Modern Algeria: The Origins and Development of a Nation [2 ed.] 0253349982, 9780253349989

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Modern Algeria: The Origins and Development of a Nation [2 ed.]
 0253349982, 9780253349989

Table of contents :
Contents
List of Maps
Preface to the Second Edition
Preface to the First Edition
One. Introduction
Two. Ottoman Algeria and Its Legacy
Three. Invasion, Resistance, and Colonization, 1830-1871
Four. The Colonial System and the Transformation of Algerian Society, 1871—1919
Five. The Algerian Nationalist Movement, 1919-1954
Six. The Algerian Nationalist Movement, 1919-1954
Seven. The Challenges of Independence, 1962—1978
Eight. The Bendjedid Years—Readjustment and Crisis
Nine. Insurgency and the Pursuit of Democracy
Appendix—Place Names
Bibliographical Essay
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

ODERN

ALGERIA

ODERN

ALGERIA The Origins and Development of a Nation

Second Edition

J O H N

R U E D Y

INDIANA UN IV ERSITY PRESS Bloomington ■ Indianapolis

This book is a publication of

Indiana University Press 601 North Morton Street Bloomington. IN 47404-3797 USA http://iupress.indiana.edu Telephone orders Fax oilers Orders by e-mail

800-842-6796 812-855-7931 [email protected]

C 1992.2005 by John Ruedy All rights reserved. First edition 1992 Second edition 2005 No part of this book may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses* Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI 2139.48-1984. Manufactured in the United States of America

The Library o f Congrats has cataloged the original edition at follows: Ruedy, John (John Douglas), date Modern Algeria : the origins and development of a nation / John Ruedy. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-253-34998-2 (cloth : alk. paper). — ISBN 0-253-20746-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Algeria—History. I. Title. DT294.5.R84 1992 965—dc20 92-4637 2nd edition ISBN 0-253-34624-X (cl.) — ISBN 0-253-21782-2 (pbk.) 1 2 3 4 5 10 09 08 07 06 05

In memory o f John William Rees and Virtue Rees Ruedy and for Nancy Carson Ruedy

C O N T E N T S List o f Maps

viii

Preface to the Second Edition

ix

Preface to the First Edition

xi

ONE

Introduction

1

TW O

O tto m an Algeria and Its Legacy

16

THREE

Invasion, Resistance, and C olonization, 1830-1871

45

FOUR

T h e C olonial System and the Transform ation o f A lgerian Society, 1871—1919

80

FIV E

T he A lgerian N ationalist M ovem ent, 1919-1954

114

SIX

T he W ar o f Independence, 1954-1962

156

SE V E N

T he Challenges o f Independence, 1962—1978

195

E IG H T

T he Bendjedid Years— R eadjustm ent and Crisis

231

N IN E

Insurgency and the Pursuit o f D em ocracy Appendix— Place Names Bibliographical Essay Bibliography Index

289 290

307 319

257

M

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

A

Northern Algeria, Physical Features Precipitation Ottoman Algeria The Stages o f French Conquest Colonial Algeria The Wilayas, 1956 Independent Algeria

