In the course of the 17th century, the
Alawis, another
sharifian family, had established themselves in
Tafilalet (Sijilmassa region). After the death of the Alawi scion
Ali al-Sharif in 1640, his son Muley Muhammad became the head of the family and expanded their dominance locally. Around 1659, one of Muhammed's brothers,
Muley al-Rashid was expelled from Tafilalet (or left on his own accord) and proceeded to wander around Morocco, eventually settling in
Taza, where he quickly managed to carve out a small fief for himself. Muley Muhammad, who had his own ambitions over the country, confronted his brother, but was defeated and killed outside Taza in 1664. Al-Rashid seized the family dominions of Talifalet and the Draa valley (which Muhammad had conquered in 1660). With these amplified bases, Muley al-Rashid had the wherewithal to launch a campaign of conquest over the rest of Morocco. Al-Rashid started his campaign from Taza in the north and entered Fez in 1666, where he was proclaimed sultan. Two years later, he defeated the Dila marabouts that controlled the Middle Atlas. Muley al-Rashid proceeded south to capture Marrakesh in 1669, massacring the Shabana Arabs in the process. He then proceeded down into the
Sous, conquering it by 1670, thereby reunifying Morocco (save for the coastal areas, which would take a little longer). Al-Rashid is usually credited for the erecting the shrine and mosque of
Qadi Iyad ("Cadi Ayyad") in Marrakesh, where the remains of his father,
Ali al-Sharif, stem of the Alawi dynasty, were translated. Two later Alawi rulers (Moulay Suleiman and Muhammad IV) would choose be buried here as well. On al-Rashid's death in April 1672, Marrakesh refused to swear allegiance to his brother and successor
Ismail Ibn Sharif, who had served as vice-roy in Fez. Instead, Marrakeshis opted for his nephew
Ahmad ibn Muhriz. Ismail promptly marched south, defeated Ahmad and entered Marrakesh in June 1672. But Ibn Muhriz escaped and fled to the Sous, from whence he would return in 1674, take Marrakesh back and fortify himself there. Ismail was forced to return and lay a two-year siege on the city. Marrakesh finally fell to assault in June 1677, and this time Muley Ismail took his revenge on the city, giving it over to the sack. Ibn Muhriz, however, had escaped to the Sous again and would try a few more times to recover it, until he was finally tracked down and killed in 1687. , patron saint of Marrakesh|alt= Nonetheless, Ismail's legacy in Marrakesh was not purely destructive. Ismail translated many tombs of Sufi saints in the region to Marrakesh, and erected several new shrines for them. Seeking to replicate the great pilgrimage festivals of
Essaouira, Ismail requested the Sufi sheikh
Abu Ali al-Hassan al-Yusi to select seven of them to serve as the "
Seven Saints" (''Sab'atu Rijal'') of Marrakesh, and arranged a new pilgrimage festival. For one week in late March, the pilgrims have to visit all seven shrines in required order (roughly anticlockwise): 1.
Yusuf ibn Ali al-Sanhaji ("Sidi Yussef Ben Ali", d.1197), just outside the Bab Aghmat in the southeast, 2.
Qadi Iyad ("Cadi Ayyad ben Moussa", d.1149), inside the Bab Aylan in the east, 3.
Abu al-Abbas al-Sabti ("Sidi Bel Abbes", d.1204), by the Bab Taghzout in the north (note: the pilgrimage route from 2 to 3 passes usually outside the eastern city wall, and re-enters at Bab el-Khemis, in order to touch the shrines of Sidi el-Djebbab and Sidi Ghanem along the way, although they are not part of the Seven); from Bab Tahgzhout, the pilgrimage path heads straight south through the middle of the city, visiting in succession the shrines of 4.
Muhammad ibn Sulayman al-Jazuli ("Sidi Ben Slimane", d. 1465), just south the previous, 5.
Abd al-Aziz al-Tabba ("Sidi Abdel Aziz el-Harrar", 1508), just west of the Ben Youssef Mosque, 6.
Abdallah al-Ghazwani ("Sidi Mouley el-Ksour", d.1528), just below the
al-Mouassine Mosque then exiting the city again, through the Bab al-Robb gate (west of the Kasbah) to reach the final shrine 7.
