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The town of Mogador (Essaouira)

and aspects of change in
pre‐colonial Morocco : a
bibliographical essay
a
Daniel Schroeter
a
Research Graduate, Department of Near Eastern
Studies , University of Manchester , Manchester, M13
9PL
Published online: 24 Feb 2007.

To cite this article: Daniel Schroeter (1979) The town of Mogador (Essaouira) and aspects
of change in pre‐colonial Morocco : a bibliographical essay, British Society for Middle
Eastern Studies. Bulletin, 6:1, 24-38, DOI: 10.1080/13530197908705255

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 THE TOWN OF MOGADOR (ESSAOUIRA) AND ASPECTS OF CHANGE IN
PRE-COLONIAL MOROCCO : A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
Daniel Schroeter
The foundation of Mogador/Essaouira_(al-Sawira, or al-Suwayra;
Tassurt in Berber) by the Sultan Sidi Muhammad b. 'Abd Allah in
1764,1 and its rapid growth into Morocco's most active port and
centre of trade mark a significant change in Makhzen policies
and a new trend in Moroccan history. Ten years after its
foundation, Mogador became Morocco's principal port and outlet
for the 'Alawid capital of Marrakesh. It served as the main
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entrepot for the trans-Saharan caravans, the traders of the

southern province of Sous, and European merchants. It maintained
its pre-eminent position until the end of the nineteenth century,
when the French conquered Timbuktu (1893), and other ports to the
north (Casablanca above all) deprived Mogador of much of its
former trade.
During the years preceding the reign of Sultan Muhammad III
Morocco suffered from internal upheaval due to the internecine
power struggles of various 'Alawid pretenders supported by
different factions. The years of Muhammad's rule (1757-179O)
were, in contrast, relatively stable and tranquil. The military
and administrative organization of the country was restructured,
foreign relations readjusted, and numerous treaties of commerce
and friendship with European states were signed. How and to
what extent the second half of the eighteenth century was a
departure from the preceding period still needs to be clarified.
Can Muhammad III be regarded as the "veritable architect of
'modern' Morocco," as Abdallah Laroui suggests?^

The foundation of Mogador by Muhammad III did indeed represent

a change in Morocco's relations with Europe. It was the first
town on the Moroccan coast (excluding the Portuguese and Spanish
enclaves) where European presence was pervasive. It developed
into a small diverse community of Berbers, Arabs, Jews, and
Europeans. This type of polyglot settlement was not atypical of
Mediterranean trading towns. But here it is essential to
consider Mogador in terms of the emphasis placed on relations
with Europe, and the means of conducting these relations.
Mogador can be compared with other new towns, or expanded old
centres, which were to emerge along the Muslim littoral, largely
the consequence of European economic expansion and imperialism in
the nineteenth century. European interest predominated in the
commercial relations of these towns. The early growth of
Modagor predated this period, but tensions and conflicts arising
from European economic preponderance were probably apparent in
Mogador earlier than in other towns. For this reason, Mogador
can be viewed as a vantage point for examining aspects of change
in pre-colonial Morocco.
i
There are significant aspects of Morocco in the period preceding
1830 — the years before the French occupation of Algiers —

24
 which have not been studied by historians. This fact has been
clearly pointed out in the very suggestive essay by Lucette
Valensi: Le Maghreb avant la prise d'Alger (179O-183O) (Paris,
1969) .4 In this short monograph on the pre-colonial Maghreb,
various questions of social and economic history are posed,
seeking to go beyond the outline of political and diplomatic
history.5 For Morocco an in-depth study of the period preceding
1830 has not yet been made. The standard text of Henri Terrasse,
Histoire du Maroc: des origines a 1'etablissement du Protectorat
franqais, 2 vols. (Casablanca, 1950) provides a general outline
of political events, but his analysis is essentially limited to
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assessing the achievements of each successive sultan. However,

since Le Tourneau pointed out the lack of studies for the second
half of the eighteenth century ('Le Maroc sous le regne de Sidi
Mohammed B. Abd Allah /T757-179OJ', ROMM, 1 (1966) pp.113-133),
the Spanish historian Ramon Lourido Diaz has elucidated important
aspects of this period in a study entitled Marruecos en la
segunda mitad del siglo XVIII. Vida interna : polltica,social y
religiosa durante el Sultanato de Sidi Muhammad b. lAbd Allah:
1757-1790, (Madrid, 1978). 6 By studying'various unpublished
manuscripts of Moroccan historians — al-Zayyani, al-Du'ayf,
Akensus, and others — and the Spanish archives, the author has
analysed this period in considerable detail.
Both Lourido Diaz and Le Tourneau agree with Terrasse's view
of the sultan: a pious man, who reorganized the fiscal and
military administration of the country bringing about a relative
degree of stability, albeit by traditional means. This view is
certainly supported by the histories of Moroccan contemporaries,
such as al-Zayyani.^ Le Tourneau emphasizes that the sultan was
able to maintain the economic independence of Morocco during this
period. All three criticize Muhammad III for his lack of
fundamental innovation in the administration of the country,
supporting Terrasse's view that 'the most serious reproach that
can be made against his policy was that it lacked originality. '°
Originality it certainly lacked, in the Western sense of
reform, but such a criticism appears irrelevant in the context
of eighteenth-century Morocco. Yet in certain respects Muhammad
III laid the foundations and established precedents for the
growing foreign interference of the following century and the
basis of power of the 'Alawid dynasty, archaic as his methods
may have been. Henceforth, the sultans were to rely on
commerce as the major source of revenue of the Makhzen through
the imposition of customs. Muhammad III hoped to replace the
need for a strong army independent of society, by an
independent taxation system, as Laroui points out. 1 0 The
foundation of Mogador was the direct manifestation of this
ambition. So, though Muhammad may not have been the architect
of modern Morocco, Laroui is correct in asserting that a seed
for foreign intervention was planted by this system, in its
reliance on overseas commerce dominated by foreigners. 11

