# What is a resource for the people of Western Sahara? A historical synthesis of a socio-territorial issue

Francesco Correale

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Francesco Correale. What is a resource for the people of Western Sahara? A historical synthesis of a socio-territorial issue. Review of African Political Economy, 2025, 52 (184), pp.149-165. 10.62191/ROAPE-2025-0012. hal-05457102

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# What is a resource for the people of Western Sahara? A historical synthesis of a socio-territorial issue

Francesco Correale*

CNRS, UMR 7324 CITERES (Cités, Territoires, Environnement et Sociétés), Tours, France

## ABSTRACT

This article reviews the concept of a resource and its application to the case of Western Sahara, exploring the historical understanding of a resource for the nomadic populations of Western Sahara. Furthermore, it examines the diachronic evolution of this concept in light of the colonial presence and proposes a focus on Spanish colonial discourse and propaganda regarding the Sahara's resources. The article concludes with an analysis of how the political awareness of the Sahrawi people is reflected in the claims for self-determination formulated by the Polisario Front since its foundation.

## KEYWORDS

Western Saharan society; Sahrawi political agency; Spanish colonisation; decolonial approach; Sahrawi nationalism

## A decolonial imperative

Les cormorans nous suivent

Ils ont un vol beaucoup plus sûr que les mouettes ce sont

Des oiseaux beaucoup plus gros ils ont un plus beau

Plumage blanc bordé de noir brun ou tout noir comme

Les corneilles de la mer

Nous croisons six petits voiliers chargés de sel qui font le Service entre Dakar et les Grandes Canaries

– Blaise Cendrars, ‘A la hauteur du Rio de l’Ouro’, 1924¹

*Corresponding author email: francesco.correale@univ-tours.fr

Accepted: 20 March 2025; published online: 28 June 2025

©2025 ROAPE Publications Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
The meaning of a (natural) 'resource' has varied over time and from one society to another. This article explores the case of Western Sahara and what a resource may mean for its people and, particularly, for those of the former Spanish Sahara. To what extent did the concept of resources evolve because of colonial influence in the region and what is the legacy of the colonial period in the governance of resources and the self-identification of the peoples of Western Sahara?

To comprehend the mutation of the term ‘resource’ throughout European history, it is necessary to consider its etymology. From its twelfth-century French origin, the word underwent a significant semantic shift. Derived from the past participle of the archaic French verb ressourdre, meaning ‘to right oneself, to resurrect’, from the Latin resurgere, meaning ‘to rise again, to re-establish oneself’, the French feminine noun form, resorce, came to signify ‘rescue’. The current extractivist meaning is a far cry from this original meaning (Szeman and Wenzel 2021). In a broad sense, the term appears to relate more to the re-establishment of an order or certain condition (which is closely correlated with Christian eschatology) than to the accumulation, enrichment and exploitation of resources, or to the consolidation of a position.

Resources are a recurring theme in most multi-authored publications on the conflict in Western Sahara (Mercadillo Caballero and Mulay Ali 2015; Boulay and Correale 2016; Barreñada and Ojeda García 2016; Ojeda García, Fernández Molina and Veguilla 2017). The topic is frequently analysed from an economic perspective and consideration of the ‘eternal importance’ of Western Sahara’s resources (Garduño García 2015). Although the issue of resources is pivotal in academic studies of the Western Sahara conflict, analysis is frequently constrained by Eurocentric economic perspectives, marginalising any critical anthropological dimensions. This approach perpetuates colonialism while disregarding the way in which resources influence Sahrawi identity. Analyses that denounce Moroccan exploitation frequently fail to acknowledge the cultural significance of these resources for the Sahrawis.

This article challenges the resource/territory perspective by proposing an alternative approach based on the population/resource binomial. The approach is informed by decolonial theoretical apparatus. Agency and narrative cannot be established by the coloniser or by an actor outside the territory. Instead, they must be determined and examined in the light of the actions taken by the people under study. However, this is challenging in terms of sources, which are limited, and the skills of the researcher. In this context the term resource, particularly when used in conjunction with the adjective natural, does not merely refer to the resources of a given territory. Instead, it encompasses the entirety of human and social geography, as well as the historical agency of the population. This article aims to demonstrate that the resource question cannot be reduced to a quantitative or economic analysis: it must be addressed by following the history of the peoples concerned and what the issue represents for them. To this end, the article adopts a diachronic perspective encompassing the following periods: the precolonial era, characterised by the utilisation of resources by the locals; the colonial period, when the territory was regarded as a global resource and attributed political significance by the colonisers (the Spanish) to the region; and the most recent period, comprising the adoption of the concept as a part of Sahrawi nationalism. The proposed analyses are the result of a 30-year study of Sahrawi history and society, with the primary methodology the cross-referencing
of written sources from different colonial origins with interviews conducted in Sahrawi refugee camps in 2007, 2014 and 2016, and in occupied Western Sahara in 2017. The archive research and field investigations were not directly linked to the question of resources per se, but rather to the history of Sahrawi society and the formation of a national identity. However, as previously emphasised, the question of resources is omnipresent. To compensate for the lack of sources, extensive use is made of the literature on the social, economic and political history of the people of Western Sahara, especially with regard to the precolonial period.

