CHAPTER V

SPANISH AFRICA

The enterprise of Spain in Africa was relatively small, the greater part of Spanish energy being devoted to founding an empire in the New World, in the far East, in Italy and Flanders. It was also knit up politically at first with the Portuguese colonial empire. Nevertheless Spain has left very distinct marks of her influence on North-western Africa in both language and culture. This in past times arose from the Spanish Moors expelled from Spain, but bringing much Spanish valour, ingeniousness, art, and pride into the life of Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, and Timbuktu.

When Portugal was commencing to acquire oversea dominions in the Açores (1437-66), Madeira (1430), and on the coast of Morocco, Christian Spain was still divided into three kingdoms—Castile, Aragon and Navarre—and the two former were concentrating their energies on the destruction of the Moorish kingdom of Granada (not accomplished till 1492). But the monarchs of Castile and Aragon became jealous of the oversea expansion of Portugal; and that power deemed it wise to surrender to Castile in 1479 the Portuguese claim to the Canary Islands.

The Canary Islands had been partially conquered by a Norman adventurer, Jean de Béthencourt, in 1402-6, more or less under the suzerainty of Castile; and the Canary kingdom passed into the hands of Ferdinand and Isabella in 1476. Prior to the final occupation of the Spaniards the islands were inhabited by a Berber race of some antiquity known as the Guanches. These were partly exterminated and partly absorbed by the Spanish settlers, to whom they were so much akin in blood that complete race fusion was rendered easy, especially as the Guanches had not been reached by Muhammadanism. The Canary Islands were an invaluable stepping-stone for the trans-Atlantic ventures of the Spanish ships during the first fifty years of American discovery and colonization. Many Spanish and Guanche colonists—the Isleños or Islanders—proceeded from this archipelago of seven islands to the greater Antilles; and there are plantations and villages to-day in Cuba and Porto Rico which possess Berber names derived from those of the Guanche prisoners or colonists who founded them. It took Spain however fifteen years to conquer the brave and warlike Guanches, a task not accomplished until 1495. The wonderful scenery, genial climate, and fertile soil attracted the attention of the British in the 18th century; and one or two attempts were made to acquire this archipelago, but in face of the gallant resistance offered by the islanders (it was at Tenerife that Nelson lost his arm in an attempted landing) British cupidity was foiled. In 1833 the archipelago was made a separate government—a province of Spain by itself; but in 1902 a movement for home rule was severely repressed. The Canary Islands now form politically part of Spain. They are thoroughly civilized, well governed and prosperous. The two principal islands, Tenerife and Grand Canary, are favourite health resorts; and the whole group owes much to British capital, enterprise and shipping for its industrial and agricultural development.

At the close of the 15th century the Spaniards followed up their expulsion of the Moors from Spain by attacking them on the North coast of Africa. They established themselves at Melilla[76], Oran, Algiers[77], Bugia, Bona, Hunein, Susa, Monastir, Mehedia, Sfax, and Goletta[78]. The apogee of Spanish power in North Africa was reached about 1535, at which time the Spaniards alternately with the Turks dominated the Barbary States. Then, owing to victory inclining to the Turkish corsairs[79], the Spaniards’ hold over the country began to decline. A resolute attempt was made by Charles V in 1541 to take and hold the town of Algiers, the Spanish having lost Peñon, a rock fortress overlooking part of the town. This attempt of 1541 (only less serious than the French expedition of 1880) would probably have succeeded but for a torrential downpour of rain, which made the surrounding country impassable to the Spanish guns and cavalry, and led to a terrible rout. Had Algiers fallen at this time, its capture might have resulted in a Spanish empire over North Africa. As it was, this twenty-four hours’ downpour of rain changed the future of the northern part of the continent, or rather prevented a change which might have had very far-reaching results. Charles V had invaded Tunis in 1535 at the appeal of the last sovereign but one of the House of Hafs, who had been dispossessed by the Turkish pirate, Khaireddin. Although his intervention was ultimately unsuccessful, and his protégé was killed and succeeded by his son, who more or less intrigued with the Turkish corsairs, the Spaniards retained their hold on Goletta till 1574, the Turks having then definitely intervened in the affairs of Tunis. The Spaniards surrendered Goletta to the renegade pirate, Ochiali; and with it went all their influence over Tunis. An expedition which they had sent to the island of Jerba, under the Duke de Medina-Cœli and the younger Doria, ended in a great disaster—a defeat at the hands of the Moorish pirates who massacred, it is said, not less than 18,000 Spaniards (May, 1560). Their skulls were built into a tower, which remained visible near the town of Humt Suk till 1840, when the kindly Maltese settlers on this island obtained permission from the Bey of Tunis to give Christian burial to the Spanish skulls, which now are interred in the Christian cemetery at Humt Suk. For brief intervals the Spaniards held other coast towns[80] of Tunis, but in retiring from Goletta they withdrew from all further hold over the Regency.

