Moroccan British relations

Moroccan British Relations

A Brief Survey

                                                      Mohamed Laamiri

The Moroccan-British relationship developed by means of a long historical, political, cultural and economic process. Their longstanding relationship dates from times immemorial but most chroniclers and historians (1) agree to consider the dawn of the 13^th century as the beginning of an officially recorded diplomatic contact between the two countries.

For Rogers, the first official contact between Great Britain and The Empire of Morocco goes back to 1213 when King John of England dispatched an Embassy to sultan Mohamed Ennassir, Morocco's fourth Almohad ruler (1199-1213), asking for an alliance against France and support against his enemies within Britain with the promise that he would embrace Islam. The details of this embassy, according to Rogers, were recorded by Mathew Paris and later published and kept at Saint Alban Abbey.(2)

It was the loosening of the grip of the Portuguese on Morocco after their loss of Safi and Agadir in 1541 that brought about an end to their claimed monopoly on trade with Morocco. A decade after this Portuguese withdrawal, the English who saw in the geographical position of West Barbary a suitable opportunity for developing their commercial expansion began their regular trade, with Morocco.(3)

It is difficult to date with precision the first visits of British traders to Moroccan ports but voyages to the Barbary Coast by English vessels were first recorded in 1551. Roger Barlow (4) ‘visited Agadir when it was still in Portuguese hands, but it is not clear “that he did any trade there”’(5). It is possible that some English merchants had engaged in trade with Morocco before the fifteen-fifties, but there seems to ‘be no definite evidence of this.”(6)

 Most historians of British-Moroccan Relations rely on Richard Hackluyt’s Principal Navigations  to date these first visits: ‘One such trip had two Moors as passengers on a ship called the Lion of London’,(7) an instance recorded in the correspondence of Richard Hakluyt.

Independently of the exact date of the first British vessel’s visit to a Moroccan port, it is evident that the 1550s knew an increase of the number of English ships visiting Moroccan ports.

The many letters exchanged between Queen Elizabeth I of England  (1558-1603) and Abd el-Malik and after him Ahmed Al Mansour Ad-Dahbi  (1578-1603) bear witness to the political and diplomatic links between the two countries and even give evidence of Moroccan involvement in inter-European alliances and conflicts in coordination with England (8) .

The 17^th and 18^th centuries knew an increasing interest in Barbary as a cultural subject and as a commercial partner and a potential threat to European maritime activities. With the development of the British imperial projects, Morocco became a recommended commercial, diplomatic, tourist and exotic destination for many British citizens. In addition to its attraction as a market for English cloth, Morocco was a potential provider of gold and sugar and mostly a handy supplier of provisions to Gibraltar.”(9)

In fact, it was the development and the security of British commercial interests in West Barbary that brought about the appointment of the first English Resident Consul to Barbary (Sallee), Giles Penn, in December 30th, 1627. He was authorized to 'execute that office by himself and his deputies in Morocco and Fez during the king's pleasure’(10). The nomination of Nathaniel Luke, the second Consul was approved by the Council of State in 1657. He resided in Tetuan and his mission was to ‘assist’ ‘our merchants’ at the ports of Salle, Arsilla, Tetuan, Safia, Santa Cruz (Agadir) on the coasts of Africa’(11) The first English Ambassador to the court of Morocco, Edmund Hogan, was appointed in 1577 (12). While the first Moroccan Ambassador to London, Kaid  Jaudar ben  Abdallah, was sent by Mohamed Ech-Cheikh to King Charles I with a message of peace and friendship in 1637 (13). 

In 1661, the King of Portugal gave Tangier to King Charles II of England as part of a marriage dowry. On 29 January 1662, 3000 English soldiers arrived in Tangier Bay under the Earl of Peterborough; British-Moroccan relations lived a period of tensions during the English occupation of Tangier from 1662 to 1684. When Moulay Ismail became Sultan, Tangier had been a British colony for 10 years and the Moroccan-British relations were already marred by the thorny question of British captives in Morocco. This period knew a dynamic and sometimes tense diplomatic activity between the two countries. Moroccan forces under Moulay Ismail made life so difficult for the garrison that the English decided to abandon Tangier in 1684.

Kaid Mohamed ben Haddu Ottur [El-Attar], Moulay Ismail’s famous emissary and Morocco’s second ambassador to England arrived to London in December 1681 and was received by King Charles II on 11 January 1682.  Ben Haddu impressed Londoners by his exotic dress and his horsemanship; this event was immortalized by a famous painting of the Moroccan Ambassador on his horse in Hyde Park by Sir Godfrey Kneller.

Despite these diplomatic exchanges, it is evident that for a long period the country remained a mystery for England and what was known about it was tainted by legend and fantasy.  In fact the first publication in a European language fully devoted to Morocco was Leo Africanus’ Description of Africa published in Latin in 1526 and translated into English in 1600 (14).

It took many centuries for the two countries to know one another and to trust one another. British-Moroccan relations were always vigorously dynamic and were never characterized by indifference or lack of concern and as Rogers put it: “the course of Anglo-Moroccan relations, like true love, never ran consistently smooth.”(15)

Certainly there were periods of tension but there were much of the time long periods of mutual respect, friendship, alliances and cooperation. Britain has been a political and an economic partner for Morocco since the 16^th Century and for the whole of the 19^th Century it was the first ally and partner of the country during a key period of its history. Despite occasional disagreements and misunderstandings, mutual interests and alliances against their common enemies brought the two countries to close cooperation and the signing of many peace and trade treaties.

