Colonizing and Decolonizing French Algeria, 1830-1962

The French government’s naïve entrance into Algeria with a fleet of ships in July 1830 AD was not with the intent to colonize the area but was to settle a debt dispute with the Turkish Dey of Algiers (“the fly whisk affair”), as described elsewhere. (1) The population of France in the early to mid-1800s was struggling to maintain its numbers, the rural French were relatively content and prosperous, and Algeria was five times the size of France. Where would France find the people to colonize Algeria even it had intended to?

View of the Algiers waterfront, c. 1830. In the foreground is the al-Jadid Mosque; to the right is the al-Kabir Mosque. The Bab al-Bahr (Sea Gate) is to the left of the al-Jadid Mosque. Source:
http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=ft8c6009jk&chunk.id=0&doc.view=print;
accessed December 30, 2007.

After the initial French military victory over the Dey of Algiers, Frenchmen of many political and social strikes began to like the idea of Algeria. Such a vast “empty” space in which to create solutions to nagging French problems! Heffernan explains, “To old-style, anti-urban conservatives, colonization had the obvious merit of reducing the cultural crisis represented by urban-industrial development.” In other words, unemployed urban laborers making trouble in many metropolitan cities in France, especially Paris, could use their skills to build a French Algeria.

Painting of Lamartine in front of the Town Hall of Paris rejecting the red flag on February 25, 1848, by Henri Felix Emmanuel Philippoteaux (French, 1815-1884). Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Lar9_philippo_001z.jpg;
accessed December 30, 2007.

Heffernan continues: “To patriotic bourgeois liberals, Algerian colonization had two added advantages. In the first place, it would spread French language and culture beyond the Mediterranean and into the vast continent of Africa. This was an important consideration in view of the geographical expansion of English settlement around the world and the challenge this posed to French cultural hegemony. Secondly, the settlement of Algeria using colonists from all over Europe, and the incorporation of the colony into a greater France, might begin to remedy France’s slow population growth, which was already causing concern.” (2)

To elements of the radical Left including Frederich Engels and Karl Marx, the conquest and colonization of Algeria would be a “useful step towards the rise, and ultimate fall, of world capitalism, and as ‘an important and fortunate fact for the progress of civilization.” (3) Utopians, such as Prosper Enfantin, the prophet of Saint-Simonism, “saw the Utopian colonization of the non-European world in romantic and mystical terms. He was convinced that, notwithstanding the preceding years of warfare, the settlement of North Africa by white, Christian Europeans would facilitate the spiritual rejuvenation of Europe and allow for peaceful cultural and commercial exchange with the Orient. This utopian vision depended on the two civilizations-European and African, white and brown, Christian and Moslem-intermingling to create a new hybrid civilization containing the best qualities from both.” (3)

Indigenous Peoples’ Ownership of Land

Algerian natives recognized four kinds of landed property: Azel, Habbus, Arkh, and Melkh. (4) Azel was domain land, some of the best in the country, and consisted of parcels of land controlled nominally by the Turkish state. As successor to the Turks, the French military confiscated this land for the French government. (5) For example, once the French military had secured its position in Algiers, it commandeered Ottoman buildings rather than erect new ones. “Commercial buildings, houses, workshops-all were expropriated and renovated primarily to serve the needs of the military.” (6)

Habbus was property belonging to mosques, schools, and hospitals, and was supposedly unavailable for colonization, according to Kobelt. (4) However, Prochaska notes, “The Ketchaoua mosque was transformed into the main cathedral in 1838” and “the Ali Bichnin mosque became Notre-Dame des Victories”. (6)

Melkh was property held in common by various Arab and Berber families or tribes. The French government confiscated it as punishment of tribes that revolted against French occupation. (4)

Kabyle people, Algeria. Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Kabyle_people.png;
accessed December 30, 2007.

Arkh was property owned by private individuals, mostly Kabyles and Arabs. The Kabyles were extremely reluctant to sell to foreigners, and most had a law that required giving the next neighbor the first privilege of purchase. Much of the Arab land that was saleable “passed into the hands of native Jews,” notes Kobelt. (4) Arkh land was the only land available for colons.