## The making of the Western Saharan space and society through resources

From an economic perspective, the resource in question is of great significance. However, when viewed through the lens of social and anthropological inquiry, it becomes evident that the entire habitat in which the peoples of Western Sahara reside is, in fact, a resource in and of itself. In this habitat, a particular social and political pattern, which could be described as democratic (Caratini 2003, 66), is reproduced in conjunction with life in the desert environment. The term resource must be defined in accordance with the characteristics of societies that are structured in a manner that is conducive to the territory in question. The predominantly pastoral and commercial economy of the inhabitants of this region of Sahara is based not only on the exploitation of natural resources, but also on the preservation of these resources to ensure their sustainability and transmission to future generations. The most evident example is the dromedary, which has been domesticated in the Western Saharan regions since the third century BCE (Lydon 2009, 54–56). This animal, along with other domesticated fauna (such as rams and goats), is a source of sustenance and social status. Additionally, the maintenance of freshwater wells and the monitoring of oases are crucial aspects of the region’s socioeconomic landscape. Searching for and defending them in a climatically complex context makes the adoption of nomadism as a modus vivendi a necessity rather than a real choice (De Chassey 1993, 45).

The absence of a centralised political authority in Spanish Sahara is indicative of clan autonomy and resource management flexibility. Nomadic *qabā’il* (the plural of *qabīla*, the fundamental social unit of Western Saharans) followed overlapping paths, distributing themselves according to hierarchical principles. This movement shaped territorial boundaries and structured the paradigm in the region despite political isolation (Caratini 2003, 71–74). However, these groups engaged in regional markets, participating in gold, rubber, salt and slave trade circuits prior to European colonisation (Diego Aguirre 2004, 203–220). Resources and mobility defined their socioeconomic interactions, linking them to broader trans-Saharan trade networks.

The use of human beings as merchandise requires further clarification, particularly in relation to the hierarchical structure of the peoples of Western Sahara. This structure evolved over centuries and is based on two key distinctions: an ethnic one, given the Berber and Arab components of the population; and a functional one, directly linked to the finding and exploitation of different types of resources
(De Chassey 1993, 37). The ethnic distinction led to the outbreak of the notorious bloody Shar Buba war (1644–77) in the seventeenth century. This conflict originated from the refusal of the Berbers to pay tribute to those of Arab origin – the Hasan – who had arrived in Western Sahara from the regions that now constitute Yemen in two significant migratory waves, the first in the sixth and seventh centuries and the second in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. However, the Shar Buba war was part of a broader context of economic crisis affecting the regions from the Dra'a to the Senegal Valley, largely caused by two main factors: human trafficking and the subsequent establishment of French trading outposts off the shores of Senegal (Gorée Island, 1677), which held a monopoly on this trade. The crisis resulted in the cessation of the economic complementarity between the Berbers, who were predominantly sedentary and engaged in agricultural activities, and the Arabs, who were nomadic and prone to conflict. This was due to the slave trade implemented by the French, in line with the practices established by the Portuguese and Spanish presence two centuries earlier. This led to a decline in the availability of labour and an intensification of the tax burden on the Berbers (Ogot 1999, 141). The aftermath of the Shar Buba war saw the emergence of a new sociopolitical division, manifested in a gradual process of social stratification.

The warrior elite were at the top of the social hierarchy, thanks to their aggression and adherence to warrior values. The Arab military aristocracy was flanked, and sometimes replaced, by the marabouts (tolba or zawāyā), who were often of Berber rather than Arab origin. The zawāyā taught and administered Muslim rites (Ould Cheikh 1995, 2–3), organising themselves into brotherhoods (tāriqāt) that became centres of political and economic power, as well as providing staging posts for trans-Saharan caravans (Diego Aguirre 2004, 349). They owned wells and arable land and traded rubber from the south, playing a key role in the organisation of the caravans.

The ahl ktub, or ‘people of the book’, enjoyed prestige, while slaves (abid) and freed slaves (haratīn) occupied the lowest rungs of society (Caro Baroja 1955 (2008), 31–58; López Bargados 2003, 48–55). The latter were an integral part of the nomadic social order and the result of internal dynamics of plunder and inferiorisation, often marked by conflicts between the Arab/Bidan and the Black/Sudanese worlds.²

The externalisation of human trafficking and the breakdown of the area's socio-political equilibrium were caused by the arrival of Europeans, facilitated by the active participation of certain Saharan populations in the procurement and trafficking of slaves (Dalmases 2012, 19–28). The internal social function of slaves was effectively nullified, becoming instead a real commodity, a phenomenon seen in the European presence on the Saharan coasts. When resulting from agreements, this European presence became a kind of external resource for the region's populations. However, in some instances, European navigators enslaved the local populations. For example, in 1441, Portuguese explorers Antão Gonçalves and Nuno Tristão captured a dozen nomads and brought them to the court of Henry the Navigator. The Portuguese manhunt, which was primarily directed towards small coastal nomadic communities, persisted until trade agreements were established with some *qabā’il*, which subsequently exchanged their black slaves for a range of commodities, including textiles and cereals. Trade with the Portuguese assumed a significant role, centred primarily on the island of Arguin, which the Portuguese fortified in 1448, and continued
for nearly two centuries. Towards the end of the fifteenth century, the Spanish also began to trade with the Western Saharan peoples. In 1476, the Spanish army constructed the fort of Santa Cruz de Mar Pequeña in the region currently known as the Tarfaya. The interest in trade with the Western Saharans was concurrent with the colonisation of the Canary Islands, the conquest of which ended in 1512. Like the Portuguese with Arguin, the Spanish used the fort as a trading platform where people could buy and exchange goods and slaves. The latter were the only form of property that could be sold and bought from 1497 onwards, when the plundering of Arab slaves was prohibited. Despite a period during which the Spanish and Portuguese presences were accepted and even viewed as beneficial by the locals, the trading activities of these two powers only lasted for approximately 50 years for the former and until the mid seventeenth century for the latter (Hodges 1987, 33–41).

