Morocco seems to present a curious double image
to the world - at once accessible and mysterious. It is a land that
welcomes tourism and investment, receiving less of each than it wishes.
A staunch ally of Western style democracy, it's government serves a monarch
who rules through a constitutional framework in an essentially absolute
manner. Luckily for everyone, the king is possessed of a liberal
and progressive outlook, at least as far as the welfare of his people is
concerned. As a result, Morocco has been fundamentally at peace with
itself for the past several decades, while civil conflicts (some of which
Morocco has played a part in) have racked its neighbors.
A center of culture since before the Romans, Morocco
has been left with a long and complex written history, and it's soil is
littered with a rich record of early human and prehuman life. The
fossils and artifacts feed the voracious intellectual appetites of archeologists
and paleontologists, as well as a thriving collector market in treasures
of the past. This abundance of ancient material naturally lends itself
to the inclusion of the first 500 million years of the Moroccan story in
this survey, especially as prehistoric artifacts and fossils have become
a popular sideline for numismatic dealers and collectors of late.
Morocco differs from the rest of North Africa in
the fact that it possesses mountains. Actually, most it is covered
with several mountain chains. The Rif back up the Mediterranean coast,
while the Atlas range, descending the length of the nation from northeast
to southwest, forms the country's spine. More southerly still is
another chain - the Anti-Atlas. Beyond lies the Sahara Desert.
The formation of the mountains has brought to the surface rocks of several
distinct geological eras. There are areas where fossils can be found
dating from both shortly before and shortly after the disappearance of
the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago, as well as from the time of the
trilobites almost a quarter of a billion years earlier. Fossilized
bones of a carnivorous dinosaur larger than tyrannosaurus rex were found
in Morocco a few years back. Moroccan trilobites are a well known
staple of the today's fossil market, and within the last couple of years
fossil dinosaur teeth from Morocco have become
available to collectors. The teeth are attributed to the newly
described spinosaurs, large meat eaters with tyrannosaur-like bodies and
crocodile-like heads. Morocco is today one of the major suppliers
of fossils to the collector market.
Early hominids roamed the hills of Morocco, and
their relics are fairly abundant. One finds stone artifacts of many
styles from the early Paleolithic to the late Neolithic periods, which
is to say from about 100,000 BC forward. Interestingly, as far as
I know, though the land was occupied by homo erectus, there seem to have
been no Neanderthals there. Modern humans, homo
sapiens, probably arrived around 30,000 BC, possibly from the east,
bringing with them such innovations as stone-tipped spears. Pottery
began to be produced during the Neolithic period, perhaps 6,000 BC, perhaps
earlier. These
Neolithic people seem to have evolved, with many genetic additions
from other groups, into the people known today as the Berbers.
There are many different groups of Berbers, bearing
widely different genetic markers and speaking many dialects of the same
language, some of them mutually unintelligible. Though they are an
ancient people, they have never united into an ethnically based nation,
and they have never effectively resisted immigration by others. Many
peoples have come to Morocco over the
centuries, almost all by way of the Mediterranean Sea. The newcomers
traditionally occupied the coast, while the Berbers retired south to the
mountains.
The first large scale settlement by outsiders was
the Phoenician infiltration. The original Phoenicians inhabited the
Lebanese coast. Under Egyptian control until the weakness that followed
the reign of pharaoh Ramses II around 1200 BC, the Phoenicians thereafter
embarked on a period of extensive exploration and trade throughout the
Mediterranean. Along the North African coast they found several convenient
and salubrious locations on which to make settlements. The most famous
of these of course was Carthage, founded in the 9th century BC more or
less on the site of modern Tunis, but other small towns
were established further west and on the southern coast of Spain.
Phoenician towns within the territory of modern
Morocco included Rusadir, near modern Melilla, Tingis (Tangiers), Zilis
(Asilah), Lix (Larache), and Sala (Sale), by the modern capital Rabat.
It turned out that the shores of region contained an abundance of the murex,
a small snail from which was made the prized crimson dye known as "Tyrian
purple."
Carthage became rich and powerful, with settlements
all over the western Mediterranean, including the parts of the island of
Sicily. The rest of Sicily was controlled by Greeks. In the
5th century BC, around the same time that the Persian fleet was destroyed
by the Athenian navy at the battle of Salamis, Carthaginian forces were
routed by the combined forces of the Sicilian Greek cities of Syracuse
and Akragas. Thereafter, the rulers of Syracuse became overbearing
towards their Greek neighbors, and some of the oppressed came to Carthage
for support. Forty years of warfare ensued, but in the end Carthage
came away with no gains. Twice again unsuccessful attempts were
made to control the island.