25
 No doubt there is room for further study and analysis of the
era of Muhammad III. But the years following until 1830 — a
period when relations with Europe almost totally abated
(Mogador was the only port remaining open to European trade
throughout this p e r i o d ) — are even more enigmatic. No
comprehensive study on Morocco during these years exists. Of a
very general nature, the collective textbook on Moroccan history
by Jean Brignon and others, entitled Histoire du Maroc
pasablanca, 1967) offers a useful outline of the major trends.
Nevertheless, criteria for the study of Morocco during the period
have still to be formulated.
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Considerably more attention has been paid to Morocco from 1830

onwards. First and foremost, Jean-Louis Miege's extensive study,
Le Maroc et 1'Europe : 1830-1894, 4 vols. (Paris, 1961-1962),
remains an essential source for pre-colonial Moroccan
developments. The focus of the study is Morocco's relations with
Europe and the pervasive social and economic consequences of this
contact. Mogador, as the most important centre of European and
Moroccan exchange for most of these years, is much discussed.
P.Guillen's L'Allemagne et le Maroc de 1870 a 1905 (Paris, 1967)
is an exhaustive study of German-Moroccan relations in much the
same style as Miege. The first German merchants in Morocco were
established at Mogador, and it was viewed as a primary town for
German expansion. ^

Since the French invasion of Algiers in 1930 — the period

when Miege begins his study — the impact of European expansion
was increasingly felt in Morocco. The fall of Algiers is also
the point of departure for Abdallah Laroui's recently completed
study on the origins of Moroccan nationalism: Les origines
sociales et culturelles du nationalisme marocain (Paris, 1977).
Spain's war against Morocco in 1860, the occupation of Tetuan,
and subsequent indemnities paid by the Makhzen are viewed by
Edward Szymanski in 'La guerre hispano-marocaine 1859-1860.
Debut de I1histoire du Maroc' (Rocznik Orientalistyczny, 29
(1965), pp.53-65) and Germain Ayache in 'Aspects de la crise
financiere au Maroc apres 1'expedition espagnole de I860 1
(Revue Historique, 220 (1958), pp.271-31O) as the beginning of
Morocco's modern history, in the sense that thereafter the
political and economic domination of Europe sapped the independ-
ence of the Makhzen, culminating in the Protectorate in 1912.
Once again, a suggestion for the periodization of Morocco's
modern history is made. If we view the concept of Morocco's
'modern' history in terms of the degree to which imperialism
affected Moroccan society, then the last decades of the
nineteenth century could be considered as critical. Recent works
by Edmund Burke III (Prelude to Protectorate in Morocco.
Pre-colonial Protest and Resistance : 1860-1912 (Chicago, 1976)),
and Ross E.Dunn (Resistance in the Desert. Moroccan Responses to
French Imperialism: 1881-1912 (Madison, 1977)), stress the events
leading up to the establishment of the French Protectorate from
the perspective of Moroccan reactions to European inroads.

26
 For the French historians of the colonial era Morocco's modern
history begins in 1912. The study of Moroccan cities, especially
the 'imperial' cities, was often their focus. Jacques Caille*
wrote a detailed and descriptive book on the history of the
monuments and constructions of Rabat, as well as the diplomatic
and commercial relations of the city (La ville de Rabat jusqu'au
Protectorat franqais, 3 vols. (Paris, 1949)). In a similar
descriptive style, G.Deverdun writes about Marrakesh (Marrakech
des origines a 1912, 2 vols. (Rabat, 1959, 1966)). Of much
broader value for understanding the Moroccan and/or Islamic city
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is the work of Roger Le Tourneau, Fes avant le Protectorat

