabs and Moors must not be confounded.