Palma de Mallorca

Palma is the major city and port in the island of Majorca and capital city of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands in Spain. It is situated on the south coast of the island on the Bay of Palma. As of the 2005 census, the population of the city of Palma proper was 375,773, and the population of the entire urban area was estimated to be 474,035, ranking as the 12th-largest urban area of Spain. Almost half of the total population of Majorca live in Palma.

The archipelago of Cabrera, though widely separated from Palma proper, is administratively considered part of the municipality.

Its airport, Son Sant Joan, is one of the busiest in Europe.

The Marivent Palace was offered by the city to the then Prince Juan Carlos I of Spain. The royals have since spent their summer holidays in Palma.

History

Palma (Palmaria) was founded by the Romans upon the remains of a Talayot settlement which is believed to have strong ties with the sea. It was later the object of several Vandal sacks during the Fall of Rome, to be later conquered by the Bizantine, then the Arabs (who called it Medina Mayurqa), and finally by James I of Aragon.

Roman Period

After the conquest of Mallorca, who incorporated it into the province of Tarraconensis in 123 BC, Romans founded two new cities: Palmaria on the southern bay, and Pollentia on the northern bay. Whilst Pollentia acted as a port to Roman cities of the northwestern Mediterranean Sea, Palmaria was the port used to depart to cities in Africa, such as Carthage, and Hispania, such as Saguntum, Gades, and Carthago Nova.

Though no visible remains of this period can be found in nowadays Palma at surface level, archeological discoveries usually take place whenever excavating under the city center.

Byzantine Period

Though the period between the Fall of Rome and the Muslim conquest is barely know (due to lack of documents)), it is clear to historians that there was Byzantine presence in the city, as is shown by mosaic found in the eldest parts of the Cathedral, which was in early medieval times a paleochristian temple.

Muslim Period

Between 707 AD and 1229 AD, the city was under Islamic domination, in some form, as it is described below.

Under the Califate

The apparition of Muslims in the Balearic Islands ambient took place at the beginning of the 6^th century. In this period, the population developed an economy based in the primary sector and piracy, and shows a relative jerarchy. The dominating states took the chance, in front of Byzantine withdrawal due to Islamic expansion, to reinforce their domination upon the rest of the population, thus taking the power, and representing the final crumbling of Imperial structures.

In 707, a Muslim fleet, under the command of Abd Allah ibn Musa, son of the governor of Ifriqiya, Musa ibn Nusayr, stopped by the island. It seems that Abd Allah convinced the factic powers of the city to accept a peace treaty. This kind of treaty granted, in exchange for a tax, respect for social, economical, and political structures, to the communities that subscribed it, as well as the continuity of their religious believes.

After 707, Muslim sources stop talking about this matter. The city was still inhabited, theoretically, by Christians who admitted the sovereignty of the Caliphate of Damascus, but who, de facto, enjoyed an absolute automony. The city, being in Mallorca, constituted a perfect enclave between western Christian and Islamic lands, and this particular situation caused surrounding waters to become infested with pirates. For wide sectors of the city's population, the sacking of ships (whether these were Muslim or Christian) which penetrated in Balearic waters, was the first source of richness during the whole 8^th century, and the first half of the 9^th. The magnitude reached by this problem, forced Al-Andalus to launch its naval power against the city and the whole of the Islands.

In 848 (maybe 849), for years after the first Viking incursions had sacked the whole island, an attack from Cordoba1Cordobese forced the authorities to ratify the treaty by which the city was submitted to the Islam. By then, the city still occupied an eccentrical position regarding the commerce network established by the Caliph in the western Mediterranean Sea, and only this explains the desembark didn't end with the effective incorporation of the enclave to Al-Andalus

While the Cordoba Emirate reinforced its projection upon the Mediterranean, the interest of Al-Andalus for the Island, and the city consequently, increased. The logical consequence of this evolution was the substitution of the submission treaty by the effective incorporation of the Balearic Islands to the Islamic state. This incorporation took place in the last years of the Emirate. In 1003, a squad under the command of Isam al-Jawlani took advantadge of the unstability caused by several Viking incursions and disembarked in Mallorca, and after destroying any resistance, incorporated Mallorca, with Palma as its capital, to the Cordobese dominions.

