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Saturday, June 30, 2012

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Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Chinese art

Chinese art is visual art that, whether ancient or modern, originated in or is practiced in China or by Chinese artists. The Chinese art in the Republic of China (Taiwan) and that of overseas Chinese can also be considered part of Chinese art where it is based in or draws on Chinese heritage and Chinese culture. Early "stone age art" dates back to 10,000 BC, mostly consisting of simple pottery and sculptures. After this early period Chinese art, like Chinese history, is typically classified by the succession of ruling dynasties of Chinese emperors, most of which lasted several hundred years.

Chinese art has arguably the oldest continuous tradition in the world, and is marked by an unusual degree of continuity within, and consciousness of, that tradition, lacking an equivalent to the Western collapse and gradual recovery of classical styles. The media that have usually been classified in the West since the Renaissance as the decorative arts are extremely important in Chinese art, and much of the finest work was produced in large workshops or factories by essentially unknown artists, especially in the field of Chinese porcelain. Much of the best work in ceramics, textiles and other techniques was produced over a long period by the various Imperial factories or workshops, which as well as being used by the court was distributed internally and abroad on a huge scale to demonstate the wealth and power of the Emperors. In contrast, the tradition of Ink wash painting, practiced mainly by scholar-officials and especially of landscapes, developed aesthetic values depending on the individual imagination of the artist that are similar to those of the West, but long pre-dated their development there. After contacts with Western art became increasingly important from the 19th century onwards, in recent decades China has participated with increasing success in worldwide contemporary art.

Historical development to 221 BC

Neolithic pottery

Main article: Yangshao culture

Early forms of art in China are found in the Neolithic Yangshao culture (Chinese: 仰韶文化; pinyin: Yǎngsháo Wénhuà), which dates back to the 6th millennium BCE. Archeological findings such as those at the Banpo have revealed that the Yangshao made pottery; early ceramics were unpainted and most often cord-marked. The first decorations were fish and human faces, but these eventually evolved into symmetrical-geometric abstract designs, some painted.

The most distinctive feature of Yangshao culture was the extensive use of painted pottery, especially human facial, animal, and geometric designs. Unlike the later Longshan culture, the Yangshao culture did not use pottery wheels in pottery making. Excavations have found that children were buried in painted pottery jars.

Jade culture

Main article: Liangzhu culture

The Liangzhu culture was the last Neolithic Jade culture in the Yangtze River delta and was spaced over a period of about 1,300 years. The Jade from this culture is characterized by finely worked, large ritual jades such as Cong cylinders, Bi discs, Yue axes and also pendants and decorations in the form of chiseled open-work plaques, plates and representations of small birds, turtles and fish. The Liangzhu Jade has a white, milky bone-like aspect due to its Tremolite rock origin and influence of water-based fluids at the burial sites. Jade is a green stone that cannot be carved so it has to be ground.

Bronze casting

Main article: Chinese bronzes

The Bronze Age in China began with the Xia Dynasty. Examples from this period have been recovered from ruins of the Erlitou culture, in Shanxi, and include complex but unadorned utilitarian objects. In the following Shang Dynasty more elaborate objects, including many ritual vessels, were crafted. The Shang are remembered for their bronze casting, noted for its clarity of detail. Shang bronzesmiths usually worked in foundries outside the cities to make ritual vessels, and sometimes weapons and chariot fittings as well. The bronze vessels were receptacles for storing or serving various solids and liquids used in the performance of sacred ceremonies. Some forms such as the ku and jue can be very graceful, but the most powerful pieces are the ding, sometimes described as having the an "air of ferocious majesty."

It is typical of the developed Shang style that all available space is decorated, most often with stylized forms of real and imaginary animals. The most common motif is the taotie, which shows a mythological being presented frontally as though squashed onto a horizontal plane to form a symmetrical design. The early significance of taotie is not clear, but myths about it existed around the late Zhou Dynasty. It was considered to be variously a covetous man banished to guard a corner of heaven against evil monsters; or a monster equipped with only a head which tries to devour men but hurts only itself.

The function and appearance of bronzes changed gradually from the Shang to the Zhou. They shifted from been used in religious rites to more practical purposes. By the Warring States Period, bronze vessels had become objects of aesthetic enjoyment. Some were decorated with social scenes, such as from a banquet or hunt; whilst others displayed abstract patterns inlaid with gold, silver, or precious and semiprecious stones.

Shang bronzes became appreciated as works of art from the Song Dynasty, when they were collected and prized not only for their shape and design but also for the various green, blue green, and even reddish patinas created by chemical action as they lay buried in the ground. The study of early Chinese bronze casting is a specialized field of art history.

Chu and Southern culture

A rich source of art in early China was the state of Chu, which developed in the Yangtze River valley. Excavations of Chu tombs have found painted wooden sculptures, jade disks, glass beads, musical instruments, and an assortment of lacquerware. Many of the lacquer objects are finely painted, red on black or black on red. A site in Changsha, Hunan province, has revealed some of the oldest paintings on silk discovered to date.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Japanese art

Japanese art covers a wide range of art styles and media, including ancient pottery, sculpture in wood and bronze, ink painting on silk and paper and more recently manga, cartoon, along with a myriad of other types of works of art. It also has a long history, ranging from the beginnings of human habitation in Japan, sometime in the 10th millennium BC, to the present.

Historically, Japan has been subject to sudden invasions of new and alien ideas followed by long periods of minimal contact with the outside world. Over time the Japanese developed the ability to absorb, imitate, and finally assimilate those elements of foreign culture that complemented their aesthetic preferences. The earliest complex art in Japan was produced in the 7th and 8th centuries in connection with Buddhism. In the 9th century, as the Japanese began to turn away from China and develop indigenous forms of expression, the secular arts became increasingly important; until the late 15th century, both religious and secular arts flourished. After the Ōnin War (1467–1477), Japan entered a period of political, social, and economic disruption that lasted for over a century. In the state that emerged under the leadership of the Tokugawa shogunate, organized religion played a much less important role in people's lives, and the arts that survived were primarily secular.

Painting is the preferred artistic expression in Japan, practiced by amateurs and professionals alike. Until modern times, the Japanese wrote with a brush rather than a pen, and their familiarity with brush techniques has made them particularly sensitive to the values and aesthetics of painting. With the rise of popular culture in the Edo period, a style of woodblock prints called ukiyo-e became a major art form and its techniques were fine tuned to produce colorful prints of everything from daily news to schoolbooks. The Japanese, in this period, found sculpture a much less sympathetic medium for artistic expression; most Japanese sculpture is associated with religion, and the medium's use declined with the lessening importance of traditional Buddhism.

Japanese ceramics are among the finest in the world and include the earliest known artifacts of their culture. In architecture, Japanese preferences for natural materials and an interaction of interior and exterior space are clearly expressed.

Today, Japan rivals most other modern nations in its contributions to modern art, fashion and architecture, with creations of a truly modern, global, and multi-cultural (or acultural) bent.

Sunday, June 24, 2012

History of Portugal

The history of Portugal, a European and an Atlantic nation, dates back to the Early Middle Ages. In the 15th and 16th centuries, it ascended to the status of a world power during Europe's "Age of Discovery" as it built up a vast empire including possessions in South America, Africa, Asia and Australasia. In the next two centuries, Portugal gradually lost much of its wealth and status as the Dutch, English and French took an increasing share of the spice and slave trades (the economic basis of its empire), by surrounding or conquering the widely-scattered Portuguese trading posts and territories, leaving it with ever fewer resources to defend its overseas interests.