Trade with Europeans between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries occurred within a highly turbulent sociopolitical context for the people of Western Sahara. In the period preceding the nineteenth-century colonisation, several *qabā’il* were traversing the Western Saharan regions (Barbier 1982, 18–21), some of which were more prominent than others. The Takna inhabited the areas between the Anti-Atlas and Cape Bojador, as well as between the Atlantic Ocean and the Tindouf region. Their primary economic activity was trade, which involved moving between the Wadi Noun region, which served as their base, and Saqiyyat al-Hamra, establishing trading posts along the trans-Saharan trade route. The Takna were structured into two *laff*, or alliance systems, which often engaged in military conflict: the Aït ag-Gmāl and the Aït ‘Atmān. The success of their economic activities was contingent upon the control over space and, specifically, the flexibility of the alliances that formed the foundation of their social structure (Naïmi 2004).

The Tayākānt were a nomadic people who moved through the wādī Nūn region, western Algeria and Saqiyyat al-Hamra. As pastoralists, they controlled the primary trans-Saharan trade routes until the mid nineteenth century, when they became embroiled in conflict with the Rgaybāt. The Rgaybāt were a nomadic people whose traditional territories extended from southern Morocco to present-day Western Sahara and from southwest Algeria to present-day Mauritania. They were divided into two large groups that in turn comprised two territorial subsets: the trab al-Rgaybāt, the first of which was the Rgaybāt al-Gwāsim, also known as the Rgaybāt of the East; and the Rgaybāt Sahīl, also known as the Rgaybāt of the West (Caratini 1989, I: 28).

The Arusyīn and the Awlād Tidrarīn are known to have occupied the spaces between the coast of Saqiyyat al-Hamra and its extension south of Cape Bojador. The former claim an ancestral alliance with the Rgaybāt, which they believe to have been sanctioned by the presumed friendship between their respective eponyms (Caratini 1989, I: 44–47). In contrast, the Awlād Tidrarīn (Caro Baroja 1955 (2008), 131–190) were dependent on the Awlād Dlim, known for their agricultural practice (Martínez Milán 2003, 48). Warriors who settled between the Dakhla peninsula and Mauritania, they maintained conflictual relations with the Rgaybāt, with whom they competed for prestige and control of the nomadic routes (López Bargados 2003).

As a result of the politics of matrimonial alliances, all these *qabā’il* sought to defend and extend the limits of their territory (*trab*), which constituted their nomadic space. The heads of the most influential families were responsible for electing the notables,
applying the Shariʻa and appointing the qāḍī. Meetings were held in the Jamaʻa, while the qabā’il formed the Aīt Arbain federation to peacefully resolve disputes, primarily concerning resources (Barbier 1982, 16–17). However, conflicts over pastures, wells and oases were common prior to the arrival of the Europeans. Scholars Sophie Caratini (1989, 99–108) and José Ramón Diego Aguirre (2004, 347–365) have identified numerous conflicts between the various qabā’il between 1760 and 1911. They argue that these were not merely power struggles; rather, they were driven by a desire to control territorial resources, including the routes used by nomadic populations and sources of food and water. All the conflicts included instances in which alliances between the different qabā’il were reversed. On occasion, the vanquished were decimated, one example being the fifth war between the Rgaybāt and Tayākānt, fought over the conquest of Tindouf, which was destroyed and the Tayākānt massacred before the war concluded in 1896 (Diego Aguirre 2004, 365).

Western Saharan society, then, was in a state of significant upheaval on the eve of Spanish colonisation. It seems that the resources of the territory as well as the territory itself were not viewed in terms of economic profit but were part of the political and social ecosystem of the people and their nomadic way of life. However, it is inaccurate to portray this society as being traditionally isolated from external influences, as asserted by the nineteenth-century colonial narrative. Instead, evidence suggests that the region was integrated into global commercial networks as early as the fifteenth century, with the arrival of Portuguese and Spanish traders, and that there were important internal commercial dynamics on the African continent in addition to the broader global trade (Diego Aguirre 2004, 203–239). This suggests an ability to adapt in Western Saharan society, which remains one of its essential characteristics. This society had its own social configurations and reconfigurations, as well as its own political agency, in which the search for and management of resources occupied a prominent place. When France and Spain arrived in the Western Saharan region, however, they did not make any discoveries of their own. It was the local groups themselves who understood whom to fear and whom to take advantage of if they were to maintain their socioeconomic and political stability.