(Casablanca, 1949), which thoroughly examines the economic,
social, and institutional structure of society in Fez.13 i,e
Tourneau's other books on Fez, viz. Fez in the Age of the
Marinides (Norman, Oklahoma, 1961) and La vie quotidienne a Fes
en 1900 (Paris, 1965), are basically abridgements of his magnum
opus. This, in effect, underlines the main shortcomings of Le
Tourneau's approach — Fez appears fundamentally as an
unchanging organism from Marinid times to 1912. His views are
synthesized in his essay, Les villes musulmanes de 1'Afrique du
Nord (Algiers, 1957). In this essay he analyses transformations
in the colonial era, but does not deal with the changes already
apparent in the pre-colonial period. Although the importance of
Le Tourneau's work should not be underestimated,in some ways
he shares the view of other authors on pre-colonial Morocco —
the city is viewed as timeless,as ossified in its archaic
institutions and traditions — implying that the establishment
of the French protectorate is the major juncture for their
transition.
Yet the study of Arabic sources, which the above studies
largely lack, and even a careful analysis of European primary
sources (such as we have in Midge's study), will no doubt reveal
that towns were evolving in various ways. Even before European
influence was relevant, Moroccan cities can hardly be viewed as
static. The analytical section of Norman Cigar's D.Phil.thesis
An Edition and Translation of the Chronicles from Muhammad
al-Qadiri's Nashr al-Mathani (Oxford, 1976), dealing with
political factions of Fez in 'Alawid Morocco before the reign of
Muhammad III, demonstrates very markedly that institutions were
evolving in various ways. Cigar's short analytical section
relies on a very wide variety of Arabic sources, allowing him to
look at aspects of Fez not covered by Le Tourneau. For a later
period, Kenneth Brown in his People of SalS. Tradition and
Change in a Moroccan City : 183O-193O(tia.nchester U.P., 1976)
rejects the view of the static pre-colonial city, and examines
major changes in Sale accelerated by European economic expansion.
Increasingly, scholars have been concerned with constructing
models for the Islamic city, of taking a more analytical approach
towards defining its dynamics (e.g. I. Lapidus, Muslim Cities in
the Later Middle Ages ('Harvard U.P., 1967)). This has enabled

27
 historians to compare and contrast Moroccan with Middle Eastern
cities.14 Kenneth Brown suggests that the western Muslim city
was generally an aggregative community in contrast to the more
loose-knit cities of the East, as analysed by Lapidus. 1 ^ Edmund
Burke, in his article 'Morocco and the Near East : Reflections on
Some Basic Differences' (Archives EuropSennes de Sociologie (10,
1969), pp. 70-94), emphasizes that the Moroccan city was much
more at the mercy of the tribes. The western Muslim town can
be conceptualized as 'pseudo-oasis' and as 'super-sug', where an
uneasy symbiotic relationship of interdependence between city
and nomads exists. 16 A recent article by F.Stambouli and
A.Zghal, 'Urban Life in Pre-colonial North Africa' in the
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British Journal of Sociology, 27 (1976) pp.1-20 constructs a

model for the North African city, considering the degree to
which towns enjoyed political, economic, and religious autonomy.
Their major premise is that urban life is conditioned by the
interaction of three main interdependent participants: the
central power, the townsmen, and the tribesmen.1'
Mogador differed in some respects from traditional North
African towns, principally because of foreign influence. In
some ways it resembled a colonial town, but during a period when
it could not be perceived as such. This can be seen in its
relatively regular chessboard design (it was designed by a
Frenchman named Cournut), and the predominance of the foreign
sector of the population. If the Makhzen originally
controlled the commerce of the town, it gradually — and
inevitably — lost control to European interests. Therefore, if
any model can be ascribed to Mogador — certainly the classical
Chinese city to which Stambouli and Zghal compare it can only
be relevant in an historical context1" — a concept of the
pre-colonial or colonial port-town along the Muslim coastline
should be formulated. °

iii
The numerous published accounts and narratives by European
travellers and residents in Morocco paint a stereotyped picture
of Morocco and its people.2° Although the reliability of these
books varies greatly, the attitudes they represent suggest the
kind of interaction which occurred between Moroccans and
Europeans. One type of European in Morocco, for example, was
the merchant, anxious to maximize his interests in the Moroccan
trade. Characteristic of this type were the merchants with
plans for diverting the caravan trade of the Sous and Timbuktu
away from Mogador — in other words, out of the hands of other
Europeans and/or the Makhzen's Jewish merchants — such as James
Grey Jackson (An Account of the Empire of Morocco and the
Districts of Sus and Tafilelt (London, 1814) and An Account of
Timbuctoo and Housa,etc. (London, 1820)) and, at the latter part
of the nineteenth century, Donald Mackenzie (The Flooding of
the Sahara, An Account of the Proposed Plan for Opening Central
Africa to Commerce and Civilization from the Northwest Coast
(London, 1877)) . No doubt commercial interests impelled