Signs of military decline began with two disastrous battles: the Battle of Alcácer Quibir in Morocco in 1578 and Spain's abortive attempt to conquer England in 1588 - Portugal was then in a dynastic union with Spain, and contributed ships to the Spanish invasion fleet. The country was further weakened by the destruction of much of its capital city in a 1755 earthquake, occupation during the Napoleonic Wars and the loss of its largest colony, Brazil, in 1822. From the middle of the 19th century to the late 1950s, nearly two-million Portuguese left Europe to live in Brazil and the United States (U.S.).

In 1910, there was a revolution that deposed the monarchy. Amid corruption, repression of the church, and the near bankruptcy of the state, a military coup in 1926 installed a dictatorship that remained until another coup in 1974. The new government instituted sweeping democratic reforms and granted independence to all of Portugal's African colonies in 1975.

Portugal is a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). It entered the European Community (now the European Union) in 1986.

Etymology

Portugal's name derives from the Roman name Portus Cale. Cale was the name of an early settlement located at the mouth of the Douro River, which flows into the Atlantic Ocean in the north of what is now Portugal. Around 200 BC, the Romans took the Iberian Peninsula from the Carthaginians during the Second Punic War, and in the process conquered Cale and renamed it Portus Cale (Port of Cale). During the Middle Ages, the region around Portus Cale became known by the Suevi and Visigoths as Portucale.

The name Portucale evolved into Portugale during the 7th and 8th centuries, and by the 9th century, that term was used extensively to refer to the region between the rivers Douro and Minho, the Minho flowing along what would become the northern border between Portugal and Spain. By the 11th and 12th century, Portugale was already referred to as Portugal.

The etymology of the name Cale is mysterious, as is the identity of the town's founders. Some historians have argued that Greeks were the first to settle Cale and that the name derives from the Greek word kallis (καλλις), 'beautiful', referring to the beauty of the Douro valley. Still others have claimed that Cale originated in the language of the Gallaeci people indigenous to the surrounding region (see below). Others argue that Cale is a Celtic name like many others found in the region. The word cale or cala, would mean 'port', an 'inlet' or 'harbour,' and implied the existence of an older celtic harbour. Others argue it is the stem of Gallaecia. Another theory claims it derives from Caladunum.

In any case, the Portu part of the name Portucale became Porto, the modern name for the city located on the site of the ancient city of Cale at the mouth of the Douro River. And Port became the name in English of the wine from the Douro Valley region around Porto. The name Cale is today reflected in Gaia (Vila Nova de Gaia), a city on the left bank of the river.

Neolithic

Main article: Prehistoric Iberia

The region of present-day Portugal was inhabited by Neanderthals and then by Homo sapiens, who roamed the border-less region of the northern Iberian peninsula.[5] These were subsistence societies that, although they did not establish prosperous settlements, did establish organized societies. Neolithic Portugal experimented with domestication of herding animals, the raising of some cereal crops and pluvial or marine fishing.

Early in the first millennium BC, several waves of Celts invaded Portugal from central Europe and inter-married with the local populations, forming different ethnic groups, with many tribes. Chief among these tribes were the Calaicians or Gallaeci of northern Portugal, the Lusitanians of central Portugal, the Celtici of Alentejo, and the Cynetes or Conii of the Algarve. Among the lesser tribes or sub-divisions were the Bracari, Coelerni, Equaesi, Grovii, Interamici, Leuni, Luanqui, Limici, Narbasi, Nemetati, Paesuri, Quaquerni, Seurbi, Tamagani, Tapoli, Turduli, Turduli Veteres, Turdulorum Oppida, Turodi, and Zoelae.

According to John Koch, Cunliffe, Karl, Wodtko and other scholars, Celtic culture may have developed first in far Southern Portugal and Southwestern Spain, approximately 500 years prior to anything recorded in Central Europe. The Tartessian language from the southwest of the Iberian peninsula, which John T. Koch has claimed to be able to translate, is being accepted by a number of philologists and other linguists as the first attested Celtic language, but the linguistic mainstream continues to treat Tartessian as an unclassified (Pre-Indo-European?) language, and Koch's view of the evolution of Celtic is not generally accepted.

Roman Lusitania and Gallaecia

Main articles: Lusitania, Gallaecia, and Hispania

The first Roman invasion of the Iberian Peninsula occurred in 219 BC. Within 200 years, almost the entire peninsula had been annexed to the Roman Republic. The Carthaginians, Rome's adversary in the Punic Wars, were expelled from their coastal colonies.

The Roman conquest of what is now part of modern day Portugal took several decades: it started from the south, where the Romans found friendly natives, the Conii. It suffered a severe setback in 194 BC, when a rebellion began in the north. The Lusitanians and other native tribes, under the leadership of Viriathus, wrested control of all of the Portuguese land. Rome sent numerous legions and its best generals to Lusitania to quell the rebellion, but to no avail — the Lusitanians kept conquering territory. The Roman leaders decided to change their strategy. They bribed Viriathus's ambassador to kill his own leader. Viriathus was assassinated, and the resistance was soon over.

Rome installed a colonial regime. During this period, Lusitania grew in prosperity and many of modern day Portugal's cities and towns were founded. The complete Romanization of Portugal, intensified during the rule of Augustus, took three centuries and was stronger in Southern Portugal, most of which were administrative dependencies of the Roman city of Pax Julia, currently known as Beja. The city was named Pax Julia in honour of Julius Caesar and to celebrate peace in Lusitania. Augustus renamed it Pax Augusta, but the early name prevailed. In 27 BC, Lusitania gained the status of Roman province. Later, a northern province of Lusitania was formed, known as Gallaecia, with capital in Bracara Augusta, today's Braga.

Numerous Roman sites are scattered around present-day Portugal, some urban remains are quite large, like Conimbriga and Mirobriga. Several works of engineering, such as baths, temples, bridges, roads, circus, theatres and layman's homes are preserved throwout the country. Coins, some of which coined in Portuguese land, sarcophagus and ceramics are numerous. Contemporary historians include Paulus Orosius (c. 375-418) and Hydatius (c. 400–469), bishop of Aquae Flaviae, who reported on the final years of the roman rule and arrival of the Germanic tribes.

Germanic kingdoms (5th-7th centuries

Main articles: Visigoths and Suevi

In the early 5th century, Germanic tribes invaded the peninsula, namely the Suevi, the Vandals (Silingi and Hasdingi) and their allies, the Sarmatian Alans. Only the kingdom of the Suevi (Quadi and Marcomanni) endured after the arrival of another wave of Germanic invaders, the Visigoths, who conquered all of the Iberian Peninsula and expelled or partially integrated the Vandals and the Alans. The Visigoths eventually conquered the Suevi kingdom and its capital city Bracara in 584–585.

The Germanic tribe of the Buri also accompanied the Suevi in their invasion of the Iberian Peninsula and colonization of Gallaecia (modern northern Portugal and Galicia). The Buri settled in the region between the rivers Cávado and Homem, in the area known as thereafter as Terras de Boiro or Terras de Bouro (Lands of the Buri).

