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

the incident and to have the soldiers punished. 5 While the archives do not preserve the outcome
of Shalom’s request, we can safely guess that the American ambassador’s letter helped ensure
that his case was attended to by the Makhzan. 6
More commonly, Shalom had Mathews write to Makhzan officials asking them to ensure
that Shalom’s debtors paid their outstanding debts. 7 In one such letter, Mathews explained that
Shalom was owed 17,500 riyāls by a member of the Barrāda family in Fez, but that “the qā’id
‘Abdallāh b. Aḥmad imprisoned someone else in Barrāda’s stead as a trick.” 8 Mathews
requested that Barrāda be arrested in order to force him to pay what he owed Shalom. In general,
Makhzan officials made concerted efforts to ensure that Shalom’s debtors repaid their debts.
Some debtors were arrested while others had their property confiscated in an attempt to satisfy
the American protégé and his ambassador. 9
These exchanges between Mathews and the Makhzan were not so different from the
instances examined in Part Two in which Jews appealed directly to the Makhzan. However, the
fact that Shalom had the backing of a foreign official made his petitions all the more effective.
Even though we do not have any court records attesting Shalom’s appearance in consular court,
it is clear that Shalom was able to use his foreign protection to his advantage in addressing his
legal needs.
5 An ya’mura bi-akhdhi al-ḥaqqi li-’l-yahūdī al-madhkūr.
6 Unfortunately, I did not find any further information about this case in either the American or the Makhzan
archives.
7 I suspect that Mathews wrote to the same effect on other occasions since the Makhzan archives preserves
correspondence about efforts to recover Shalom’s debts from before the first such letter I found (from Ṣafar 1302/
December 1884), although I did not find such correspondence in the archives.
8 Bi-maḥalli Barrāda wa-hādhā min al-qā’id talā‘aba [sic]: USNA, reg. 84, v. 141A, Felix A. Mathews to
Muḥammad al-Ṭūris (leter #60), 17 Ṣafar 1302.
9 DAR, Fez, Sa‘īd b. Farajī to Mawlāy Ḥasan, 6 Ramaḍān 1301; 28799, ‘Abdallāh b. Aḥmad to Muḥammad b. al-
‘Arabī, 14 Ramaḍān 1301; 28800, ‘Abdallāh b. Aḥmad to Muḥammad b. al-‘Arabī, 21 Ramaḍān 1301; 6060,
Muḥammad b. al-‘Arabī b. al-Mukhtar to ‘Abdallāh b. Aḥmad, 26 Ramaḍān 1301; Mawlāy Ḥasan to ‘Abdallāh b.
Aḥmad, 1 Dhū al-Qa‘da 1301; Sa‘īd b. Farajī to Mawlāy Ḥasan, 4 Dhū al-Qa‘da 1301; 6129, al-‘Arabī wuld Abī
Muḥammad to ‘Abdallāh b. Aḥmad, 27 Rabī‘ II 1303.
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