## Spanish colonisation as a disputed resource

During interviews conducted in the Tindouf refugee camps in 2007, 2014 and 2016 about the colonial relationship, one of the most frequently asked questions concerned the nature of the relationship between Spain and the Western Saharan peoples when the former arrived in the region in 1884. Two historical leaders of Sahrawi nationalism gave representative responses. Emhemd Ould Delid Ould Zein, a veteran of the Liberation Army in 1957–58 and a founding member of the Sahrawi nationalist liberation movement, the Polisario Front, in 1973, described the Spanish presence in Sahara thus:

> The Spaniards did not enter as an occupying power, but only to trade. They brought with them various goods which they exchanged in Tarfaya, Dakhla and La Güera for fish. At that time, Spain was not colonising. It was providing the Saharawis with goods that they needed and that they couldn't get. (Interview, 31 December 2007)
For Mohammed Lahmin Ahmed, former prime minister of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, 'Spain was not perceived as a colonising country by the Sahrawis, because when the Spanish arrived in 1884, they declared that they were there for trade and that they were not colonialists' (Interview, 3 January 2008). In 1884, when the Spaniards arrived on the Dakhla peninsula, where Villa Cisneros was founded, their knowledge of the local area was rather sketchy. They tried to establish relations with certain *qabā’il* that they believed controlled the territory, but these relationships were immediately very complicated. The Spanish aimed to re-establish trade with the populations of the Saharan coast in order to stimulate the Canary Island economy, particularly fishing and various trades (López Bargados and Martínez Milán 2010, 13–20); to seek out natural resources within a territory they had assigned themselves (and whose virtual possession was recognised by the European countries at the Berlin Conference of 1884–85); and to have a new colony in Africa when their Latin American empire disintegrated. In a sense, Western Sahara became a political and symbolic resource for the Spanish in the context of European imperialism, where they could display their status as a colonial power. Nevertheless, they had no control over the spaces or peoples in this possession. A decolonial approach is particularly useful here to reverse the perspective and identify the real winner of the new Iberian presence in Western Sahara in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Western Saharans' awareness of the political importance of the Spanish settlements was not immediate, and the first attacks on the Spanish settlements on the Dakhla peninsula by the Awlād Dlim *qabā’il* in 1885, 1887 and 1894 had purely commercial aims (López Bargados 2003, 368–371). However, at the same time as the Spanish were seeking to settle on the coasts opposite the Canary Islands, French colonial troops were advancing northwards from Senegal, directly threatening the traditional nomadic areas. This pressure intensified at the end of the 1890s, when the French arrived at the threshold of the Adrar region of Mauritania, alternating military conquest and so-called 'peaceful penetration'; in other words, buying the consensus of notables and dignitaries. In contrast to French military efforts, the Spanish colonial presence – which for at least five decades was more nominal than real – was better tolerated. This became clear in 1903, when the Madrid government appointed Colonel Francisco Bens Argandoña as governor of Rio de Oro. Lacking military means, Bens was unable to impose Spanish colonial presence by force or conduct pacification campaigns, like the French further south. In fact, the first decade of the twentieth century was characterised by the resistance of the Western Saharan people to French colonial penetration under Shaykh Mā’ al-‘Aynayn (Correale 1998). This was probably the last anti-colonial struggle before the independence battles of the 1950s and 1960s, which united most of the populations from the Sous region in Morocco to the north of the Mauritanian Emirates (essentially Trarza and Adrar in the south). Not coincidentally, during this period, Shaykh Mā’ al-‘Aynayn tried to channel caravan traffic from West Africa to the Mediterranean via areas under French influence and from Algeria towards the Atlantic Sahara. With the help of the ‘Alawite Sultan, he founded the town of Smara (1898–1902) in Saqiyyat al-Hamra which, in the shaykh’s view, was destined to become the new political, spiritual and commercial centre for the people of Western Sahara (Hodges 1987, 81). One
of the two regions that comprised future Spanish Sahara, along with Rio de Oro/
Wādī al-dhahab, Saqiyyat al-Hamra was now in the northern part of Western Sahara,
which the Congress of Berlin considered within the 'zone under Spanish influence';
that is, theoretically safe from the French. In 1900, the governments of Madrid and
Paris signed agreements on the borders between the colonial possessions of the two
countries (Trout 1969), which remained abstract at the time they were signed, since
the *qabā’il* did not recognise them and France and Spain had no control over the
areas they ostensibly shared.