Moorish rule and the Reconquista (711-1249)

Main articles: Al-Andalus, Reconquista, and History of Portugal (1112–1279)

Landing near Algeciras in the spring of 711, the Islamic Moors (mainly Berbers with some Arabs) from North Africa invaded the Iberian Peninsula., destroying the Visigothic Kingdom. Many of the ousted Gothic nobles took refuge in the unconquered north Asturian highlands. From there they aimed to reconquer their lands from the Moors: this war of reconquest is known in Portuguese (and Spanish) as the Reconquista.

Portugal gained its first de jure independence (as the Kingdom of Galicia and Portugal) in 1065 under the rule of Garcia II. Because of feudal power struggles, Portuguese and Galician nobles rebelled. In 1072, the country rejoined León under Garcia II's brother Alfonso VI of León.

In 1095, Portugal separated almost completely from the Kingdom of Galicia. Its territories consisting largely of mountain, moorland and forest were bounded on the north by the Minho, on the south by the Mondego River.

At the end of the 11th century, the Burgundian knight Henry became count of Portugal and defended his independence, merging the County of Portucale and the County of Coimbra. Henry declared independence for Portugal while a civil war raged between León and Castile.

Henry died without achieving his aims. His son, Afonso Henriques, took control of the county. The city of Braga, the unofficial Catholic centre of the Iberian Peninsula, faced new competition from other regions. Lords of the cities of Coimbra and Porto (then Portucale) with Braga's clergy demanded the independence of the renewed county.

Portugal traces its national origin to 24 June 1128, with the Battle of São Mamede. Afonso proclaimed himself first Prince of Portugal and in 1139 the first King of Portugal. By 1143, with the assistance of a representative of the Holy See at the conference of Zamora, Portugal was formally recognized as independent, with the prince recognized as Dux Portucalensis. In 1179 Afonso I was declared, by the Pope, as king. After the Battle of São Mamede, the first capital of Portugal was Guimarães from which the first king ruled. Later, when Portugal was already officially independent, he ruled from Coimbra.

Affirmation of Portugal

Main article: History of Portugal (1279–1415)

From 1249 to 1250 the Algarve, the southernmost region, was finally re-conquered by Portugal from the Moors. In 1255 the capital shifted to Lisbon.[17] Neighboring Spain would not complete their Reconquista until 1492 almost 250 years later.[18]

Portugal's land-based boundaries have been notably stable in history. The border with Spain has remained almost unchanged since the 13th century. The Treaty of Windsor (1386) created an alliance between Portugal and England that remains in effect to this day. Since early times, fishing and overseas commerce have been the main economic activities. Henry the Navigator's interest in exploration together with some technological developments in navigation made Portugal's expansion possible and led to great advances in geographic, mathematical, scientific knowledge and technology, more specifically naval technology.

Naval exploration and Portuguese Empire (15th-16th centuries)

Main articles: Portugal in the period of discoveries and Portuguese Empire

During the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal was a leading European power, ranking with England, France and Spain in terms of economic, political, and cultural influence. Though not predominant in European affairs, Portugal did have an extensive colonial trading empire throughout the world backed by a powerful thalassocracy.

July 25, 1415 marked the beginning of the Portuguese Empire, when the Portuguese Armada departed to the rich trade Islamic centre of Ceuta in North Africa with King John I and his wife Phillipa of Lancaster and their sons Prince Duarte (future king), Prince Pedro, Prince Henry the Navigator (born in Porto in 1394) and Prince Afonso, and legendary Portuguese hero Nuno Álvares Pereira. On August 21, 1415, Ceuta, the city on the coast of North Africa directly across from Gibraltar, was conquered by Portugal, and the long-lived Portuguese Empire was founded.

The conquest of Ceuta had been helped by the fact that a major civil war had been engaging the Muslims of the Magrib (North Africa) since 1411. This same civil war between the Muslims prevented a re-capture of Ceuta from the Portuguese, when Muhammad IX, the Left-Handed King of Granada, laid siege to Ceuta and attempted to coordinate the forces in Morocco and attempted to get aid and assistance for the effort from Tunis. The Muslim attempt to retake Ceuta was ultimately unsuccessful and Ceuta remained the first part of the new Portuguese Empire. However, further steps were taken that would soon expand the Portuguese Empire.

In 1418 two of the captains of Prince Henry the Navigator, João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira, were driven by a storm to an island which they called Porto Santo ("Holy Port") in gratitude for their rescue from the shipwreck. In 1419, João Gonçalves Zarco disembarked on Madeira Island. Uninhabited Madeira Island was colonized by the Portuguese in 1420.

Between 1427 and 1431, most of the Azorean islands were discovered and these uninhabited islands were colonized by the Portuguese in 1445. A Portuguese expedition may have attempted to colonize the Canary Islands as early as 1336, but Castile objected to any claim by the Portuguese to the Canary Islands. Castile began its conquest of the Canaries in 1402. Castile expelled the last Portuguese from the Canary islands 1459. The Canary Islands would eventually be part of the Spanish Empire.

In 1434, Gil Eanes turned the Cape Bojador, south of Morocco. The trip marked the beginning of the Portuguese exploration of Africa. Before the turn, very little information was known in Europe about what lay around the cape. At the end of the 13th century and the beginning of the 14th, those who tried to venture there became lost, which gave birth to legends of sea monsters. Some setbacks occurred: in 1436 the Canaries were officially recognized as Castilian by the Pope; earlier they were recognized as Portuguese. Also, in 1438 in a military expedition to Tangier, the Portuguese were defeated.

However, the Portuguese did not give up their exploratory efforts. In 1448, on a small island known as Arguim off the coast of Mauritania, an important castle was built, working as a feitoria, a trading post, for commerce with inland Africa. Some years before the first African gold was brought to Portugal, circumventing the Arab caravans that crossed the Sahara. Some time later, the caravels explored the Gulf of Guinea which lead to the discovery of several uninhabited islands: Cape Verde, Fernão Póo, São Tomé, Príncipe and Annobón.

On November 13, 1460, Prince Henry the Navigator died. He had been the leading patron of all maritime exploration by Portugal up to that time. Immediately following Henry's death, there was a lapse of further exploration. Henry's patronage of explorations had shown that profits could be made in trade which followed the exploration of new lands. Accordingly when exploration was commenced again private merchants led the way in attempting to stretch trade routes further down the African coast.

In 1470s, Portuguese trading ships reached the Gold Coast. In 1471, the Portuguese captured Tangier, after years of attempts. Eleven years later in 1482, the fortress of São Jorge da Mina in the town of Elmina on the Gold Coast in the Gulf of Guinea was built. (Setting sail aboard the fleet of ships taking the materials and building crews to Elmina on this trip in December 1481 was Christopher Columbus.) In 1483, Diogo Cão reached and explored the Congo River.

The New World

In 1484, Portugal officially rejected Christopher Columbus's idea of reaching India from the west, because it was seen as unreasonable. Some historians have claimed that the Portuguese had already performed fairly accurate calculations concerning the size of the world and therefore knew that sailing west to reach the Indies would require a far longer journey than navigating to the east. However, this continues to be debated. Thus began a long-lasting dispute which eventually resulted in the signing of the Treaty of Tordesillas with Spain in 1494. The treaty divided the (largely undiscovered) world equally between the Spanish and the Portuguese, along a north-south meridian line 370 leagues (1770 km/1100 miles) west of the Cape Verde islands, with all lands to the east belonging to Portugal and all lands to the west to Spain.