The incorporation of the city to the Emirate sets the bases for a new social organisation, far more articulated and complex than the previously existent. Commerce and manufacture acquire a development that was unknown up to date. All this causes a considerable demografical growth, establishing Medina Mayurqa as one of the major ports for trading goods in and out of the Caliphate of Cordoba.

Denia - Balearic Taifa (1015 - 1087)

The Omeyya regime, despite its administrative centralism, of its mercenary army, and its struggle to get a wider social support, could not harmonise the various ethnic groups which coexisted inside al-Andalus, nor dissolute the old tribal bounds which still organised the members of one ethnic groups in many tribes, often fighting each other. When, at the beginning of the 11^th century, the coaction instruments of which the Caliphate disposed proved unefficient, disgregating elements, which had been till then contained and hidden, raised. Provinces sneaked through the control of the central Cordobese administration, and became sovereign states, "taifas", governed by the same governors that had been named by the last Omeyya Caliphs. As a consequence of this formation process, the "taifas" can be grouped under three categories, whether their origin was Arabian, Berber PeopleBerber, or Slave origin of the families that lead each one of this small states.

Palma, during most of the 11^th century, was part of one of the Slave "taifas", the Denia "taifa". The forger of this state was one of the clients of the Al-Mansur family, Muyahid ibn Yusuf ibn Ali, who could take profit from the progressive crumbling of the Caliphate's superstructure to gain control over the province of Denia. Not much later than getting consolidated as chief of this district, Muyahid organised a campaign against the Balearic Islands and incomporated them to its "taifa" in early 1015.

During the following years Palma became a port from which to launch attacks on Christian vessels and coasts. Thus, from Palma a campaign against Sardina was launched (1016-1017), which caused the intervention of Pisans and Genovese forces. In a later stage, this intervention set the bases for Italian mercantile penetration in the city.

The Denia dominion lasted until 1087, a period during which the city, as well as the rest of the Islands, enjoyed peace and quietness. Their supremacy at sea wasn't rivaled by the Italian republics, thus keeping them free from any exterior threat.

The Balearic Taifa (1087 - 1115) and the Western Mediterranean

The Banu Hud conquest of Denia and the incorporation of this to the Eastern district of the taifa of Zaragoza meant the destruction of the work of Muyahid. The Islands got unbound from peninsular dominion and for a short time, enjoyed independence, during which Medina Mayurqa was the capital.

The economy during this period depended (as it was usual) on agriculture and piracy. In the last part of the 11^th century, Christian commercial powers take the iniciative at sea from the Muslims. After some centuries of fighting defensively in front of Islamic pressure, Italians, Catalans, and Occitans switch to offensive action. After some time, this means the decreasing of the benefits piracy could produce, and consequently, the entering of the city into a severe economical crisis.

The clearest proof of the new ruling relation of forces, from 1090, is the Crusade organised by the most important mercantile cities of the Christianty against the Islands. This effort was destinated to finally eradicate Muslim piracy mainly based in Palma and surrounding havens. In 1115, Palma was sacked and later abandoned by an expedition commanded by Ramon Berenguer III the Great, count of Barcelona and Provence, which comprised Catalans, Pisans and other Italians, and soldiers from Provence, Corsica, and Sardina, in a struggle to end Almoravide piracy.

After this, the Islands became part of the Almoravide Caliphate, the Islamic replica of the growing Christian aggresivity in the Mediterranean and the Iberian Peninsula. The reunification of all the taifa under one state helped to re-establishing a balance along the frontier that separated western Christian states from the Dar al-Islam, the Muslim world.

The Period of the Banu Ganiya (1157 - 1203)

The almoravide upon the islands, sacked by Catalans and Pisans could be established without great resistance. The situation changed in the middle 12^th century, when the Almoravides, displaced from Al Andalus and western Maghreb Almohad. Almoravide dominions, from 1157 on, are restricted to the Balearic Islands, being again Palma the capital, governed by Muhammad ibn Ganiya. Massive arrival from Al-Andalus refugees contributed to reinforce the positions of the last Almoravide legitimitists, the Banu Ganiya, who, conscious of their weakness in the Western Mediterranean context, starting to get closer to the growing powers represented by Italian cities. Genovese and Pisans obtain then their first commercial concessions in the city and the rest of the islands.