Abd al-Rahman al-Suhayli ("Sidi es-Souheli", d.1185), outside the city to the southwest. In 1699–1700, Ismail partitioned Morocco into lordships to be governed by his many sons. The experiment did not turn out too well, as several used their fiefs as a basis of revolt. One of these sons, Mulay Muhammed al-Alem, rose up in the Sous and seized Marrakesh, which had to be taken back again. In the aftermath, Ismail canceled the experiment and annexed all the lordships back. Chaos returned after Moulay Ismail's death in 1727, and a succession of Alawi sultans followed by a series of coups and counter-coups, engineered by rival army factions, for the next couple of decades. Marrakesh did not play too much of a role in these palace affairs.
Abdallah ibn Ismail seized Marrakesh in 1750, placing it under his son Muhammad as viceroy, who ruled it with remarkable stability while chronic anarchy reigned in the north. In 1752, the army offered Muhammad the crown of the whole in place of Abdallah, but he refused, letting his father reign until his death in 1757. Upon his ascension,
Muhammad III ibn Abdallah retained Marrakesh as preferred residence and
de facto capital. Neglected since Ismail's pillaging spree, Muhammad found much of the city, particularly the Kasbah, in ruins and reportedly had to live in his tent when he arrived. But he soon set to work. He rebuilt the Kasbah almost from scratch, erecting the royal palace Dar al-Makhzen (Palais Royal, also known as the Qasr al-Akhdar, or "Green Palace", on account of its internal garden, the Arsat al-Nil, named after the
Nile) and the Dar al-Baida ("White Palace") nearby, both on the ruins of old Saadian palaces. Muhammad established four estates within Marrakesh for each of his sons, as a gift for when they came of age - the
arsats of al-Mamoun, al-Hassan, Moussa and Abdelsalam. Muhammad III also expanded the walls of Marrakesh the north by the Bab Taghzut, to include the formerly suburban mosque and shrine of patron Sidi Bel Abbas al-Sabti, incorporating it as a new city district. Much of the modern medina of Marrakesh is owed to how Muhammad III re-built it in the late 18th century. Crisis followed Muhammad III's death in 1790. The succession of his son
Yazid, whose cruel reputation preceded him, was disputed and Marrakeshis instead acclaimed his brother Hisham. Yazid marched on and recovered Marrakesh, putting it through a violent sack, The plague hit Marrakesh again in 1799, heavily depopulating the city. Nonetheless, it was maintained by Suleiman as his primary residence and capital. He completely rebuilt the
Ben Youssef Mosque, not a trace remaining of its old Almoravid and Almohad design. Driven out of Fez, Suleiman was defeated just outside Marrakesh in 1819, in an uprising by the Cherarda (an Arab Bedouin army tribe from the Gharb), although his person was preserved and delivered safely. After Suleiman's death in 1822, his successor Muley
Abd al-Rahman reopened trade with foreign nations. Marrakesh hosted numerous foreign embassies seeking out trade treaties with the new Alawi sultan - e.g. Portugal in 1823, Britain in 1824, France and Sardinia in 1825. Abd al-Rahman is principally responsible for reforesting the gardens outside of Marrakesh. by the walls of Marrakesh, as painted by
Eugène Delacroix, 1845 The 19th century saw increasing instability and the progressive encroachment of European powers on Morocco. The
French conquest of Algeria began in 1830. Moroccan troops were rushed up to defend
Tlemcen, which they considered part of their traditional sphere, but the French captured Tlemcen in 1832 and drove the Moroccans out. Abd al-Rahman supported the continued guerilla resistance in Algeria led by
Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza'iri. The French
attacked Morocco directly in 1844, and forced a humiliating defeat on Abd al-Rahman. By this time, the internal situation in Morocco was already unstable, with army units across the north and east basically ungovernable, famine once again rocked Morocco. Abd al-Rahman's successor,
Mohammed IV of Morocco was confronted immediately by the
