Moorish Civic Relations and Concepts

Moorish Civic Relations and Concepts: A Historical and Cultural Analysis In Moorish Civic Relations and Concepts, Akinsanya Idrissa El presents a rigorous examination of sovereignty, nationality, and law in the Atlantic world-challenging modern assumptions about race, citizenship, and legal identity. Grounded in treaty law, the law of nations, and early American constitutional development, this work argues that nationality-not race-was the original determinant of legal status, protection, and freedom. Drawing upon the 1786-1787 Morocco-United States Treaty of Friendship, reciprocal enslavement practices, diplomatic redemption, and landmark case studies, the book demonstrates how Moorish and nationals were systematically removed from the jurisdiction of international law through racial reclassification. This transformation, the author contends, was not merely social or cultural-it was juridical. By converting persons into property and replacing nationality with racial caste, Anglo-American legal systems dismantled the very mechanisms through which freedom had historically been secured. This book traces: 1. Morocco's sovereign recognition of the United States and its legal consequences 2. Nationality as the activating condition for diplomatic protection and redemption 3. The collapse of treaty-based remedies through racialization 4. The distinction between lawful denationalization and enforced legal nullity 5. How chattel slavery functioned as a jurisdictional void rather than a lawful status change Moorish Civic Relations and Concepts situates Moorish civic identity within the broader development of international law and American legal history. It offers a framework for understanding enslavement not only as a moral catastrophe, but as a structural legal rupture with enduring consequences. This work is essential reading for those interested in: International law and treaty history. Early American foreign relations. Nationality, sovereignty, and jurisdiction. Moorish-American civic identity Legal history of slavery and race. More than a historical study, this book invites readers to reconsider how law constructs identity-and how identities erased without lawful authority may still be asserted.