Los Arma, Andalusí in Timbuktu. Марокканские конкистадоры из Гранады.

They arrived in Timbuktu as invaders of the Moroccan empire in the sixteenth century, but their origins were on the other side of the Mediterranean, in al-Andalus. Even today it is possible to find their footprints, and although they reached the curve of the Niger with little peace, they inhabited it for more than two hundred years.

But who were those men? The answer is one of the great curiosities of our history, as well as a great unknown.

The Arma are the descendants of the Andalusians who came to the banks of the Niger from the hand of Yuder Pacha. Be that as it may, Diego de Guevara, his original name, was from Almeria, born in Cuevas de Vera (today Cuevas de Almanzora) around 1560, in a Moorish family fled from Granada. When he was 13 years old he was taken as booty along with a hundred people by a troop of Berber pirates arrived in 23 ships. They had disembarked at Mesa Roldan under the command of the fallen Said ad-Dugali, who ordered the looting and took Tetuan to the teenager Diego.
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