Crossing the Strait from Morocco to the United States: the Transnational Gendering of the Atlantic World Before 1830
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CROSSING THE STRAIT FROM MOROCCO TO THE UNITED STATES: THE TRANSNATIONAL GENDERING OF THE ATLANTIC WORLD BEFORE 1830 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University By Marsha R. Robinson, MA ®®®®® The Ohio State University 2006 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Claire Robertson, Advisor Professor Ahmad Sikainga _________________________ Professor Stephen Hall Advisor History Graduate Program Copyright by Marsha Renee Robinson 2006 ABSTRACT This world women’s history is a comparative legal study tracing two thousand years of cultural contact through 1830 between the Saharan-based, gynecentric, Berian culture foundational to the Maliki Islam of the Berbers, Southern Arabs and Iberians, and the Mesopotamian and eastern Mediterranean patriarchy foundational to West Asiatic Islam and Western Christianity. The work explores the female-friendly Berian values common to the Saharan salt marsh diaspora and Almoravid Andalusia and North Africa, correcting patriarchal Sassanid influences upon Abbasid and Almohad omissions of female politicians from their imperial histories of the Maghrib. The European patriarchal bias began during Isabel I’s Reconquista Spain when the Spanish Inquisition attempted a purge of Berian matriliny. It continued with British harem envy, hyper-virility and political jealousy as Anglo-Americans engaged Barbary states. Western Christian philosophers, Freemasons, politicians and ministers used misperceptions of the harem to limit Western women’s economic and legal rights. In the U.S., this resulted in the simultaneous rise of domesticity, left-handed marriages, and de facto American polygyny. The Berber cultural influence on the U.S. occurred in the 1833 U.S. v. Percheman decision when the Supreme Court adopted married women’s property rights from the Siete Partidas after the Florida cession. ii Colonizers and abusive spouses do not have absolute power. Every act of coercion is an affirmation of the internal strength of the victim. +++++ Dedicated to my parents who inspired me, and my children, my husband, and the world’s best girlfriends who dreamed of this day with me iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am grateful to all of the scholars, librarians, archivists, and wise people who have guided me to this moment. I begin with Claire Robertson, my advisor, who allowed me the latitude to pursue this inquiry in my non-linear fashion and modeled the discipline necessary to complete the task. I have enjoyed the apprenticeship. To Dr. Fatema Mernissi, I owe more than words can ever express for she took seriously the quest of an insignificant daughter of a Baptist preacher from Columbus, Ohio and showed me that there is far more to African women and Islam than gender oppression. Susan Hartmann, Judy Wu, Leila Rupp, Eve Levin, Ahmad Sikainga, Stephen Hall, Jane Hathaway, Howard Crane, and Carter Findley and many more have been wonderfully supportive as they helped me meld my love of women’s lived experiences with the global perspective I developed during my undergraduate program at the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. To the Department of African American and African Studies at the Ohio State University, thank you for the keys to the non-Western world: I must thank C. Magbaily Fyle, Alamin Mazrui, Ousseina Alidou (now of Rutgers University), Paulette Peirce, Linda James-Myers, Demetrius Eudell, Joaquim Zabramba, Deo Tungaraza, Shirley Turner, Jeanne Boykin, Joby Abernathy and Sarah Twitty and more. I also thank my Arabic instructors, Joseph Zeidan, Mahdi Alosh, and all of the graduate teaching iv associates, for tolerating my focus on the written language. The turn toward the scholarly life was a gift from the faculty at Central Connecticut State University, namely Heather Munro Prescott, Norton Mezvinsky, and Matthew Warshauer, for these are the people who agreed that there might be something to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s love of Moroccan slippers. This dissertation also relies on archival sources of various kinds. I am grateful to all of the librarians and archivists who have pointed me toward the most interesting material, some of which will appear in subsequent projects. I thank the staff of the Ohio State University Libraries; Connecticut State Archives; the Hartford Seminary; the Connecticut Historical Society; the Library of Congress; the Washington Navy Yard; the Lauinger Library of Georgetown University; the Beinecke Library at Yale University; the Royal Palace Archives (Rabat, Morocco); the General Library and Archives (Rabat, Morocco); the Library of the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences at the Mohammed V University (Rabat, Morocco); the King Abdul Aziz Public Library (Casablanca, Morocco); the British Library; the British Public Records Office (Kew, England); the Rhodes- Mandela House and the Bodleian Library at Oxford University; and, the National Library of Ireland (Dublin, Ireland). I also thank the Governors and the Board of Directors of the Archbishop Marsh Library, St. Patrick’s Close, Dublin, Ireland and Mr. Christopher Smith of Senate House Library, University of London for permission. to use their documents. This research was supported by grants and associateships from the Ohio State University Graduate School, Department of History, Department of African American and African Studies, the Middle East Studies Center, and the Office of International Education for financial support during this process. v VITA June 1, 1964..............................................Born - Franklin County, Ohio 1986..........................................................B.S.F.S. International Finance and Commerce School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University 1999.........................................................M.A., American History Central Connecticut State University 1998-1999................................................Graduate Teaching Associate African American and African Studies, The Ohio State University 1999-2001, 2004-2005..............................Graduate Teaching Associate Department of History The Ohio State University 2001-2004..................................................Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellow Middle East Studies Center The Ohio State University PUBLICATIONS Research Publications. 1. Claire Robertson and Marsha Robinson, “(Re-)modeling Slavery as if Women Matter/ed,” in Women and Slavery, edited by Gwyn Campbell, Suzanne Miers and Joseph C. Miller. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2006. 2. “Birthing an Indigenous Islam: Carolyn Moxley Rouse's Engaged Surrender," Journal of African American Studies (Summer 2005). 3. Abstract of Cultures of Color in America: A Guide to Family, Religion, and Health, by Sybil M. Lassiter. Journal of Women’s History 12, no. 1 (Spring 2000): 217. 4. Abstract of A Mother’s Job: The History of Day Care, 1890-1960, by Elizabeth Rose. Journal of Women’s History 12, no. 1 (Summer 2000): 229. 5. et. al. “The Central Ohio Somali Initiative: Research on Race Relations,” United Way of Franklin County, Ohio. 2000. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract...........................................................................................................................ii Dedication.......................................................................................................................iii Acknowledgments...........................................................................................................iv Vita.................................................................................................................................vi List of Maps..................................................................................................................viii Preface............................................................................................................................ix Chapters 1. Introduction: An Alternative to Patriarchy............................................................1 2. Tiski al-Ardja and Stories about Origins and Female Power in the Berian Culture Zone.......................................................................30 3. Daughters of Ghania: Maliki Jurisprudence and the Protection of Women’s Rights in the Maghrib and Andalusia ..............................................88 4. Isabel Trastamara and Women’s Rights In Castile.............................................138 5. Variations in Matriliny: Inès de Soto, Sixteenth Century Koran Keeper of Cordoba, and Moroccan Jurist al-Qasim and Ordinary Berian Women’s Rights...............................................................................................................181 6. Mulay Ismail’s Women: Alawi Royal Women and the Drive to Expel Patriarchalists............................................................................215 7. Mary Wollstonecraft, the Rise of Homosocial Environments in West Asia and Challenges to Female-Friendly Berian Jurisprudence........................................265 8. Harriet Beecher Stowe and De Facto American Polygyny................................312 9. Conclusion: the Patriarchal Challenge to Female-Friendly Berian Values Continued................................................................................. 343 Bibliography.................................................................................................................364 vii LIST OF MAPS Map Page 1.1 900 AD..............................................................................................................21