A remarkable achievement was the turning of the Cape of Good Hope by Bartolomeu Dias in 1487. The richness of India was now accessible. Indeed the name of the cape stems from this promise of rich trade with the east. In 1489, the King of Bemobi gave his realms to the Portuguese king and became Christian. Between 1491 and 1494, Pêro de Barcelos and João Fernandes Lavrador explored North America. At the same time, Pêro da Covilhã reached Ethiopia by land. Vasco da Gama sailed for India, and arrived at Calicut on 20 May 1498, returning in glory to Portugal the next year. The Monastery of Jerónimos was built, dedicated to the discovery of the route to India.

In the spring of 1500, Pedro Álvares Cabral set sail from Cape Verde with 13 ships and crews and a list of nobles that included Nicolau Coelho, Bartolomeu Dias and his brother Diogo, Duarte Pacheco Pereira (author of the Esmeraldo) along with various other nobles, nine chaplains and some 1,200 men. From Cape Verde they sailed southwest across the Atlantic. On April 22, 1500, they caught sight of land in the distance. They disembarked and claimed this new land for Portugal. This was the coast of what would later become the Portuguese colony of Brazil.

However, the real goal of the expedition was to open sea trade to the empires of the east. Trade with the east had effectively been cut off since the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Accordingly, Cabral turned from exploring the coasts of the new land of Brazil and sailed to the southeast back across the Atlantic and around the Cape of Good Hope. Cabral reached Sofala on the east coast of Africa in July 1500. Later in 1505, a Portuguese fort would be established here and the land around the fort would become the Portuguese colony of Mozambique.

Then they sailed on to the east and landed in Calicut in India in September 1500. Here they traded for pepper and, more significantly opened European sea trade with the empires of the east. No longer would the Islamic occupation of Constantinople form a barrier between Europe and the east.Ten years later in 1510, Afonso de Albuquerque after attempting and failing to capture and occupy Zamorin's Calicut militarily, conquered Goa on the west coast of India.

João da Nova discovered Ascension in 1501 and Saint Helena in 1502; Tristão da Cunha was the first to sight the archipelago still known by his name 1506. In 1505, Francisco de Almeida was engaged to improve the Portuguese trade with the far east. Accordingly, he sailed to East Africa. Several small Islamic states along the coast of Mozambique, Kilwa, Brava and Mombasa were destroyed or became subjects or allies of Portugal. Almeida then sailed on to Cochin, made peace with the ruler and built a stone fort there.

The two million Portuguese people ruled a vast empire with many millions of inhabitants in the Americas, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. From 1514, the Portuguese had reached China and Japan. In the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea, one of Cabral's ships discovered Madagascar (1501), which was partly explored by Tristão da Cunha (1507); Mauritius was discovered in 1507, Socotra occupied in 1506, and in the same year Lourenço de Almeida visited Ceylon.

In the Red Sea, Massawa was the most northerly point frequented by the Portuguese until 1541, when a fleet under Estevão da Gama penetrated as far as Suez. Hormuz, in the Persian Gulf, was seized by Afonso de Albuquerque in 1515, who also entered into diplomatic relations with Persia. In 1521, a force under Antonio Correia conquered Bahrain ushering in a period of almost 80 years of Portuguese rule of the Persian Gulf archipelago (for further information see Bahrain as a Portuguese dominion).

On the Asiatic mainland the first trading stations were established by Pedro Álvares Cabral at Cochin and Calicut (1501); more important were the conquests of Goa (1510) and Malacca (1511) by Afonso de Albuquerque, and the acquisition of Diu (1535) by Martim Afonso de Sousa. East of Malacca Albuquerque sent Duarte Fernandes as envoy to Siam (now Thailand) in 1511, and dispatched to the Moluccas two expeditions (1512, 1514), which founded the Portuguese dominion in Maritime Southeast Asia.

The Portuguese established their base in the Spice Islands on the island of Ambon. Fernão Pires de Andrade visited Canton in 1517 and opened up trade with China, where in 1557 the Portuguese were permitted to occupy Macau. Japan, accidentally reached by three Portuguese traders in 1542, soon attracted large numbers of merchants and missionaries. In 1522 one of the ships in the expedition that Ferdinand Magellan organized in the Spanish service completed the first voyage around the world.

By the end of the 15th century, Portugal expelled some local Jews, along with those refugees that came from Castile and Aragon after 1492. In addition, many Jews were forcibly converted to Catholicism and remained as Conversos. Many Jews remained secretly Jewish, in danger of persecution by the Portuguese Inquisition. In 1506, 3,000 "New Christians" were massacred in Lisbon.

1580 crisis, Iberian Union and decline of the Empire

Main articles: 1580 Portuguese succession crisis, Iberian Union, and Dutch–Portuguese War

On August 4, 1578, while fighting in Morocco, young King Sebastian died in battle without an heir and his body was not found. His death lead to a dynastic crisis. The late king's elderly granduncle, Cardinal Henry, became king. Henry I died a mere two years later on January 31, 1580. Portugal was worried about the maintenance of its independence and sought help to find a new king.

Philip II of Spain was on his mother's side the grandson of King Manuel I, and on that basis claimed the Portuguese throne. He was opposed by António, Prior of Crato, the illegitimate son of one of the younger sons of Manuel I. As a result, following Henry's death Spain invaded Portugal and the Spanish king became Philip I of Portugal in 1580. The Spanish and Portuguese Empires came under a single rule.

This did not, however, end resistance to Spanish rule. The Prior of Crato held out in the Azores until 1583, and continued to actively seek to recover the throne until his death in 1595. Impostors claimed to be King Sebastian in 1584, 1585, 1595 and 1598. "Sebastianism", the myth that the young king will return to Portugal on a foggy day, has prevailed until modern times.

After the 16th century, Portugal gradually saw its wealth decreasing. Portugal was officially an autonomous state, but, in actuality, the country was under the rule of the Spanish from 1580 to 1640. The Consejo de Portugal independent inasmuch as it was one of the key administrative units used by the Castilian monarchy, on legally equal terms with the Consejo de Indias.

The joining of the two crowns deprived Portugal of a separate foreign policy, and Spain's enemies became Portugal's. England had been an ally of Portugal since the Treaty of Windsor in 1386. War between Spain and England led to a deterioration of the relations with Portugal's oldest ally, and the loss of Hormuz. From 1595 to 1663 Dutch-Portuguese War led to invasions of many countries in Asia and commercial interests in Japan, Africa and South America. In 1624, the Dutch seized Salvador, the capital of Brazil. In 1630, the Dutch seized Pernambuco in northern Brazil. The Treaty of 1654 returned Pernambuco to Portuguese control. Both the English and the Dutch continued to aspire to dominate both the Atlantic slave trade and the spice trade with the Far East.

The Dutch intrusion into Brazil was long lasting and troublesome to Portugal. The Seven Provinces (the Dutch) captured a large portion of the Brazilian coast including the entire coasts except that of Bahia and much of the interior of most contemporary Northeastern states (Bahia, Sergipe, Alagoas, Pernambuco, Paraíba, Rio Grande do Norte and Ceará), while Dutch privateers sacked Portuguese ships in both the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

This was reversed, beginning with a major Spanish-Portuguese military operation in 1625. This laid the foundations for the recovery of remaining Dutch controlled areas. The other smaller, less developed areas were recovered in stages and relieved of Dutch piracy in the next two decades by local resistance and Portuguese expeditions. After the dissolution of the Iberian Union in 1640, Portugal would reestablish its authority over some lost territories of the Portuguese Empire.