French Military Attempts Military Colonization

The French government tasked the French military with colonizing Algeria in 1840 soon after the ouster of King Louis-Philippe. The first French general to colonize Algeria was the grizzled Marshal Valee who, using the Roman colonization model, offered free land to discharged French soldiers. Of the 300 soldiers who accepted the offer of fertile land at Kolea, Algeria, in 1840, 300 decamped permanently for France a year later. Valee “overlooked that the ancient military colonies only flourished where the veterans succeeded in completely subjugating the former inhabitants and forcing them to work the land,” noted one historian. (4) The Arabs and Kabyles were not interested in aiding French soldiers in their farming pursuits.

The next governor-general of Algeria (1841-1847) was Marshal Bugeand, who ordered conscripted soldiers (with two years left to serve) to settle Algeria. Bugeand reasoned that these soldiers were already acclimated to life in the North African environment, would defend themselves from attack by marauders, and could not refuse him because they were subject to martial law, at least for two years. (4) Most of these soldiers, however, returned to France when their service obligation expired.

French Military Attempts Civilian Colonization

The French military did much better with civilian colonization of Algeria. The French government provided villages of 50 to 100 houses, gave each house a certain acreage of land, put up public buildings, provided for the water-supply and connected the village by a paved street with the main road, explained Kobelt. (4) Upon completion of villages, the individual colonists received parcels of land and agreed to build a stone house of certain dimensions, fence and break up the land, and set out a certain number of fruit trees. The title of possession was only provisory, and could be withdrawn if colonists failed to fulfill the conditions. If they successfully fulfilled the conditions, they could sell the land after three more years. (4)

Civilian Colonist Identities: Two Examples

Many groups of Europeans went to Algeria as colonists during the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, including unemployed workers of Paris following the 1848 riots and agricultural workers from the Mediterranean island of Malta. A third group, French vintners, infused much needed prosperity into Algeria to which they migrated following the Phylloxera grapevine louse agricultural disaster in their home country, as described elsewhere. (7)

I. Unemployed Workmen of Paris 1848

Following the abdication of Louis-Philippe in February 1848, the new French government on March 2, 1848, changed Algeria from a French colony to an integral part of the new (Second) Republic. This change meant, among other things, that the European population in Algeria now had the right to elect four deputies to the French legislative body, and could be conscripted into the French army.

Some 13,500 unemployed male laborers empowered by the utopianism of people such as Karl Marx roamed the streets of Paris, much to the distress of the French government. Successors to Louis-Philippe had created ateliers nationaux, or public works, which ostensibly guaranteed a job to each unemployed worker, but the program had failed miserably because there simply was not enough work for all the men to do. Their resulting anger and empowerment resulted in a series of increasingly violent demonstrations in the months of March, April and May 1848. “Under the government of the Commission Executive after 10 May 1848, several alternative schemes were presented to alleviate distress and head off further unrest. At least one, proposed on 13 June 1848 by the poet politician Alphonse de Lamartine, involved Algerian colonization.” (8)

Les Ateliers nationaux. Source:
http://www.1851.fr/lieux/alignan.htm;
accessed December 30, 2007.

Louis Cavaignac. Source:
http://www.probertencyclopaedia.com/j/Louis%20Cavaignac.jpg;
accessed December 30, 2007.

Unfortunately, “there was no time to prepare for an elaborate resettlement scheme, and three days later the workers who registered at the ateliers nationaux were given five days to choose between military service for two years or deportation from the capital to work on government-sponsored railway construction. (8) General Eugene Cavaignac, a military veteran who served in Algeria and the newly appointed Minister of War, with his fellow Algerian soldiers suppressed the subsequent insurrection in June 1848 in which some 50,000 Parisian workers, mostly unemployed workers, had built barricades and fought the bloody four-day battle to overthrow the legally-elected conservative republican government. One observer writes, “It is an irony of history that the insurgents owed their defeat above all to the martial zeal of the Mobile Guards-an impromptu military unity created by the republic at the same time as the [atelier nationaux], and largely for the same reason: to give jobs to unemployed workers.” (9)

