The Alarifes from Santo Domingo: the Hidden Story of the Muslims who Built the First European City in America

Authors

  • José F. Buscaglia Salgado University at Buffalo, Estados Unidos

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.71564/dh.vi1.4

Keywords:

Hispaniola, Puerto Real, Santo Domingo, Cathedral of Santa María la Menor, Muslims, Berbers, Master Builders, Alessandro Geraldini, Sugar Mills

Abstract

This article furnishes documental proof and evidence gathered from the architectural record to demonstrate the existence of a community of peninsular (Andalusi) and Maghrebian Muslims in the early period of formation of American societies in the 16th Century and, more specifically in the Island of Hispaniola. In this way it presents convincing evidence that the principal monument of the initial stage of construction of the city of Santo Domingo de Guzman, the Cathedral of Santa Maria la Menor, was the work of Muslim building masters or alarifes.

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References

AYALA, Juan de (1965). A Letter to Ferdinand and Isabella, trad. Charles E. Nowell, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

BUSCAGLIA SALGADO, José F. (2003). Undoing Empire, Race and Nation in the Mulatto Caribbean. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

DEAGAN, Kathleen (1995). Puerto Real: The Archaeology of a Sixteenth-Century-Spanish Town in Hispaniola. Miami: University Press of Florida.

DIEVE, Carlos Esteban (1981). “La cultura cristiano islámica medieval y su presencia en Santo Domingo”. Boletín del Museo del Hombre Dominicano, vol. 18.

GERALDINI, Alessandro (1977). Itinerario por las regiones subequinocciales. Santo Domingo: Editorial del Caribe.

WALTER PALM, Edwin (1955). Los monumentos arquitectónicos de La Española, con una introducción a América, vol. 1. Barcelona: Seix Barral.

Published

2014-12-01

How to Cite

Buscaglia Salgado, J. F. (2014). The Alarifes from Santo Domingo: the Hidden Story of the Muslims who Built the First European City in America. Dirāsāt Hispānicas. Tunisian Journal of Hispanic Studies, (1), 43–54. https://doi.org/10.71564/dh.vi1.4

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Section

Articles