HARATIN

also spelled Harratin, black-skinned inhabitants of oases in the Sahara, especially in southern Morocco and Mauritania, who constitute a socially and ethnically distinct class of workers. Scholars speculate that the Haratin came into being as a result of ancient interbreeding between indigenous blacks and Indo-Europeans, possibly Berbers. In the 17th century they were forcibly recruited into the 'Abid al-Bukhari, the elite black army of the Moroccan Mawlay Isma'il. In modern times they are, in effect, serfs tied to the land, no longer slaves, as they originally are presumed to have been, but without the privileges of freedmen. The Haratin work in the palm groves or as herdsmen in the south; those who can migrate north are employed in menial jobs attached to the soil.