When the riots ended, Cavaignac launched a plan to resettle in Algeria on rural agricultural colonies 10,000 unemployed workers in Paris, over a three-year period. The regular army and 12,000 colons (colonists) would provide the labor to build these colonies. “Once the colonies were completed, each household would receive a two-room house, between 2 and 10 hectares of land according to family size and soil quality, two draught cattle, a cow or a goat, six sheep, one ram and sufficient seed crop for the firsts harvest. Colons would also receive food rations for the first three years.” (8) At the end of this time, the colon who developed the land could take provisional legal possession of it and of the house and materials. Furthermore, he could sell this property after a further three years. If he failed to meet the conditions for ownership, a new settler would receive the land. (8)

The man charged with selecting colons and arranging for their transport to Algeria was Ulysse Trelat, a 53-year-old doctor who had earlier served briefly as Minister of Public Works. (10) Candidates had to be French residents, household heads, and under 60 years of age. Trelat selected some 4,568 households, representing 13,972 people (6,000 men, 20% single; 4,200 women; and 4,115 children under the age of 12). The majority of the colons were poor and unemployed.

The new governor-general in Algeria was Baron Viala Charon, who, like his predecessors, had had a distinguished military career. He received the new colons as they came across the Mediterranean in waves. The French government had tasked him with first building the colonies, selecting sites according to soil fertility, military security and accessibility to fresh water, communications and woodland. Furthermore, the colonies had to be agricultural, covering an area of 2,000 hectares for a population of no more than 500.

Charon mostly ignored these guidelines, choosing 42 sites, many of which were unsuitable for agriculture. Most of the territory he selected was Melkh (property initially held in common by Arab families or tribes, but “acquired” by the French government as a form of punishment for bad behavior by the Arabs owners). By December 1848, the colonies of Gastonville, Jemmapes and Saint-Cloud had over 500 inhabitants each; Marengo had over 850 residents. Karouba and Muley-Magoun had less than 100 colons each. “In general, the smallest colonies were those in the province of Oran [western Algeria] where 5,001 colons were located in the 21 settlements. There were 4,246 settlers in the 12 Algiers colonies and 3,419 in the nine villages established in Constantine.” (11)

Upon experiencing the primitive conditions in Algeria, colons with means fled home to France, or, at least, to Algiers or Oran, where they felt protected. “By the time the final convoy [of colons] arrived [from France], only 12,666 of the original 13,972 colons remained on the army lists. Nevertheless, this influx represented a significant addition to the European population. In the period before 30 September 1848, the total settler population had fallen to 98,078; by the end of 1848, however, it had risen to 115,101. This suggests that the Parisian colons represented around 75% of the total increase in the European population over the last quarter of 1848,” notes Heffernan. (12) Many of the colons who remained in Algeria complained bitterly about the deficiencies of their situations. Nonplussed, Charon continued to hammer out new agricultural colonies, until finally the French government withheld further money until the colonies under construction were completed. In 1849, 45,000 people (17,600 from the department of the Seine (Paris environs) and 26,000 form the provinces) had colonized Algeria.

Many colons soon became ill with local diseases. Early in July 1849, for example, the first cholera victim fell ill in Heliopolis. The disease spread in the overcrowded settlements like Gastonville and Robertville. By early August 1849, 21 colonies in Constantine and Algeria had recorded 1,459 cases. By the time the cholera epidemic was over, 5,144 colons had become ill, and about one-third had died.

On February 2, 1852, Emperor Louis-Napoleon proclaimed the Second Empire and on July 1, 1852, passed the Algerian colonies from military into civilian rule. The population of the original Parisian colons had dwindled to 10,450. (12)

Heffernan argues, “On their original terms, the colonies agricoles were unmitigated failures. Given the revolutionary political circumstances in which the project was conceived and executed, it is perhaps unsurprising that it was rushed, poorly planned, insufficiently funded and careless administered. Yet the failure of the colonies was linked to a fundamental confusion about their role and purpose…Different political groupings supported colonization of North Africa for quite distinct and contradictory reasons. For some the colonies were to be secure rural depositories for the unwanted urban detritus of industrializing France. For others, these new settlements were to become model communities on the edge of a new continent which would point the way towards a new and more harmonious age. Although some hoped that both these objectives could be realized simultaneously, this was clearly impossible. The result of this confusion was misery and death on an alarming scale.” (13)

Even Heffernan admits that the picture he paints of Algeria’s colons is not as bleak as above. Indeed, the former agricultural colonies all survived as villages and many recovered to become large and prosperous centers of European commercial and political hegemony during the Second Empire and the Third Republic. Heffernan writes, “During the era of colonial myth-making which began towards the end of the nineteenth century, the former colonies became symbols of a heroic pioneering spirit which demonstrated the continuity of the French presence in North Africa and provided a kind of moral vindication for colonial rule.” (13) His point here is that early French colonial policy towards North Africa was ambiguous and dominated by short-term responses to the social and political crises of Paris and other metropolitan centers of France.

