The Mauritanian Thirty Years' War (1644-74) is…
1540 CE to 1683 CE
This Sanhaja war of liberation, or Char Bouba, led by Nasir ad Din, a Lemtuna imam, is, however, unsuccessful; the Berbers are forced to abandon the sword and become vassals to the warrior Arab groups.
Thus, the contemporary social structure of Mauritania can be dated from 1674.
The warrior groups or Arabs dominate the Berber groups, who turn to clericalism to regain a degree of ascendancy.
At the bottom of the social structure are the slaves, subservient to both warriors and Islamic holy men.
All of these groups, whose language is Hassaniya Arabic, became known as Maures.
The bitter rivalries and resentments characteristic of their social structure will later be fully exploited by the French.
Free blacks, culturally related to Africans in the south, settle in the Senegal River Basin.
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