28.
 scholars to research the trahs-Saharan trade. One such scholar
was R.Thomassy, whose Le Maroc et ses caravanes ou relations de
la France avec cet Empire (Paris, 1845) is perhaps the earliest
scholarly study of Moroccan political and economic relations.
There are a number of accounts by adventurers and travellers
who crossed Morocco, and sometimes the Sahara, to Timbuktu:
Ali-Bey el-Abbassi (1816), Barth (1857), and Rohlfs (1873), to
name just one or two noted examples.
Missionaries were also active in Morocco and wrote histories
and travel accounts. Into this category fall Leon Godard
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{Description et histoire du Maroc (Paris, 1860)), who was a

fervent supporter of French colonialism in Morocco, and Manuel
Castellanos (Descripcion historica de Marruecos y breve resena
de sus dinastlas (Santiago de Compostela, 1878)), another
zealous missionary. Both authors supported their works with
manuscripts which they had at their disposal. The famous
ascetic, Charles de Foucauld, who traversed Morocco disguised as
a Palestinian Rabbi, wrote what can perhaps be regarded as the
most thorough travel account of nineteenth-century Morocco:
Reconnaissance au Maroc (Paris, 1888). Little is known of
proselytizing activities, which could only be openly directed at
the Jews (and sometimes even this was not permitted by the
Makhzen). However, at Mogador it is known that proselytizing
was resisted, as is demonstrated by the account of J.B.Ginsburg
entitled An Account of the Persecution of the Protestant Mission
among the Jews at Mogador, Morocco (London, 1880).
Some of the best sources for pre-colonial Morocco are the
writings of Europeans in the diplomatic corps. The book of the
French consul at Rabat, Louis Chenier, Recherches historigues
sur les Maures et 1'histoire du Maroc, 3 vols. (Paris, 1788), is
often cited. His correspondence has recently been compiled and
edited by Pierre Grillon as Un chargS d'affaires au Maroc. La
correspondance du consul Louis Chenier, 2 vols. (Paris, 1970).
Auguste Beaumier, who served on and off in the French diplomatic
corps in Morocco for over thirty years and was French consul at
Mogador from 1865 until his death in 1876, wrote various articles,
principally in the Bulletin de la Societe de GSographie (Paris),
which reflect his extensive knowledge of the country.
By the turn of the century the geography of Morocco and its
southern regions was much better known. From this time until the
Protectorate, more scientific, and better journalistic, writing
on Morocco appeared. Writers such as Budget Meakin (The Land of
the Moors (London, 1901); The Moors (London, 1902;) and The
Moorish Empire (London, 1899)) and Eugene Aubin, (Le Maroc
d'aujourd'hui (Paris, 1904), trans. Morocco of Today (London,
1906)) begin to show a better understanding of Morocco than many
of their predecessors. In the years preceding the Protectorate,
the French began intensifying their research on Moroccan society
on a much more detailed and scientific basis, as witness, for
example, the various studies of Michaux-Bellaire and Doutte.23

29
 Andre Adam has looked critically at the various studies of this
period in his Bibliographie critique de sociologie, d'ethnologie
et de geographie humaine du Maroc (Algiers, 1972) 2<*
Far more extensive than the various published accounts on
Morocco are the detailed consular correspondence and various
memoranda in the government archives of the different European
countries which had relations with Morocco. The quantity of
this material becomes clear when one looks at the references in
Miege's voluminous Le Maroc et 1'Europe. In addition to the
government archives, the archives of several Chambers of Commerce
of cities which were prominent in the Moroccan trade —
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Manchester 25 and Marseille for example — . are important sources

for trade relations with the Moroccan ports.
The Public Record Office in London, housing the Foreign Office
archives, contains hundreds of volumes of correspondence of the
English consulate for the nineteenth century. ° A vice-consulate
was maintained at Mogador and much information regarding the town
and its relations — with Marrakesh, the Sous, and Timbuktu —
are found in these papers. 2 7
Of equal importance are the various archives in France: the
Archives Nationales and the archives of the different ministries:
Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, Ministere de la Guerre
(section d'Afrique et d'Outre-Mer), and the Ministere de la
Marine. Less is known of the contents of the Spanish and
Portuguese archives concerning Morocco in the nineteenth century;
the materials in the Archivo Historico Nacional relevant to the
second half of the eighteenth century have been studied by Ramon
Lourido Diaz (op.cit. supra) but little has been written on the
nineteenth century on the basis of the Spanish and/or Portuguese
archives.

The literature of the Moroccan Jewish community constitutes an

important and largely neglected source for Moroccan history, ^
as Haim Zafrani has clearly demonstrated in his important study
on post-fifteenth century Jewish intellectual life in Morocco:
Etudes et recherches sur la vie intellectuelle juive au Maroc
de la fin du 15e au debut du 20s siecle, I: Les Juifs du Maroc.
Vie sociale economique et religieuse. Etude de Taqqanot et
Responsa (Paris, 1972), II: Poesie juive en Occident musulman
(Paris, 1977). Zafrani points to a significant body of
literature which could be utilized by historians; especially
responsa and takkanot,30 emphasizing the value which these legal
texts have for social and economic history. They deal with
various problems and aspects of daily life, which are not only
relevant to the Jewish community, but to the society at large.
In certain respects the Jews were transmitters of change in
pre-colonial Morocco. This was largely due to their role as
intermediaries between Muslims and Christians. Mogador was the
most important point of contact between Moroccan Jews and