II. Maltese Agricultural Workers

The island of Malta stands on an underwater ridge that extends from Tunisia to Sicily, and at one time, when sea levels were lower, formed a dry land bridge between North Africa and Europe. Some Maltese had found their way to the Constantine, Algeria, area even before the French conquest began in 1830. By 1834, the Maltese were third in number of immigrants to Algeria, outnumbered only by Spaniards and Sicilians. (14)

Circa 1905 Postal card, showing diverse peoples living in Algeria, by Salomon Assus. Source:
http://tipaza.blogs.seniorplanet.fr/mon_weblog/histoire/index.html;
accessed December 30, 2007.

Algeria was for many years the most important destination for Maltese migration within the zone of the Mediterranean. (14) By 1847, the number of Maltese living in Algeria calculated to 4,610 people, so many that the Maltese church dispatched two Catholic priests during Lent to deliver sermons in Maltese. By 1850, about half of all Maltese emigrants chose Algeria as their final destination.

Most Maltese emigrated because of the high population density and unemployment on Malta and adjacent archipelago islands. Most were agricultural workers, which fit the needs of Algerian colonies.

Cardinal Lavigerie. Source:
http://www.thepelicans.co.uk/history20.htm;
accessed December 30, 2007.

Almost all Maltese are Roman Catholics, which French Cardinal Charles Lavigerie (1825-1892) noted with great interest. He dreamed of converting North Africa back to Christianity (as before the Arab Islamic invasion in the seventh century). (15) Lavigerie, who was also the archbishop of Carthage and Algiers, founded the religious order “The White Fathers” whose mission was to spread Christianity among the Berbers and Arabs, and to eliminate slavery from Africa. “In 1882 Cardinal Lavigerie visited Malta where he immediately appreciated the Catholic fervour of the islanders. During his stay, he talked of the Maltese as providential instruments meant to augment the Christian population of French North Africa. He saw the Maltese as loyal to France and to the Catholic Church and at the same time as being eminently useful in building some form of communication with the Arab masses.” By 1926, some 30,000 Maltese lived in Algeria and Tunisia, and many had adopted French citizenship.

The French Consul in Malta also pushed Maltese emigrants to settle in Algeria. He believed that the Maltese showed a distinct liking for France and the French. Although the Maltese were under the British, they were not politically active and the French could accept them without any fear of their demonstrating British allegiance. (15)

Some Algerian Demographic Data

The period of France’s annexation of Algeria saw a drop in Algeria’s indigenous population, from around 4 million in 1830 to only 2.5 million in 1890. (16) The French population in Algeria was 56,437 (1841-1850) and grew to 733,206 (1921-1933). (17) The number of hectares controlled by settlers grew from 115,000 (1830-1850) to 2,726,666 (1941-1951). (18) The total population of Algeria grew from 2,496,067 in 1856 to 9,569,568 in 1960. Of the total population of 9,529,726 in 1954, 7,051,796 people lived in rural areas and 1,397,536 lived in urban areas, such as Algiers, Oran, Bone, and Constantine. (19)

In Algiers, the population grew relatively slowly between 1830 and 1881; between 1845 and 1881, it barely grew at all. Prochaska notes , “Only with the economic boom spurred by wine production beginning around 1880 did the urban population increase substantially. In 1881, the city’s population stood at roughly 65,000, including approximately 25,000 French; 20,000 other Europeans; 5,000 Jews; and 15,000 Algerians. Two-thirds of the non-French Europeans were Spanish and one-quarter was Italian, plus a smattering of Maltese. (20)

The pattern of colonial agricultural production in Algeria in 1910 was as follows: cereals 1,195,456 hectares; vineyards, 182,000; industrial crops, 103,151; orange groves, 10,750; and miscellaneous 355,352. (20) Of the crops, the vineyards brought in the most income (44% of the total) with cereals second (38% of total), and industrial crops third (13%). (21)