One result of the Carthaginian ventures in Sicily
was the adoption of coinage, probably initially to pay for Greek mercenaries
in their employ. Before this the Carthaginian economy had been conducted
by barter and in-kind payments. But once familiar with the use of
coinage, the new aid to trade spread throughout the Carthaginian region.
In the 3rd century BC some Italian mercenaries,
formerly employed by the Syracusan tyrant Agathocles, seized the town of
Messina, on the coast of Sicily facing the Italian coast. Placed
in difficulties by their former master they appealed for aid simultaneously
to both Carthage and Rome. When the two forces found themselves thrown
together they came to blows, and the first Punic War ensued, which, after
various turns of fortune, Carthage lost. Faced with high indemnity
payments to Rome, Carthage launched an invasion of the Spanish hinterland,
occupied by hitherto independent Celtic tribes, where they hoped to exploit
new soures of income. Rome intervened, and warfare between the two
major powers resumed.
The latter stages of the second Punic War were conducted
on the Carthaginian side by the famous Hannibal Barca, who took the fight
over the Alps from Spain into Italy. But Rome rallied and eventually
pushed the armies of Carthage out of Europe entirely, definitively trouncing
them on their own soil at the Battle of Zama in 202 BC.
Down but not out, Carthage endured another half
century, when Roman pressure forced a third war. This time the Roman
legions took the great city itself, razing it to the ground, enslaving
the survivors, and symbolically sowing the earth with salt, that it should
remain a wasteland forever. A hundred years later they refounded
it, and it became one of the great cities of the Roman Empire.
During its heyday Carthage loosely controlled a
zone that took in the Mediterranean littoral from Libya to Spain.
In its weakness after the first Punic War several parts of the Punic region
organized into kingdoms and independent
city-states. Chief among them was the "kingdom of the Moors,"
called Mauretania by the Romans.
Ancient Mauretania encompassed most of the Mediterranean
coast of modern Morocco, with extensions eastward a little bit into modern
Algeria, and a small strip of the Atlantic coastline as well. There
was a royal coinage, mostly of copper, with a few silver coins as well.
Only four kings are known to have issued: Syphax and his son Vermina late
in the 3rd century BC, and Bogud II and his brother, the usurper Bocchus
III, in the middle of the 1st century BC.
The extent of centralized control in the independent
Mauretanian kingdom is unknown, but it was general practice at that time
for cities to strike copper coinage for local use. This was the case
in Mauretania, and coins are known from the towns of Sala, nearby Tamusida,
Lix, Tingis, and Rusadir, as well as Camarata and Timici in modern Algeria.
The artistry of these coins is crude, after the utilitarian and unesthetic
style of Carthage, and despite the low prices quoted in catalogs such as
Sear's "Greek Coins and their Values," in fact these coins are very hard
to find.
Now Bochus III seized the throne of his brother
Bogud, who went off to fight for Mark Antony, in whose service he died.
Bochus died in 33 BC, and, as was common at that time, his kingdom was
annexed by Rome. The emperor Augustus restored the kingdom in 25
BC, giving it to a friend of his, son of a former king of neighboring Numidia
(the modern eastern Algerian coast), who ruled as Juba II. This very
Hellenized man, with Roman backing, embarked on a civic building spree
which made over old towns on Roman models and constructed new ones such
as Volubilis, his new capital, which lay near the
modern city of Meknes.
Juba's first wife was Cleopatra Selene, daughter
of Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII of Egypt. In 23 AD Ptolemy succeeded
the throne. After a rule of 17 years he fell afoul of the insanity
of his cousin and erstwhile friend, Caligula, who invited him to Rome and
had him put to death, essentially for no reason at all. That was
the end of the kingdom of Mauretania.
Both Juba II and Ptolemy struck coins; silver denarii
and bronzes of various sizes. There is a wide variety of types, including
the portrait of Cleopatra Selene. Some of the coins, especially of
Juba, were minted in large quantities and are fairly common.
Several years after the execution of Ptolemy the
territory was reorganized by emperor Claudius into two provinces, the old
name retained in the eastern zone, while the western region was named Tingitana
after the town of Tingis (Tangiers). In 69 CE Tingitana was placed
under the government of the province of Baetica in southern Spain.
