71 Paolo de Mas

Paolo de Mas was one of the Dutch experts who didn’t come to the Reunion Des Amis d’Iligh. He had prior engagements. However he was one of the Dutch connections with Iligh. All through the preparations for the Iligh project he also had been extremely helpful. Chapter 5 of the Graphic Story that had to deal with Paul Pascon had him as the protagonist. We had boldly made that choice although we didn’t have a clue what he had really done during Pascon’s stay in Iligh. He wasn’t on the cover of the book. Herman van der Wüsten was as was Daniel Schroeter and Mohammed Tozy. Bert set up a meeting with him in the ‘1ste Klasse Wachtkamer’ at the Amsterdam Central Station for May 8. Before we went we read up on him. There was an in depth interview with him and his brother on the Internet. He was the son of Italian immigrants who came to Alkmaar in the Thirties and started an ice-cream parlour there. Paolo and his brother were second-generation immigrants. When he went to school in the fifties and sixties other waves of immigrants came to the Netherlands: Italians, Spanish, Yugoslavians and from the early sixties onwards Turks and Moroccans. According to the interview on the Internet Paolo keeps close ties with the village of his parent’s birth in the Dolomites. He visits it at least once a year and takes part in the community. He also cherishes his diploma Professional Ice Cream Maker. From childhood on he was fascinated by maps and geography. When he went to study at the University of Amsterdam he chose Social Geography. His professor there was Willem Heinemeijer and that man had a great influence on Paolo’s life.

Chapter 1 Iligh and the Dutch in the 17th century

Part of the Grant Application was a list of chapters and a short description of each chapter. Writing it brought in focus the potentially strong and weak points of the plot-line.From the start we put ourselves in the middle of the story together with Iligh as a location and as a historical power. But does that make a riveting story? Chapter 1 The seventeenth century: the first Dutch connections with Iligh. There are two important seventeenth century sources that tell us about Iligh in Dutch. Michiel de Ruyter, Dutch admiral of the fleet and hero of several wars against England, kept a diary all through his years at sea. Between 1644 and 1652 before being asked by the Dutch Republic to the admiralty, he traded with the ruler of Iligh. In his diaries he describes the travels inland from Santa Cruz (Agadir), the negotiations with the ruler of Iligh whom he calls the 'Sant'because of his religious status as descendant of a Sufi saint and his meetings with Dutch hostages. One of the hostages was Jan van Maren a ship's captain who wrote the story of his ordeal in Iligh after being freed by his former boss: De Ruyter. Will there also be written sources in the archives of Iligh that tell us about trading with the Dutch? The drawing is of the roadstead of Salé. Here Michiel de Ruyter went on land for the first time in Morocco.