They finally quitted Oran in 1791, after a terrible earthquake. They had been turned out of this place in 1708, but recaptured it after a period of 24 years, and held it for 59 years longer. Spain only retained down to the present day on the north coast of Morocco the little island of Melilla[81], the island of Alhucemas, the rock of Velez de la Gomera, and the rocky promontory of Ceuta. Ceuta (and Tetwan, which she once possessed) she inherited from Portugal after a separation had once more taken place between the two monarchies in 1640.

Awakened from the torpor which followed the Napoleonic wars and the home struggles for constitutional government by the French activities in Algeria, Spain suddenly seized the Chafarinas Islands[82] in 1849 so as to forestall the French. On the strength of some clause in a treaty concluded after the war with the Moors (1859-60), Spain secured from Morocco the town of Ifni, near Cape Nun on the Atlantic coast and nearly opposite the Canary Islands, but made no attempt to occupy it. From the middle of the 19th century onwards an increasing number of Spaniards, chiefly of the artisan and peasant class, emigrated from Andalucia to the Oran coast of Algeria, with the result that Western Algeria to-day contains a Spanish-speaking population of about 150,000. Yet prior to the 20th century, Spain, distracted by home affairs and troubles in Cuba, seemed willing to let Morocco drift beyond her control to that of England or Germany, until the revival of Spanish industries and trade and the loss of her colonies in America and the Pacific decided her to plead with Britain and France that a sphere of influence should be reserved for Spain on the North Morocco coast. In 1910-11 the region between Melilla and the Muluya mouth was brought under Spanish control; and in 1911 Spanish troops occupied all the important towns on or near the coast between Melilla and Kasr al Kabīr on the Atlantic, except Tangier (which will probably be internationalized). Spain in fact will sooner or later annex all the Rif country of North Morocco. In the south she claims a very large area between Cape Jubi and the Anti-Atlas mountains.

Spain had allowed her influence over the coast opposite the Canary Islands (“Santa Cruz de Mar Pequena”) to lapse between the end of the 16th century and the scramble for Africa which commenced in 1884. At this period an English trading firm with agencies in the Canary Islands had been established at Cape Jubi, south of the Morocco border; and British influence for a time dominated the coast immediately opposite the Canary Islands, and arrested Spanish action in that neighbourhood. After the scramble for Africa commenced, however, the Spanish, who were greatly interested in the north-west coast (for its valuable fisheries in which the Canarian fishermen were employed), raised their flag in 1885 at an inlet called the Rio d’Ouro[83], and declared a Protectorate over the Sahara coast between Cape Blanco and Cape Bojador and for a varying distance inland. This Protectorate has since been extended farther to the north beyond Cape Bojador; but the Empire of Morocco theoretically extends to the south of Cape Jubi to meet the Spanish frontier, the Moorish Government having bought up the claims of the English company. The inland boundary of this Spanish Protectorate has recently been settled as between France and Spain, and comprises an approximate area of 73,000 square miles, mainly desert, but extending inland to the Adrar hills. The only establishment of any importance or size is on the Rio de Oro inlet, not far from the islet which the Carthaginians once frequented. No doubt before long the Rio de Oro Protectorate will be fused with the territory which Spain claims in South-west Morocco.

In 1778 Spain, which had become deeply interested in the slave trade on the West coast of Africa, on account of the need for a regular supply of slaves to her South American possessions, obtained from Portugal the cession of the island of Fernando Pô, and also took over the island of Anno Bom—the last of this series of equatorial volcanic islands and the smallest. About the same time the Spaniards made a settlement at Corisco Bay[84]. The Spanish claims extend some distance up the river Muni. The boundaries of Spanish Guinea (as it is called) were settled with the French in 1900-2 and resulted in a territory of 9800 square miles being allotted to Spain. This very interesting patch of Equatorial West African Coast is emphatically the home of the gorilla. It is populated by Bantu negroes, more especially belonging to the Fang group.

At the end of the 18th century the Spanish island of Fernando Pô was almost abandoned. When the British undertook to put down the slave trade off the West African Coast, Fernando Pô became their head-quarters (in 1829); and for a time they were allowed to administer it by the Spanish Government, the British representative or “Superintendent” being made at the same time a Governor with a Spanish commission. But in 1844 the Spanish decided to resume the direct administration, and refused to sell their rights to Great Britain, though overtures were made to that end. Until about 1890 nothing was done to develop the resources of this densely forested, very fertile, but unhealthy island. From that time onwards, however, some encouragement was given to negro and European planters. From the island having been for so long under British control, there is a large population of English-speaking negroes, and English is understood in Fernando Pô much better than Spanish. These negroes are descended from a number of freed slaves from Sierra Leone. The indigenous inhabitants are a Bantu tribe of short stature and very lowly culture known as the Bube[85]. This tribe is distantly related to the people of the northern part of the Cameroons, and speaks an isolated Bantu dialect. Much development of cacao planting has recently taken place in Fernando Pô, involving the importation of foreign negro labourers from Liberia; but the interests of the Bube natives have been well protected by Spanish Dominican and British Primitive Methodist missionaries.