In March 1811, 6,000 islanders paid out of their own pockets for the expedition of 600 volunteers from the Granadera Canaria. They landed in Cádiz to bleed on the Chiclana front and free the city from the Napoleonic siege, a feat immortalized in the notes of Benito Pérez Galdós’ family. Two centuries later, the bill for that patriotic assistance is being collected through a commercial stab in the back of Canarian business owners.
Under the leadership of Teófila Martínez at the helm of the Port Authority of the Bay of Cádiz, the Cádiz-Port logistics lobby is completing the definitive bypassing of the archipelago. The plan led by Daniel Macpherson, with Scottish capital in his veins like those who wanted to sink the Sahara at Tarfaya to make it navigable as far as Mali, maps out a direct route between southern mainland Spain and the ports of Agadir and Dakhla Atlantique. In this colonialist scheme, Las Palmas is reduced to a humiliating technical stopover, a mere way station for shipping companies to refuel before dividing up the spoils in Western Sahara.
The maneuver by the Cádiz PP leadership reveals a profound ignorance of the African landscape and absolute contempt for island capital. While Andalusia rushes to pin political medals on the Sahrawi map, established Canarian business owners—not salesmen or paid intermediaries for foreign companies—have spent 50 years waiting with strategic prudence for the legal framework surrounding the Sahara dossier to be clarified so they can carry out solid investments with guarantees.
From Galdosian blood to logistical disregard
The attempt to spearhead commercial expansion toward North Africa from Cádiz’s docks ignores half a century of logistical density, bunkering capacity and established naval services in La Luz. Seeking to make Cádiz the main hub toward Dakhla while bypassing the eastern province not only dismantles the historic cohesion between the two ports, but also condemns the route to failure due to a lack of critical return cargo.
Cádiz forgets that the Canary Islands are neither a geographical tollbooth nor a transit colony. Seeking to reap gains in Morocco and Western Sahara while bypassing the industrial bourgeoisie that risks its capital in the islands is not merely a commercial blunder; it is a historic betrayal of those who crossed the ocean to save Cádiz when the mainland was collapsing.
According to the Moroccan press, «for Cádiz-Port, the rise of Tanger Med is an example to follow and confirms the potential of the Moroccan market. The future connection between Cádiz, Las Palmas, Agadir and Dakhla could therefore establish a new link in maritime trade between Spain and Morocco, while also illustrating the growing importance of Moroccan ports in European logistics strategies». A lack of ignorance.
The article Cádiz’s Backstabbing of Las Palmas: From Saving It from Napoleon to Reducing It to a Stopover for Dakhla Atlantique was first published on canarymaritime.com.
