Santa Cruz de la Mar Pequeña (literally ''Holy Cross of the Little Sea'') was a

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

XV century settlement close to Akhfennir, in the

Tarfaya Province Tarfaya is a province in the Moroccan economic region of Laâyoune-Sakia El Hamra, which includes the southwestern part of the territory of Morocco as of before 1975, and the northern part of the disputed territory of Western Sahara. Its populatio ...

, in

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to A ...

History

Founded by the Canary Islands

lord Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power (social and political), power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the Peerage ...

Diego de Herrera in 1478 as a trading and fishing post with a fortress. It was located close to a

mouth bar A mouth bar is an element of a deltaic system, which refers to typically mid-channel deposition of the sediment transported by the river channel at the river mouth. Formation mechanism River mouth bars form because the cross-sectional area of ...

(hence its name) accross

Lanzarote Lanzarote (, , ) is a Spanish island, the easternmost of the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean. It is located approximately off the north coast of Africa and from the Iberian Peninsula. Covering , Lanzarote is the fourth-largest of the i ...

. The importance of the settlement was derived from its position in the

trans-Saharan slave trade During the Trans-Saharan slave trade, slaves were transported across the Sahara desert. Most were moved from Sub-Saharan Africa to North Africa to be sold to Mediterranean and Middle eastern civilizations; a small percentage went the oth ...

, and captives were shipped to sugar plantations on the Canary Islands. The

Saadi dynasty The Saadi Sultanate (also rendered in English as Sa'di, Sa'did, Sa'dian, or Saadian; ar, السعديون, translit=as-saʿdiyyūn) was a state which ruled present-day Morocco and parts of West Africa in the 16th and 17th centuries. It was l ...

raided the place and the

eventually left Santa Cruz, being completelly abandoned by 1524. The exact location of what used to be Santa Cruz de la Mar Pequeña was forgotten. After the

Treaty Between France and Spain Regarding Morocco The Treaty between France and Spain regarding Morocco was signed on 27 November 1912 by French and Spanish heads of state, establishing '' de jure'' a Spanish Zone of influence in northern and southern Morocco, both zones being '' de facto'' un ...

(1912), in 1916 the Spanish gained control of the Cape Juby Strip which included the place. It was renamed officially Puerto Cansado, as that was the name given by the Canarian fishermen. On the other hand, in the mid-nineteenth century, after the Hispano-Moroccan War (1859–1860), the Sultanate of Morocco agreed to handle the place (of uncertain location) to Spain in the 1860 Treaty of Wad Ras. In the wake of the visit of a Spanish delegation to Fez in 1877, a joint Hispano-Moroccan committee was created in order to determine the location of Santa Cruz de la Mar Pequeña. This committee eventually misidentified Santa Cruz de la Mar Pequeña with

Ifni Ifni was a Spanish province on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, south of Agadir and across from the Canary Islands. It had a total area of , and a population of 51,517 in 1964. The main industry was fishing. The present-day Moroccan province in th ...

, actually located about 480 kilometers north of the real fortress. The Moroccan sultan accepted the identification in 1883, even if the border delimitation did not take place at the time and the effective Spanish occupation did not take place until 1934.

Description

Located on the north bank of the Naila lagoon in the

Khenifiss National Park Khenifiss National Park (french: Le Parc National Khenifiss ) is a national park in the southwest of Morocco, located near Akhfenir on the Atlantic coast in the region of Laâyoune-Sakia El Hamra. It was established in 2006. The area of the park ...

. The only remains of the XV century settlement are the foundations of an 8 meter side square

tower A tower is a tall structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting structures. Towers are specific ...

of Santa Cruz de la Mar Pequeña. On 2011 local arqueologists excavated the

desert A desert is a barren area of landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions are hostile for plant and animal life. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About on ...

sands to identify the tower, which is currently under the sand and called Foum Agoutir.

References

External links

*
En busca de la torre perdida
Former Spanish colonies Geography of Laâyoune-Sakia El Hamra Colonial history of Morocco Spanish Africa Former populated places in Morocco Populated places established in the 1470s {{LaâyouneSakiaElHamra-geo-stub

History

Description

See also

References

External links