A century later, in the reign of Marcus
Aurelius, the Mauritanians overran much of Spain, from which they were
expelled by Septimius Severus, who later became emperor himself.
In the reorganization of the empire under Diocletian,
284-305 CE, the southern reaches of Mauretania and Tingitana were abandoned
to the Berber nomads, and Carthage became one of the authorized mints for
the new, standardized imperial coinage. Aside from a few rare bronzes
of Tingis made early in the imperial period, there were no coins struck
in Roman Mauretania.
With the energy of the empire focused on Carthage
as the light of North Africa, Mauretania became something of a backwater,
and a haven for those religious upstarts, the Christians. Adherents
of the new faith became so numerous that four bishoprics were established
late in the 3rd century. Loosely guarded, the provinces were invaded
and conquered by the Vandals in their sweep through Spain to Africa.
They landed in Ceuta in 429 CE and quickly proceeded on to Carthage.
The Vandals struck coins of course. Most of
them were imitations of Roman coins, probably struck in Carthage, most
of them rare. Though they controlled the Moroccan coast during their
tenure, there is no indication that they thought much of their western
marches, and no coins can be attributed to Tingis or Ceuta. The region
was reconquered for Roman culture by the Byzantines, who held it, firmly
in the time of Justinian, and increasingly weakly thereafter.
The preiminent cities of Byzantine Africa were Alexandria
in Egypt and Carthage in what is now Tunisia. The Byzantine writ
ran along the coast, in theory, all the way to the Atlantic Ocean, though
oversight west of the town of Ceuta, directly across from Spain, was rather
hypothetical. The old Mauretanian capital of Volubilis, inland from
the Atlantic coast, was on its way to becoming a picturesque ruin, and
inland, in the western mountains, Berber nomads held anarchic sway.
Coinage-wise, if you were living then on what is
now the Moroccan Mediterranean coast, you would be spending crude coppers
made in Carthage, Alexandria, Constantinople, or really anywhere, because
who cared about coppers anyway? Your gold, if you were a bigshot,
would be almost entirely from Constantinople, and silver was pretty much
missing - it had all drained to the east in the caravan trade.
Meanwhile, about 2500 miles east in Arabia, a middleaged
midlevel businessman named Muhammad began having conversations of overwhelming
power with a divine messenger. From his experience of these supernatural
events he developed a charisma that attracted people to him, and a new
community of believers began to form. These people were persecuted
by the local power structure in Arabia, and where some might turn the other
cheek, they fought back brilliantly, and consistently as it turned out,
for over a hundred years. They came to call themselves "the God Surrendered,"
in their language
"Muslims."
The religion was missionary from the start, self
defined as the capstone and seal of all religions, and destined to convert
the world. War was considered a legitimate tool of conversion, and
this form of proselytization was begun even in the time of Muhammad.
Under his successors Arab armies proceeded both east and west, overrunning
Byzantine Syria and North Africa, and after that destroying the mighty
Persian state.
Nine years after Muhammad's death in 632 CE Egyptian
Alexandria was taken, and shortly thereafter the Muslim realm was extended
as far west as Tripoli. But political problems began to become evident
among the Muslims. Muhammad had established an order of life, but
he had not established a method of succession of power. Arguments
as to who should rule and how began immediately after his death and never
stopped. And because the religion of Islam was designed to embrace
every aspect of life, these political disagreements inevitably took on
a religious character. Divine judgement can never be wrong, went
the reasoning, thus the arguments became bitter and violent.
The successors of Muhammad were called just that,
"successors," ("khalifa" in Arabic, which we Romanize to "caliph").
Such was the turmoil of the times that three of the first four caliphs
were murdered, and schismatic sets proliferated. Eventually a guy
named Mu'awiya, commander in Syria, won out against rivals, deposed the
elected caliph Ali, grandson of Muhammad, and had himself proclaimed caliph.
Thereafter the caliphate became hereditary. Mu'awiya was the first
of the Umayyad line.
Notwithstanding the infighting, the Muslim conquests
continued both east and west, which is the part we're concerned with here.
In 682 CE Uqba ibn Nafi commanded an army that penetrated the far west
of North Africa (Moghreb in Arabic, Romanized as Morocco). Byzantine
count Julian in Ceuta surrendered. Unlike the Byzantines, the Arabs extended
their sway far into the hinterland, bringing the Berbers, after some tribulation,
into the Islamic fold. In 711 CE the Arabs used Morocco as a springboard
for the invasion of Spain, which was substantially accomplished in that
same year.
