Editing Oran (section)

===Spanish period (1509–1708, 1732–1792)===
[[File:20160220 130546SANTA CRUISE.jpg|left|thumb|The [[Fort Santa Cruz, Oran|Santa Cruz Fort, Oran]]. ''Santa Cruz'' is [[Spanish language|Spanish]] for "[[Christian cross|holy cross]]".]]
Before the Spaniards, the Portuguese launched a failed expedition to capture the city in July 1501. Four years later, the Spanish took [[Mers-el-Kébir]], located just {{convert|4|mi|km|0|abbr=off|order=flip|spell=on}} west of Oran. Thus began the first organized incursions against the city which, at the time, numbered 25,000 inhabitants and counted 6,000 ''fueros''. Count [[Pedro Navarro, Count of Oliveto|Pedro Navarro]], on the orders of Cardinal [[Cardinal Cisneros|Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros]], finally [[Spanish conquest of Oran (1509)|captured the city]] on 17 May 1509. The occupying forces [[Book Burning|set fire to the books and archives]] of the town.<ref>{{cite book |author1 = Urzainqui, Tomas |author2 = Esarte, Pello |author3 = García Manzanal, Alberto |author4 = Sagredo, Iñaki |author5 = Sagredo, Iñaki |author6 = Sagredo, Iñaki |author7 = Del Castillo, Eneko |author8 = Monjo, Emilio |author9 = Ruiz de Pablos, Francisco |author10 = Guerra Viscarret, Pello |author11 = Lartiga, Halip |author12 = Lavin, Josu |author13 = Ercilla, Manuel |year = 2013 |title = La Conquista de Navarra y la Reforma Europea |publisher = Pamiela |location=Pamplona-Iruña|isbn = 978-84-7681-803-9}}</ref>

By 1554, the Turks had reached Algiers. The governor of Oran, [[Count Alcaudete]], allied himself with Moroccan Sultan [[Mohammed ash-Sheikh]] against them. Nine years later, in 1563, [[Álvaro de Bazán, 1st Marquis of Santa Cruz|Álvaro de Bazán]], Marquis de Santa Cruz, built the [[Fort Santa Cruz, Oran|fort of Santa-Cruz]], strategically placed at the top of a mountain, l'Aïdour, more than {{convert|1000|ft|m|order=flip|abbr=on}} above the sea, directly to the west of the city. Pedro Garcerán de Borja, Grand Master of the [[Order of Montesa]], was captain of Oran when, on 14 July 1568, [[John of Austria]] (the illegitimate son of [[Charles I of Spain|Charles I]] and paternal half-brother of King [[Philip II of Spain|Philip II]]), led a [[flotilla]] of 33 galleys against the Algerians.

[[File:The Fortified City of Oran on the Barbary Coast.png|thumb|A two-part map showing the port of Oran in the 18th century, by German map publisher [[Matthäus Seutter]]]]

In April 1669 the Spanish governor, the 6th [[Marquis of Los Vélez|Marquess of Los Vélez]], expelled all the Jews who lived in Oran and [[Mers El Kébir]]<ref>{{cite journal |author=Jonathan Israel |title=The Jews of Spanish Oran and Their Expulsion in 1669 |journal=Mediterranean Historical Review |volume=9 |issue=2 |date=1994 |pages=235–255|doi=10.1080/09518969408569672 }}</ref> sending them to be resettled in either [[Nice]], or [[History of the Jews in Livorno|Livorno]].

The Spanish rebuilt [[Fort Santa Cruz, Oran|Santa Cruz Fort]] to accommodate their city governors. "The fortifications of the place were composed of thick and continuous walls of over two and a half km in circumference, surmounted by strong towers spaced between them," with a central castle or ''[[kasbah]]'' where the Spanish governor had his headquarters.{{citation needed|date=June 2014}} Under Spanish rule, the city continued to grow, requiring enlargement of the city walls. In spite of the improved fortifications, the city was the object of repeated attacks. Notable in this regard, Moroccan Sharif [[Moulay Ismail]] tried to force his way past the defences in 1707, only to see his army decimated. In 1739, trade with the surroundings was forbidden for years due to the plague. In 1744, king [[Philip V of Spain|Philip V]] asked the governor Tomás du Rollet de la tour for dromedaries to replenish the stock at the [[Royal Palace of Aranjuez]]. However, the former [[bey]] of Oran had banned trade with the Spaniards and those dromedaries gradually sent to the king had been sold by thieving tribesmen. Most of the maintenance of the place was paid by the [[bull of the Crusade]], a contribution of the Spanish Catholic church.<ref name="Gómez">{{cite journal |last1=Gómez-Centurión Jiménez |first1=Carlos |title=Exóticos pero útiles: los camellos reales de Aranjuez durante el siglo XVIII |journal=Cuadernos Dieciochistas |date=2008 |issue=9 |pages=155–180 |url=https://gredos.usal.es/bitstream/handle/10366/79244/Exoticos_pero_utiles_los_camellos_reales.pdf;sequence=1 |access-date=19 July 2022 |trans-title=Exotic but Useful: The Royal Camels of Aranjuez during the 18th Century |language=es-ES |issn=1576-7914 |archive-date=25 July 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240725012810/https://gredos.usal.es/bitstream/handle/10366/79244/Exoticos_pero_utiles_los_camellos_reales.pdf;sequence=1 |url-status=live }}</ref>