For the French colonial troops, overstepping the boundaries accepted by their
government was both a diplomatic and a military problem: diplomatic because this
would provoke protests from the Spanish and military because, despite their obvious
superiority in arms and ammunition, they risked finding themselves in areas they
knew nothing about and where they could not rely on logistical support. Nonetheless,
in March 1913, following an attack by a Rgaybāt contingent on a colonial camp in
Mauritania, one French column reached Smara, where it found neither the local
population nor the Spaniards, and quickly withdrew. This was the only incursion by
French troops into Spanish territory before 1958. It provoked strong protests from
the government in Madrid, to which the French gave assurances that it would not
happen again. However, although Smara was abandoned by Sheikh Mā’ al-‘Aynayn in
1909, precisely for fear of being reached by colonial troops from Mauritania, Spanish
Sahara increasingly became a hiding place and a protected area where Western
Saharan resistance against French colonisation was organised until at least 1934. The
colonial documents from the time suggest that this was all done without the knowl-
edge of or, at times, with the complacency of the Iberian government. In fact, the
problem for Bens was not to spare the French, but to ensure that Spain had a mini-
mum of control over the territory and its population. This was a major task, as was,
he said, taking the post of Tarfaya in June 1916, 600 kilometres from Dakhla, which
the colonial agreements had sanctioned as the southern part of the Spanish protec-
torate in Morocco (Bens Argandoña 1917, 14–15). When Bens had landed in Sahara
13 years earlier, agreements were negotiated, instead of being imposed by military
force. Thus, to gain the support of the *qabā’il* for his permanent presence in the ter-
ritory, he initiated what he called the ‘sugar loaf policy’. Beginning in 1905, this policy
was institutionalised through a budget specifically dedicated to gifts: sugar loaves,
cloth, olive oil, tobacco, rice, gofio (a type of flour made from toasted cereals) and, at
times, weapons and ammunition, which were distributed to individuals and notables
(Correale 2019, 236–238). What Bens saw as a way to establish the Spanish presence
was really a tax paid to the Western Saharan population, and to the warrior *qabā’il*.
For them, the Spanish were mere tributaries, just like the *qabā’il* on the lower rungs
of the Western Saharan social ladder (Martinez-Milan 2003, 131).

However, during this social and political upheaval in the early twentieth century,
caused mainly by the advance of European colonisation, it would be naive to think
that the leaders of the Western Sahara resistance were simply collecting tribute from
the Spanish. Led by Ahmad al-Hayba, son of Shaykh Mā’ al-‘Aynayn, who died in 1910,
they sought to define an anti-French resistance zone nominally under Spanish rule.
In other words, the Spaniards became the executors of the Saharan people’s rejec-
tion of French colonial ambitions. In August 1912, this area of resistance reached
Marrakech (Agrour 2023, 89). Then, after the French offensive, it narrowed to the borders of Spanish Sahara and southern Morocco, which had not yet been occupied by the colonial troops of the Moroccan protectorate. Al-Hayba invited Bens to occupy Tarfaya in June 1916 and advocated the Spanish occupation of Ifni, as evidenced by a personal letter he sent to the king of Spain (which received a negative reply because the French had been consulted and were opposed). Al-Hayba died in 1919, but Spanish colonial policy continued under the leadership of the *qabā’il* of Western Sahara. In November 1920, Bens landed at La Güera, after many Saharan notables had been asking him for several years to open a port at El Parchel, near Bojador. Although the choice of La Güera, the third Spanish settlement on the coast after Villa Cisneros and Tarfaya, was based on economic interests – the concession of land to trading companies from the Canary Islands – the post remained rather abandoned, as it could not compete with the fort of Port-Étienne on the other side of Cap Blanc in French Mauritania.

Perceived as traders, treated as tributaries, manipulated to the point of implausibility, the Spanish and their attempt at colonisation constituted a real historical resource for the people of Western Sahara. Around them, they built a space destined to be transformed into a territory other than those colonised by France. Under the leadership of Mā’ al-‘Aynayn and his son Ahmad al-Hayba, the aim was clear: to use Spanish colonisation to establish a more centralised power that would control and direct the actions of Bens and his followers, and to preserve the sociopolitical balance and nomadic routes. At the same time, they provided local and maritime outlets for caravan traffic without passing through the French zones and organised and fomented the struggle against colonial penetration. After the death of al-Hayba the centralisation of power failed, but resistance shaped the Saharan space and the thinking of the people (Gimeno Martin and Robles Picón 2015, 197–222) in a territory that was supposedly Spanish, at least until 1934, when Iberian troops entered Smara and the so-called French pacifications in Morocco and Mauritania officially ended. The resistance, which was to continue for some years, was organised from within the Spanish colonial frontiers of Sahara, which, far from becoming an obstacle to the traditional nomadic routes, were also turned into a resource by the Saharans (Bozzo 1985). Within these borders, despite the attempts of Bens and his successors, Western Saharan society retained its own dynamics; a large modern arms trade was organised via the Canary Islands and unoccupied neighbouring territories, enabling the Saharan resistance to keep the French colonial forces at bay (Correale 2014, 243–270, 340–387). Indeed, until the 1940s, the Spanish colonial presence was the main resource through which many *qabā’il* maintained their independence and made Spanish territory their centre of action. Above all, the government in Madrid saw its presence in Western Sahara as a demonstration of power that gave it a prestigious place among the colonial powers. If the Spanish did not colonise the territory during the first 50 years of their presence there, it was not for a lack of trying, but rather because they did not have the military and economic resources to do so. This is all the more true considering that during the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera (1923–30) the government, faced with the possibility of a disproportionate increase in French influence among the people, was forced to implement its colonial policy in a situation in the territory of semi-abandonment, despite the critical state of Spanish
public finances (Martínez Milán 2003, 93–118). This does not mean that Spanish colonial action, together with French colonial action, did not have an impact on the restructuring of the population of Western Sahara. The disruption of the social equilibrium and imposition of cultural norms alien to the traditional nomadic society of the region became unbearable in the 1950s, to the point that the Spanish anthropologist Julio Caro Baroja, during his research in the Sahara in the early 1950s, collected statements from some Sahrawis who openly criticised the limitation on freedom of movement that the people had enjoyed before the arrival of the Spanish, and who considered themselves Spanish tributaries (Caro Baroja 1955 (2008), 33).

