Moorish Treaties with the English hurt Spanish Commerce
CategoriesCase Studies
“For now though, what’s important to the story of English trade with Morocco is Sebastian’s inglorious and devastating defeat, and the fact that all 3 rulers, Sebastian, Al-Malik, and Abdallah Muhammed died on the one day of fighting.”
Source: Thomas Dallam 2: The Anglo-Moroccan Relationship Thomas Dallam, Script
“At the end of 1579, after al-Mansur had risen to power, some in England advocated for a secret treaty with Morocco, which by giving England bases on the Moroccan coast could be used to continually threaten Spain, its Indies fleets, and potentially conquer the Canary Islands.963 Dom Antonio’s arrival in England, however, provided another means by which to achieve such goals and imperil Philip II’s seemingly unassailable position in the Atlantic.”
“England entered in a trading relationship with Morocco detrimental to Spain, selling armour, ammunition, timber, metal in exchange for Moroccan sugar, in spite of a Papal ban”
Source: Speaking of the Moor: From Alcazar to Othello By Emily Carroll Bartels
“In her letters to Al-Mansur, Elizabeth, over a period of 25 years, continually described the relationship between the two countries as “La buena amistad y confederación que hay entre nuestras coronas” (“The great friendship and cooperation that exists between our Crowns”), and presented herself as “Vuestra hermana y pariente según ley de corona y ceptro” (“Your sister and relative according to the law of the Crown and the Scepter”)”
Source: Shakespeare Studies, Volume 31 edited by Leeds Barroll, Susan Zimm…
“Ben Haddu discussed the usual issues, peace and a trade treaty, though the document was never ratified. (This in spite of the diarist Anthony Wood’s entry for February 16, 1682, which states that “an everlasting peace was concluded between our king and the emperour of Morocco by his embassador in London.”) This was largely because the English continued to occupy Tangier, which gave them control over the Straits of Gibraltar, and because some English merchants continued to trade illegally and not pay the required taxes.”
Source: An “Extremely Civile” Diplomacy Written by Caroline Stone
“The final section of the book The Foreign Relations of Elizabeth I – Palgrave Connect is also the most startlingly original, with groundbreaking discussions of Elizabethan relations with the civilizations of Islam and India. Nabil Matar contributes a powerful essay describing the only account of Elizabeth as perceived by the Morocco of Mulay Ahmad al-Mansur, while Bernadette Andrea offers an account of how Elizabeth learned to communicate with the imperial courts of the sophisticated and cosmopolitan Islamic rivals, Ottoman Turkey and Safavid Persia. Concluding the book is Nandini Das’s essay concerning the efforts of Elizabeth’s government, English merchants, and Richard Hakluyt to begin the process of creating a commercial relationship with Mughal India, an event that presaged the emergence of the seventeenth-century British Empire.”
“In November 1682, legislation was passed that forged all “Negroes, Moors, Mollattoes or Indians” into a new ‘racial classification’ of Negro, “all servants except Turkes and Moores”. Again, the scholarship is quite broad on the reasoning for this distinction, but some point to unspoken agreements with North African rulers during the Ottoman Empire that in later years would be codified in a series of treaties known as the “Barbary Treaties”. The treaties, dated from the late 18th century through the near mid 19th century, set forth a number of agreements that provided certain civil and religious protections to those who arrived in early America from northern Africa.”
Source: Before He Was President: Abraham Lincoln And The Man Who Refused To Be Called ‘Negro’
“The Treaty of 1836 replaced an earlier treaty between the United States and Morocco which was concluded in 1787. The two treaties were substantially identical in terms and Articles 20 and 21 are the same in both. Accordingly, in construing the provisions of Article 20 -and, in particular, the expression “shall have any dispute with each other it is necessary to take in to account the meaning of the word “dispute at the times when the two treaties were concluded. For this purpose it is possible to look at -the way in which the word “dispute” or its French counterpart was used in the different treaties concluded by Morocco e.g., with France in 1631 and 1682, with Great Britain in 1721, 1750, 1751, 1760 and 1801. It is clear that in these instances the word was used to cover both civil and criminal disputes.”
Source: 1952 Hague I.C.J. Judges: “Moorish-USA 1836 treaty Apply to Criminal & Civil Cases”
“In order to maintain her amicable relations with both the Turks and the Moors, the queen made sure that English sea captains released Muslim slaves-from captured Spanish galleys.”…“there are numerous indications that Britons hauled Muslim captives to the Barbary Coast and exchanged them for English captives. In 1635 Robert Blake was authorized to take forty-five Moors to Barbary to exchange them for English captives. But he immediately ran into difficulty. There were more English than Moorish captives.
Source: Turks, Moors, and Englishmen in the Age of Discovery
“It had always been custom of the Moors to mutilate and decapitate any of the British dead and wounded who were left on a battlefield, but after this action the roles were reversed. The British soldiers committed ‘like Barbarities’, to the shame of their officers who did all they could to prevent them. Halkett estimated the Moors to have numbered 3,000 before the action, and their casualties he put at 500. This was the only significant victory which the British gained over the Moors during their occupation of Tangier. When the Europeans dictated the terms and fought the Moors in the open field, then the primitive Africans were no match for the training and disciplined firepower of the regular professionals. For too long the British had allowed the Moors to fight in their own fashion and had suffered severely as a result. Making use of their military advantage the British sued for a lasting peace, and 29 March 1681 Sackville and the Alcaide signed a treaty which was to give peace for four years. Peace of warm Tangier remained untenable.”
Source: Army of Charles II By John Childs
“Requète de la Barbary Company a Leicester,” 1587, SIHM-Angleterre, I, 486-488. Queen Elizabeth did apparently write a letter to the sharīf in favor of English merchants that ultimately led him to issue a proclamation protecting them from seizure. “Édit de Moulay Ahmed el-Mansour” 10-19 March 1588, SIHM-Angleterre, I, 490- 491.”
In his account of captivity in Morocco in the 1680s, Thomas Phelps recalled meeting with an “ancient Moor, who formerly had been a slave in England and spoke good English, and who was set at liberty by our late Gracious King Charles the 2d.” Another captive/slave was the corsair Abdallah bin Aisha, who spent three years in England and was released by King Charles without ransom upon the intercession of James II.”
Source: Turks, Moors, and Englishmen in the Age of Discovery Nabil Matar
[…] Society, which pertains to Moors who are by means of the legacy of Slavery which was prohibited by Moorish-English treaties and Moorish-USA treaties in the United States of America, formerly part of British-America are […]