Portuguese Restoration War (1640-1668)

Main article: Portuguese Restoration War

At home, life was calm and serene with the first two Spanish kings; they maintained Portugal's status, gave excellent positions to Portuguese nobles in the Spanish courts, and Portugal maintained an independent law, currency and government. It was even proposed to move the Spanish capital to Lisbon. Later, Philip IV tried to make Portugal a Spanish province, and Portuguese nobles lost power.

Because of this, as well as the general strain on the finances of the Spanish throne as a result of the Thirty Years War, on 1 December 1640, the Duke of Braganza, one of the great native noblemen and a descendant of King Manuel I, was proclaimed king as John IV, and a war of independence against Spain was launched. Ceuta governors did not accept the new king; they maintained their allegiance to Spain. Although Portugal had substantially attained its independence in 1640, the Spanish continued to try to reassert their control for the next twenty-eight years, only accepting Portuguese independence in 1668.

In the 17th century the Portuguese emigrated in large numbers to Brazil. By 1709, John V prohibited emigration, since Portugal had lost a sizable fraction of its population. Brazil was elevated to a vice-kingdom.

Pombaline era

Main articles: Portugal from the Restoration to the 1755 Earthquake and Sebastião de Melo, Marquis of Pombal

In 1738, Sebastião de Melo, the talented son of a Lisbon squire, began a diplomatic career as the Portuguese Ambassador in London and later in Vienna. The Queen consort of Portugal, Archduchess Maria Anne Josefa of Austria, was fond of Melo; and after his first wife died, she arranged the widowed de Melo's second marriage to the daughter of the Austrian Field Marshal Leopold Josef, Count von Daun. King John V of Portugal, however, was not pleased and recalled Melo to Portugal in 1749. John V died the following year and his son, Joseph I of Portugal was crowned. In contrast to his father, Joseph I was fond of de Melo, and with the Queen Mother's approval, he appointed Melo as Minister of Foreign Affairs. As the King's confidence in de Melo increased, the King entrusted him with more control of the state.

By 1755, Sebastião de Melo was made Prime Minister. Impressed by British economic success he had witnessed while Ambassador, he successfully implemented similar economic policies in Portugal. He abolished slavery in Portugal and in the Portuguese colonies in India; reorganized the army and the navy; restructured the University of Coimbra, and ended discrimination against different Christian sects in Portugal.

But Sebastião de Melo's greatest reforms were economic and financial, with the creation of several companies and guilds to regulate every commercial activity. He demarcated the region for production of Port to ensure the wine's quality, and this was the first attempt to control wine quality and production in Europe. He ruled with a strong hand by imposing strict law upon all classes of Portuguese society from the high nobility to the poorest working class, along with a widespread review of the country's tax system. These reforms gained him enemies in the upper classes, especially among the high nobility, who despised him as a social upstart.

Disaster fell upon Portugal in the morning of 1 November 1755, when Lisbon was struck by a violent earthquake with an estimated Richter scale magnitude of 9. The city was razed to the ground by the earthquake and the subsequent tsunami and ensuing fires. Sebastião de Melo survived by a stroke of luck and then immediately embarked on rebuilding the city, with his famous quote: "What now? We bury the dead and feed the living."

Despite the calamity, Lisbon suffered no epidemics and within less than one year was already being rebuilt. The new downtown of Lisbon was designed to resist subsequent earthquakes. Architectural models were built for tests, and the effects of an earthquake were simulated by marching troops around the models. The buildings and big squares of the Pombaline Downtown of Lisbon still remain as one of Lisbon's tourist attractions: They represent the world's first quake-proof buildings.

Following the earthquake, Joseph I gave his Prime Minister even more power, and Sebastião de Melo became a powerful, progressive dictator. As his power grew, his enemies increased in number, and bitter disputes with the high nobility became frequent. In 1758 Joseph I was wounded in an attempted assassination. The Távora family and the Duke of Aveiro were implicated and executed after a quick trial. The Jesuits were expelled from the country and their assets confiscated by the crown. Sebastião de Melo showed no mercy and prosecuted every person involved, even women and children. This was the final stroke that broke the power of the aristocracy and ensured the victory of the Minister against his enemies. Based upon his swift resolve, Joseph I made his loyal minister Count of Oeiras in 1759.

Following the Távora affair, the new Count of Oeiras knew no opposition. Made "Marquis of Pombal" in 1770, he effectively ruled Portugal until Joseph I's death in 1779. However, historians also argue that Pombal’s "enlightenment," while far-reaching, was primarily a mechanism for enhancing autocracy at the expense of individual liberty and especially an apparatus for crushing opposition, suppressing criticism, and furthering colonial economic exploitation as well as intensifying book censorship and consolidating personal control and profit.

Spanish invasion of Portugal (1762)

Main article: Spanish Invasion of Portugal (1762)

In 1762 France and Spain tried to force Portugal to join the Bourbon Family Compact, by asserting that Britain had become too powerful. Joseph refused to accept this and protested that his 1704 alliance with Britain was no threat.

In spring 1762 Spanish troops invaded Portugal from the north as far as the Douro, while a second column captured Almeida and threatened to advance on Lisbon. The arrival of a force of British troops rescued Portugal from defeat, blocking the Spanish advance and driving them back across the border following the Battle of Valencia de Alcántara. At the Treaty of Paris in 1763 Spain agreed to hand back Almeida to Portugal.

Crises of the nineteenth century

Main articles: History of Portugal (1777-1834) and History of Portugal (1834-1910)

In 1807 Portugal refused Napoleon Bonaparte's demand to accede to the Continental System of embargo against the United Kingdom; a French invasion under General Junot followed, and Lisbon was captured on 8 December 1807. British intervention in the Peninsular War restored Portuguese independence, the last French troops being expelled in 1812. The war cost Portugal the province of Olivença, now governed by Spain. Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, was the Portuguese capital between 1808 and 1821. In 1820 constitutionalist insurrections took place at Oporto (24 August) and Lisbon (15 September). Lisbon regained its status as the capital of Portugal when Brazil declared its independence from Portugal in 1822.

The death of John VI in 1826 led to a crisis of royal succession. His eldest son, Pedro I of Brazil, briefly became Pedro IV of Portugal, but neither the Portuguese nor the Brazilians wanted a unified monarchy; consequently, Pedro abdicated the Portuguese crown in favor of his 7-year-old daughter, Maria da Glória, on the condition that when of age she would marry his brother, Miguel. Dissatisfaction at Pedro's constitutional reforms led the "absolutist" faction of landowners and the church to proclaim Miguel as king in February 1828. This led to the Liberal Wars in which Pedro, eventually forced Miguel to abdicate and go into exile in 1834, and placed his daughter on throne as Queen Maria II.