30
 Europe — above all with England — in the last decades of the
eighteenth and throughout most of the nineteenth century. •>! Some
Mogador Jews emigrated, and a few became noted and influential
members of London's Jewish community, such as the Guedalla
family, to name an outstanding example. Already in 1790, a new
Westernized elite in Mogador was observed by an Italian Jewish
poet-traveller, S.Romanelli,32 author of Massa Ba'arav (Berlin,
1792 /"first edition;), who lived in Mogador for several months
employed by the Guedalla house, but left when the excesses
against the Jews of the new sultan, al-Yazid, threatened Mogador. 33
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Out of these Jews emerged a new bourgeois elite whose ties —

both cultural and economic — were increasingly oriented towards
the West. One of the most noted and influential families from
this new class at Mogador in the nineteenth century was Corcos.
The various studies of David Corcos (a descendant of this family
who immigrated to Israel), recently compiled posthumously in
Studies in the History of the Jews of Morocco (Jerusalem, 1976),
are therefore of great interest. Of particular significance is
his article 'Les juifs au Maroc et leurs mellahs'(pp.64-130),
which utilizes manuscripts in the family archives. The Arabic
correspondence in the Corcos archives — letters from the reigns
of lAbd al-Rahman, Muhammad IV, and Hasan I — is presently being
worked on by Michel Abitbol, who has'assessed these archives and
analysed the significance of the Corcos family in terms of the
historical trends of that period in the monograph Temoins et
acteurs. Les Corcos et l'histoire du Maroc contemporain
(Jerusalem, 1977).
Although westernization was still only visible among a small
minority of the community, during the second half of the
nineteenth century a significant segment of the Jews placed
their hopes in the West. This acculturation — knowledge of
European languages, secular education, etc. — was the result of
the growing dissemination of Anglo- and Franco-Jewish
philanthropic and educational activities directed, on the one
hand, towards ameliorating the social welfare of the mellahs and
protecting the Jews from alleged abuses of corrupt Makhzen
officials, while, on the other hand, spreading a secular type of
Jewish education. The books of Andre Chouraqui (e.g. Between
East and West: A History of the Jews of North Africa
(Philadelphia, 1968), and L'Alliance Israelite Vniverselle et la
renaissance juive contemporaine, 1860-1960 (Paris, 195O)) — an
Algerian Jew who worked for the Alliance for many" years before
serving the Israeli government — are essentially concerned with
the process of westernization. The author, however, does not
sufficiently examine the considerable degree of tension and
dislocation which resulted from the impact of the West.
Western influence undoubtedly produced tensions and conflicts
among Moroccan Jews in various towns, a problem which has not
yet been adequately analysed. Mogador, as an example, was an
important field of operation for Western Jewish organizations,
such as the Anglo-Jewish Association, and the Alliance Israelite

31
 Universelle (Franco- and Anglo-Jewish efforts were at times in
conflict), who opened schools there. The archives of the
Alliance Israelite Universelle in Paris, 3 4 and the yet
unutilized Anglo-Jewish archives at the Board of Deputies and
the Mocatta library in London, are important sources for viewing
the conflicts of transition in the Moroccan Jewish community.3^

The impression left by the French historians of the colonial era

is that Arabic sources on Morocco are extremely limited. 36 In
fact, even some of the most readily available published materials
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in Arabic have not been adequately exploited.3? Most Western

historians have relied essentially on the two best-known authors
of Arabic histories on the 'Alawids for the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries: Abu al-Qasim b. Ahmad al-Zayyanl and
Ahmad b. Khalid al-Nasiri (al-Salawi). Their histories have
both been edited and gartially translated into French:
al-Zayyani, al-Turjaman al-mulrib lan duwal al-mashriq wa-
al-maghrib, trans. Octave B. Houdas with_the title Le Maroc de
1631-1812, (Paris, 1886), and al-Nasiri, Kitab al-istiqsa
11-akhbar duwal al-Maghrib al-Aqsa, trans. Eugene Fumey in
Archives Marocaines, IX, (19O6)_.39 The latter work, in many
respects, supersedes al-Zayyani, since al-Nasiri draws heavily
on his predecessors (e.g. al-Ifrani, al-Zayyani, Akensus), as
well as from 'Alawid documents at his disposal. 40 Both authors
have been analysed in the two important reference works on
Moroccan Arabic authors of the 'Alawid period: E.Levi-Provencal,
Les historiens des Chorfa, Essai sur la litterature historique
et biographique au Maroc du XV s au X^ siecle (Paris, 1923), and
Mohammed Lakhdar, La vie litteraire sous le dynastie 'Alawide:
1075-1131=1664-1894 (Rabat, 1971). There are also other
histories both edited and in manuscript at the Archives
Generales de Rabat (cf. Lourido-Diaz, Ensayo historiografico)
which have been utilized for the nineteenth century by Abdallah
Laroui in his study, Les origines sociales et culturelles du
nationalisms marocain.
A thorough reconstruction of pre-colonial Moroccan history
will, however, probably have to rely on the copious documentation
in the Palace archives, which have not yet been organized. It
is therefore impossible to know what lies there. Other archives
in Tetuan and Fez could also be utilized. ^ Moreover, Brown's
study on Sale has demonstrated the value of exploiting private
histories and archives when they can be located.4^
In addition to archival sources, there are a number of books
published in Morocco which contain edited manuscripts from a
given town. These works, on particular cities such as Meknes
(Ibn Zaydan, Ithaf a1lam al-nas bi-jumal hadirat Miknas, 6 vols.
(Rabat, 1929-1933)), Tetuan (Muhammad Da'ud] Ta'rikh Titwan,
5 vols. (Tetuan, 1959-1965)) and Marrakesh ('Abbas b. Ibrahim
al-Marrakushi, al-Iilam bi-man halla Marrakush wa-Aghmat min
al-a'lam, 5 vols. (Fez, 1936-1939)), or of a particular region