The Umayyad caliphs were rulers of an empire that
stretched from Spain to eastern Iran, but they were subject to the usual
diseases that affect rulers: they became corrupt and nepotic and pleasure
loving. Discontent crystalized into a revolutionary coalition in
the middle of the 8th century CE, culminating in the overthrow of the old
dynasty and the installation of a new one, the Abbasids, who ruled from
a new capital, Baghdad.
Though the new guys did their best to wipe out the
Ummayads, one of them got away to Spain, where he set up a rival caliphate
that endured for several centuries. Morocco was never part of the
Abbasid domain, remaining in flux for several decades as Berbers and Arabs
of several sects fought for dominance, or just to be left alone.
In 788 a supporter of the Ummayads, Idris
bin Abdullah, a descendant of Muhammad through Ali, set up a government
in the neighborhood of Roman Volubilis. His dynasty, known both as
Idrisid and as Alid, endured for about a century. Idris and his son,
Idris II, who made Fes his capital and a center of Islamic culture, are
revered as the founders of Morocco as it is known today.
Aside from reports of an Ummayad copper from Tanja
(Tangier) that no one I talked with has ever seen, Idrisid coinage is the
first Islamic style emission from Morocco. Gold dinars, silver dirhams,
and copper fulus were struck by nine rulers at more than 20 mints.
All are at least scarce, most rare. Not wanting to miss out on a
good thing, some neighboring polities put out a few rare coins imitating
Idrisid types as well.
All of these coins look generically Islamic to a
neophyte. You need to be able to read them to find out what they
are. The necessary books, should you be illiterate in Arabic, are
out of print, and are not outstandingly helpful anyway. Some Idrisid
coins are well struck with nice dies, but others are crude and would be
hard to read even if you did know the language. So - rare, expensive
and ugly.
While the Idrisids held sway in the south the coast
was part of the domain of the Spanish Ummayad caliphs, who produced a few
rare coppers at mints in Tanja and Sabta (Ceuta). The Idrisid family
obeyed the laws of dynastic decadence, and their realm deteriorated.
By the 10th century their holdings were incorporated into the empire of
the Shiite Fatimid caliphs, whose capital was initially in Al Mahdiya near
Tunis. When the Fatimids moved their capital to Egypt in 969 CE their
hold on the west weakened and some decades of shifting borders ensued.
No Fatimid coins are known to have been struck in the territory
of modern Morocco.
The realm of the Spanish Ummayads started to disintegrate
in the 11th century, when the Hammudids of Malaga seceded, taking the Ummayad
holdings in Africa with them. Hammudid coins are mostly Spanish,
but a hoard of rare billon dirhams and a few halves has turned up from
Wadi Lau, near Tetuan in Morocco, citing the local ruler Hasan, who in
turn acknowledges the
Hammudid Muhammad I as overlord.
The anarchy was ended in the mid-11th century with
the advent of the Murabitun (Almoravids). These were a reformist
religious sect of Berbers who got their start far to the south in what
is now Mauretania. Overrunning Morocco, the founder of the dynasty,
Abu Bakr Ibn Omar (1056-73), set up his capital in Marrakesh. His
successor, Yusuf Ibn Tashfin, was invited to interfere in Spanish politics
by one of the little states that had developed in the wake of the Umayyad
decay. Yusuf crossed over in force and took most of Muslim Iberia.
Almoravid coins were struck in gold and silver only,
initially at the Algerian mint of Sijilmasa, but later at a number of mints
including Fes, Marrakesh, and Nul Lamta in Morocco. The silver, instead
of the normal dirham, was usually the smaller qirat. Both gold and
silver are usually found nicely struck from well prepared dies. Most
Almoravid types are scarce or rare, and priced accordingly.
The Almoravids started out as rural ascetics, but
when they got to Spain and saw all the nice culture they quickly developed
a taste for luxury. Of course they needed money to fund their new
habits, and so went on a tax-and-spend spree, which alienated their base.
Resistance grew, in the form of another puritannical sect, the Muwahhidun
(Almohades), who took Marrakesh from the effete Almoravids in 1120 and
went on to incorporate the rest of their holdings, including Spain, during
the succeeding decade.
The Almohades set up two capitals: Seville in Spain
and Fes in Morocco. After half a century the Christians got their act together
and expelled them from Spain, leaving only a few small Islamic enclaves
to struggle on in Iberia.
