Murder in Marrakesh: Émile Mauchamp and the French Colonial Adventure

3. Europeans and Jews

3 Europeans and Jews The European Colony of Marrakesh At the turn of the century, explorers such as Segonzac and Doutté had visited Marrakesh and written accounts of the city, but apart from a handful of missionaries and commercial agents who represented European firms headquartered in Tangier, few Europeans had taken up residence there. This, of course, would all soon change. The 1906 Algeciras conference was a watershed event that opened Morocco’s doors to French investment and permitted Europeans to purchase land beyond the perimeter of the coast.1 In the six years that followed the conference, the European population of Morocco doubled from ten thousand (two-thirds of whom were Spanish) to twenty thousand. Estimates put the total Moroccan population at between four and four and a half million. Likewise, following the establishment of the French Protectorate in 1912, the European population of Marrakesh alone soon swelled into the thousands. In keeping with the urban planning policies of Resident-General Lyautey, an entirely separate French city, la ville nouvelle, would grow up alongside the old Arab and Jewish quarters. Travel writers , chief among them André Chevrillon, the Tharaud brothers, and Edith Wharton, would write romantic descriptions of the red-hued southern capital. By the 1920s Marrakesh was already on its way to becoming a popular “exotic” tourist destination.2 But in October 1905, when Mauchamp arrived on the scene, all this growth and change remained unimaginable. Barely twenty Europeans , counting wives and children, lived among Marrakesh’s one hundred thousand inhabitants. This paltry number stood in contrast to Tangier, which housed an estimated 5,252 Europeans. In 1905 Europeans and Jews 75 Essaouira alone, the closest coastal town to Marrakesh, counted twenty-six Frenchmen or French subjects among two hundred and fifty Europeans. The other ports along the coast—Safi, El-Jadida, Casablanca, Larache, Tetuan—all had European populations numbering in the hundreds. With its commercial development hampered by the lack of a decent harbor, Rabat-Salé was the notable exception among the coastal cities in that it lacked a sizable European population .3 In 1907 La Dépêche Marocaine put the total French population of Morocco, excluding Algerians, at one thousand. Of these, six hundred lived in Tangier. “Although very inferior in number to the Spanish colony, [the French] surpass it in quality,” the paper boasted, “because its representatives hold the great part of the capital , and they are the ones who have created most of the industrial enterprises.”4 “The opening of Morocco to international commerce in the middle of the nineteenth century occurred,” one expert on the Moroccan economy has written, “only after many false starts and difficult negotiations.” Foreign trade was theoretically a monopoly of the Makhzan. “Commercial activities strictly defined—that is, the purchasing, packing and transporting of goods to ports of embarkation —were carried out by private individuals who had acquired temporary and revocable monopoly trade rights.” But as foreign demand for Moroccan goods (grain, cattle, olive oil, wool, animal skins, etc.) grew, the Moroccan buyers who operated under Makhzan trade licenses were unable to supply the demand. This provided an opportunity for European businessmen, living for the most part in the coastal cities, to enter into the market. They did this initially by forming alliances with Moroccans, to whom they provided small sums of money. “The foreign businessmen then selected intermediaries at a higher level and progressively created alongside the trade administered by the Makhzen [sic] a private network that was strongly linked to foreign companies. Within twenty years, from 1880 to 1900, the bulk of trade passed into the hands of foreign businessmen.”5 Meanwhile, so as to protect their Moroccan agents from the interference of the Makhzan and its functionaries, European businessmen pressed their consulates to extend consular protection to their local associates. In this manner, an ever-increasing number of Moroccans acquired immunity from taxation and the judicial control of the Makhzan. The 1880 Madrid Conference, called to restrain the excesses of the protégé system, failed miserably. The numbers of 76 Life protégés continued to grow, a phenomenon that not only reduced the Makhzan’s revenues but further eroded the nation’s sovereignty. Those seeking to become protégés often included Makhzan officials themselves and tribal qaids such as Al-Madani al-Glawi, a wealthy and powerful figure in southern Morocco, and his brother Thami, who would later...