In December 1777, the Moroccan Sultan Muhammad III included the United States in a list of countries to which Morocco’s ports were open. Morocco thus became the first country whose head of state publicly recognized the newly independent United States. Relations were formalized with the Moroccan–American Treaty of Friendship (also known as the Treaty of Marrakesh) negotiated by Thomas Barclay in Marrakesh, and signed by American diplomats in Europe, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams with Sultan Muhammad III in 1786.
This Treaty of Friendship only applies to Moroccan citizens or rather Moroccan subjects of that 1777 Moroccan empire. This Treaty of Friendship does not apply if you are not a Moroccan born citizen or subject. "Moorish Americans" are not included in this Treaty of Friendship. When this Treaty of Friendship was created there was no such thing as a "Moorish American". The term "Moorish American" is a nationality and has nothing to do with the country of Morocco or the Moroccan 1777 Treaty of Friendship. Dear modern American Moors this Treaty of Friendship is not a get out of jail free card.
The word "Moor" has its origin in 46 B.C. when the Romans invaded West Africa. They called the black Africans they met there Maures from the Greek word mauros, meaning dark or black. The word indicated more than one ethnic group. To Shakespeare "Moor" simply meant "black African" It is important to point out that the medieval Moors who conquered Europe should not be confused with the modern Moors. According to Chancellor Williams, "the original Moors, like the original Egyptians, were black Africans. As amalgamation became more and more widespread, only the Berbers, Arabs, and coloreds in the Moroccan territories were called Moors".
Etymology: Of The Word Moor
Moor (n.)
"North African, Berber, one of the race dwelling in Barbary," late 14c., from Old French More, from Medieval Latin Morus, from Latin Maurus "inhabitant of Mauretania" (Roman northwest Africa, a region now corresponding to northern Algeria and Morocco), from Greek Mauros, perhaps a native name, or else cognate with mauros "black" (but this adjective only appears in late Greek and may as well be from the people's name as the reverse). Also applied to the Arabic conquerors of Spain. Being a dark people in relation to Europeans, their name in the Middle Ages was a synonym for "Negro;" later (16c.-17c.); being the nearest Muslims to Western Europe, it was used indiscriminately of Muslims (Persians, Arabs, etc.) but especially those in India. Cognate with Dutch Moor, German Mohr, Danish Maurer, Spanish Moro, Italian Moro. Related: Mooress.
Moors/Blacks In Morocco:
Claims that much of the practice of slavery in Islamic societies like Morocco was benign do not explain and account for Mawlay Isma'il's enslavement of free black Muslims on an enormous scale, and serve as an injustice to the historical record. When Mawlay Isma'il ordered the conscription of black people of all ages and both sexes, the authorities proceeded with this initiative not by determining their status as slaves but on the premise of color related to African black origin, which was used to define them as outsiders, although they had been in Morocco for centuries. The recent black transplants were a small fraction of the black population compared to the overall black population that had lived in Morocco for generations. Mawlay Isma'il's project created a racial classification for enslavement that went against the tenets of the Qur'an because free black Muslims were enslaved simply because they were black, resulting in the displacement of black Moroccans outside of the community. To borrow the words of Richard Brown "Such classifying and such naming not only are ways to make others do what one wants, but also to get them to be what one wants." Hence, the construction of "other" was closely connected to power and the ends to which that power served. The discourse of power used typifications and generalizations that made blacks "others"- that they were inherently different from the rest of the free Moroccans. The French consul in Morocco, Louis de Chenier (1722-1795), observed "The words negro and slave are synonymous among the Moors, and indicate dependence and a state of humiliation incompatible ideas they have of their own freedom. Is it not astonishing that people, who have not the liberty of thinking, and who are only distinguished from those they call slaves by their colour, should hold the idea of servitude in such abhorrence?"
Moroccan–American Treaty of Friendship 1786:
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