The Hispano-Moroccan re-encounter : colonialism, mimesis, and power in the Spanish war on Tetouan and its occupation (1859-62)

Abstract

The Hispano-Moroccan Re-Encounter: Colonialism, Mimesis, and Power in the Spanish War on Tetouan and its Occupation (1859-62) is a micro-history of the events that inaugurated modern Spanish colonialism in Morocco. The dissertation analyzes the interrelated imperial and local discourses and practices in the mid nineteenth-century military conflict enhanced by Spain and the understudied twenty-seven-month occupation of Tetouan. The complex contours of the incipient Hispano-Moroccan modern imperial formation are scrutinized by recourse to a constellation of multilingual sources – in Arabic, Spanish, and Basque, including manuscript and printed chronicles, press articles, literary accounts and diverse archival materials. The topical chapters discuss nineteenth-century Spanish colonial discourses, the Tetouani and Moroccan reaction to the war and defeat, the colonial (re)encounter and the policies based on the construction of racial difference, the politics of gender, status, and religion, the urban history of occupied Tetouan, the subaltern populations’ political action, and finally the view of the events of the Moroccan elites who abandoned the city on the eve of its occupation. The dissertation includes a Prologue that offers a general description of the studied events, and an Epilogue that discusses some of the processes that developed after the Spanish evacuation of Tetouan. The dissertation is intended as a contribution to four interrelated scholarly realms. Firstly, to the study of Spanish colonialism, in which Spanish Africa has received little attention in comparison to the Americas and the Philippines. Secondly, to postcolonial studies of the Middle East and North Africa, in which prevalence has been given to British and French colonialisms, and in which the Maghrib has received less attention than the Mashriq. Thirdly, to Moroccan historiography, which has until recently disregarded colonial Morocco as if it were a ‘historical parenthesis.’ And fourthly, to Hispano-Moroccan studies, which have focused more on al-Andalus than on the post-1492 interactions.