Almohade coins are distinctive, consisting of beautiful
broad gold dinars and square silver dirhams. The gold is often surprisingly
reasonable pricewise, while the square dirhams, mostly anonymous and without
mint name, are very common and cheap. Christian states in Spain made
imitations of these coins, which can usually be distinguished from their
prototypes by the fact that their legends, in "pseudo-Arabic," are meaningless.
After their expulsion from Spain the Almohade government
continued to weaken. A military free for all became general early
in the 13th century, and the Almohade realm disappeared, replaced in the
east (Tunisia) by the Hafsids, the center (Algeria) by the Berber Ziyanids,
and in the west (Morocco) by another Berber dynasty, the Merinids.
The Merinids gave aid to the Muslim kingdom of Granada,
but were unable themselves to maintain a presence in Spain. Though
their dynasty endured for about two centuries, Merinid rule became tenuous
early on and their territory continued to shrink throughout their tenure.
Merinid coins continue the Almohade types, with
broad gold dinars and square silver dirhams. Generally speaking,
the Merinid efforts are cruder than their Almohade prototypes, scarcer,
and more expensive.
In 1465 the Merinid line expired, replaced by the
family of their majordomos, the Wattasids, who ruled for 84 years.
Wattasid coins continue the Almohade traditions, only being scarcer still
than those of the Merinids whom they supplanted.
During the Wattasid period the last of the Spanish
Islamic enclaves, Grenada, fell to the Christians. A large number of refugees
came to Morocco, bringing both culture and money, and briefly boosting
the fortunes of the realm.
When the Wattasids became weak another Berber family
came to power, claiming descent from Muhammad through a grandson Hasan,
which gave them the right to call themselves "sharifs". The new dynasty,
called both Hasani and Sa'dian, quickly overthrew the last of the Wattasids,
and proceeded to unite the entire region. After only half a century
of administration three brother quarrelled over the succession, a conflict
from which the Sa'dians never really recovered.
Sa'dian coins began around 1549 as continuations
of the Wattasid types, which is to say in the Almohade tradition, though
at this remove there is some evolution. There are broad dinars, single
dinars, silver dirhams both square and round, and rude coppers, obviously
struck by people who did not care. A few Sa'dian coins are merely
scarce, but most are rare.
At the dawn of the 17th century Sa'dian weakness
accellerated with that previously mentioned fraternal quarrel over succession.
By the 1630s another group of sharifs, the Filali family centered in Tafilalt
in eastern Morocco, began to assert itself. The last of the Sa'dians
died in 1659, and during the decade of anarchy that ensued in the formerly
Sa'dian regions a few very rare gold coins were struck, by whom it is at
this time unknown. Under the leadership of the third of the Filali
(also known as Alawi) line, Al Rashid (1664-72), the bulk of the territory
of modern Morocco was consolidated. The Filali/Alawi is the current
ruling dynasty, and thus the history of modern Morocco can be said to begin
with their advent.
The seventeenth century was an era of explosive
growth and turmoil for Europe. Spain began to reap the rewards of
her colonization of the New World, bringing back thousands of tons of silver,
gold, and commodities. The Spanish king used this sudden access of
stuff to throw his weight around, fighting wars against the Protestants
wherever feasible. Virtually all the Spanish treasure went down the
drain of these wars.
Not to be outdone in military ventures, the French
under the Sun King, Louis XIV, went marauding around the continent, making
glorious carnage. England undertook a civil war and revolution, then
a counter-revolution, while the Netherlands emerged from Spanish domination
as a major power. Austria had to fend off the Ottoman Turks, who
advanced through the Balkans all the way to Vienna. Germany and Italy,
where much of the fighting between the various belligerents took place,
were big messes.
The Ottomans had most of the eastern Mediterranean
sewed up, save for a few islands and strips of coastline, mostly in or
near modern Greece, held by Venice. The Ottoman writ extended across
North Africa more or less to the modern Morocco-Algeria border. Across
that border was an independent kingdom - the land of the Alawi (or Filayli)
Sharifs.
Being sharifs, which is to say that they could claim
descent from the Prophet Muhammad, the Alawi family carried built in charisma,
and had developed social position that made it well placed to take over
from another family of sharifs, the Sa’dians, whose rule had become weak.
Fez was occupied in 1649, and by the 1670s the entire country, more or
less as we know it today, was under Alawi control. The dynasty has
endured through thick and thin until this very day, when the twentieth
of the line has just succeeded to the throne.
The first two sultans busied themselves with the
consolidation of their realm. No coins are known of these sultans,
and of the third, Al-Rashid, 1664-72, only a rare silver coin, called mazuna.
