Oran and Mers-el-Kebir: History of the City and Its Port under Spanish Occupation. Through the Translation of a Series of Articles from the Revue Africaine, Published Between 1865 and 1936

In the cathedral of Toledo, we find on the walls of his Mozarabic chapel, that one of the three oil paintings executed by John II, Count of Nevers, represents the onslaught of Oran and fixes the capture of this city on May 19, 1509 On the other hand, all the historical accounts give the conquest of Mers-el-Kebir as four years earlier than that of Oran.

The texts which we have chosen for the translation come to tell us, in the form of a note, the principal facts which signaled this Spanish domination in this country of Algeria, during three centuries. These stories have been published by several Orientalist writers who have experienced some of these events of this occupation. This is the result of their travels accomplished for several years to visit these places witnesses of the past of this part of the North African coast.

Through this project, we aim at singularity by choosing to translate articles instead of a book. All these articles that will be submitted to translation, are testimonies that tell a chapter, and not the least interesting, the history of Spanish conquests in the Maghreb. We chose, in particular, these 6 articles which constitute our corpus, because they have many points in common:

1. they are all published in the Revue Africaine

2. They are written by orientalists or archivists who know Algeria well, besides, 4 articles belong to Adrien Berbrugger, one of the founders of the Revue Africaine and also a great specialist of Algeria. He returned to this country eminent service as a journalist, historian, archaeologist and curator of the National Library of Algiers.

3. They highlight the political, military and even social, economic and cultural history of Spanish Oran.

4. The papers in this series also bring us unpublished information on the history of Oran and Mers-el-Kebir in particular.

5. The authors of these articles connect us with the story of important events that marked Oran during 3 centuries of Spanish occupation.

6. These accounts show the periods of Spanish occupation between the year 1505, date of the first conquest, until the year 1792, date of the final abandonment of these two places.

Our work is a historical summary of Oran and Mers-el-Kebir, borrowed from the most authoritative writers like Diego Suarez Montanesn historiographer of the kings of Spain to various publications that have appeared since that time. It is impossible to get an idea of ​​the value of the trade of Oran and its port of Mers-el-Kebir without consulting these European documents, they are much richer in information on the economic role of Oran in the central Maghreb.

The information on the population of the city of Oran and its own commerce at that time seems to be reduced to little. Muslim travelers and geographers have been too discreet about these two elements; their information is often vague on the urban work of the masters of Oran. Fortunately, European source documents provide us with all this information. Berbrugger writes: "Ibn Hawqal, at the end of the X century, is content to note that it is in the port of Oran that the trade with Spain is made, the ships bring the goods there and go back loaded with corn. El Bikri makes no mention of it. Edrisi, in the middle of the twelfth, is the first to point out that there are large bazaars, many factories, and flourishing shops in Oran." To find a first figure on the population of Oran, it was not until Leon African to know that the city contained about 6000 fires (25,000 inhabitants) in the sixteenth century. He also tells us about his buildings, walls and hospitals.