In 1890 the British government made an ultimatum delivered on 11 January 1890, to Portugal, forcing the retreat of Portuguese military forces in the land between the Portuguese colonies of Mozambique and Angola (most of present-day Zimbabwe and Zambia). The area had been claimed by Portugal, which had included it in its "Pink Map", but this clashed with British aspirations to create a railroad link between Cairo and Cape Town, thereby linking its colonies from the north of Africa to the very south. This diplomatic clash leading to several waves of protest, prompted the downfall of the Portuguese government. The 1890 British Ultimatum was considered by Portuguese historians and politics at that time, the most outrageous and infamous action of the British against her oldest ally.

The First Republic (1910–1926)

Main article: Portuguese First Republic

The First Republic has, over the course of a recent past, lost many historians to the New State. As a result, it is difficult to attempt a global synthesis of the republican period in view of the important gaps that still persist in our knowledge of its political history. As far as the October 1910 Revolution is concerned, a number of valuable studies have been made, first among which ranks Vasco Pulido Valente’s polemical thesis. This historian posited the Jacobin and urban nature of the revolution carried out by the Portuguese Republican Party (PRP) and claimed that the PRP had turned the republican regime into a de facto dictatorship. This vision clashes with an older interpretation of the First Republic as a progressive and increasingly democratic regime that presented a clear contrast to Salazar’s ensuing dictatorship.

The revolution immediately targeted the Catholic Church: churches were plundered, convents were attacked and religious (priests and nuns) were harassed. Scarcely had the provisional government been installed when it began devoting its entire attention to an anti-religious policy, in spite of a disastrous economic situation. On 10 October – five days after the inauguration of the Republic – the new government decreed that all convents, monasteries and all religious orders were to be suppressed. All religious were expelled and their goods confiscated. The Jesuits were forced to forfeit their Portuguese citizenship.

A series of anti-Catholic laws and decrees followed each other in rapid succession. On 3 November, a law legalizing divorce was passed; then laws recognizing the legitimacy of children born outside wedlock, authorizing cremation, secularizing cemeteries, suppressing religious teaching in the schools and prohibiting the wearing of the cassock, were passed. In addition, the ringing of church bells and times of worship were subjected to certain restraints, and the public celebration of religious feasts was suppressed. The government even interfered with the seminaries, reserving the right to name the professors and determine the programs. This whole series of laws authored by Afonso Costa culminated in the law of Separation of Church and State, which was passed on 20 April 1911.

A republican constitution was approved in 1911, inaugurating a parliamentary regime with reduced presidential powers and two chambers of parliament. The Republic provoked important fractures within Portuguese society, notably among the essentially monarchist rural population, in the trade unions, and in the Church. Even the PRP had to endure the secession of its more moderate elements, who formed conservative republican parties like the Evolutionist party and the Republican Union. In spite of these splits, the PRP, led by Afonso Costa, preserved its dominance, largely due to a brand of clientelist politics inherited from the monarchy. In view of these tactics, a number of opposition forces were forced to resort to violence in order to enjoy the fruits of power. There are few recent studies of this period of the Republic’s existence, known as the ‘old’ Republic. Nevertheless, an essay by Vasco Pulido Valente should be consulted (1997a), as should the attempt to establish the political, social, and economic context made by M. Villaverde Cabral (1988).

The PRP viewed the outbreak of the First World War as a unique opportunity to achieve a number of goals: putting an end to the twin threats of a Spanish invasion of Portugal and of foreign occupation of the African colonies and, at the internal level, creating a national consensus around the regime and even around the party. These domestic objectives were not met, since participation in the conflict was not the subject of a national consensus and since it did not therefore serve to mobilise the population. Quite the opposite occurred: existing lines of political and ideological fracture were deepened by Portugal’s intervention in the First World War. The lack of consensus around Portugal’s intervention in turn made possible the appearance of two dictatorships, led by General Pimenta de Castro (January–May 1915) and Sidónio Pais (December 1917-December 1918).

Sidonismo, also known as Dezembrismo (English "Decemberism"), aroused a strong interest among historians, largely as a result of the elements of modernity that it contained. António José Telo has made clear the way in which this regime predated some of the political solutions invented by the totalitarian and fascist dictatorships of the 1920s and 1930s. Sidónio Pais undertook the rescue of traditional values, notably the Pátria (English: "Homeland"), and attempted to rule in a charismatic fashion.

A move was made to abolish traditional political parties and to alter the existing mode of national representation in parliament (which, it was claimed, exacerbated divisions within the Pátria) through the creation of a corporative Senate, the founding of a single-party (the National Republican Party), and the attribution of a mobilising function to the leader. The state carved out an economically interventionist role for itself while, at the same time, repressing working-class movements and leftist republicans. Sidónio Pais also attempted to restore public order and to overcome some of the rifts of the recent past, making the republic more acceptable to monarchists and Catholics.

The vacuum of power created by Sidónio Pais’ murder on 14 December 1918, led the country to a brief civil war. The monarchy’s restoration was proclaimed in the north of Portugal on 19 January 1919, and four days later a monarchist insurrection broke out in Lisbon. A republican coalition government, led by José Relvas, coordinated the struggle against the monarchists by loyal army units and armed civilians. After a series of clashes the monarchists were definitively chased from Oporto on 13 February 1919. This military victory allowed the PRP to return to government and to emerge triumphant from the elections held later that year, having won the usual absolute majority.

It was during this restoration of the ‘old’ republic that an attempted reform was carried out in order to provide the regime with greater stability. In August 1919 a conservative president was elected – António José de Almeida (whose Evolutionist party had come together in wartime with the PRP to form a flawed, because incomplete, Sacred Union) – and his office was given the power to dissolve parliament. Relations with the Holy See, restored by Sidónio Pais, were preserved. The president used his new power to resolve a crisis of government in May 1921, naming a liberal[disambiguation needed] government (the Liberal party being the result of the postwar fusion of Evolutionists and Unionists) to prepare the forthcoming elections.

These were held on 10 July 1921, with victory going, as was usually the case, to the party in power. However, liberal government did not last long. On 19 October a military pronunciamento was carried out during which – and apparently against the wishes of the coup’s leaders – a number of prominent conservative figures, including Prime Minister António Granjo, were assassinated. This event, known as the ‘night of blood’ left a deep wound among political elites and public opinion. There could be no greater demonstration of the essential fragility of the Republic’s institutions and proof that the regime was democratic in name only, since it did not even admit the possibility of the rotation in power characteristic of the elitist regimes of the nineteenth century.

A new round of elections on 29 January 1922 inaugurated a fresh period of stability: the PRP once again emerged from the contest with an absolute majority. Discontent with this situation had not, however, disappeared. Numerous accusations of corruption, and the manifest failure to resolve pressing social concerns wore down the more visible PRP leaders while making the opposition’s attacks more deadly. At the same time, moreover, all political parties suffered from growing internal factionalism, especially the PRP itself. The party system was fractured and discredited.

This is clearly shown by the fact that regular PRP victories at the ballot box did not lead to stable government. Between 1910 and 1926 there were forty-five governments. The opposition of presidents to single-party governments, internal dissent within the PRP, the party’s almost non-existent internal discipline, and its desire to group together and lead all republican forces made any government’s task practically impossible. Many different formulas were attempted, including single-party governments, coalitions, and presidential executives, but none succeeded. Force was clearly the sole means open to the opposition if the PRP wanted to enjoy the fruits of power.

