The approach to Essaouira from the land presents the image of an oasis. ‘It bursts upon one's view like a desert mirage, for several miles of drifting sand-hills have first to be crossed and on the far side nestles the town, its white roofs and mosque towers shown up clearly by the deep blue sea beyond.’ Essaouira appears like most other cities in Morocco: its immediate hinterland is uncultivated. Only a few gardens stretch out for a short distance beyond the ramparts. The town itself is on a promontory jetting out into the sea, so that its climate is always temperate and breezy. One has to travel only a few miles inland to enter a hot, intemperate zone. The city, surrounded by its walls, gives one a sense of isolation from the rest of the world; its micro-climate contributes to this feeling of detachment from the rest of Morocco.

And yet this physical image belies the senses. In many ways Essaouira was tied both to its hinterland and to distant inland markets. The constant stream of merchants and pedlars – of Berber tribesmen and Jews – through the town gates was another striking image of the town. This continual movement of people and goods relied on social networks which, under normal conditions, facilitated the peaceful passage of itinerant traders and caravans over distances near and far.

In 1764, the new town of Essaouira was founded by Sultan Sīdī Muhammad b. ʿAbdallāh (1756–80) due west of Marrakesh on the Atlantic coast. It was to be Morocco's main seaport for trade with Europe. The Sultan, as legend suggests, intended to make the port a great and prosperous city where the principal Moroccan merchants could dwell and make fortunes.

Essaouira did indeed become the principal maritime port of Morocco within a decade after its creation, a status it maintained for over a century. But the legendary grandeur of the royal port of Sultan Muhammad III contrasts markedly with the stark reality portrayed by vice-consul Grace.

The people of Essaouira in the latter half of the nineteenth century were affected by dramatic forces which were changing Moroccan society as a whole. Some of these forces, such as war and economic penetration, were of foreign origin, while others, such as the expansion of governmental powers and new kinds of taxes, originated within Morocco itself. But no force was as important as the dramatic recurrence of natural calamities. Seen in conjunction with other events of the nineteenth century, these natural disasters take on new dimensions.

Urbanization, and in particular, urbanization in the coastal towns, has been seen as a major consequence of Morocco's contact with Europe in the nineteenth century. Most striking of all was the increased number of Jews. Miège estimates that the Jewish population on the coast grew from 19,900 in 1832–6, to 24,800 in 1856–7, 31,000 in 1866–7, and to about 38,000 in 1900. The absence of any census and the contradictions in foreign estimates, make these figures unreliable. Nevertheless, there was clearly a steady, though not dramatic, rise in the Jewish population in coastal towns. From the mid-nineteenth century onward, large numbers of Jews, particularly from the Sous, settled in Essaouira. It can be determined tentatively that the Jewish population grew from about 4,000 out of a total population of 12,000 in 1844, to 7,000 out of 14,000 in 1875, and then slowly climbed to about 8,000 out of a total of 18,000 inhabitants towards the end of the century (see app. B).

Essaouira's pre-eminent position as the royal port of Morocco began to decline in the 1870s. While other ports in Morocco were enjoying a boom in trade because of the large increase of imports and brisk exports in wool and grain, Essaouira was descending from its plateau. Not only was the market for some of its commodities slackening, but internal factors also need to be considered in the commercial decline. Disturbances in the Haha and the general insecurity both disrupted trade routes and pushed up food prices. The inflation rate grew. In 1873, the year in which the Haha tribesmen besieged Essaouira, the exchange had climbed to 50 ūqiya against the rivāl, a high point in Moroccan history.

While some speculators profited from these changing circumstances, many of the merchant families were having difficulties or collapsed during the crisis years. Others, such as Tūfal-ʿazz and Būhillāl lost their properties. The property belonging to the tājir Boujnah was appraised at 378,625 ūqiya (equalling about £2,300), to be sold to some Jews from Marrakesh in order to pay off debts owed to the makhzan. The umanāʿ were not sure that taking over the property was a good idea: ‘If this property were to be appropriated for the makhzan, more will be spent on it than its value, because of its decrepit condition.’

For the Europeans, Essaouira was an opening to the interior of Morocco. It was the gateway to all the lucrative markets of Marrakesh and the southwest. For the makhzan as well, Essaouira was an outlet to the Sous. Quite apart from the increments gained from customs duties, Essaouira's commercial role was of great geopolitical importance for the central government. It made potentially dissident regions dependent on a town closely controlled by the central government. This became a crucial strategy in counteracting foreign inroads in the lands to the south.

Southern chiefs

The development of Essaouira greatly contributed to the rise to power of Sīdī Hāshim of Tazarwalt and Sheikh Bayrūk of Wad Noun. Both chiefs had agents in Essaouira who in turn marketed their goods in Europe. A French consul in Essaouira estimated that Bayrūk's annual profits amounted to about 610,000 piastres. The rising power of these southern chiefs presented the central government with a predicament. On the one hand, it was in the interests of the makhzan to preserve the commercial importance of these local powers in the Sous to assure the flow of traffic, but on the other hand, they also needed to curtail their influence. Yet efforts to reduce the influence of Bayrūk, and particularly, his more powerful rival, Sīdī Hāshim, tended to disrupt trade with Essaouira which ultimately worked against the interests of the makhzan.

