Spanish Sahara - Colonization

Colonization

In 1884, Spain was awarded the coastal area of present-day Western Sahara at the Berlin Conference and began establishing trading posts and a military presence. In the summer of 1886, under the sponsorship of the Spanish Society of Commercial Geography (Sociedad Española de Geografía Comercial), Julio Cervera Baviera, Felipe Rizzo (1823–1908) and Francisco Quiroga (1853–1894) traversed the colony of Rio de Oro and made topographical and astronomical observations in a land whose features were then barely known to geographers. Their trek is considered the first scientific expedition in that part of the Sahara.

The borders of the territory were not clearly defined until treaties between Spain and France in the early 20th century. Spanish Sahara was then created from the Spanish territories of Río de Oro and Saguia el-Hamra in 1924. It was not part of the areas known as Spanish Morocco and was administered separately from them.

On entering the territory in 1884, Spain was immediately challenged by stiff resistance from the indigenous Sahrawi tribes. A 1904 rebellion led by the powerful Smara-based marabout, Shaykh Ma al-Aynayn, was put down by France in 1910, but was followed by a wave of uprisings under Ma al-Aynayn’s sons, grandsons and other political leaders.