Spanish War of 1859-60 and yet another humiliating treaty. While the sultan was busy dealing with the Spaniards in Ceuta, the Rehamna tribe in the south rebelled and laid a tight siege on the city of Marrakesh, which was broken by Muhammad IV only in 1862. With the arrival of increasing European influence - cultural as well as political - in the Alawi court in Fez, Marrakesh assumed its role as opposition center to Westernization. The colonial encroachment had led to a shift in the traditional relationship between the "
Makhzen" (Alawi sultan's government) and the semi-autonomous rural tribes. To extract more taxes and troops from them, the Alawi sultan began directly appointing lords (
qaids) over the tribes - a process that accelerated in the 1870s with the loss of
customs revenues in Moroccan ports to colonial powers after 1860. Initially a centralizing move, these appointed qaids, once ensconced in their tribal fiefs, proved to be more difficult to control than the old elected tribal leaders had been. In the late 19th century,
Madani al-Glawi ("El Glaoui"), the qaid of
Telouet, armed with a single 77m
Krupp cannon (given to him by sultan Hassan I in 1893), managed to impose his authority over neighboring tribes of the
High Atlas and was soon exerting his dominance on the lowlands around the city of Marrakesh, half-in-alliance, half-in-rivalry, with two other great High Atlas qaids,
Abd al-Malik al-Mtouggi (al-Mtugi), who held the Atlas range southwest of al-Glawi, and
Tayyib al-Goundafi (al-Gundafi), to the northeast of him. The largest regional tribe was the
Rehamna, an offshoot of the
Maqil Arabs, who held much of the lowland plain of Haouz and the upper Tensift, and constituted as much as a third of the population of Marrakesh itself. The High Atlas lords exerted their influence over the Rehamna tribe via their two major chieftains, the El Glaoui-allied al-Ayadi ibn al-Hashimi and the Mtouggi-allied Abd al-Salam al-Barbushi.
Hafidiya '', 1907 After the death in May 1900 of the grand vizier
Ahmed ibn Musa ("Ba Ahmed"), the empire's true regent, the young Alawi sultan
Abd al-Aziz tried to handle matters himself. But the teenage sultan, who preferred to surround himself with European advisors, was unduly susceptible to their influence and soon alienated the population. The country careened into the throes of anarchy, tribal revolts and plots of feudal lords, not to mention European intrigues. Unrest mounted with the devastating famine in 1905–1907, and the humiliating concessions at the 1906
Algeciras Conference. The Marrakesh
khalifa Abd al-Hafid was urged by the powerful southern qaids of the High Atlas to lead a revolt against his brother Abd al-Aziz (then based in Rabat, Fez being divided). The unrest had been accompanied by a spasm of violent
xenophobia, which saw the lynching of several European residents in Tangier, Casablanca and Marrakesh. Dr.
Émile Mauchamp, a French doctor suspected of spying for his country, was murdered in Marrakech by a mob in March 1907. This gave France the pretext for more direct intervention. French troops occupied
Oujda in March 1907, and, in August 1907,
bombarded and occupied Casablanca. The French intervention pushed the revolt forward, and Marrakeshis acclaimed Abd al-Hafid as the new sultan on 16 August 1907. Alarmed, Abd al-Aziz sought out the assistance from the French in Casablanca, but that only sealed his fate. The
ulama (religious jurists) of Fez and other cities promptly declared Abd al-Aziz unfit to rule and deposed him permanently by January 1908. In June, Abd al-Hafid personally went to Fez to receive the city. Abd al-Aziz finally reacted, gathered his army and marched on Marrakesh in the summer of 1908. But discontent was rife, and much of his army deserted along the way, with the result that Abd al-Aziz was easily and decisively defeated by the Hafidites in a battle at Bou Ajiba outside Marrakesh on 19 August 1908. Abd al-Aziz fled and abdicated two days later. In reward for their assistance, sultan Abd al-Hafid appointed Madani al-Glawi as his grand
vizier, and his brother Thami al-Glawi as the
pasha (governor) of Marrakesh. Despite his victory, Abd al-Hafid's position was hardly enviable, given the French military and financial noose.