Outcome of European Colonization of Algeria

The colonization of Algeria was so successful that during World War II General Charles de Gaulle, head of the Free French (Fighting French), lodged his exiled government in Algiers, Algeria, beginning on May 30, 1943. There he remained until the Allied Powers routed the Germans out of France. (22)

Only a decade later, Algeria began its bloody fight for independence from France. The European colons initially sided with the French, but in the end turned against French President de Gaulle who became persuaded that Algeria should be independent. (22) When Algeria gained her independence in 1962, almost all the Europeans left Algeria for good. From a high of more than 15% of the population before the war for independence, they now comprise less than 1% of the population. The current population of Algeria is 33,333,216 (July 2007 estimate). Ninety-nine percent of the population is Arab-Berber Sunni Muslim. (23)

Sources:

1. SEMP Biot Report #486: “Alb-El Kader and the French Conquest of Algeria (1830-1848). December 1,, 2007. Available at http://www.semp.us/publications/biot_reader.php?BiotID=486; accessed December 26, 2007.
2. Michael J. Heffernan: The Parisian poor and the colonization of Algeria during the Second Republic”, French History, 1989, Volume 3, Number 4, p. 377. In 1846, Paris boasted a population of around one million and attracted 25,000 to 35,000 migrants per year. Heffernan wrote: “Seemingly incapable of adjusting to city life, the new urban poor appeared to drift aimlessly from the casual labour market into the ranks of the idle unemployed. For bourgeois observers, fearful of the threat of violent political disorder and moral collapse, the idea of an idle urban underclass lurking ominously in the dark and fetid alleyways of the capital was a profoundly unnerving, if somewhat illusory, image” (p. 378).
3. Ibid, p. 381.
4. W. Kobelt: “Colonization in Algeria” Science Supplement, Friday, October 9, 1885, p. 317. Available online at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/citation/ns-6/140S/317; accessed December 26, 2007.
5. David Prochaska: Making Algeria French: Colonialism in Bone, 1870-1920. Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 70.
6. David Prochaska: “The Other Algeria” in Renoir and Algeria. Yale University Press, 2004, p. 133.
7. See SEMP Biot Report #488 at (http://www.semp.us/publications/biot_reader.php?BiotID=488).
8. Michael J. Heffernan: The Parisian poor and the colonization of Algeria during the Second Republic”, French History, 1989, Volume 3, Number 4, p. 383.
9. William H. Sewell, Jr.: “A Sociological Vindication of Historical Method”. Book review of Armies of the Poor: Determinants of Working-Class Participation in the Parisian Insurrection of June 1848 by Mark Traugott. In Contemporary Sociology, November 19, 1986, Volume 15, Number 6, pp. 835-837. Available at http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0094-3061(198611)15%3A6%3C835%3AASVOHM%3E2.0.CO%3B2-D; accessed December 26, 2007.
10. Michael J. Heffernan: The Parisian poor and the colonization of Algeria during the Second Republic”, French History, 1989, Volume 3, Number 4, p. 387.
11. Ibid, p. 393.
12. Ibid, p. 402.
13. Ibid, p. 403.
14. “Algeria and Tunisia” at Maltamigration.com. Available at http://www.maltamigration.com/history/exodus/chapter3-4.shtml; accessed December 26, 2007.
15. For more on Cardinal Lavigerie, see http://www.thepelicans.co.uk/history20.htm; accessed December 26, 2007.
16. “Algeria: French Colonisation (1830-1962)” at Arab.net. Available at http://www.arab.net/algeria/aa_french.htm; accessed December 27, 2007.
17. Ibid, p. 50.
18. Ibid, p. 53.
19. David Prochaska: “The Other Algeria” in Renoir and Algeria. Yale University Press, 2004, p. 136.
20. Mahfoud Bennoune: The Making of Contemporary Algeria (1830-1987). Cambridge University Press, p. 48.
21. Charles William: The Last Great Frenchman: A Life of General De Gaulle. John Wiley, 1993.
22. “Algeria” at https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/ag.html; accessed December 27, 2007.
23. Michael Brett and Elizabeth Fentress: The Berbers. Blackwell Publishing, 1997, pp. 10-47 (obscure origins of Berbers) and pp. 81-116 (Arab conquest of North Africa).