Although Romania has, par excellence, a majority Caucasian population, throughout history, on the territory of our country have lived including Africans and Asians, most of us reach us through a military situation.
“Arapii” in the Dobrogea area. Photo: Archive
The presence of Africans or “Araps”, as the Arabs with dark skin were called, in Western Europe was already a habit, since the sixteenth century. And this under the conditions in which great European powers such as England, France and Spain were strong colonial empires, both in Americas, but also in Africa and Asia. People of color were generally used for households in royal or noble palaces, as workers in ports and deposits, as two or simply with the role of exotic companions in the alias of the French and British aristocracy. In the Romanian Principalities, at the other end of Europe, without access to the colonial areas of Africa, America and Asia, color populations were practically unknown to most locals.
This would change in the 19th century, when there were founded villages of Muslim “Arapi”, but also at the beginning of the 20th century, when on the fields of Bărăgan, to the stupor of the locals, they got to work for corn groups of Africans and Indians. The story of the color populations on the territory of Romania is unique, interesting, but little known to the general public, representing an almost unspoken page in national history.
The outpost at the end of the empire
The story of the “Araps” on the territory of Romania begins in Dobrogea. Until he entered the composition of the Kingdom of Romania in 1878, the Danube Land to the Black Sea was, for 460 years, an outpost from the end of the Ottoman Empire. With a rich history, marked by Greek, Byzantine and Genoese trade, Ottoman Dobrogea was a poor land, dominated by fishing villages and flocks with sheep-here was a more sourced agricultural community. The Ottoman authorities kept the remaining forests with sanctity and charged as hard as possible to the transhumant shepherds who came from Wallachia to graze their sheep in the Dobrogea plains. Without too much interest from the Ottoman authorities for the development of the area, Dobrogea could not boast too many more ladies-maybe Cernavoda, Tulcea with his huge bazaar, and Silistra, the residence of the foot, the capital of Vilayet. We cannot help but remember the Babadag, Medgidia and Mangalia. Until 1829, when it was returned to Wallachia, it also contributed to the importance of the area and Raiaua Braila. Otherwise, the area was dominated by fishermen, shepherds and rural communities. On the Danube channels and through the ports the pirates operated. Their most famous base was in Sulina, from where the attacks on Greek, Turkish or any other nation launched, only prey.
Camp from the First World War, caricature. Photo: Profimedia
The ethnic composition of this Ottoman outpost was totally different from today. The Romanians were minorities. According to the statistics offered by Ion Ionescu from Brad, in the first half of the 19th century, 15,764 families lived in Dobrogea, of which 47.58% were Muslims, 23.19% Romanians, 14% Bulgarians and 11% Slavs. The category of Muslims also included the groups of Tatars and Cerchezi, brought by Ottomans for defensive purposes. That is why, when it was to change the three rich counties in South Bessarabia with Ottoman Dobrogea, the Romanian authorities crushed their nose, and the national press abolished those who ended the fair with the Russians. “In order to keep in respect and order the wild populations of Dobrogea, we will have to maintain a considerable army there“, Write the journalists from” Press “, an official conservative from 1878. Including Eminescu in the pages of the newspaper” Timpul “criticized this exchange offered by the Russians. Especially for conservatives, Dobrogea was a puddle country, without economic stake.
The villages of Dobrogeni “Araps”
In this Ottoman Dobroge, through the sunburned villages, all kinds of nations lived, with different ethnic origins. By 1934, Captain MD Ionescu wrote that a certain Hasan Pass, probably the Master of Silistra, thought about populating Dobrogea with “Arapi”, that is, with Arabs, but probably some of the North African Descend-is that these colonists had a very dark color of the skin: “The Hasan Pass brought to Dobrogia 145 Arab families, a people whose agricultural aptitudes are recognized. These families were settled in Docuz-Agaci (nine trees) and in five other villages. By 1860, this colony was still in Dobrogia and prosper through agriculture“Wrote the captain. The Swiss anthropologist Eugene Pittard, who visited Dobrogea in 1913, confesses that he also encountered the” harap “. Analyzing from an anthropological point of view, it came to the conclusion that some of these Arabs, originally around the Red Sea, had black racial influences, especially because of the slave trade in the central-African area, but also on the coast.