Imperial Germany and
Ottoman Turkey, interested in increasing their influence, had offered their support to Abd al-Hafid to get rid of the French, but direct French pressure made Abd al-Hafid even more dependent. Foiled, the Germans switched their attentions to the southern Morocco, and cultivated their influence there, striking several informal agreements with various southern lords. Notable among these was the Saharan
marabout Ma al-'Aynayn, who had led the anti-French resistance in
Mauritania in the early 1900s. He had moved north and was part of the coalition that brought Abd al-Hafid to power in 1909. Encouraged by the Germans, the very next year, al-Aynayn proclaimed his intent to drive the French out of Morocco but he was defeated by French general Moinier at
Tadla (northeast of Marrakesh) in June 1910 and was forced to retreat to
Tiznit, in the
Souss valley, where he died shortly after. Facing financial difficulties and foreign debt problems, Abd al-Hafid and El Glaoui imposed new heavy taxes, which set the country simmering. In return for a new French loan, Abd al-Hafid was forced to capitulate to the Franco-Moroccan accords in March, 1911, which enlarged the tax and property privileges of French expatriates, ratified French administration of the occupied Oujda and Chaouia regions, and even indemnified them for their military expenses. The accords were received with widespread dismay in Morocco. An uprising in Fez had to be put down with the assistance of French troops and Abd al-Hafid was forced to dismiss the El Glaoui brothers from their posts in June 1911. The entry of French troops alarmed other European powers. Spanish troops quickly expanded their territorial enclave in the north, while Germany dispatched a gunboat to
Agadir (see
Agadir Crisis). At the height of the crisis, the dismissed El Glaoui brothers approached German diplomats in Essaouira offering to detach southern Morocco, with Marrakesh as its capital, and turn it into a separate German protectorate. But the offer was rebuffed, as a French-German accord was about to be signed in November 1911 resolving the Agadir crisis.
French protectorate decorates the El Glaoui brothers after the capture of Marrakesh The resolution of the Agadir crisis cleared the way for the
Treaty of Fez on March 30, 1912, imposing a
French Protectorate on Morocco. General
Hubert Lyautey was appointed the first French
Resident-General of Morocco. The news was received with indignation, the Moroccan army mutinied in mid-April and a violent popular uprising in
Fez erupted. A new column of French troops managed to occupy Fez in May, but events were already in motion - the tribesmen of the north were set aflame and the French colonial forces were spread out and besieged along the thin line from Casablanca to Oujda. Changing course, the sultan Abd al-Hafid entered into contact with the rebels, prompting the French general Lyautey to force him to abdicate on 11 August, in favor of his more amenable brother,
Yusuf (at the time, the pasha of Fez), who was promptly escorted to the relative safety of
Rabat under French guard. Discontent in the south gathered around
Ahmed al-Hiba, nicknamed the "Blue Sultan", son of the late sheikh Maa al-Aynan, whose forces were still gathered at
Tiznit in the
Souss valley. Proclaiming the Alawites had failed in their duty, al-Hiba proposed to cross over the Atlas and establish a new southern state based in Marrakesh, from which he would go on to drive the French out of the north. Despite al-Hiba's denunciation of the quasi-feudal system of grand qaids, some of the southern lords, who had previously enjoyed German patronage and balked at the prospect of French-northern dominance, lent their military support to al-Hiba's bid. With the assistance of the qaids Haida ibn Mu'izz of Taroudannt and Abd al-Rahman al-Guellouli of Essaouira, the Hibists quickly gained possession of the
Sous valley and the Haha region. Al-Hiba promptly gathered up his Saharan and Soussian tribesmen and began his march over the
High Atlas in July, 1912. Although the High Atlas lords considered stopping him, Hibist fever had gripped the rank-and-file of their tribes, and they did not dare oppose al-Hiba or risk being overthrown themselves. Al-Hiba's passage over the High Atlas was facilitated by the qaid al-Mtouggi. In August, 1912, hearing of the abdication of
Abd al-Hafid, al-Hiba declared the throne vacant and was acclaimed by his followers as the new Sultan of Morocco at
Chichaoua, in the outskirts of Marrakesh. The Mtouggi-allied pasha of Marrakesh, Driss Mennou handed Marrakesh over to Ahmed al-Hiba on 15 August. The rise of a new sultan in Marrakesh alarmed Lyautey. Although Paris contemplated a power-sharing arrangement that might allow al-Hiba to remain sultan of Marrakesh and the south, Lyautey was sufficiently aware of Moroccan history to consider that unsustainable. Lyautey tried what he could to delay al-Hiba's advance and prevent Marrakesh from falling. Through the private channels of the Marrakeshi banker Joshua Corcus, Lyautey entered into communication with the El Glaoui brothers, Madani and Thami. Nonetheless, the El Glaoui brothers steadily fed the French authorities updates on the situation in Marrakesh and used their personal influence to lure wavering qaids away from the Hibist cause. Modern French artillery and machine guns practically massacred al-Hiba's poorly equipped army of partisans. Seeing the writing on the wall, most large lords - al-Mtouggi, Driss Menou, al-Goundafi even Haida al Mu'izz - had switched sides and abandoned al-Hiba, some before the battle, others immediately afterwards. As Mangin approached the city, on 7 September, the qaids, led by El Glaoui, pounced inside it, their loyalists overwhelming the Hibist garrisons, seizing hold of the hostages and driving al-Hiba and his remaining partisans out of Marrakesh. Having restored order inside the city, the qaids allowed the French column under Mangin to enter and take possession of Marrakesh, nominally in the name of sultan Yusuf, on 9 September 1912.
