IN THE COURTS OF THE NATIONS - DataSpace - Princeton ...

While politically there was more continuity than change during the nineteenth century,
Morocco nonetheless experienced significant transformations in almost all areas of state and
society. Most important was the increasing influence of Western states on economic and
political developments in Morocco. Although scholars have shown that the image of Morocco as
isolated prior to the nineteenth century is incorrect, there is no question that the degree and
intensity of financial and political ties between Morocco and the Western world increased
dramatically after 1800. 5 The French colonization of Algeria, which began in 1830, was an
important watershed for the region. Morocco was perhaps even more affected by the signing of
a free trade agreement with Britain in 1856 and by Spain’s occupation of the northern city of
Tetuan from 1860-2. Both events precipitated increased trade with merchants from Europe and
the Americas, as well as greater political involvement in Morocco’s internal and external affairs
by foreign governments. 6
Morocco’s Jews participated in and were affected by these changes to a disproportionate
degree given their small number. Although demographic statistics for pre-colonial Morocco are
notoriously unreliable, Jews made up something between 2% and 7% of the entire population. 7
This relatively small ratio belies the fact that Jews were concentrated in cities, where in some
5
On the perception of Morocco as isolated, see especially Jean Louis Miège, Le Maroc et l’Europe, 1830-1894, 4
vols. (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1961), v. 1, 20-3; Mohamed El Mansour, Morocco in the Reign of
Mawlay Sulayman (Wisbech: Middle East and North Africa Studies Press, 1988); James A. O. C. Brown, “Anglo-
Moroccan Relations in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries, with Particular Reference to the Role of
Gibraltar” (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Cambridge, 2009).
6
On increasing European involvement in Morocco, see esp. Miège, Le Maroc et l’Europe; Edmund Burke, Prelude
to Protectorate in Morocco: Precolonial Protest and Resistance, 1860-1912 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1976); Abdellah Laroui, Les origines sociales et culturelles du nationalisme marocain (1830-1912) (Paris: François
Maspero, 1977), Chapter 5.
7
Estimates put Morocco’s total population at between 2,750,000 and 10 million, and the most reliable estimates put
the Jewish population at around 180,000 (Frederick V. Parsons, The Origins of the Morocco Question, 1880-1900
(London: Duckworth, 1976), 539).
4