32
 such as the Sous (Muhammad al-Mukhtar al-Susi; al-Ma'sul, 20
vols. (Casablanca, I960)), are essential sources for the noted
'ulama' and venerated persons, as well as the peculiarities of
the town or region.43 This kind of literature — much of it
hagiology (for Moroccan Jews cf. Yosef Benaim, Malke Rabanan,
Jerusalem, 1931) — containing information about the events
surrounding the lives of important people, is a source for
understanding society in the period concerned. The cities of
hadara (literally 'civilization') such as Fez, Tetuan, and Sale,
provided some of the people who were to make up the
administrative framework of the Makhzen, and its officials
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(e.g. qa'ids, umana', etc.J in the growing coastal cities in

pre-colonial Morocco. The various manuscripts edited in the
above-mentioned texts are important sources of information on
the interrelationships between the Makhzen and different cities
in Morocco.
Conclusion
This essay has attempted to look at sources and studies on
certain aspects of change in pre-colonial Morocco which can be
examined in Mogador's history before the Protectorate. These
changes can be summarized as follows:
1. The Makhzen's increasing orientation towards the foreign
sector as a source of revenue.
2. Migrations towards, and urbanization of, coastal towns.
3. New sources for wealth, and the beginnings of a bourgeoisie
(predominantly Jewish in Mogador) increasingly interconnected
with the European market and dependent on the European power.
4. The European-Moroccan trade and the growing pre-eminence of
European economic interests.
5. The beginnings of westernization, primarily among the Jewish
elite, resulting from contact with Europe.
It has not been my intention to provide an exhaustive
critique of all available sources and studies pertinent to the
problem of change in pre-colonial Morocco. Rather, a diversity
of available sources has been suggested which could be a
foundation for analysing important, yet still ambiguous,
problems in pre-colonial Moroccan history.

Notes
1. Mogador has been the site of various settlements since
ancient times: the Phoenicians are known to have had a
factory there (A.Jodin, Mogador, Comptoir phenicien du
Maroc atlantique (Rabat, 1966); idem , Les etablissements
du roi Juba II aux iles purpuraires [Mogador] (Tangier,
1967)), and much later in the sixteenth century, for
example, the Portuguese established a fortress there,
(Terrasse, Histoire du Maroc, II (Casablanca, 195O), p.117).

33
 2. Cf., Jacques Caille, Les accords internationaux du Sultan
Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdallah: 1757-1790 (Tangier, 1960).
3. Abdallah Laroui, The History of the Maghreb. An Interp-
retive Essay (Princeton, 1977) (trans, from French,
L'histoire du Maghreb (Paris, 1970) p.276).
4. Recently translated into English: On the Eve of Colonialism:
North Africa before the French Conquest, 1790-1830 (New York,
1977).
5. Valensi, p.19.
6. This work, published by the Instituto Hispano-AVabe de
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Cultura, had its origins in a doctoral thesis from which were

derived two monographs: (i) Ensayo historiografico sobre el
sultanato de Sidi Muhammad b. lAbd Allah (1757-179O);'
(ii) El sultanato de Sidi Muhammad b. lAbd Allah
(Cuadernos de Historia del Islam, serie monografica, Nos.l
and 2 respectively (Granada, 1967, 1970)) .
7. See Lourido Diaz, Ensayo historiografico, pp. 52-61 passim.
8. Le Tourneau, pp.124-125.
9. Terrasse, vol.11, p.301.
10. Laroui, pp.275-276.
11. Ibid., p.279.
12. Guillen, pp.24-26, 37.
13. For a similar kind of thorough study cf. Robert Mantran,
Istanbul dans la seconde moitie dti XVIIs siecle (Paris,
1962).
14. Examining the quarter (darb) in Boujad, D.F.Eickelman
questions whether the concept of 'Muslim city1 is really
meaningful. See his article "Is there an Islamic city?
The Making of a Quarter in a Moroccan Town1 in IJMES (1974),
pp.274-294.
15. Brown, p.211.
16. Burke, pp.84-86.
17. Stambouli and Zghal, p. 3.
18. Mogado^s characteristics which are similar to the classical
Chinese city, according to Stambouli and Zghal, are:
(1) Mogador is the implementation of a royal plan, totally
created in geometric design; (2) the bureaucracy of the
sultan controls all urban activities; (3) commerce is
monopolized by the sultan through aliens (Christians and
Jews); all premises remain the sultan!s property; (4) the
town is essentially an entrepot .These four points are not
entirely correct; the extent of the Makhzen^ control — even
in the physical structure of the city — varied and evolved.
19. Cf., Rosemary Arnold, 'A Port of Trade: Whydah on the Guinea

