Brigette Smith
"Law and Diversity in Tangier (1640-1684)"
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Abstract
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This dissertation will recast our understanding of Portuguese and English experience in seventeenth century Tangier. Previously seen as a neglected Portuguese outpost and then an unsuccessful English attempt at colonization, a closer reading of the sources indicates that Tangier was never considered a failure. Instead, both the English and Portuguese treated it as an important trading post with a diverse population. The goal of this project is to examine life as lived in Tangier’s diverse communities throughout the seventeenth century. Particularly, I will examine the continuous European engagement in Tangier across temporal and geographic boundaries constructed by previous historians. Such historians studied the Portuguese and English periods of occupation of Tangier separately. The unique blend of Moroccans, Jews, and many nationalities of Europeans in Tangier was ignored. No scholarship exists which examines the daily experience, and the continuities and dislocations that accompanied changes in control of the city. By examining royal charters, gubernatorial correspondence, personal journals, maps, and court cases in Portuguese and English archives, I plan to look beyond these temporal and geographic limitations and create a better understanding of how Portugal and England incorporated Tangier into their existing ideas of dominion and how their representatives in Tangier managed multi-cultural disputes. By overlooking these previously fixed boundaries between Portuguese and English occupations and focusing on Tangier and its diverse population, this dissertation seeks to understand how European powers attempted to control Tangier and how the residents of Tangier used or neglected those means of control when conflict arose.
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