Why in the period 16th to 18th century did Spain not colonize Morocco?

[Umbral]

With the Inca's literally being in the middle of both a apocalyptic small pox epidemic and a civil war and the Aztecs almost immediately undergoing another massive epidemic that academics now think was local rather then Old World in origin

Nitpick: A few academics advanced a theory that it was local in origin. Most pointed to the extreme lethality among natives, and immunity of Europeans, and believed it an old world disease. Then they sequenced the genes and it turned out the latter were correct. It was Salmonella.

 

[Father Maryland]

Nitpick: A few academics advanced a theory that it was local in origin. Most pointed to the extreme lethality among natives, and immunity of Europeans, and believed it an old world disease. Then they sequenced the genes and it turned out the latter were correct. It was Salmonella.

Jesus. I didn't realize Salmonella could have that effect in Virgin Field conditions. I mean I knew that diseases that are considered relatively "safe" today (like measles, mumps, chicken pox and the like that can still kill people today but where vaccines exists and most who do catch it won't actually die today and most outbreaks of it are fairly small) could cause massive epidemics in the New World as part of the Columbian exchange. But I didn't realize that Salmonella could have the same effect. I mean the Aztec epidemics killed what hundreds of thousands to a couple million in a matter of a handful of years? It's insane that a illness that used to be able to kill millions is now thought of as something that might make you pretty sick if you eat raw cookie dough.

 

[rfmcdonald]

Ultimately, in order to have even a halfways plausible model for migration, you need to explain why Spain decides to conquer and colonize Morocco. What is the point? The Strait of Gibraltar, as others have pointed out, is too wide to be readily controllable by a power with bases as either end, and the fact that Spain OTL did not seriously and consistently try to colonize the territory until the 19th century is likewise a point. What changes?

 

[Umbral]

Jesus. I didn't realize Salmonella could have that effect in Virgin Field conditions. I mean I knew that diseases that are considered relatively "safe" today (like measles, mumps, chicken pox and the like that can still kill people today but where vaccines exists and most who do catch it won't actually die today and most outbreaks of it are fairly small) could cause massive epidemics in the New World as part of the Columbian exchange. But I didn't realize that Salmonella could have the same effect. I mean the Aztec epidemics killed what hundreds of thousands to a couple million in a matter of a handful of years? It's insane that a illness that used to be able to kill millions is now thought of as something that might make you pretty sick if you eat raw cookie dough.

Yes. This particular strain of salmonella was contagious though. But one of the interesting things (to us, centuries later) about the epidemics was the European missionaries accounts of it. They were trying their absolute best to help and save people. Which with 1500s medical knowledge meant working up to your elbows in gore, to exhaustion and with no hygienic precausions such as gloves, covering open wounds etc. And not a single European caught it.

The 1545-48 epidemic is estimated to have killed north of 12 million people in a population of about 15 million. The next one, in 1576-1580 killed an estimated 2 million people in a population of 4 million.