Spanish Sahara.
Information.
SPANISH SAHARA was the name used for the modern territory of Western Sahara when it was ruled as a territory by Spain between 1884 and 1975. In 1884, Spain was awarded the coastal area of present-day Western Sahara at the Berlin Conference, and began establishing trading posts and a military presence. In the summer of 1886, under the sponsorship of the Spanish Society of Commercial Geography, Julio Cervera Baviera, Felipe Rizzo (1823-1908), and Francisco Quiroga (1853-1894) traversed the colony of Rio de Oro, where they made topographical and astronomical observations in a land whose features were barely known at the time to geographers. It is considered the first scientific expedition in that part of the Sahara. The borders of the area were not clearly defined until treaties between Spain and France in the early 20th century. Spanish Sahara was then created from the Spanish territories of Rio de Oro and Saguia el-Hamra in 1924. It was not part of, and administered separately from, the areas known as Spanish Morocco. Entering the territory in 1884, Spain was immediately challenged by stiff resistance from the indigenous Sahrawi tribes. A 1904 rebellion led by the powerful Smara-based marabout, shaykh Ma al-Aynayn, was put down by France in 1910, but it was followed by a wave of uprisings under Ma al-Aynayn’s sons, grandsons and other political leaders. Currency : Spanish Peseta.