From harbour to bazaar

A foreign trader coming to Essaouira caught his first glimpse of the town as his ship sailed between the island and the port where the harbour was located. The ship would then anchor and wait for the lighters operated by either the Banī ʿAntar or Ahl Agādīr boatmen. In winter months anchorage would sometimes be hazardous for those in sailing ships, particularly if caught in western winds. Otherwise, the bay would be fairly calm and the visitor would promptly set foot at the landing and proceed through the port gate, Bāb al-Marsa. To the right of the gate were storehouses belonging to customs where merchandise was stored, sometimes in lieu of paying duties in specie. Merchants would also store goods there which had cleared customs prior to shipment. Continuing towards the town, the traveller would probably pass numerous sacks of goods, camels, brokers, and porters unloading merchandise or assembling caravans for the long journeys to the Sous. Together with the merchandise and a porter, he would then move into the mashwar, the area adjacent to the makhzan palace used for horses and gunpowder, games and other festivites, and enter Bāb Muhammad Ū Masʿūd, proceed to the large square at the centre of the casbah, and finally enter the customs house (dār al-aʿshār) where a 10 per cent ad valorem duty would be assessed by the customs officials for any goods imported.

In the decade following the Spanish Moroccan war of 1859–60, foreign intervention led to the transformation of the Moroccan state. Morocco was compelled to empty its treasuries to pay a war indemnity. There were insufficient funds to pay the Spanish, so payments continued for years to come. During the reign of Sīdī Muhammad b. ʿAbd ar-Rahmān (1859–73), Morocco attempted to consolidate its position. Administrative and fiscal reforms were initiated to increase the revenues of the makhzan in order to meet the costs of an expanding state apparatus.

War and indemnities

Soon after the peaceful succession of Sīdī Muhammad b. ʿAbd ar-Rahmān – proclaimed in Essaouira on 30 September 1859 – Morocco was threatened by a Spanish invasion. Domestic difficulties in Spain had pushed the Spanish government towards an imperialist adventure in Morocco. Agitation by the Rif tribes against the Spanish enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta provided the excuse for the invasion. The Spanish also considered invading Essaouira, which was still the most active seaport of Morocco. When attack on Essaouira appeared imminent, many Swiris began to flee the town, fearing a repetition of the events of 1844. Some of the elite left by sea for Gibraltar. About 220 Jews, mostly women and children, left on board a steamer with the departing British community.

The town of Essaouira, better known as Mogador to Europeans, is today a quiet, slow-paced, and relatively isolated fishing town. Most of the population of the town still resides within the medina, the area enclosed by ramparts which once constituted the city limits. The quaintness of the town today seems to contrast with its former position as a royal port. This is still marked by its formidable ramparts and rows of cannons which point outwards to the land and sea. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Mogador was among the few places along the North African littoral (called the ‘Barbary Coast’ by Europeans) known to foreign traders, sailors and adventurers. Its fame rivalled that of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli.

From the 1770s through the 1870s, Essaouira was the most active seaport of Morocco. This present study is about the history of Essaouira from 1844 to 1886, the heyday of the town as an international port. These two dates mark crucial events in Moroccan history and in the life of Essaouira. In 1844, the town was bombarded by the French fleet, a punitive operation to deter Morocco from further involvement with the Algerian resistance movement along her eastern frontier. From that date on, Morocco had to recognize foreign intervention as a major factor in the life of the country.

Essaouira was the most important seaport in Morocco for a century, but compared with the growing port cities in the colonial area, this outlet to Europe was a backwater. Essaouira remained a small city, situated in a relatively barren region. The expansion of other Middle Eastern seaports, such as Beirut and Alexandria, was dramatic in the same period. Beirut's population grew from 6,000 to 120,000 in the nineteenth century. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Alexandria had a population of 10,000; already by the mid 1850s, the city had grown to about 150,000. Wherever European commercial interests were strong, port cities began to grow into major emporiums of trade. In contrast, Essaouira's small scale growth from 10,000 to 18,000 seems insignificant (see app. B).

And yet, historians have often seen the development of Essaouira as highly significant in the modern history of Morocco. Abdallah Laroui argues that Sultan Muhammad III, the founder of Essaouira, can be regarded as the ‘veritable architect of the “modern” Morocco described in numerous nineteenth- and twentieth-century accounts’. With the creation of Essaouira, in Laroui's view, the bulk of the state revenues were henceforth derived from customs duties on foreign trade. In this way the prosperity and the very existence of the state became dependent on an activity dominated by foreigners.