But the third sultan, Moulay Ismail, 1672-1727, felt sufficiently secure,
and had the resources to attempt to throw his weight around. Standing
off the Ottomans, he devoted energy to diplomacy with Europe, entering
into correspondence with both France and England, and engaging in more
martial exercises with Spain. Fruits of these engagements were the
capture of Larache from Spain and the peaceful return of Tangier from Britain,
which had aquired it by marriage from Portugal. But Ceuta, across
from Gibraltar, remained in Spanish hands, and the French princess whose
hand he hoped to win from king Louis remained within her country and her
faith. For an enduring legacy in stone he built a new capital for
himself at Meknes.
The coinage struck during Moulay Ismail’s fifty
five years on the throne consisted of gold dinar benduqis, silver mazunas,
and very crude copper falus. The appellation "benduqi" is Moroccan
Arabic for "Venetian," and indicated that the coin was the equivalent of
the Venetian zecchino, which is to say a ducat. Ismail's coins are
not too easy to find, especially the coppers, which begin the tradition
of casting instead of striking, which practice continued into the 19th
century. His coinage, like most Alawi coins before the 20th century,
is anonymous, and in his reign began the interesting practice of writing
the date in
Latin numerals.
A period of unrest ensured, during which a few rare
coins were made, the attribution of which is at the moment questionable.
Order returned when Sidi Muhammad III ascended the throne in 1757 (coincidently
the same year as a new Ottoman sultan, Mustafa III). He suspended
privateering, took Mazagan/El Jadida from Portugal, and founded Mogador/Essaouira
on the coast south of Casablanca. At odds with Britain during the
1770s-80s, he was one of the first to recognize the independence of the
United States, for which action he received a letter of appreciation from
George Washington.
The coinage of Muhammad III shows more variety than
that of previous rulers, with fractional gold, silver mazunas and dirhams
(4 mazunas) of several weight standards, and copper falus. Most unusual
are the silver multiples up to the size of the mithqal (ounce), and even
a crown sized 10 dirham coin equal in value to the contemporary French
ecu. Needless to say these big coins are rare, but Muhammad III's
little silver dirhams are not too hard to find.
Some social disruption occurred following the death
of Muhammad III in 1790. Al-Yazid ruled for two years, overlapping
the reign of Moulay Hisham, who controlled Marrakesh until 1794, when he
was driven to Safi by Moulay Husain, All of these people struck gold,
silver, and copper, in the usual denominations, no ecus or mithqals from
these guys. Needless to say, all of
their coins are rare.
The guy who won out in this fraternal squabble was
Suleyman II, who was the only one still standing at the dawn of the 19th
century. He managed to stay out of the Napoleonic wars, and returned
some semblance of order to his country. The coinage was somewhat
regularized as well, with full weight gold benduqis and halves, silver
dirhams and mazunas, and several denominations of copper coins. In
his reign one begins to see the seal of Solomon on the copper, a type that
became the norm for that metal later in the century. You might find
a Suleymani dirham lurking in some dealer's stock, and possibly a copper,
but his coins are not particularly common.
The close of the 18th century marked the end of
any pretense of Moroccan power measured against the European yardstick.
The scientific and technical progress in Europe eclipsed the old power
relationships in the rest of the world, making them irrelevant and opening
up entire continents to colonization and exploitation. Africa, being
right next door, was too convenient to ignore.
In 1830 neighboring Algiers was taken by the French.
The western Algerian province of Tlemcen (Tlimsan) seceded from the Ottoman
Empire and declared fealty to Moroccan sultan Abd Al-Rahman, 1822-59.
This was followed by the defection of the emir Abd Al-Qadir, who also looked
to Abd Al-Rahman for protection. But the French protested these declarations,
and the sultan, overawed, engaged in vacillation for 14 years. When
he was finally forced by popular sentiment to send aid to fellow Muslims
the French responded by bombarding Mogador and Tangier, finally defeating
the Moroccan army at Isly on the Algerian border. In the ensuing
treaty the sultan was required to refrain from interference in the politics
of his eastern neighbor, now held by France.
Abd Al-Rahman's coinage continued the styles of
Suleyman, with gold benduqis and halves, silver dirhams, and several sizes
of coppers. One finds his coppers a bit more commonly than earlier
coins, but often the mint is illegible or missing. His silver is
about as scarce as that of Suleyman, and the gold is pretty hard to find.