28 May 1926 coup d'état

Main article: 28 May 1926 coup d'état

By the mid-1920s the domestic and international scenes began to favour another authoritarian solution, wherein a strengthened executive might restore political and social order. Since the opposition’s constitutional route to power was blocked by the various means deployed by the PRP to protect itself, it turned to the army for support. The political awareness of the armed forces had grown during the war, and many of whose leaders had not forgiven the PRP for sending it to a war it did not want to fight.

They seemed to represent, to conservative forces, the last bastion of ‘order’ against the ‘chaos’ that was taking over the country. Links were established between conservative figures and military officers, who added their own political and corporative demands to the already complex equation. The pronunciamento of 28 May 1926 enjoyed the support of most army units and even of most political parties. As had been the case in December 1917, the population of Lisbon did not rise to defend the Republic, leaving it at the mercy of the army.

There are few global and up-to-date studies of this turbulent third phase of the Republic’s existence. Nevertheless, much has been written about the crisis and fall of the regime and the 28 May movement. The First Republic continues to be the subject of an intense debate. A recent historiographical balance sheet, elaborated by Armando Malheiro da Silva (2000,) is a good introduction into this debate. Three main interpretations can be identified. For some historians the First Republic was a progressive and increasingly democratic regime. For others it was essentially a prolongation of the liberal and elitist regimes of the 19th century. A third group chooses to highlight the regime’s revolutionary, Jacobin and dictatorial nature.

New State (Estado Novo) (1933–1974)

Main article: Estado Novo (Portugal)

Political chaos, several strikes, harsh relations with the church, and considerable economic problems aggravated by a disastrous military intervention in the First World War led to the military 28 May 1926 coup d'état. This coup installed the "Second Republic" that would become the Estado Novo in 1933, led by António de Oliveira Salazar, which transformed Portugal into a proto-Fascist Axis-leaning state. This later evolved into some mixture of single-party corporative regime.

In 1961 the Portuguese army was involved in armed action in its colony in Goa against an Indian invasion (See Operation Vijay). The operations resulted in a humiliating Portuguese defeat and the loss of the colonies in India. Independence movements also became active in Portuguese Angola, Portuguese Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea; the Portuguese Colonial War started. Portugal, during this period, was never an outcast, and was a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA).

After the death of Salazar in 1970, his replacement by Marcelo Caetano offered a certain hope that the regime would open up, the primavera marcelista (Marcelist spring). However the colonial wars in Africa continued, political prisoners remained incarcerated, freedom of association was not restored, censorship was only slightly eased and the elections remained tightly controlled.

The regime retained its characteristic traits: censorship, corporativeness, with a market economy dominated by a handful of economical groups, continuous surveillance and intimidation of several sectors of society through the use of a political police and techniques instilling fear (such as arbitrary imprisonment, systematic political persecution and even assassination of anti-regime insurgents).

The Third Republic (1974-)

Main articles: History of Portugal (1974-1986), History of Portugal (1986-2000), and Portugal in the 2000s

The "Carnation Revolution" of 1974, an effectively bloodless left-wing military coup, installed the "Third Republic". Broad democratic reforms were implemented. In 1975, Portugal granted independence to its Overseas Provinces (Províncias Ultramarinas in Portuguese) in Africa (Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe). Nearly 1 million Portuguese or persons of Portuguese descent left these former colonies as refugees.

In that same year, Indonesia invaded and annexed the Portuguese province of Portuguese Timor (East Timor) in Asia before independence could be granted. The massive exodus of the Portuguese military and citizens from Portuguese Angola and Mozambique, would prompt an era of chaos and severe destruction in those territories after independence from Portugal in 1975. From May 1974 to the end of the 1970s, over a million Portuguese citizens from Portugal's African territories (mostly from Portuguese Angola and Mozambique) left those territories as destitute refugees - the retornados.

The newly-independent countries were ravaged by brutal civil wars in the following decades - the Angolan Civil War (1975–2002) and Mozambican Civil War (1977–1992) - responsible for millions of deaths and refugees. The Asian dependency of Macau, after an agreement in 1986, was returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1999. Portugal applied international pressure to secure East Timor's independence from Indonesia, as East Timor was still legally a Portuguese dependency, and recognized as such by the United Nations. After a referendum in 1999, East Timor voted for independence and Portugal recognized its independence in 2002.

With the 1975–76 independence of its colonies, other than Macau, the 560 year old Portuguese Empire effectively ended. Simultaneously 15 years of war effort also came to an end; many Portuguese returned from the colonies (the retornados) and came to comprise a sizeable number of the population: approximately 580,000 of Portugal's 9,8 million citizens in 1981. This opened new paths for the country's future just as others closed. In 1986, Portugal entered the European Economic Community and left the European Free Trade Association which was founded by Portugal and its partners in 1960. The country joined the Euro in 1999. The Portuguese empire ended de facto in 1999 when Macau was returned to China, and de jure in 2002 when East Timor was independent.

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HISTORY OF MOROCCO

The Barbary coast: 16th - 20th century AD

With the decline of the local Berber dynasties in the 15th and 16th centuries, the valuable coastal strip of north Africa (known because of the Berbers as the Barbary coast) attracts the attention of the two most powerful Mediterranean states of the time - Spain in the west, Turkey in the east.

The Spanish-Turkish rivalry lasts for much of the 16th century, but it is gradually won - in a somewhat unorthodox manner - by the Turks. Their successful device is to allow Turkish pirates, or corsairs, to establish themselves along the coast. The territories seized by the corsairs are then given a formal status as protectorates of the Ottoman empire.

The first such pirate establishes himself on the coast of Algeria in 1512. Two others are firmly based in Libya by 1551. Tunisia is briefly taken in 1534 by the most famous corsair of them all, Khair ed-Din (known to the Europeans as Barbarossa). Recovered for Spain in 1535, Tunisia is finally brought under Ottoman control in 1574.

Piracy remains the chief purpose and main source of income of all these Turkish settlements along the Barbary coast. And the depredations of piracy, after three centuries, at last prompt French intervention in Algeria. This, at any rate, is stated by the French at the time to be the cause of their intervention. The reality is somewhat less glorious.

Algiers is occupied by the French in 1830, but it is not until 1847 that the French conquest of Algeria is complete - after prolonged resistance from the Berber hinterland, which has never been effectively controlled by the Turks on the coast.

It is in the European interest to police this entire troublesome Barbary region. Tunisia becomes a French protectorate in 1881, and Morocco (which has maintained a shaky independence, under its own local sultans, since the end of the Marinid dynasty) follows in 1912. Italy takes Libya from the Turks in 1912. The regions of the Barbary coast thus enter their last colonial phase before independence.

A European carve-up: AD 1900-1912

The process by which Morocco drifts into the colonial care of France (and of Spain, in the northern regions) provides a notable example of how the European powers jockey for position in Africa.

In 1900 France and Italy make a secret agreement assigning Morocco to France and Libya to Italy. In 1902 a similar arrangement between France and Spain provides for the proposed division between them of Moroccan territory. In 1904 France and Britain make a pact: Britain will allow France freedom of action in Morocco (provided that the coast opposite Gibraltar is not fortified) in return for France's acceptance of Britain's role in Egypt.

Meanwhile, as these arrangements are being made round polished tables, Morocco is still ostensibly an independent country ruled, albeit inefficiently, by its own Alaouite dynasty of sultans (on the throne since capturing Fès in 1666).