In the 19th Century, a remarkably close British-Moroccan relationship developed under two successive British Consuls-General, Edward Drummond-Hay (1829-45) and his son Sir John Drummond-Hay (1845-86). The strong political influence of British ambassadors on Moroccan foreign policy was well established and the personality of John Drummond Hay marked Moroccan political life for almost half a century. Though the country was finally colonized by the French, historians consider that until 1904 Morocco was part of the informal Empire of Great Britain.(16)

On his retirement in 1886, Sir John Drummond-Hay wrote that he would never forget the kindness of Moroccans, and went on to list a number of the Sultan's officials whom he counted as personal friends. Sultan Moulay Hassan replied that he regarded Hay as a sincere friend and said that his departure caused great sorrow.

Throughout the shared history between Morocco and Britain, many peace treaties were signed and British ambassadors encouraged the Moroccan Makhzen to make deep reforms to its old territory administration and trade policies especially by opening its frontiers to European commercial exchange and by the modernizing of its governance methods. (Ambassadors Kirby Green and Charles Ewan Smith worked hard to that effect.)

After Drummond Hay’s departure, Morocco’s relations with England became entangled in the colonial rivalries between European powers. As British colonial interests became largely concerned with other parts of the world, the vigour of Moroccan British relations subsided especially after the establishment of the French Protectorate in 1912. However, the existence of a significant English community in Tangier and the British interests in the city were so important that British diplomacy continued to play an influential role in the now, international administrative status of the city (1923-1956). 

During the Second World War Britain and the United States used their diplomatic influence to preserve Morocco’s ties with the Allies and to prevent his falling under the control of Axis powers. Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt held an important war conference with King Mohamed V at Casablanca in 1943.

‘Since Morocco's independence in 1956, British-Moroccan relations have once again grown steadily in importance. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II visited Morocco in October 1980, and His late Majesty King Hassan II paid a return visit to London in July 1987. His Royal Highness Prince Charles has visited Morocco on several occasions, most recently in 1999, to attend the funeral of the late King.’

Notes:

(1) P. G. Rogers, A History of Anglo-Moroccan Relations to 1900, London: Foreign and Commonwealth Office, n.d. [197(5)], pp.1-5.

(2) See P. G. Rogers, A History of Anglo-Moroccan Relations to 1900, pp.1-5. Rogers made of this mission the subject of the whole first chapter of his History and gave many details of the encounter between Ennassir and King John’s two envoys [Thomas Hardington and Mathew Fitz-Nicholas] to the court of Morocco.

 (3) Willan, T.S.  Studies in Elizabethan Foreign Trade, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1959, p.92

(4) Roger Barlow, A brief summe of geographie, ed. E. G. R. Taylor, p. 100.

(5) Willan, p. 93  

(6) Willan op.cit. p. 93

(7) Hakluyt, Richard,  The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, & Discoveries of the English Nations, Made by Sea or Over-land to the Remote and Farthest Distant Quarters of the Earth at any Time within the compasse of these 1600 yeres,   Vol. VI, Glasgow, 1598-1599, p.136

(8) See H. De Castries, Les Sources Inédites de L’Histoire du Maroc, Première Série Dynastie Saadienne Archives et Bibliothèques D’Angleterre, Tome II, Paris, Londres, 1925.  See also   Rogers, pp.10-20

(9) Willan op.cit. 94

 

(10) Giles Penn (Captain) (1573 - c1641) was a prominent merchant from Bristol who, after his bankruptcy, took up ‘merchant adventuring’ in ‘the cut-throat business of trading off the Barbary coast, with Moorish Merchants’. It seems that he resided in Tetuan. His nomination as consul allowed him to solve his business problems and even ‘to obtain in 1631 Tetuan hawks from Morocco for Charles I’ and to be given ‘letters of Protection from the king,’ to obtain ‘Barbary horses for the royal household as well as further numbers of hawks’. Information and quotations from: [http://www.csm.uwe.ac.uk/~rstephen/livingeaston/local_history/Penn/Penn_family_part_2.html] on 12 March 2007. Rogers gives mistakenly 1637 as the nomination year of Penn as consul.

 

(11) Rogers, 39.

(12) Edmund Hogan, a prominent London merchant was entrusted with a letter from Elizabeth I to Abdelmalik Essa-âdi  (1576-1578) which he delivered in June 1577. 

(13) The ambassador left a good impression in London. An account of him was published just after his reception by the King described him as having “an innate inclination to anything that is noble”, and also as “courteous, bountifull (sic), charitable, valiant, “and for “humanity, morality and generosity hee (sic) is a most accomplish’d gentleman” [quoted by Rogers op.cit; pp34-35]

(14) Leo Africanus, A geographical historie of Africa... Translated From latin by John Pory, London, Georg Bishop, 1600. The text became a classic and a main reference for British travellers to Morocco for the following three centuries.

(15)  P. G. Rogers, A History of Anglo-Moroccan Relations to 1900, London: Foreign and Commonwealth Office, n.d. [197(5)], p.VI.

(16) Khalid Bensghir, Britania Wa Ichkaliate Al-Islah bi Lmaghrib 1886-1904, Rabat, 2003. p.11

Mohamed Laamiri

Associate Professor, Institute of African Studies,

Université Mohamed V Souissi, Rabat, Morocco

mlaamiri53@gmail.com

Posted in: اخبار سياسية