Castelo Real: A Portuguese Maritime Relay Castle in Morocco
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.7
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Morocco
- Primary era
- Unclassified
- Eras represented
- Unclassified
- Civilizations
- Unclassified
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page7 sections
History
Castelo Real was a Portuguese castle established in Morocco at present-day Essaouira in 1506. Built during the early sixteenth-century expansion of the Portuguese overseas empire, it served as a maritime relay, a coastal support station for shipping and supplies, on the route between Safi and Agadir. The castle also helped receive provisions from Madeira.
Portuguese foundation and resistance
King Dom Manuel I, the Portuguese monarch who sponsored overseas expansion during the early sixteenth century, ordered Diogo de Azambuja to build Castelo Real. Azambuja was associated with Castello da Mina, a Portuguese fortress on the West African coast that he had previously built. The new castle stood on a small island in the Mogador area, where it formed part of Portugal’s coastal network between its positions at Safi and Agadir.
Construction and occupation faced sustained attacks from local Berber and Arab communities, especially the Beni Regraga, a powerful Berber group in the Mogador region. They received support from Saadian sharifs, members of the Moroccan ruling dynasty that resisted Portuguese expansion. Portuguese forces sometimes strengthened the garrison, including a detachment of 350 men sent from Madeira.
Capture and abandonment
Francisco de Miranda and Pedro de Azevedo later commanded the castle. On 12 May 1510, the royal chamberlain Nicolau de Sousa became its perpetual commander. The Beni Regraga captured Castelo Real later that year, however, prompting the Portuguese to abandon the position and move its garrison to Safi.
Berber groups continued to occupy the castle intermittently after the Portuguese withdrawal, including during the period of Saadian rule. Western interest in the fort continued, and its form and position were preserved in later documentary and cartographic material. Adriaen Matham depicted it during a Dutch embassy expedition in 1641, while Théodore Cornut marked it on a map made in 1767.
Demolition and incorporation into Essaouira
Castelo Real operated for only a short period, from 1506 to 1510, as one of six independent Portuguese Atlantic fortresses in Morocco between the Loukkos and Sous rivers. Mohammed ben Abdellah demolished it completely in 1775 while restructuring and fortifying Essaouira. Its stones were reused for the later port defenses, incorporating the former castle site into the city’s eighteenth-century defensive system. Portugal abandoned most of its Moroccan possessions between 1541 and 1550, although it retained Ceuta, Tangier, and Mazagan for a time.
Remains
Island position and historical evidence
Castelo Real stood on a small island at the northern edge of Mogador Bay, in the area now occupied by Essaouira’s port fortifications. Its exact former position remains uncertain, but historical maps place it probably at the end of the defenses now known as the Sqala du Port. Adriaen Matham’s 1641 drawing provides visual evidence for the castle, and Cornut’s 1767 map marks its location near the bay’s edge.
Later port fortifications
A circular bastion called Borj el-Barmil now occupies the location associated with Castelo Real. The surrounding eighteenth-century defenses are known as the Sqala du Port, or Scala del Mar. These later works contain stone reused from the Portuguese castle and form part of the defensive landscape created during Essaouira’s eighteenth-century restructuring.
