Building and performing: early sixteenth-century Portuguese presence in Azammūr

Abstract

Azammūr was the last great Portuguese conquest in North Africa (1513–42). On the one hand, it represented the last stage of a broader strategy of establishment in Morocco still fired by crusade ideology. Christian Azammūr proposed a new urban space, which was celebrated by contemporary Portuguese narratives. Beyond technological, urban and military innovations, the Portuguese presence in Azammūr was affirmed through a symbolic rhetoric that would often surpass the political occupation itself. On the other hand, those in Azammūr faced a harsh reality; the city did not attract numerous Portuguese settlers and the local economy showed few signs of intense activity. Eventually, Azammūr experienced armed confrontations and alliances between its Christian, Muslim and Jewish communities. Methodologically, this study offers an analysis of cross-referenced archaeological, architectural and documentary material. It was carried out as a part of a research project from 2007 to 2011. It presents the first contemporary and updated synthesis of the historical process that led to the ruling and abandonment of Azammūr by the Portuguese, and thus remains relevant to understanding Muslim–Christian relations and exchanges in terms of their military, social and spatial aspects. Moreover, the paper examines the period when Europe evolved from late-medieval conceptions to early-modernity.

Keywords:

• Azammūr
• Morocco
• Portugal
• urban history
• sixteenth century

Acknowledgements

We thank the editors of this special issue, Miriam Ali de Unzaga and Adam Gaiser, for their critical feedback at different stages of the production of the manuscript. We are also grateful to FCT, Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, which provided the necessary funding for the research that supported the arguments discussed in the paper.

Notes

1 This research was carried out as a part of a research project ((PTDC/HAH/71027/2006) from 2007 to 2011 entitled ‘Portugal and South Morocco: contacts and clashes (15th to 18th centuries)’ directed by Prof. Maria Augusta Lima Cruz and supported by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia. http://cham.fcsh.unl.pt/portugalemarrocos.html.

2 From the various motives that led João I, the first monarch of the Avis dynasty, to conquer Ceuta, in 1415, the question of the legitimation and affirmation of his lineage was one of the most important. He would aspire to play an international role, in such a strategic sensitive area as the Strait of Gibraltar. The decision of keeping the city under Portuguese dominion, in spite of the heavy financial and human costs has been understood as a way to fight the country's isolation, compensating for Castile's continental supremacy (Farinha 1990).

3 See previous note. Morocco was imagined as a natural extension of Europe, once a Roman province and a Christian territory, which should be part of the Reconquest enterprise in order to bring it back to the core of European Christendom. It held a special place because it was different from the New World, and it was considered a location for adventure with no reference to the European Christian spheres, as the sub-Saharan African coast.

4 Regarding Portuguese fortifications in North Africa, see Moreira (1989) and Correia (2008).

5 The controversial character of Yaḥyā-ū-Ta'fūft has evoked historiography in classical works such as, Racine (2003) and Cruz (2002).

6 The echoes of an atmosphere of patriotic and religious exaltation were noted in the Cancioneiro Geral by Garcia de Resende, a printed collection of poems in 1516, three years after the capture of Azammūr. Among others, the ballads of Luis Henriques to the Duke of Bragança link the conquest of the Moroccan city to the future triumphal entrance of his sovereign in the Holy Land, in a clear conformity with the Manueline imperial ideology (Cruz 2009).

7 Letter from Nuno Gato to Manuel I, 31 Mars 1514 (Cénival 1934, 530–533).

8 The rectangular bastion worked as a town gate too, together with the river bastion, helped to defend Azammūr; its artillery capacity was oriented to land and water.

9 Letter from Rui Barreto to Manuel I, 21 February 1514 (Cénival 1934, 489–501).

10 To the north, a straight wall curtain was cast towards the river, reinforced by an escarpment, which, in turn, helped dig the ditch. To the east, the river shore was followed by a walled front that revised the inherited outline by introducing two slight inflexions nonetheless important for the protection of the River Gate.

11 Letter from Simão Correia do the king, 3 October 1516 (Cénival 1939, II.1, 37–40).

12 Letters from governor D. Álvaro de Noronha to the King, 18 April and 18 May 1520 (Cénival 1934, 273–274 and 240–242, respectively).

13 Letter from captain Correia mentioned above, 3 October 1516.

14 A projection of between 1000 and 1250 inhabitants has been proposed, taking into account the garrison, men residents, their wives, children and elders (Dias 1996).

15 Notably end of the fifteenth- and the early sixteenth-centuries renovations in Lisbon (Correia 2008, 305–306).

16 Letter from Captain Rui Barreto mentioned above, 21 February 1514.

17 Diogo de Arruda previously worked on the fortifications of Naples with Francesco di Giorgio Martini. From the beginning, the architectural plans of the Italian master were careful to include the new artillery, assigning it to a strategic location for the defence of the fortification. New establishments would take advantage of the natural conditions on site, orienting the role of each tower/bastion for multiple deployments. In fact, this was the practical use of the principles of conjugated flanking. Following the custom set by Diogo and Francisco de Arruda and closely followed by the captain, the bastions built in Azammūr display the preference for circular shapes. As for their design, it would have been fundamentally the result of an opinion based on the Arruda master's own experiences in Portugal, influenced by the instructions gathered in the writings by Giorgio Martini, mostly his Tratatto di architettura ingegneria e arte militare (Moreira 1989, 106–107).

18 ‘Pagamentos à gente de ordenança e aos trabalhadores das obras da cidade e do castelo, 1514/1516’ AN/TT (Arquivos Nacionais da Torre do Tombo), Núcleo Antigo, cód. 765, fls. 107, 117, 125v, 134, 154, 175, 197, 207.

19 Letter from captain Rui Barreto mentioned above, 21 February 1514.

20 Letter from captain Simão Correia mentioned above, 3 October 1516.

21 Letter from Vicente Rodrigues Evangelho to the king, 10 April 1530 (Cénival, Lopes, and Ricard 1946, 511).

22 See note 14.

23 Letter from Muslim Lud to the king (Cénival 1934, 457–458).

24 External supplies, very common in Portuguese cities in northern Morocco, came essentially from the Azores, not so much from Andalusia, a sign of integration in a clearly more north-Atlantic geographical complex (Cruz 1967, 97–111).

25 Brazil's colonisation programme was kept moving, thanks to its success with sugar cane (Costa 2002). On the other hand, trading profits in the eastern territories of the empire provoked an Ottoman intervention. Subsequently, the Portuguese dispatched extraordinary forces to the Indian Ocean, which resulted in victories during the Diu sieges of 1538 and 1546.

26 This option was conducted in Mazagão: investments were made in the construction of a huge fortress, ready to withstand heavy artillery attacks. Designed by the Italian Benedetto da Ravenna, it was the first bastioned fortress in all of the Portuguese empire. The fortress was kept under Portuguese dominion for the following two centuries, notwithstanding continuous wars (Moreira 2001).

27 Even though Islamic presence in the south west of the Iberian Peninsula (which became the southern region of the Portuguese kingdom) lasted up to the mid-seventh/thirteenth century, the eyes of the Portuguese conquerors were not prepared to see alternative ways of urban display, hierarchy and organisation such as those found in Mediterranean Islamic cities. For further details, see Hakim (1986).

28 Portuguese plans for Morocco returned by the end of the sixteenth century when king Sebastião's military enterprise ended in a tremendous disaster in 1578 (Cruz 2006).