The colonial consensus, amicably agreed between France, Italy, Spain and Britain, is rudely interrupted in 1905 when the German emperor William II makes a flamboyant and provocative visit to Tangier, Morocco's most international city. Ostensibly visiting the local community of German merchants, he uses the occasion to emphasize that Morocco's independence must be maintained.

The diplomatic flurry caused by this intervention results in a conference held in Algeciras in 1906. With the active encouragement of the internationally minded US president, Theodore Roosevelt, representatives of the European powers and the USA gather to discuss France's relationship with Morocco.

All the powers except Austria-Hungary side with France rather than Germany. The conference affirms the independence of the sultan of Morocco, but at the same time puts in place international supervision of his affairs with the leading role taken by France. This is tantamount, in the long run, to accepting the region as a French colony.

Outbreaks of unrest in Morocco soon make necessary the posting of more French troops, thus increasing the degree of French control. There is a brief international crisis in 1911 when the Germans send a gunboat to Agadir, but the situation is defused in the fashion of the time. France cedes some territory in central Africa to Germany's colony of Cameroon. In return Germany accepts France's role in Morocco.

By 1912 the sultan is powerless to resist this gradual encroachment on his sovereignty. He signs the treaty of Fès, accepting a French protectorate over his entire country - except such regions as the French may themselves decide to allocate to Spain, in recognition of Spanish interests on the Mediterranean coast.

In a separate agreement, later in 1912, France and Spain settle this issue. Spain becomes the colonial power for approximately the northern tenth of the country, including its own historic enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta (in Spanish hands since 1497 and 1580 respectively). It is proposed that Tangier should become a neutral port with an international administration, but the onset of World War I delays the implementation of this.

The effect of the agreements of 1912 is that Morocco becomes, for four decades, a region divided into two very different colonies, French and Spanish, each in many ways more closely linked to the colonial power than to each other.

The colonial decades: AD 1912-1956

The French and Spanish colonial administrations, reinforced by an influx of about half a million Europeans (many with useful specialist skills), make considerable material progress in fields such as transport, education and health. But there is constant resistance to foreign rule - most notably, in the early stages, in the five-year rebellion of Abd-el-Krim.

Abd-el-Krim wins a sensational victory at Anual, in 1921, over a Spanish army of 20,000. Thereafter he wins control of the Rif (the mountainous coastal area from Tetouan to Melilla) until his final defeat in 1926 by a massive joint French and Spanish force, numbering some 250,000 men.

Thereafter the pressure for change is maintained by groups of young educated Moroccans demanding political liberties and even independence. World War II provides a welcome boost to such demands, with the Vichy French administration overwhelmed by the American forces which land on the Moroccan coast in November 1942. When President Roosevelt comes to the Casablanca Conference in 1943, he expresses opposition to continuing French colonial rule.

In 1944 the Istiqlal (Independence) party is formed, with the sultan of Morocco (now Muhammad V) giving tacit support. In 1952 France finally attempts decisive action against the independence movement. The Istiqlal leaders are arrested. In 1953 the sultan is deposed and sent into exile.

The result is an immediate increase in terrorism, followed by an armed uprising in 1955. This happens to coincide with the onset of France's greater crisis in Algeria, a colony with a much higher population of French settlers.

In the circumstances the French government caves in rapidly. Muhammad V is brought back from exile, and in November 1955 the French government accepts the principle of independence for Morocco. It comes into effect in March 1956, to be followed a month later by the same status for Spanish Morocco. In November agreement is reached to end the international status of Tangier, which by 1960 is fully integrated with the rest of the nation. Morocco is back to its pre-colonial borders, and is ruled still by its pre-colonial dynasty.

An African kingdom: from AD 1957

The sultan Muhammad V, ruling his newly independent nation, proclaims his intention of turning it into a constitutional monarchy. His first act in this direction is to transform himself into a monarch. He assumes in 1957 the title of king.

Government elections eventually take place in 1960, but in their wake the king himself takes the role of prime minister with his heir, crown prince Hassan, as his deputy. The promised constitution is postponed until 1962, but by then Muhammad V has died. He is succeeded in 1961 by his son, as King Hassan II.

For nearly forty years Hassan rules Morocco, often with disregard for the civil rights of political opponents but in broad terms successfully - surviving attempted coups (the most serious in 1971) and periodic riots (particularly in Casablanca in 1981). There are several attempts at constitutional reform, and elections to parliament become a regular feature of Moroccan life. But real power remains with the king until his death in 1999, when he is succeeded by his son as Muhammad VI.

Internationally the main feature of Hassan's reign is territorial disputes with Morocco's immediate neighbours, Algeria and Mauritania.

The border with Algeria has been redrawn, to Morocco's disadvantage, during the French colonial period. Hassan's rejection of the existing border is of economic importance, since the disputed region is rich in iron ore. In 1970 a compromise is reached whereby the ore is exploited by both nations in partnership.

The other dispute, in the south, is of greater significance and longer duration. It concerns Mauriania and the Western Sahara. In the 1960s Hassan claims that Morocco has a historic right to Mauritania itself. But from 1969 he changes tack and concentrates his energies on winning the Western Sahara.

The Western Sahara: from AD 1976

The Western Sahara, colonized by Spain from 1884 and subsequently known as the Spanish Sahara, is a desert region between Mauritania and the ocean. Occupied only by a few nomadic tribes, it seems of little value until phosphate deposits are discovered in 1963.

By the 1970s it is an area disputed between Spain and the region's two neighbours, Morocco and Mauritania. In 1975 a United Nations mission reports that the scattered inhabitants of the region want independence and should be allowed to decide their own future. This prompts a dramatic response from the king of Morocco. He organizes a Green March (the colour of Islam), sending 350,000 unarmed Moroccans across the border. Their votes on the area's future can be relied upon.

Faced with this degree of determination, the Spanish withdraw their claim. The Western Sahara, as it now becomes, is entrusted by the UN in 1976 to joint Moroccan-Mauritanian adminstration.

It is never discovered whether this arrangement might have a chance of working, because since 1973 there has been a new element. In that year a local group of activists form the Polisario (Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el Hamra and Río de Oro). As guerrillas, supported by Algeria and Libya, they harass the Moroccans and Mauritanians. As politicians they declare, in 1976, that they are the government-in-exile of a new independent state, the Saharan Arab Democratic Republic. Their provisional government, based in Algeria, wins recognition from some seventy nations.

In the division of the Western Sahara after the departure of the Spanish, Morocco wins the northern two thirds (the region which includes the phosphates). Perhaps as a result of this, Mauritania opts out of the fighting and in 1979 makes peace with the Polisario. Morocco's response is to annexe the Mauritanian part of the territory.

The struggle therefore becomes a straight fight between the Moroccan forces and the Polisario. The Moroccans fortify the valuable areas against guerrilla intrusion. Eventually a peace is brokered in 1988 by the United Nations, leading to a ceasefire in 1991.

The UN proposal, accepted by both sides, is for a referendum to be held on whether the people of the region want independence under the Polisario or union with Morocco.

Eleven years later the referendum has still not taken place, because of the inability of the two sides to agree on who shall be eligible to vote. The issue is a crucial one, with Morocco continuing to move thousands of settlers into the region. Clearly the indigenous Saharawi nomads would come up with one answer, and the entire present-day population with another.

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