## The colonial discourse around resources

In the sole economic history on Spanish Sahara, Javier Morillas (1988, 7) characterises the Spanish colonisation as 'atypical', noting its 'epidermal penetration', isolation, autarchic tendencies, lack of capital due to very limited private investment, marginalisation of civilian elements, absence of basic structures or infrastructure, and the pursuit of maximum profits in a short time with minimum costs. Regarding the political implications, the issue of resources and the 'Saharan Eldorado' (Martín Corrales 2010, 207–238) is of particular importance, as it had direct consequences for the people. In essence, the discourse surrounding natural resources and their exploitation can be seen from a Foucauldian perspective (Foucault 1966). The Spanish were quick to implement this approach from the outset of their arrival (Bonelli 1895), following the precedent set by other European colonial powers. The scientific expedition of Cervera, Quiroga and Rizzo in 1886, and those that followed (Hodges 1987, 61–65), contributed to the development of a discourse that positioned the territory as a land full of unexploited resources. In particular, the salt mines (Rodríguez Estebán 2008, 251–268) required European intervention for their development, which contributed to the growth of the colonial narrative (Dalmases 2014, 43–76). Upon undertaking a tour of the country, Bens presented a report to the government in Madrid in which he outlined a situation characterised by the dominance of a pastoral economy, the noticeable depopulation of the area and a determination among the people to exploit the territory's mineral resources (Bens Argandoña 1910). The report provides insight into the expectations of the Spanish colonisers, particularly regarding the presence of urban settlements, developed agriculture and significant trade. Despite Mā' al-'Aynayn's efforts to establish a sedentary religious and political centre with Smara, the indigenous peoples remained nomadic, as reflected by the lack of population growth in the region. The territory appeared depopulated, which the governor perceived to be linked to the dynamics of the traditional economy. In fact, signs of Spanish colonisation and Spain's consequent civilising work from 1884 to the 1950s were negligible.

Three decades later, with General Francisco Franco in power, the Saharan Eldorado had to be sold with greater conviction. Tomás García Figueras (1941) and Angel Domenech Lafuente (1946), among others, undertook this task, with the assistance of journals such as *Cuadernos de estudios africanos* and *Africa*. However, it was not until geologist Manuel Alía Medina discovered the Bû Crâa phosphate deposits
in 1947 that the discourse on Sahara's natural resources assumed an imperial char-
acter, and phosphates – along with other mineral resources and fishing – became
the primary political justification for Spain's colonial occupation of Sahara, aimed
at ensuring its profitability. Alicia Campos Serrano and Violeta Trasomontes (2015)
refer to this as the 'second colonial occupation of Sahara', whereby the Madrid gov-
ernment developed a policy of investing in infrastructure and industrial facilities to
modernise the territory and settle the population. This belated policy was designed
to develop the territory's natural resources and feed the triangular economy of the
Canary Islands, Sahara and mainland Spain. Concurrently, it was to gain the approval
of a population that, during the 1940s, was receptive to the United Nations' calls to
decolonise the territory (Barona Castañeda 2004, 71–88). Furthermore, there was
a resurgence of anti-colonial jihad against both the French and Spanish, with the
advent of the Moroccan Army of Liberation (Correale and López Bargados 2017) pur-
suing a similar objective. The Spanish endeavour followed the template established
by Bens at the outset of the century, albeit on a considerably larger scale (Correale
2019).

A publication from this period develops this theme in accordance with the colonial
rhetoric of ‘Eurafrica’ (Hansen and Jonsson 2022) and the mission to civilise Sahara,
particularly as exemplified by France and Spain. In both cases, the input was derived
from the imaged resources of Sahara. In May 1958, Alberto Martín Artajo, who had
served as foreign minister of the Franco government from 1945 to 1957, published
an essay in *Arbor*, a journal published by CSIC, the Spanish National Research Council,
that is still in circulation, with the emblematic title ‘The New Sahara Emporium, a
Euro-African Enterprise’. The article referenced both Spanish Sahara and the terri-
tory under French control. The opening phrase is even more illustrative than the title:
‘Following centuries of inactivity, life is once again emerging in Sahara, the world’s
largest and most expansive desert.’ Martín Artajo posits three potential years when
life might have reappeared in Sahara: 1956, when the Eyelé and Hassi Messaoud
gas and oil deposits were discovered; 1952, when the iron deposits at Gara Djebilet
and Fort Gouraud were found; and 1948, when the Bureau de recherches minières
en Algérie (BRMA) was founded. Spain makes a tentative appearance on the scene,
initiating the search for mining resources in 1949 without ‘any external assistance’.
In a manner characteristic of the colonial tradition, the author states: ‘The preceding
history of Sahara is, in a sense, extrinsic, comprising adventurous voyages, military
expeditions, boundary and frontier treaties, and the civilising influence of cultural
centres established on its borders, primarily by Spain and France.’ This resurgence of
Sahara promised to usher in a new era in global history with the establishment of a
genuine Euro-African commercial hub. A few lines later, the author continues:

Sahara, a vast expanse of arid land between the black African and Islamic worlds,
remains a largely uninhabited and desolate region ... over seven million square kilo-
metres, ... approximately fourteen times the size of Spain. The ... area of productive
soil, comprising the gravel of the vast sandy plains and the granite rock of the impos-
ing mountains, is estimated to be a mere 20,000 hectares. The entire production is
limited to a few meagre crops of millet and barley, poor pastures where barely five
million goats and sheep and a little more than half a million camels graze, and some
thirty thousand hectares of palm forests which produce approximately one hundred
tonnes of dates per year. In conclusion, this vast expanse of land is so remote and
uninhabited that it has remained largely untouched by human civilisation, exhibiting
only prehistoric vestiges of culture and a political organisation that is largely defined
by the presence of the regional sovereign states, particularly Spain and France.
(Martín Artajo 1958, 2–3).³

The premises are clear and can be summarised in a few words that have been
repeated like a mantra by colonialists since the end of the nineteenth century:
Sahara is a place full of resources that France and Spain will discover; it is a useless
space in its current state (1958), far from the civilisation that Spain and France are
expected to achieve there.

In the concluding paragraphs of his essay, Martín Artajo puts forth his most
unexpected proposal. After recalling the stages of the French and Spanish coloni-
sation in the region, he bemoans the unfair division of territories between the two
countries to France’s advantage. Furthermore, he blames King Mohammed V, who
was ‘misguided’ in having supported Moroccan territorial claims in the speech he
gave in M’Hamid in February 1958. Martín Artajo elaborates that ‘the significance
of Sahara’s future is of greater consequence than its past’ (Martín Artajo 1958, 9).
He observes that the region was beginning to take shape, noting the emergence of
a nascent unity, albeit economic in nature: ‘The discovery of vast mineral deposits in
Sahara, made possible by advanced technology, has imbued the region with a unique
identity and potential as a new economic frontier for the Euro-African world’ (Martín
Artajo 1958, 9).

Martín Artajo highlights the importance of investments to fully exploit these
riches using advanced techniques. However, the limited infrastructure in Sahara
restricted the potential commercial outlets for these products, raising the question
of who stood to benefit from the Saharan Eldorado. The author himself provides the
answer:

As the Saharan emporium of tomorrow, subject to the rights of sovereign states and
despite the appetite of their neighbours, it will belong to those who plant their popu-
lation in this space that is today practically empty and uninhabited. This phenomenon
is observed in the context of the colonisation of arid or sparsely populated regions.
This was historically the case in Australia and will be the case in Antarctica in the
future. Sahara, when occupied by the French and Spanish, was effectively a no-man’s
land. The rare nomadic tribes that roamed it did not meet the legal criteria for a pop-
ulation, nor did they constitute a politically defined people. Therefore, our claim to
dominion is indisputable. However, it is also of paramount importance that the new
population of the new Sahara will play a pivotal role in the future, as the future Sahara
will ultimately belong to those who live there. (Martín Artajo 1958, 16–17)

The essay offers a method to that end: the classic metropolitan surplus comprising
expatriates from countries such as Italy, Portugal and particularly Spain:

Considering the current limitations on Spanish emigration, it could be perceived as
a fortuitous opportunity to reopen the African route for our male population. Such
a population from Europe would constitute a kind of elite, at whose service there
would be African labour [which], like migrant labour from the rest of the world, has
the right to work in this immense new pit. The freedom to emigrate is an inherent
right of the human person. Furthermore, the North African worker has the additional
claim to make his presence felt in the form of a neighbourhood right. It is also the
prerogative of sovereign European nations to regulate the influx of this population
and to combine it with the influx of a predominantly European population, with the objective of ensuring the effective presence of Europe in the Saharan market. (Martín Artajo 1958, 17)

For Spain to meet these challenges and ensure its continued survival in the Sahara, Martín Artajo emphasises the need for ‘significant efforts to be made, and that the first step must be to mobilise public opinion in favour of this endeavour’ (Martín Artajo 1958, 27).

The arguments put forward by the former minister are as anachronistic now as they seemed at the end of the 1950s, when many countries on the African continent were engaged in liberation struggles. As Peo Hansen and Stefan Jonsson have observed, this discourse was also evident in the nascent European Economic Community, which was established as a supranational entity with a pronounced colonial imprint. Crucially, the local peoples were entirely disregarded, once again rendered invisible, much like their status at the inception of colonisation. Nevertheless, the issue of resources remained a significant concern. This is seen in the comments made by the various assemblies of the *qabā’il* when the Tarfaya region was transferred from Spain to Morocco in 1958. They asserted ownership of the land by explicitly referencing the proliferation of mining and oil exploration companies establishing operations in territories under Spanish control (Correale 2022, 115). The Sahrawi nationalist claim to resources must be analysed bearing this awareness in mind, as it is aligned with the perception of belonging to a territory that requires protection. This claim is not a recent phenomenon but emerged in 1973 with the foundation of the Polisario Front. However, it has its roots in a long historical trajectory, a fact that is often overlooked.