From the strategical enclave the Balearic Islands menat, the Banu Ganiya, taking advantadge of the great loss suffered by Abu Yuqub Yusuf as-Santarem, take offensive action and attack Ifriqiya in 1184, where Almohad dominion wasn't still consolidated. However, this attack was reppeled and the Almohad authorities encouraged anti-Almoravide revolts in the Islands. Thus, between 1187 and 1203, the city is under the dominion of the Marrakech Caliphate.

Christian Conquest and late Middle Age

On December 31^st 1229, after a siege of three months, the city fell under James I of Aragon, who named it Mallorca, kept it as capital of the Kingdom of Mallorca and give it a municipality that comprised the whole island. The governing organ was the University of the City and Kingdom of Mallorca. After the Death of James I of Aragon, Palma shared the capitality of the Kingdom of Mallorca with Perpignan. Then, the first king of Mallorca, James II of Mallorca, promoted the construction of some of the main monuments of the city: Bellver Castle, the churches of St. Francesc and St. Domingo, reformed the Palace of Almudaina and began the construction of the Cathedral of Mallorca.

The particular distribution of the city, crossed by a river, gave birth, from Muslim times, to the "Upper town" and the "Lower town", as differentiated population focus, situated to each of the shores of the river.

The city's privileged geographical situation allowed it to keep intense commerce with Catalonia, Valencia, Provence, the Maghreb, the Italian dukedoms and the dominions of the Great Turk, which propiciated a golden age for the city.

At the beginning of the 16th century, the Rebellion of the Brotherhoods (a peasant's uprising against Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor's administration) and the frequent attack of Turkish and Berber pirates caused a reduction of commercial activities and a huge inversion in defensive structures. As a consequence, the city entered a time of decadence that would last till the end of the 17th century.

17th to 19th Century

The 17th century is characterised by the division of the city in two sides or gangs, named Canamunts and Canavalls (from Majorcan Catalan "the ones from the upper/lower side"), with severe social and economical repercussions. During this period the port became a corsair's haven. During the last quarter of the century, the Inquisition reinforced its prosecution of the Jews, locally named xuetes

The fall of Barcelona in 1714 meant the end of the Spanish Succession War and the end of the Crown of Aragon, and this was reflected on the Decreto de Nueva Planta, issued by Phillip V of Spain in 1715. This decree modified the government of the island and separated it from the municipality's government of Palma. At this time the City was officially named Palma, and by the end of the 19th century, the term Palma de Mallorca was generalised, written, mostly, and in Spanish. In the 18th century Charles III of Spain liberalised commerce with the United States and the port and commercial activity of the city grew once again.

At the beginning of the 19th century, Palma became the refuge of many who had exiled themselves from the napoleonic occupation of Catalonia and Valencia; during this period freedom flourished, until the absolutist restoration. With the creation of the national state of Spain, Palma became the capital of the new province of Balearic Islands in 1833. The French occupation of Argelia in the 19th century ended the fear of maghrebi attacks in Mallorca, which favoured the expansion of new maritime lines, and consequently, the economical growth of the city, which suffered a demografical increase, with the birth of new nucleus of population.

20th Century to today

From the beginning of the second half of the 20th century, the advent of mass tourism radically changed the fisionomy of the city and of the whole island, and transformed it into a centre of attraction for visitors, and also for workers of other zones of Spain. Altogether, it caused a huge change in the traditions, the sociolinguistical map, urbanism, and acquisitive power.

The boom in tourism caused Palma to grow significantly, with repercussions on immigration. In 1960 Mallorca received 500.000 visitors, in 1997 it received more than 6.739.700. In 2001 more than 19.200.000 people passed through Son Sant Joan airport in Palma, and almost 1,5 million came by sea.

While entering the 21st century, urban redevelopment, in the called Pla Mirall (English "Mirror Plan"), attracted important groups of immigrant workers from outside the European Union, from Africa and South America.

External links

Coastal cities | Mallorca | Municipalities in Balearic Islands | Ports and harbours of Spain

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