The Cistern of the Portuguese Fortress of Mazagan (1541-1769)

Abstract

Portugal, a small European kingdom with a small population and few resources, was able to maintain several positions on the northwest coast of Africa over a span of 354 years: Ceuta was the first Portuguese city in the Maghreb (1415), and Mazagan the last to be abandoned (1769). It began as a small protectorate of the Portuguese crown (1486). After the conquest of Azamor (1513), King Manuel I (1469/1485-1521) deemed it vital to guarantee Portugal’s supremacy over the Spanish crown and protect the Carreira da Índia from pirates and corsairs who sailed the north and west coast of Africa. But there were other motives. Those aims dictated the transformation of a small lookout post into a bastioned fortress capable of withstanding modern ballistic attacks. Despite the many difficulties, King Manuel’s successor endowed the city with the conditions that would allow it to survive in a very hostile territory and far from help: in addition to the construction of the modern defensive structure, the cistern, built between 1541 and 1547, was essential for life inside the city during very prolonged sieges. Mazagan — El Jadida nowadays — has been a UNESCO heritage site since 2004. Mazagan is still beautiful, but ruined and socially depressed. It had the best architects and engineers at the service of the Portuguese crown during the reigns of King Manuel and King João III. There is therefore no shortage of arguments to justify the urgency of a safeguarding project, which is of interest to both Morocco and Portugal, in order to celebrate peace and life, concealing a past of wars and lost lives.

Keywords

• architecture and war
• history of architecture
• portuguese cistern
• mazagão (el jadida, morocco)
• heritage