34
 Coast,* in K.Polanyi, et al.(eds.), Trade and Market in the
Early Empires. Economies in History and Theory, Glencoe, 111.
Free Press, 1957, pp.154-176; and Diane Skelly Ponasik, 'The
System of Administered Trade as a Defense Mechanism in
Preprotectorate Morocco,1 IJMES, 8 (1977), pp.l95-2O7. The
latter article attempts to conceptualize a system of
'administered trade' in reference to Mogador, drawing on some
parallels to Whydah as portrayed in the former article. "The
basic factors of administered trade were strict price control,
ports of trade, and the use of intermediaries,1 (Ponasik,
p.195). In the author's opinion, there were flaws in the
model and the system failed,paving the way for Morocco's
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colonization. Such tentative conclusions rest on certain

assumptions — namely, the so-called model of administered
trade as it applied to Morocco — which still need to be
substantiated by more specialized monographs.

20. The bibliographies of Miege, Le Maroc et 1'Europe, vol.1,

and Andre Adam, Bibliographie critique de sociologie,
d'ethnologie et de geographie humaine (Algiers, 1972), cite
numerous examples. For published English material, the
bibliography of Mohamed Ben Madani, and David Seddon
{Moroccan Economy and Society: A Bibliography of Works in
English for publication early 1979), will cover some of the
lacunae of the other published bibliographies.
21. It was believed for a long time that Chenier had resided in
Sale, as his letters indicated, but, in fact, his letters
refer to Sale-le-Neuf, which corresponds to Rabat, see
Grillon, pp.16-17.
22. E.g. 'Le Maroc 1 , Bulletin de la Societe Geographique (July,
1867), pp.5-51; Description sommaire du^Maroc (Paris, 1868);
'Premier etablissement des Israelites a Timboktu,1 ibid*
April-May, 1870), pp.345-370; 'Le cholera au Maroc, sa marche
du Sahara jusqu'au Senegal en 1868,• ibid., (March, 1872)
pp.257-3O5. On Beaumier see Jacques Caille, 'Auguste
Beaumier, consul de France au Maroc,1 Hesperis ,XXXVII (1950),
pp.53-96.
23. To name just a few of Michaux-Bellaire's studies: 'Les impots
marocaines •, AM, I (19O4) , pp. 59-96; 'El Q^ar el Kebir',: AM
II (1905) pp. 1-228; 'L'organisation des finances au Maroc',
AM, XI (1907), pp.171-251; 'Description de la ville de Fes,'
ibid* pp.252-330; 'Les biens habous et les biens du Makhzen
au point de vue de leur alienation1, RMM, 5 (1908),
pp.436-457; and 'Le regime immobilier au Maroc, RMM, 18
(1912) pp.l-lO5; and among the studies of Doutte: Notes sur
1'Islam maghrebine. Les Marabouts (Algiers, 19OO); IUne
mission d'etudes au Maroc,' Renseignements Coloniaux, No.8
(1901) pp.161-177); Magie et religions dans l'Afrique du
Nord (Algiers, 19O9); En Tribu (Paris, 1914). /Tor a
discussion and complete listing of the studies of these two
scholars, see the bibliography of Andre'Adam, (op.cit.,
n.19);

35
 24. The revised bibliography in the English edition of Charles-
Andre Julien, History of North Africa: From the Arab Conquest
to 1830, (New York, 1970), is a useful guide to sources and
studies on the Maghreb.
25. Proceedings of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, series
M8/2/1-17 , and the Minutes of Committees M8/3/1-12. For a
study on the basis of these archives see, A.Redford,
Manchester Merchants and Foreign Trade, 2 vols. (Manchester
U.P., 1956).
26. See Guide to the Contents of the Public Record Office, XX and
III, London, 1963-1969. On Morocco, series I (F.O. 52)
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1761-1837, 45 vols.; series II (F.O. 9 9 ) , 1836-1905, 436