P

S

6 8 18 56 82 158 188

P R E F A C E

S E C O N D

T O

T H E

E D I T I O N

W hen the first edition of this book went to press in January 1992, Algeria’s mili­ tary had just forced the resignation o f the country’s president, annulled parliamen­ tary elections, and installed a collective executive under their control. Immediately afterward, the military outlawed and dismantled the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), triggering an insurgency which attracted more international attention to Algeria than at any time since the War of Independence. That insurgency and measures taken to repress it caused as many as 150,000 deaths, inflicted great damage to infra­ structures, and virtually paralyzed an already faltering economy. After the Law o f Civil Concord was approved in a national referendum in 1999, the insurgency was gradually contained. This edition, with a revised chapter 8, a new chapter 9, and an updated bibliog­ raphy, explores the ideological and societal roots o f Algerian Islamism, the political movement it created, and the nature o f the insurgency that followed. It also inquires into counter-insurgency tactics of state security forces and chronicles the political evolution o f Algeria between 1992 and 2004. Other topics considered are the impact o f economic restructuring negotiated with the IMF in 1994, the re-emergence o f Kabylia protests and violence in 2001, and the mixed results of programs to return the country to the political pluralism initiated in 1989. Underlying much of the analysis in the new edition is my conviction that the search for consensus regarding national identity is as critical to Algeria’s development as it has been for many other nations. From the birth o f the Algerian nationalist movement in the first decades o f the twentieth century, there were significantly different visions o f the kind o f nation Algeria should become. Mostly if not totally papered over during the War of Independence, those differences took center stage once the colonial government was expelled. The search for consensus is most poi­ gnantly illustrated in the Algiers Charter, the National Charter o f 1976, and the decision of Algerians to write four different constitutions in as many decades. At the head o f each o f these documents, implicitly when not explicitly, is the question o f who Algerians are and where they wish to proceed. The most important dimen­ sions o f that question have been religion, ethnicity, language, gender, civil rights, and the relation o f Algeria to the broader western Mediterranean region, all o f which I discuss to the extent possible. I also address the increasing alienation o f Algeria’s younger majority, which finds it difficult to identify with the heroic narrative and leadership o f moudjahidin who won the nation’s independence but whom many perceive as foiling to confront its current needs.

X

Preface to the Second Edition

I wish to thank the colleagues who encouraged me to write this second edition as well as the suggestions of many regarding its content. W hile it was not possible to include all suggestions, many have served to make this a richer study than it would otherwise have been. I also wish to acknowledge the assistance of those at Indiana University Press who contributed so positively to the development and editing of this edition, including Dee Mortensen and Miki Bird.

P R E F A C E F

I

R

S

T

T

O

T H E

E D I T I O N

One of the largest countries in Africa and in the Arab world, Algeria has stood in the last half of the twentieth century as a compelling model o f national liberation and development. The story of its march from a segmented tribal order through five generations of colonial exploitation to an eight-year war of liberation and finally to independent nationhood is of epic dimensions. It is a story laden with lessons about challenge, response, and human resiliency. But it is one that has been unavailable, except in bits and pieces, to the English-reading public. I have tried to write an introductory history of modern Algeria suited to the needs o f the general reader and useful in university classrooms. Specialists will discover that I have not attempted a major recasting o f Algerian history, although individual analyses in certain areas may provoke discussion. I hope that students and scholars will find the bibliography useful. This book is a work of historical synthesis. While certain portions are based upon original research of my own, the bulk of the story represents my sifting and order­ ing o f work by hundreds of men and women over many generations. It has been an exhilarating intellectual and philosophical journey. But in my travels I have roamed through many periods and specialties that were very new to me. If in some o f those places I have erred, I hope the reader will be indulgent, perhaps finding enough places without error to compensate for his or her distress. I consider myself an heir of the liberal school o f Algerian historiography, and even though I did not study with either o f them directly, I have been deeply influ­ enced by the work and the spirit of the late Charles-André Julien and Charles-Robert Ageron. I am deeply indebted to Professor Jacques Berque, formerly o f the Collège de France, who taught me my first course in Algerian history and who has been sup­ portive of my work at many points through the years. Colleagues who shared their wisdom with me over the several years it took to write this book are legion. I want especially to thank Professor Julia Clancy-Smith of the University o f Virginia, Pro­ fessor Rabah Abdoun of the University o f Algiers, and Professor Barbara Stowasser o f Georgetown University. Without the support and confidence o f my good friend Professor Thomas T. Heide and of Dean Peter Krogh of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, 1 could not have undertaken this work. As anyone who has worked in Algerian history knows, the researcher is faced with daunting problems of transliteration. The terminology—names, places, institu­ tions—comes from classical Arabic, dialectal Arabic, Ottoman Turkish, and several Berber dialects. W hen they came to Europe and America, most of the names and terms arrived in French transliterations, which are not in themselves consistent from one era to another or even from one writer to another. I have decided that

xii

Preface to the First Edition

any attempt to impose total consistency would create more confusion than it would dissipate. With regard to the names o f Algerians before the twentieth century who did not speak or write French themselves, I have generally used a standard English translit» eration o f Arabic or Ottoman but without diacriticals. For well-known historical figures (e.g., Hussein Dey) and for modern Algerians, I have retained the French spelling. I have also retained the French transliteration o f all place names, since this is the way readers will encounter them in almost every other source. The French colonists changed the names of many places during their 132-year occupation, and they also founded many towns and villages. After independence, however, Algerians changed them back or gave them new names. In the text, I use the name prevalent at the time under consideration. The appendix carries a name conversion chart. With regard to Ottoman and Arabic institutions and legal terminology, I have usually, though not invariably, employed English transliteration.

