According to localcollegeexplorer, the territory of modern Mauritania has been inhabited since ancient times. In the Paleolithic and Neolithic era, people with dark skin lived next to tribal groups – people from the tropical regions of Africa and light-skinned people who came from the north. Most of the peoples of the Negroid race, who led a sedentary lifestyle along the banks of rivers and lakes, remained hunters and fishermen, others became pastoralists, and still others became primitive farmers.
In the 1st millennium BC. from the north began the penetration of the tribes of the Berber-Sanhaja – pastoral nomads. They pushed the Negroid tribes to the south, and turned those who remained in the oases into slavery. Islam served as the ideological justification for this. However, the further advance of the Berber tribes to the south ran into opposition from the empire of Ghana (4th-13th centuries), whose capital, Kumbi-Sale, was located on the territory of present-day eastern Mauritania (the Hod region). In turn, the Berbers, who occupied most of the northern and central regions of modern Mauritania, created their own state formation in the Aukar region, in con. 8th c. also became dependent on the empire of Ghana.
K ser. 11th c. Islam’s ideologue Abdallah ibn Yassin around 1040 declared jihad (“holy war”) to “infidels” (i.e. Negroid tribes). The war lasted 23 years. Its result was the creation of a large political association of theocratic type called the Almoravid state (after the death of Yasin, it was headed by Abu Bakr, or Bubakr, and after his death in 1087, by his cousin and co-ruler Yusuf ibn Tash-fin). The result of the jihad was the fall of the empire of Ghana and the subjugation to the Berbers of a vast territory from the valley of the Senegal river in the south to the river. Ebro in present-day Spain. After the death of Tashfin (1106), the power of the Al-Moravid state was shaken. In the 13th-14th centuries. the southern part of the territory of present-day Mauritania (the areas adjacent to the valley of the Senegal River) was under the rule of the medieval Muslim state of Mali.
In the 14th century from north to south, the Arab tribes of Hasaniya, or Bani Hassan, who were part of the ma-kil confederation, began to move across the territory of modern Mauritania. They subjugated the Berbers (in the north and in the center of the territory of present-day Mauritania) and Negroid tribes (in the south). The Arab-Berber confrontation lasted 30 years (1644-74) and ended with the establishment of Arab domination throughout the country.
Early 15th century was marked by the penetration of Western European colonizers into the territory of modern Mauritania. The first among them were the Portuguese, followed by the Dutch, the British, and finally the French. In 1626, they founded the colony of Saint-Louis at the mouth of the Senegal River. In 1903, France declared Mauritania its protectorate, and in 1920, a colony within French West Africa (FWA) with its center in Saint-Louis. In 1957, the FZA was reorganized and Moktar uld Dadde, who came from the top of an influential marabout tribe (marabout is a traditional representative of the Muslim clergy), was instructed to form an autonomous government. The first government formed by him consisted of the French. This caused natural discontent of the national patriotic forces, under the pressure of which Ould Dadda formed a new government on January 13, 1958.
On September 28, 1958, Mauritania received the status of the autonomous Islamic Republic of Mauritania (IMR) within the French Community with the right to create constitutional bodies of internal government, and on November 28, 1960, political independence.
The ruling Mauritanian People’s Party (PMN, General Secretary – Ould Dadda) was created; May 20, 1961 adopted the first Constitution of the country; On August 20, 1961, the first head of state, the president of the IWW, was elected. They became the only candidate – Uld Dadda.
The national leadership faced the need to solve the problems of stabilizing the domestic political situation, the socio-economic development of the country, and pursuing an independent independent foreign policy. The lack of financial resources necessary for this forced Ould Daddu to seek external economic assistance, primarily from the former metropolis, which led to an increase in external state debt. The brake on the effective development of the IWW was the dominance of foreign monopolies, the archaic social structure of Mauritanian society, the instability of the domestic political situation, and the complexity of relations with neighboring countries.
All R. 1970s The problem of Western Sahara became a serious test for the IWW. The inability of the country’s leadership to solve it in July 1978 led to a military coup d’état. The president was arrested, the PMN was dissolved, and political activity was banned. Power passed to the Military Committee for National Revival (VKNV, in 1979 renamed the Military Committee for National Salvation – VKNS), whose chairmen were successively Mustafa Ould Muhammad Salek, Mahmoud Ahmed Luli (June 1979), Muhammad Huna Ould Heydalla (January 1980), Maauya Ould Sidi Ahmed Taya.