vols.; Morocco — Registers and Indexes to Correspondence
(F.O. 791), 1829, 1836-1860; Correspondence (F.O. 174), 1785-
1934, 269 vols. For the years leading up to the
Protectorate, these archives have been studied extensively
by F.V.Parsons, The Origins of the Moroccan Question (London,
1976). See pp. 628-631 for a discussion of the contents of
the PRO relating to Morocco.
27. On Mogador specifically: Correspondence (F.O. 631), 1813-
1816, 1844-1926, 1932-1933, 18 vols.; Misc. (F.O. 631),
1830-1891, 4 vols.; Registers of Correspondence (F.O. 830),
1844-1361; 1880-1933, 6 vols.; and Letters from the Vice-
Consul at Mogador within F.O. 174 series.
28. Miege utilized these archives extensively in his study, see
Le Maroc et 1'Europe, I. Most of the documents he cites in
the Moroccan archives are now redistributed in France. More
recently, Burke and Dunn (cited above in text) have utilized
the French archives relevant to Morocco after 1860 (see
Burke, pp.271-277 and Dunn, pp.276-28O).
29. An essential reference guide to this literature is the
bio-bibliographical dictionary of Moroccan rabbis by Yosef
Benaim, Malke Rabanan (Jerusalem, 1931).
30. Compilations of Moroccan rabbis of responsa (legal opinions
of a local court by a Talmudic scholar through
correspondence) and takkanot (regulations or amendments
according to customary law [halakha]) were often published,
in very limited numbers in Italy, usually Livorno, an
intellectual centre of Sephardic Jewry during this period.
There is a continuing project at the University of Bar Ilan
for cataloguing and computerizing such rabbinic material.
31. On relations with England see H.Z.Hirschberg, 'Jews and
Jewish Affairs in the Relations between Great Britain and
Morocco 1 , in H.J.Zimmels and others (eds.), Essays
Presented to Chief Rabbi Israel Brodie (London, 1967), pp.
153-187, and, in general, on Moroccan Jewish merchants and
emissaries, idem, A History of the Jews in North Africa
(Hebrew),II, (Jerusalem, 1965), pp.286-317, passim. Only
volume I of the above history has been translated into

36
 English (Leiden, 1974).
32. For a bibliography of articles on Romanelli and a collection
of his writings see Haim Shirman (ed.), Ketavim Nivharim
(Jerusalem, 1968).
33. For a partial translation and discussion of the text see
Nahum Slousch, 'Le Maroc au dix-huitieme siecle, memoires
d'un contemporain', RMM, 9 (1909) pp.452-466, 642-664.
34. For Morocco, these archives have been extensively researched
by Michael M. Laskier for a Ph.D. dissertation 'The Moroccan
Jewish Communities and the Alliance Israelite Universelle:
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1860-1960' (UCLA, 1978) .

35. For a comprehensive bibliography of published material on
Maghrebi Jewry see Robert Attal, Les juifs d'Rfrique du
Nord: Bibliogxaphie (Jerusalem, 1973) (in French and Hebrew)
and, on Moroccan Jews specifically, see Arrik Delouya,
Nouvel inventaire bibliographique des travaux sur les juifs
du Maroc (Paris, 1978).
36. See the remarks of Germain Ayache, 'La question des
archives historiques marocaines', Hesperis-Tamuda, II (1961),
pp.311-314.
37. An essential bibliography of Moroccan historical works in
Arabic is Ibn Suda, Dalil mu'arrikh al-Maghrib al-Rqsa,
(Casablanca, 1965).
38. Only part of the text is edited and translated, and other
works of al-Zayyani nave never been edited, notably
al-Bustan al-zarif fi dawlat awlad Mawlay lAli al-Sharif,
in the Archives Gene'rales de Rabat (MS. 1575) .
39. There have been two editions of al-Istiqsa in Arabic: Cairo,
1894, and Casablanca, 1954-56 (in 9 vols'.) .
40. Lourido-Diaz's critique of al-Nasiri's 'plagiarism' —
wholesale incorporation of the works of one's predecessors
was common practice at that time, some Europeans not
excluded — misconstrues the value of al-Istiqsa'
(Lourido-Diaz, Ensayo Historiografico, pp.48-50). Its
greatest value lies in the reflections of the author on the
period in which he lived, which is outside the scope of
Lourido-Diaz's study of the eighteenth century. On
al-Nasiri in this context see K.Brown, 'Profile of a
Nineteenth-Century Moroccan Scholar', in Nikki R.Keddie
(ed.), Scholars, Saints and Sufis (Berkeley and Los Angeles,
1972), pp.127-148.
41. See the articles of Ayache: op.cit. (n.35) 'Les questions des
archives marocaines' and 'L! utilisation et l'apport des
archives historiques marocaines', Hesperis-Tamuda VII (1966),
pp.69-85, and 'Archives et documentation historique arabe au
Maroc 1 , in Les Arabes par leurs archives (Paris, 1976),
pp.37-45.

37
 42. See Brown, People of Sale, preface. For a general
discussion on research facilities in Morocco see K.Brown,
Wilfrid Rollman, and John Waterbury, 'Research facilities in
Morocco1, Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, 4 (No.3,
Oct.15, 1970), pp.55-67.
43. On this genre of literature see Lakhdar, pp.5-7. A short
history of Essaouira does exist: Muhammad b.Sa'id al-Sadiqi,
Iqaz al-Sarira li-ta'rikh al-Sawira (Casablanca, 1961)".
44. See Brown, People of Sale, p.2O9.
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38