Harry Nunez Legacy [de Villavicencio]
History of His Never Known Isleño Family Heritage
By William DeoGracias

HISPANIC-ISLEÑO HERITAGE

This is an inspiring true story of a young man's life journey. He was never fully aware of his ancestral Hispanic roots. The core and heart of the book is mainly about his bloodline. Reaching back in time, highlighting documented events of his past family history, revealing the good and bad times that they lived in. Some are painfully dramatic, and some are perilously exciting. The ending of the story also reveals that many of the subject Nunez family bloodline has passed through this life without the least bit of knowledge of some very important events concerning their rich heritage. Events that have been obscured for centuries. With the information presented here, future generations will have gained back at least some of their past family history, which was once lost.

THE MUSLIM INVASION

North African Muslim Arabs invaded the Iberian Peninsula in the year 711, conquering the Germanic Visigoths, who made their arrival there in the early fifth century. The Arabs had overtaken North Africa, wreaking havoc--converting Moroccan Berbers to Islam and folding them into their fighting force. It took about seven years to conquer nearly all of the Iberian Peninsula, which covers the entire land masses of Spain and Portugal. Sharia law, Islam's legal system, ruled over the occupied land. Anyone who did not convert became a second-class citizen. Non-Muslims who did convert never gained social status equal to a Muslim.

THE RECONQUISTA

Muslim civilizations grew and thrived until the Reconquista, or reconquest of Spanish and Portuguese territories that began in the eight through eleventh centuries. These mostly Christian military campaigns were also known as the Iberian Crusades, of which culminated with a final victory in Granada, southern Spain in 1492. The Nunez de Villavicencios fought in many of the centuries long Reconquista battles with honor. From the beginning in Castille alongside King Alfonso VIII, until the last battle in Granada. This victory was celebrated by the Catholic Monarchs, Queen Isabella I, and King Ferdinand II.

THE SPANISH INQUISITION

It is certainly thought provoking how the very rulers and citizens of the country looked upon the Spanish Jews, even some who were descendants of those who had loyally fought and died for their homeland during almost three centuries of the Spanish Reconquista; and now these rulers and non-Jewish citizens would become their killers and oppressors during the dark times of the Spanish Inquisition. Members of the Nunez family suffered and endured this horrendous plight.

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