Thami El Glaoui was promptly restored to his former position as
pasha of Marrakesh and awarded the
Legion of Honour by Lyautey, who visited Marrakesh in October, 1912. , Pasha of Marrakech from 1912 to 1956 The region around Marrakesh was organized as a military district, initially under Mangin, but given the lack of French troops, Lyautey's policy was to rely on the grand qaids - al-Glawi, al-Mtouggi, al-Goundafi, al-Ayadi, Haida Ou Mouis, etc. - to hold the south in their name. El Glaoui and al-Goundafi proved their worth almost immediately, invading the Souss and driving the Hibists out of Taroudannt, forcing them up the mountains. The Anti-Atlas, as well as other hard-to-access regions, would remain out of French hands for a while. Upon the death of Madani al-Glawi in 1918, Lyautey ignored the opportunity to chop away at the Glawi clan's power, characterized as increasingly tyrannical and unsavory by many other French officials, and instead promoted Thami's bid at the head of the Glawi clan and the undisputed "Lord of the Atlas", above all others. As rival Atlas qaids al-Mtouggi and al-Gundafi faded, Thami El Glaoui's only real challenger was his own rabidly anti-French nephew, Si Hammu, the son of al-Madani, who had inherited the al-Glawi family mountain holdings in
Telouet and defied all attempts to bring him to heel. As the French authorities deemed Marrakesh and Fez dangerously prone to revolt, the Moroccan capital was moved permanently to
Rabat, leaving Marrakesh in the tight grip of
Thami El Glaoui, who remained as pasha of Marrakesh throughout nearly the entire French Protectorate period (1912-1956). El Glaoui collaborated intimately with the French authorities and used his formal power over Marrakesh to acquire vast properties in the city and region, accumulating a personal fortune reportedly greater than the sultan's own. El Glaoui's notorious corruption - he received a cut from practically every business in Marrakesh, including prostitution and drug-trafficking - was tolerated and almost even encouraged by the residents-general, for so long as had his hand in the till, El Glaoui had every incentive to maintain and prolong the state of affairs, making him a dependable client of the French authorities. In 1912, Marrakesh had 75,000 inhabitants, compactly contained in the Medina, the Kasbah and the Mellah, with city life centered around the
Jemaa el-Fnaa. European colonists soon began arriving in Marrakesh - some 350 had already taken residence in the city by March 1913 - and El Glaoui facilitated their entry with apportionments of land in the area. However, not all European visitors were thrilled.
Edith Wharton, who visited Marrakesh in 1917 as Lyautey's guest, found the city "dark, fierce and fanatical" and while fond of its fine palaces, denounced the "megalomania of the southern chiefs" of Marrakech. The French urban planner
Henri Prost arrived in 1914 at Lyautey's invitation, and upon his instructions, set about planning a new modern city in the outskirts of Marrakesh, primarily for French colonists. Taking the Koutoubia mosque and the Jemaa el-Fnaa as the central point for the whole, Prost directed the development of the new city (
ville nouvelle) at what is now
Gueliz in the hills northwest of Marrakesh. The church of St. Anne, the first proper Christian church in Marrakesh, was one of the first buildings erected in Gueliz. Prost laid out a great road from Gueliz to Koutoubia, which became what is now Avenue Muhammad V, entering the Medina by Bab el-Nkob. Development of the new city took place in the 1920s. The
Majorelle Garden in Gueliz was set up by
Jacques Majorelle in the late 1920s. In 1928, south of Gueliz, Henri Prost began laying out the more exclusive quarter of l'
Hivernage, destined as a haven for French diplomats and high officials wintering in Marrakesh (hence its name). It was kept separate from Gueliz by the el Harti gardens and a series of sports fields and complexes. Hivernage was laid out in the palm and olive groves along the road (modern Avenue de La Menara) that connected the old city (at Bab al-Jedid) with the
Menara Garden in the west. The avenue was set parallel to the High Atlas to maximize the panoramic view of its peaks. With the help of the architect Antoine Marchisio, Prost erected the luxurious
La Mamounia hotel in 1929, in the gardens of the 18th-century
arsat of al-Mamoun, elegantly melding
Art Deco and
Orientalist-Marrakeshi designs. A
