High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Haratin (also transliterated Haratins, Harratins or Haratine, etc, singular Hartani) are oasis-dwellers in the Sahara, especially in southern Morocco and Mauritania, who make up a socially and ethnically distinct group of largely sedentary dark colored workers speaking either Berber or Arabic. Certain local traditions, supported by scholarship, hold that some populations called Haratine are indigenous black populations that became Berberised or mixed with Berbers. The name itself is of obscure origin and has been variously traced to Arabic roots meaning cultivator or Berber roots meaning "black". It may be the arabized version of ahardan, a Berber word meaning "dark colour".