American Legation, Tangier

The American Legation at 8 Rue d'Amerique, in the Tangier medina, is the first United States government property acquired abroad and the only US National Historic Landmark located in another country. Morocco was among the first states to recognise the new United States, and in 1777 Sultan Muhammad III opened Moroccan ports to American ships. The Treaty of Peace and Friendship signed in 1786 is the longest unbroken treaty relationship in US history. In 1821 Sultan Moulay Sulayman gave the building to the United States, and it served as the American diplomatic mission in Morocco for well over a century, since foreign envoys were based in Tangier rather than in the sultan's inland capitals. The compound grew over time into a rambling Moroccan townhouse of many rooms around courtyards, with tiled floors, painted ceilings, a garden and a library. Diplomatic use ended in 1956, after Moroccan independence, and the building was kept for American cultural purposes. A non-profit institute for Moroccan studies has run it as a museum and research library since the 1970s. The rooms hold historic maps and prints of North Africa, portraits and diplomatic correspondence, and a room devoted to the writer Paul Bowles, who lived in Tangier. Architecturally it reads as a Moroccan house adapted for foreign diplomats, with interiors that mix local craftsmanship and Western furnishings. The structure has been maintained and repaired by the institute with American and Moroccan support, and its condition is good. A visit gives a concrete sense of Tangier's role as the diplomatic gateway to Morocco during the 18th and 19th centuries.