casino was soon added. Hivernage, covered by grand villas and hotels, would become a winter destination for many French music-hall celebrities, such as
Maurice Chevalier,
Edith Piaf and
Josephine Baker, and soon morph into the playground of American and European movie stars and a routine stop for the post-war
jet set. Lyautey resigned in 1925, and was replaced by a series of more conventional residents-general. Sultan Youssef died in 1927, and was succeeded by his son
Mohammed V of Morocco. Thami El Glaoui had a critical role in this selection, and maintained his absolute control over Marrakesh, which was now nominally under a new
khalifa Moulay Driss, the eldest son of Youssef. Young and powerless, Muhammad V offered little resistance to the French protectorate authorities at first. He put his signature to the notorious 1930
Dahir, separating
Berbers from
Arabs, and placing the former under the jurisdiction of French courts. This led to an eruption of anti-French nationalist feeling and led to the establishment of the Hizb el-Watani (Parti National) by young nationalist leaders like
Allal al-Fassi, with cells in various cities, including Marrakesh. After riots in
Meknes in 1937, French authorities cracked down on the incipient nationalist movements and exiled their leaders. This period coincided with a series of French military campaigns that finally subdued lingering resistance in the farther corners and highlands of Morocco - the Middle Atlas (1931), the Tafilalet (1932), the Jebal Saghro (1933–34) and finally the
Anti-Atlas (1934) were subjugated by French military campaigns. With the
fall of France in 1940, during World War II, the French Protectorate of Morocco came under the jurisdiction of the
Vichy regime, which installed its own residents-general. The sultan Muhammad V was not inclined to his new masters. Although generally powerless, the sultan refused Vichy demands when he could, including reportedly rejecting Vichy demands in 1941 to pass anti-Jewish legislation, claiming them inconsistent with Moroccan law. Muhammad V welcomed the November 1942
Allied landings in Morocco, refusing Vichy instructions to move his court inland. Muhammad V hosted the Allied leaders Winston Churchill and
Franklin Delano Roosevelt at the
Casablanca Conference in January 1943, in the course of which Churchill lured Roosevelt on a side excursion to Marrakesh. The Allied presence in Morocco encouraged the nationalist movements, who were brought under a new umbrella party,
Hizb al-Istiqlāl (Independence Party) in 1943. However, an Istiqlal petition to the Allied powers requesting a commitment to post-war independence for Morocco was used by the Free French authorities to crack down on Istiqlal in 1944. The French swept up and arrested its leaders on trumped-up charges of helping the German war effort, provoking a wave of demonstrations in various cities which were violently suppressed. In 1946, the new resident-general Eirik Labonne, reversed course, released political prisoners, and sought an accommodation with the nationalist parties. In 1947, Muhammad V made a journey to International-controlled
Tangier, where he delivered a famous speech omitting any mention of the French, widely interpreted as expressing his desire for independence and aligning his objectives with that of Istiqlal. This infuriated the pasha of Marrakesh, Thami El Gouali, who declared Muhammad V unfit to rule. Intriguing with the French general
Augustin Guillaume, the new resident general since 1951, Thami El Glaoui engineered the deposition and exile of Muhammad V on 13 August 1953, replacing him with his uncle
Mohammed ibn Arafa. Nationalists fled into the Spanish zone, and a
guerrilla war over the border into the French zone began soon after, encouraged by the
Algerian War that had erupted next door. At length, El Glaoui changed his mind, and in October 1954, declared that Muhammad V ought to be reinstated. Despite vigorous opposition from the French
colons in Morocco, the French government, facing deepening crises elsewhere overseas, finally agreed and signed the accords of
La Celle-Saint-Cloud in November 1955. The restored Muhammad V returned to Morocco that same month, where he was received with near-hysterical joy. On March 2, 1956, France officially cancelled the 1912 treaty of Fez (Spain cancelled her own treaty a month later), and Morocco recovered her independence. Thami El Glaoui, long-time pillar and symbol of the French colonial order, had died only a few months earlier, bringing an end to his despotic rule over Marrakesh. ==Modern times==