view of Casablanca, courtesy, Berber Dream Tours |
In approximately the
seventh century BCE, this area was settled by various Berber tribes who
coalesced to form a settlement they called “Anfa”. Anfa was later used as a
port by the Phoenicians and then the Romans and became prosperous because of its
international trade as well as its fertile hinterland. From Anfa, began
the expeditions of Juba II, king of Numidia and
Mauretania in the service of Rome, to discover
the Canary and Madeira islands off the west African coast. Juba was succeeded by Ptolemy of Mauretania under whose reign,
the kingdom was officially annexed by Roman emperor Caligula thus incorporating
Anfa into the Roman Empire.
Early
in the 7th century, a large Berber tribe, the Barghawata from the Masmuda
confederacy, settled in the Tamasna Plain between the rivers Bou Regreg to the north and Oum er-Rbia to the south. A century
later, it was conquered by the Arabs, as was all of North Africa. But in contrast
to the Levant, Arab colonization and subjugation of North Africa was a very
slow process, especially when confronting formidable Berber warriors. In 744, the
Barghawata, following the revolt against the Arab Umayyads, established itself
as an independent kingdom in Tamasna and made Anfa
its capital. It remained an independent kingdom until it was conquered by
the Berber Almoravids in 1068. Under the succeeding dynasty, the Almohads, also
Berber, Sultan Abd al-Mu'min, finally drove the Barghawata out of Tamasna in 1149, and replaced them
with Bedouin Arab tribes,
notably Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym. Eventually, they would mix with
the remaining local Berbers which, unfortunately, led to the beginning of widespread
Arabization. During the 14th century, under the Merinids, a Zenata Berber dynasty, Anfa rose in
importance as a port, and became an independent city in the early part of the
following century. The last of the Merinids was ousted by a popular
revolt in 1465.
Anfa suffered major damage during the raids and
conquest by the Portuguese in the 15th century, but the Portuguese soon rebuilt
it, and in the process, changed its name to Casa Branca meaning
'white house'. The present name, the Spanish, “Casa
Blanca”, was adopted when the Kingdom
of Portugal came under Spanish control through
the Iberian
Union. But the town couldn’t survive the
Portuguese or Spanish and it soon became an abandoned city until 1770 when it
was rebuilt by Sultan Mohammed ben Abdallah from the Arab Alouite dynasty who
was known to be friendly to the Berbers. Under his rule, the city was
repopulated by Chleuh Berbers from the region of Essaouira and the environs of
Meknes. Today, the name “Anfa”
survives as a neighborhood of the present city, located on the site of the
original town.
Before the beginning of the 20th century, another
wave of Chleuh arrived in Casablanca from the Souss and Draa regions to the
south. This group would become famous for the grocery businesses they
developed.
For many years, especially since independence in 1956, the
Berbers in Casablanca, as with Morocco as a whole, were forced to undergo an
Arabization process by the Arab occupiers, requiring them to abandon their
indigenous Berber identities including their language which was deemed illegal.
As far as Casablanca was concerned, this resulted in limited contacts with the
native-born, Arabic-speaking, urban dwellers as migrations to the city which
took place in the 50s and 60s, originated from the Berber-speaking rural
hinterlands. Recently, the anti-Berber restrictions were eased and the Berber
language was given official recognition. But in the end, the indigenous people
still remained under Arab occupation, with all that that entails, and
unfortunately at present, they have no choice but to live with it.
According to the 2019 census, the city has a population of about
3.71 million in the urban area and over 4.27
million in the Greater Metropolitan area. In spite of the Arab occupation,
there is, nevertheless, an exceedingly strong Berber presence. There are several Berber tourist companies
located throughout the city and some of the main indigenous sites might include
-- the Berber Mosque; the gate Bab Marrakesh, so called because the
road to Marrakesh starts from there; the Abderrahman
Slaoui Museum which contains a fine Berber jewelry section; and the old medina, built in the 19th
century as a marketplace, filled with labyrinthine narrow streets and cafés, now
a residential area.
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