## A brief mention of the historical legacy and its influence on the question of resources in Sahrawi nationalism

In the National Action Programme adopted by the Polisario Front at its second congress, held from 25 to 31 August 1974, the Polisario set itself a series of long-term objectives under the heading ‘Creating a complementary national economy’, including: the nationalisation of mineral resources; the adoption of an industrialisation policy; significant agricultural development; significant interest in animal resources; and protecting maritime resources. These were supplemented by some additional objectives: mobilising the masses and unleashing their economic potential to support the economic development; ensuring a fair distribution of resources; eliminating the gap between rural and urban development; eliminating all forms of exploitation; and ensuring a dignified life for all people (FPOLISARIO 1975, 42–43). The programme is a clear response to Spanish colonial rhetoric, which during the years of the second colonisation (1958–76), did very little to benefit the people in its Saharan province.

Tomás Bárbulo (2002) has presented three illustrative examples of the shortcomings of this policy related to the health system, education and employment. In 1972, the population of Sahara, comprising Spaniards and Saharawis, had a mere 22 doctors distributed across the entire territory. Furthermore, that same year, the
El Ayoun and Villa Cisneros institutes had only 141 Saharawi students as opposed to 883 European students. Only 11.6% of the population aged five years and above were able to write in Arabic and Spanish. Additionally, the companies established by the Spanish to capitalise on the region's resources and provide remuneration to the inhabitants of the Saharan province - Fos Bucrá and Cubierta y Tejados - paid their Saharawi employees less than half of what their Spanish counterparts received. This was corroborated by Babia Chiaa, former Minister of Transport for the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic and former team leader at Fos Bucrá, who stated that his salary was half that of Spaniards in a lower position (Interview, 1 January 2008). Behla Laroussi, a former non-commissioned officer in the Territorial Police, asserted that not only was the remuneration inferior, but also that the food rations were not the same as those provided to European colleagues (Interview, 24 December 2007).

The policy proposed by Martín Artajo was, to some extent, implemented by the Spanish authorities, although not in the form of a labour force from African countries being segregated to produce for the colonial economy. Rather, it was the Sahrawi people themselves who, in practice, lived in a situation of apartheid, serving a colonial political design that required them to perform only one function: that of subservience. This occurred within the context of a growing movement for decolonisation that gained momentum between the late 1950s and early 1970s.

Indeed, the Polisario programme seeks to reclaim and utilise resources to establish a socialist society in which all citizens enjoy equal rights. It is a social revolution which abolishes slavery, overthrows the paradigms of traditional society and rejects those of colonial society. In 1973 and 1974, the movement's leaders took a significant risk: the creation of a state. The availability of resources played a significant role in this process, in terms of both material resources and symbolic value. At that historical moment, the social revolution involved the adoption of economic paradigms not associated with traditional Western Saharan society. However, the demands formulated by the Polisario Front could be summed up in one slogan: the resources of the Sahara for the Sahrawi. Even if this represented a break with the conception of resources that guided nomadism and gave life to a territory, the process was similar to that of the drawing of colonial borders. Established by France and Spain, those borders became a constitutive element of national identity, exactly like the natural resources discovered during the years of colonisation. This process of historical appropriation is fundamental to understanding the evolution of Sahrawi society and its struggle against colonialism. The ongoing struggle to repudiate the colonial exploitation of the territory persists to the present day. The 4 October 2024 appeal to the International Court of Justice of the European Union offers a compelling illustration of this enduring challenge. The Court ruled that the EU's trade agreements with Morocco do not apply to Western Sahara - a territory which remains to be decolonised. It also ruled that the necessary consultations on the resources of Moroccan-occupied territories for the possible conclusion of trade agreements must be held not with the population currently living in Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara, but with the people of Western Sahara, most of whom are refugees in the Sahrawi refugee camps near the city of Tindouf in Algeria.⁴ Beyond their economic utility, resources remain a pivotal element of this struggle, imbued with a symbolic value that transcends the boundaries of mere economic exploitation.
## Notes

1. This poem by Blaise Cendrars (2024) has been translated into English by the poet Z. Cody Lee with the title of *As Far North as Rio de l'Ouro*:

The cormorants follow behind

Their flight much more sure than the gulls' these much bigger birds have a more
beautiful white plumage hemmed in black-brown or all black like that of a sea-crow
We cross six little sailboats filled with salt on their round between Dakar and The
Grand Canaries.

Blaise Cendrars, 1924.

2. For the social, political and historical context, see Caro Baroja (1955); Caratini (1989); López Bargados (2003); Diego Aguirre (2004).

3. The three Martín Artajo extracts in the article are translations provided by the author.

4. For more details, see International Court of Justice of the European Union (2024).

## Acknowledgements

I would like to express my gratitude to Victoria Veguilla del Moral for extending an invitation to participate in her project, 'La gestión de los recursos pesqueros en el Sahara Occidental. Economía, gobierno y representación en torno a la explotación del caladero saharauí', which is financed by the Programa Operativo FEDER Andalucía 2014-2020. I would also like to thank the editors of this Special Issue of the *Review of African Political Economy* for their general coordination and the manner in which they reviewed the text.

## Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

## Note on contributor

**Francesco Correale** holds a BA in Political Science from the University l'Orientale, Naples (1994) and a PhD in History from the University of Aix-Marseille (2003). His research focuses on colonial relations in the Maghreb and Sahara, the history of Western Sahara, and internment in colonial contexts. He has written a monograph on the First World War arms trade and articles on the colonisation of Western Sahara. He has worked at the CNRS, UMR 7324 CITERES, in Tours, France, since 2010.

© https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0461-4064
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