The Moroccan Sus, a pole of economic attraction at the beginning of the Atlantic expansion

Abstract

Since the early stages of the Atlantic expansion, the Moroccan Sus region aroused the interest of European settlers, both for the quality of its products and for its significance in international trade with the African countries. To Castilian colonizers it meant a nearby territory well connected with the Canary Islands, while for the Portuguese it stood as an important port of call between its North African posts and those in Guinea. At first, the settling down could benefit from the poor resistance offered by a few tribal powers quite far from the model of the strong northern ones. In order to stop the foreign progress though, the gradual rise and consolidation of the Sherifs group leaned on the addition to those original tribes of other local peoples, as well as of Hebraic communities, important economically and diplomatically. Minor actors were also the nomad and sedentary groups in the region, who would slide between the upholding of the traditional lifestyle and the collaboration with some of these new powers. Our analysis ranges from the outset of the effective settling down of the area by the middle of the 15th century to the loss of Santa Cruz del Cabo de Aguer in 1541. The shift in the balance of power between colonizers and indigenous peoples came about by the end of the first third of the 16th century, after which that foreign stamp fell into decline.