Spanish West Africa | |||||||||||||||||
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| 1946–1958 | |||||||||||||||||
.svg) | |||||||||||||||||
| Anthem: Marcha Real "Royal March" | |||||||||||||||||
 Northwestern African territories under Spanish control in 1912. | |||||||||||||||||
| Status | Spanish colony | ||||||||||||||||
| Capital | Villa Cisneros | ||||||||||||||||
| Common languages | Spanish Arabic | ||||||||||||||||
| Religion | Roman Catholicism Islam | ||||||||||||||||
| Governor | |||||||||||||||||
• 1946–1949 (first) | José Bermejo López | ||||||||||||||||
• 1958 (last) | José Héctor Vázquez | ||||||||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||||||||
• Established | 20 July 1946 | ||||||||||||||||
• Disestablished | 10 January 1958 | ||||||||||||||||
| Currency | Spanish peseta | ||||||||||||||||
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Spanish West Africa (Spanish: África Occidental Española, AOE) was a grouping of Spanish colonies along the Atlantic coast of northwest Africa. It was formed in 1946 by joining the southern zone of the Spanish protectorate in Morocco, the colony of Ifni and the colony of Spanish Sahara into a single administrative unit. Following the Ifni War (1957–58), Spain ceded the southern protectorate to Morocco, and created separate provinces for Ifni and the Sahara in 1958.[1][2]
Spanish West Africa was formed by a decree of 20 July 1946. The new governor sat at Ifni. He was ex officio the delegate of the Spanish high commissioner in Morocco in the southern zone of the protectorate, to facilitate its government along the same lines as the other Spanish possessions on the coast. On 12 July 1947, Ifni and the Sahara were raised into distinct entities, but still under the authority of the governor in Ifni. On 10 and 14 January 1958, respectively, the Sahara and Ifni were raised into regular Spanish provinces completely independent of one another.[3][4]
Governors
References
- ^ Shannon E. Fleming, "Decolonization and the Spanish Army, 1940–76", in Wayne H. Bowen and José E. Alvarez, eds., A Military History of Modern Spain: From the Napoleonic Era to the International War on Terror (Praeger Security, 2007), p. 129. ISBN 9780275993573
- ^ Susan Martin-Márquez, Disorientations: Spanish Colonialism in Africa and the Performance of Identity (Yale University Press, 2008), p. 378. ISBN 978-0-300-15252-4
- ^ Robert Rézette, The Western Sahara and the Frontiers of Morocco (Nouvelles Éditions Latines, 1975), p. 101.
- ^ Abrighach, Mohamed (2007-01-01). "Anales. Revista de Estudios Ibéricos e Iberoamericanos, n° 3". Departamento de Espanol/Facultad de Letras y Ciencias Humanas, Agadir (Marruecos).
Further reading
- José Antonio Rodriguez Esteban, "El Mapa del África Occidental Española de 1949 a escala 1:500.000: orgullo militar, camelladas y juegos poéticos saharauis", Cybergeo: European Journal of Geography. Online since 20 January 2011.
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