The Evolution Of The Frontier Designing Of The Franco-Spanish Colonizer And Its Repercussions On West Sahara, 1900-1960

Abstract

This article describes how the French and Spanish colonial authorities behaved with regards to marking the borders of the Western Atlantic desert according to their own interests, and following the development of the historical events between the two countries, the power dynamics involved regardless of the nature of the tribal makeup and the relationship between the tribes, considering that they own the space and a mobile mode of life. This work departs from the history of the initial border tracing of the maps, based on latitude and longitude. However, when the colonial armies penetrated the region, it appeared that the borders set in theory were not useful. A number of discussions were exchanged between the two countries in order to modify the maps during the 1930s; the reason being that should Spain colonize the entirety of Ouadi Ddahab and Saqia Lhamra, and should there be discovery of minerals, the modification of the borders would not be impossible, particularly that they were traced without taking into account neither landscape or social and economic data.