ODERN

ALGERIA

C II A F T H K

INTRODUCTION

H

umans have lived in the land that is now Algeria since the high- or middle-paleolithic period. They experienced the neolithic revolution between the sixth and the fourth millennia b . c . and then passed successively into the ages o f bronze and iron. At least by the first millennium, ancestors o f modern Algerians began building cities and establishing centralized states on some parts o f the territory. At the end o f the third century b . c ., they created a state covering most o f what is today northern Algeria that lasted until the end o f the second; but in the centuries afterward, they united the territory again only rarely and ephemerally. While Algeria’s cultural roots go back centuries, the nation in a sociological and political sense is the product o f forces that began operating only in the m odem period. It was the O ttom an Turks from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries who established a separate political entity between Tunisia and Morocco with borders more or less where they are today; it was the French in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who extended Algeria’s southern frontier from the foothills o f the Atlas deep into the Sahara. The Turks established an Algeria-wide political system that worked through tribal seg­ ments and urban aristocracies to assure m inimum control and resource extrac­ tion. French colonialism in its determination to appropriate the major means o f production dismantled the tribal and legal structures that stood between the state and society in O ttom an times and in so doing laid the bases for the integration o f Algerian society and a grow ing consciousness o f nationhood. O u t o f that consciousness the Algerian people themselves after five genera­ tions o f French occupation realized that the only way to escape permanent dispossession and further impoverishment was to assert their nationhood forcefully. Thus a new nation-state was born.

2

MODERN ALGERIA NATION BUILDING

T he nation-state, the state conceived as the political expression o f a single or a dom inant and relatively homogeneous ethnic group, is a m odem phe­ nom enon. While one can trace its roots to earlier experiences in Europe and elsewhere, it was not until the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries that the nation-state in a m ature form became the dom inant model o f political organi­ zation in Europe and not until the tw entieth that it became so for m ost non-European societies. The nation-state model in Europe and in the M iddle East and N orth Africa supplanted a universalist model that grouped very heterogeneous communities loosely under the aegis o f a com m on religious and/or dynastic tradition. The bases o f the segmentation that characterized these societies could be geographic, ethnic, religious, economic, o r class/caste. B ut one o f the oldest and m ost pervasive forms o f segmentation is tribal. Tribes can be nomadic, sedentary, or both, but in any case they represent an organization o f society on kinship principles. While certain authors emphasize the spatial, social, economic, and intellectual isolation from each other o f the segments, it is clear that such absolute isolation was not the norm in pre­ m odem N o rth Africa. Because the lineage, clan, tribe, and confederation were perceived as representing progressively larger circles o f the extended family, a fram ew ork existed for w ider societal interaction when such interaction was called fo r.1 Furtherm ore, N orth Africans were always aware o f belonging to a w ider com m unity o f Muslims. In its examination o f the origins and developm ent o f the Algerian nation, this book nevertheless finds useful the notion o f the contrast between segmentation and integration. Segmentation defines a social order in which m ost if not all o f society’s functions take place w ithin and are mediated by smallish kinship segments, the differentiation o f which may or may not be reinforced by geographic, economic, sectarian, or other factors. It is the tribe o r village that determines the roles and statuses o f individuals, controls be­ havior, arbitrates conflict, determines access to means o f production, and projects the value system that rationalizes these arrangements. If there is a state, it has relatively little control over these functions but exists to protect against external threats and to mediate between segments when norm al mech­ anisms o f resolution break dow n. It extracts w hat taxes it can in return for these services, usually encountering significant resistance from the segments. Integration, on the other hand, is the principal attribute o f the m odem nation-state. It defines a social order in which m ost functions except procre­ ation and nurturing have been transferred from the kinship group to the control o r mediation o f the state. Such state control perm its the mobilization 1. The theory o f segmentarity originates in 1893 with Emile Durkheim, De la division du travail social. Etude sur I'organisation des sociétés supérieures. Monte Palmer, in The dilemmas o f Political Development: An Introduction to the Politics o f Developing Areas (Itasca, III. : 1973), pp. 11-12, is one of many who emphasizes the isolation of segments. My views on the North African tribe have been strongly influenced by the work o f Edward Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer and The Sanussi o f Cyrenaica; and by Ernest Gellner, Saints o f the Atlas.