As the 19th century progressed changes continued
to be forced on Morocco by outside circumstances. Great Britain,
always looking for markets for its industrial products, forced a trade
treaty in 1856 that essentially opened the country to the unrestricted
import of British goods. Where large areas of Morocco had formerly
operated on a self-supporting, non-cash economy, the entire country switched
over to cash to pay for the imported cloth, tea, guns, et cetera.
The changeover exacerbated poverty in the rural areas, creating inflation
within the nation and a growing balance of payments problem without.
The situation deteriorated during the reign of Muhammad
IV, 1859-73. Ceuta, which had passed from Spain to Portugal and back
again to Spain, became the focus of a boundary dispute. Recognizing
an easy mark, Spain invaded in 1860, capturing nearby Tetouan and advancing
on Tangier. British intervention prevented the capture of that major
port, but the imposed treaty
stipulated a large indemnity by Morocco and the cession “in perpetuity”
of a strip of Atlantic coastline in the south that became the enclave of
Ifni.
As far as the coinage is concerned, the coppers
of Muhammad IV are quite common, enough so that they may tend to give the
whole series of cast Solomon's seal coins an air of ubiquitous boredom.
Actually, though, only a few date-mint combinations are seen over and over
again. Try collecting over, say, 25 different. See how far
you get. His silver is no more common than that of his predecessors,
and his gold is very rare.
In the late 19th century sultan Moulay Hasan I,
1873-94, fought a losing battle to maintain his country’s equilibrium in
the face of the ongoing European threat. He sent a contingent of
scholars to study abroad, but they were too few to make a difference.
In the last year of his reign another conflict with Spain resulted in an
enlargement of that nation’s holdings around Mellila and the imposition
of a large indemnity.
Hasan's coinage started out in the traditional pattern
with cast bronze and hammered silver. These old style coins are all
rare. Starting in 1884 machine struck coins began to be introduced.
Silver of several denominations were struck on contract at the Paris mint
in France, and most of these coins can be found in various criculated grades,
and occasionally the odd uncirculated piece shows up. Some coppers
were also struck, using imported machinery set up in Fes, and these are
akk rare.
Moulay Hasan’s successor, Moulay Abd Al-Aziz, 1894-1908,
attempted to modernize, but lacked the charisma and resources to do accomplish
anything significant. French incursions and internal insurrections
kept the pot boiling. Then, in 1904, Britain and France agreed to
ignore each other’s doings in Egypt and Morocco respectively, and France
and Spain concluded a secret protocol dividing Morocco between them into
spheres of influence. Not to be outdone, Germany’s kaiser Wilhem
II visited Tangier and delivered a speech on the subject of German interest
in Moroccan affairs.
Mirroring the jockeying for power of the various
European interests, Hasani coins were mostly contracted to foreign mints,
not just Paris, but also Berlin and London. Struck copper began to
be struck in large quantities in 1902, with issues from Paris, Berlin,
Birmingham in England, and Fes. There are scarce dates, but all of
the types can be found.
The Europeans at that time would not leave any territory
uncontested. In 1906 15 nations propounded the “Act of Algeciras,”
which, while formally recognizing the integrity of the Sultanate of Morocco,
also laid the groundwork for frank occupation by France and Spain.
This bitter pill did not go down well at home, where one of the sultan’s
brothers, Moulay Abd Al-Hafiz, 1908-12, mounted a coup. The new sultan
was immediately faced with a Berber revolt, and had to ask the French for
military assistance. The following year the French occupied Casablanca.
In the next few years Spain consolidated its territory in the north, and
in 1912 the sultan was forced to sign the Treaty of Fez, making Morocco
into a protectorate of France.
Abd Al-Hafiz was too busy to do much with the coinage,
and only managed to put out three silver coins. They're not rare,
but they're not particularly common either. The Protectorate endured
for 44 years, with most of the country occupied
by France, the northern zone and the Ifni enclave by Spain, and a multinational
administration for Tangier and its surrounding countryside. Sultan
Al-Hafiz abdicated a few months after signing the Treaty of Fez, to be
succeeded by another brother, Moulay Yusuf, who was content to be a tool
of the French.
Yusuf's coinage began before the establishment of
the protectorate, with a range of copper mazuna denominations and a silver
dirham and multiples. The dirham and 2½ dirhams are rare,
but the others should be findable if you're of a mind to do so. The
protectorate coins bear the legend "Empire Cherifien," which I guess was
a snide joke on the Moroccans, and are denominated in francs for the convenience
of the overlords. The coins are not rare, but don't bother trying
to find them in uncirculated.
