English Tangier

English Tangier was an English overseas possession between 1661 and 1684. It comprised the North African city of Tangier which had been under Portuguese rule before King Charles II acquired the city as part of the dowry when he married the Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza. The marriage treaty was an extensive renewal of the alliance between England and Portugal; opposed by Spain (at war with Portugal) but clandestinely supported by France. England garrisoned and fortified the city, against hostile (but disunited) Moroccan forces. When, later, Morocco was united under the Alaouites, the cost of maintaining the garrison against Moroccan attack greatly increased, and Parliamentary refusal to provide funds for its upkeep (a refusal linked to fears of 'Popery' and the fear of a Catholic succession under James II) forced Charles to give up possession. In 1684 the English blew up the defences and evacuated the city, which subsequently became part of Morocco.

Tangier commands the entry into the Mediterranean and was the principal commercial centre on the North West coast of Africa. The Portuguese started their colonial empire by taking nearby Ceuta in 1415, and they occupied Tangier in 1471. Years of conflict between Portugal and the Moroccans under the Wattasid and Saadi dynasties followed. However, by 1659, the position had changed: Rule of Morocco by the Saadi dynasty (who had steadily lost control of the country to various warlords) finally came to an end with the death of Ahmad al-Abbas and the Alaouite conquest of Marrakech. After the Dila'i interlude the Alaouite Dynasty came to the forefront. Mulai al-Rashid (Tafileta to the English) took Fes in 1666, and Marrakech in 1669, essentially unifying all of Morocco, except the ports occupied by Portugal, Spain, and England. Before then, in about 1657, Ahmad al-Khadir ibn Ali Ghaïlan (known to the English as Guyland or Gayland) and his family had taken control of much of the Gharb, the Rif and the coastal areas around Tangier. At about that time, Ghaïlan appears to have considerably increased attacks on the (Portuguese) Tangier Garrison. But, at the same time, Ghaïlan was under pressure, separately, from the Alaouites based in Marrakech, and the last of the Dila'ites remaining around Salé.

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