These unique characters in the Dobrogean ethnic landscape were Ottoman soldiers, recruited from the Arab or North African provinces and left in Dobrogea. Most likely they served in the Arabian garrison, near Silistra. According to the Ottoman census of 1850, 145 “Arapi” were in Ottoman Dobrogea, that is about 0.9% of the population. The five villages of the Arabs, some with suggestive names, such as Arabic Köi, have prospered over time, with small exceptions- at least this confessed, in 1861, the French geographer Guillaume Lejean. The most prosperous was Dokuz Agaç (no – nine trees), today the town of Măgura. The secret of the prosperity of these communities would have been the skill of the Syrians and North Africans to work the Earth in drought conditions. According to the testimonies, the five villages with Arabs were on the Romanian-Bulgarian border today.
Dobrogenic Arabs did not survive Greater Romania
A little things are known about these communities. Most likely they were organized according to the Ottoman administrative system, being veterans left at the fireplace and who received land in exchange for military service. It is certain that the inclusion of Dobrogea in the Kingdom of Romania did not concern the Arabs from Dobrogea. After 1878 and the establishment of the new borders, some of the Arab veterans prefer to emigrate to the Ottoman Empire. In 1915, the Swiss anthropologist Eugène Pittard said that there are, in all Dobrogea, only 14 “Arapi”, all men, without the possibility of reviving the community. Until 1930, these Dobrogenic Arabs completely disappeared.
“Agricultural colonies of color prisoners”
Not only in Dobrogea there were temporarily, which is right, communities of Arabs and Africans. In March 1917, Muntenia and Oltenia were under German occupation, following the catastrophic campaign in the autumn of 1916. On this territory, the German authorities began to transfer over 3,000 African prisoners. The four camps were in Slobozia (Ialomița), Morile Marculești, Monastery (Călărași county) and Turnu Măgurele. “In March 1917, over 3,000 prisoners from northwest and central Africa, as well as India, were transferred to Romania, where the so-called agricultural colonies of the prisoners of color were organized. “stated for “Adevărul” Professor Vitalie Buzu.
The African army from the end of the 19th century. Photo: Profimedia
These Africans and Indians were prisoners of war, on the western front – more precisely, colonial troops used by English and French in the exhausting struggle in trenches. Muntenia and Oltenia, being the agricultural territories, became the perfect destination for them, to be used to collect the harvest: “The history of German camps built during the First World War begins on the Western Front. The great losses suffered by Anglo-French on the western front in 1914-1916 determined the mobilization of human resources in the colonies. Military units with Afro-Asian natives have become involved in the great battles of the old continent. Inevitably, many of them fell in German prison. Color prisoners were organized in Wünsdorf and Zossen, Germany. The huge mortality of the prisoners in these camps caused the German authorities to seek solutions. After consultations with Turkey and Austria, it was decided to transfer prisoners to Romania“, Reports the historian.
Eager to fight at Mărășești
The first tranches of prisoners have proven to be too weak, most likely due to few food, but also the improper transport conditions. Many have reached the domains of the boyar Dumitru Seceleanu in Mărculeşti. “In Ialomiţa, for the work of the field, French prisoners, even anamite, are so weak, due to lack of food, that their work is non-existent.“, The Prime Minister of Romania, Pro-German, Alexandru Marghiloman, said. Many were harvested by lung, kidney or infectious diseases such as tuberculosis. Those who resisted came to adapt well. In Romania they had food and hospitality. “Easy thing: 400 gr. Bread, 100 gr. Meat, 250 gr. Mămăligă, 125 gr. Green, 75 gr. Rice, 300 gr. Radish, 25 gr. Salt, 12 gr. Coffee, 30 gr.“, Wrote Ic Filitti, the prefect of Ialomiţa county in 1916, about the menu of the prisoners. Often, the food was provided by the locals, a curious part to see people with black skin, others simply from humanity.
In addition to the contributions of the Romanians, the prisoners were distributed and aid from the Red Cross, as it results from the memoirs of Dumitru Seceleanu: “At Moşia Mărculeşti, in the valley, there was a camp of French prisoners from the colonies and another camp of English prisoners, soldiers brought from the colonies; from India and other colonies. The prisoners were cared for by the Swiss Red Cross, based in Geneva, and from where they were sent, twice, and a 5 kg, Sugar, coffee, tea, missing from the country. However, they were urged not to go and see their job. “