Moulay Yusuf died in 1927, succeeded by his 16 year
old son, Sidi Muhammad V. The French ran everything for the first
few decades of his reign, and they made coins for the Moroccans at their
Paris mint that matched the metropolitan module, though of course they
were only good in Morocco. In keeping with French traditions, essaies
and piedforts were struck for many of these coins, for the pleasure of
connected French collectors. There's one rarity among the Muhammad
V coins, the 1370 (1951) 100 francs. Good luck.
In the 1920s a major rebellion had broken out among
the Berbers of the Rif mountains, which spread through the hinterland and
was not completely suppressed until 1934, the year of the formal organization
of the Spanish enclave of Ifni. Meanwhile, French protection, under
resident-general Louis Lyautey, was producing material progress, with the
building of road, rail, and
port infrastructure, large population growth, and the establishment
of industrial zones in Tangier and Casablanca. An increasing number
of university trained people formed the nucleus of a future ruling class.
As soon as the new intellectuals became aware of
the greater world they immediately began to organize and agitate for independence.
This anticolonial movement parallelled developments throughout the European
colonies all over the world at the time. All of these movements received
a great shot in the arm by World War II, the “war for democracy.”
The great movements of people around the world, and the dislocation and
destruction of old systems all over made the old colonialist regimes increasingly
untenable.
In Morocco the independence forces united to form
the Istiqlal party, which recieved support from the sultan. The party
grew in strength until 1953, when a reactionary coup, with French support,
deposed the sultan, forcing him into exile in Madagascar. This only
spurred on the independence forces, and they succeeded in returning Muhammad
V from exile in 1955.
A year later independence was granted. There
is a coin that obliquely marks the transition - the silver 500 francs of
1956 - a nice looking crown, easy to find in grades up to AU, but tough
in perfect. The country changed its styling in 1957 from "Empire"
to "Kingdom," and Muhammad V stopped being "sultan" and became a "king."
In 1960 he got off the franc and gave his country back its traditional
dirham, though the new version had about twice the silver of the early
20th century version.
Though no gold was struck for circulation in Morocco
from the start of the machine era, a few medallic issues were created in
1955 and 1956, the former to mark the 25th anniversary of the reign, and
the latter to note the conversion of the sultanate to a kingdom.
The portrait used on the1956 pieces is basically the same as that used
on the 500 francs. These pieces hardly ever show up.
Far more available is a gold ounce struck in 1954
for the First Banking Corporation of Tangier. Made out of the same
alloy as British sovereigns and bearing a device of a naked Hercules leaning
on his club, this item shows up fairly frequently in grades ranging from
XF to soft uncirculated.
Political and economic problems became apparent
immediately after independence. There being no preexisting democratic
institutions, the parliament put in place after independence lacked crucial
powers that remained with the ruler. Several attempts to give the
parliament teeth over the years have failed, and to this day the powers
of the ruling family have remained absolute in
many crucial respects. The economy at independence was sharply
divided into a modern sector operated with foreign capital for mostly foreign
benefit, and a local sector largely cut off from the outside world.
Such arrangements are breeding grounds for social unrest, and various untoward
incidents, ranging from riots and local rural insurrections to assassination
attempts against the ruler, have occurred.
Muhammad V was succeeded in 1962 by Hasan II, who
just died. He's put out a few circulation coins, and a small bunch
of commemoratives. Only one coin, the 1975 10 santimat, has been
widely distributed among the numismatic dealers. And the 1965 dirham
is fairly easy to fing. All the others are surprisingly hard to find.
Withal, the Moroccan political experience since independence has been notably
more successful than that of its neighbors. While Algeria was born
in the midst of a bloody war, endured decades of quasi-Marxist dictatorship,
and is currently embroiled in a civil war, and Mauretania has a primitive
economy based partially on slavery, presided over by an indolent oligarchical
dictatorship, Morocco, if only by default has become the regional yardstick
of stability and progress. Indeed, Morocco was sufficiently powerful
to force an unwilling Spain
to relinquish its hold on the territory of Western Sahara, and in the
ensuing long conflict to force Mauretania to abandon its claim. But
although Morocco’s claim of ownership of the territory is accepted by most
nations, the inhabitants of that
territory, the Saharauis, remain unsubdued, and are still fighting
for their freedom over two decades later. We numismatists are familiar
with their “coins,” which are actually fund raising vehicles rather than
circulating money.