Amo Husserl
Superstar
pretty much confirms that most of the Moors were berber and not black african. she even has west asian in her. which comes via North African.
"Portrait of a Moor"
It’s funny how we’re suppose to look at North Africans and sub Saharan Africans as two completely different people that have nothing to do with each other.
Have you even seen north africans? They mostly look mulatto or arab.
A lot of ancient North African history was buried. A lot of mixing went on.are berbers not african?
Ancient Libyans had contact with Ancient Egyptians and became Pharaohs by their 22nd Dynasty.
Phoenicians from the Levant had continuous contact with Libyans around this time as well. So did Ancient Greeks.
North African coastline was once part of the Roman Empire. At times North Africans are shown as being darker and lighter.
It's possible they weren't "black" at all but a colony of Levant peoples that mixed with Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and Phoenicians.
By the time Muslim Arabs crossed the Strait of Gibraltar into the Iberian Peninsula the Trans-Saharan Slave Trade was centuries old and Arabs consolidated the northern portion of the continent.
It's possible the native "black" identity of North Africa was mixed out well before or during the arrival of the Arabs and the slaves brought from the south mixed with Berbers in low numbers. It's also possible Muslim Sub-Saharan "black" Africans were rallied into the Iberian Peninsula and southern portion of continental Europe as soldiers for Arab expansion. Before the Trans-Atlantic Trade got poppin' forreal forreal, there was likely a noticeable population of Sub-Saharan "black" Africans who converted to Christianity and remained on the continent or moved north into the British Isles or went back to the North African coast to become pirates.
I gotta book somewhere...
History of North Africa: From the Arab Conquest to 1830 by Charles-Andre Julien.
Tl;dr, Berbers were probably "black" early on, Pharaoh Narmer, but weren't by the time the Arabs invaded the Iberian Peninsula.
Any blackamoors you see were probably converts-turned-soldiers from the Trans-Saharan Slave Trade.