ABSTRACT
From a continent-wide perspective the events which occurred in southeastern Morocco between 1881 and 1912 represented one of dozens of theaters of encounter between Africans and intruding Europeans. Southeastern Morocco was a region where political organization was acephalous and segmentary. Coordinated mass resistance in segmentary lineage societies depended on the emergence of extra-tribal leaders, organization, and ideology persuasive and compelling enough to heal over, at least for a time, the natural fissipariousness of political action. Southeastern Morocco represents a case where this kind of experimentation, the mass harka-s of 1903 and 1908, achieved only the most transitory success. Historians of the early phase of colonialism, out of a desire to demolish colonial myths and to demonstrate the rationality, complexity, and creativity of popular reactions to conquest, have tended to be enthusiastic about African experiments to create large-scale resistance movements and military organizations.