Introduction

3

o f hum an and material resources o f a large territory for m ore effective pursuit o f goals determ ined appropriate by the inhabitants o f that large territory. Kinship groups controlling all o r m ost aspects o f an individual's life give w ay here to a series o f functionally defined associations. The result is greater societal congruency, enhanced economic productivity, larger concentrations o f w ealth and pow er, and greater ability to control the environm ent. It m ust be emphasized, how ever, that integration and segmentation are relative term s used only for analytical orientation. Algeria has not in historical times know n anything close to total segmentation nor has any m odem nation state ever achieved ideal integration. Building a nation-state involves political, economic, social, and cultural dimensions. T hough it may also involve a territorial dimension if the territory o f the state is not perceived as complete when the process o f nation building gets under way, this was not the case in Algeria. The m ovem ent o f a society tow ard national integration requires changes in political, economic, social, and cultural sectors, all o f which are interrelated and interactive. It is difficult to conceive a functional m odem nation w ithout relatively balanced evolution in each o f these areas. The emergence o f a m odem industrial econom y, for instance, is not possible w ithout a political system capable o f control and mobilization, a social order flexible enough to move people into new jo b s requiring new skills in new places, and a culture that interprets and justifies the passing o f the old and the emergence o f the new order. U nfortunately for m ost o f the peoples o f Africa and Asia, how ever, balanced evolution tow ard m odem nationhood was precluded by the very imperialist and colonialist forces that triggered the transform ation from segmentarity tow ard national integration. The appearance o f the new inte­ grated order does not unfailingly follow the disappearance o f the old seg­ m ented one. T he process o f nation building in fact involves tw in processes o f disintegration and reintegration. A t the economic level in dependent countries, the rapid disappearance o f subsistence economies or self-contained local markets gives way not to m od­ em , self-sustaining industrial economies but to economies w hose function is both the provision o f raw materials to the advanced economies and the consum ption o f finished goods from the same. Since term s o f trade are by and large unfavorable to the supplier o f prim ary goods, the result o f the dis­ appearance o f the old order is progressive pauperization and grow ing de­ pendency on the exterior. Sociologically, the disappearance o f segmentary tribalism in dependent countries seldom augurs immediate appearance o f an integrated social order characterized by groups organized on functional rather than kinship lines. Instead, it often gives way to massive proletarianization o f farmers and pastoralists and to increasing levels o f unem ploym ent and underem ploym ent, be­ cause the industrial grow th characteristic o f countries blessed w ith balanced developm ent is absent o r insufficient in dependent economies. Proletarianiza­ tion is accelerated by demographic increase brought on by falling m ortality

4

MODERN ALGERIA

rates that generally accompany the introduction o f minimal public health measures and access to w ider markets for the fulfillment o f food needs. The same hiatus between disintegration and reintegration appears in the political realm. But here a distinction m ust be made between colonies o f direct and indirect rule. In the latter, the imperialist pow er chooses to w ork through at least some existing elites. In the former, it destroys the political pow er o f tribal elites through war, through legislation, by rem oving the tribe’s eco­ nom ic base, or by a combination o f the three. The political im pact o f such direct rule is especially apparent in countries o f intensive European settlement. Here the settlers rule directly, excluding natives from any but the m ost peripheral and subordinate roles. T o native elites w ho may express interest in participating in a national political process, the settlers make clear that since in their view the natives produced no national entity in the past, they need not expect participation in one in the future. If the hiatus between the destruction o f the segmentary order and the building o f the national order is great, the cultural effects can be disorienting and even devastating. The native cultural system (in Algeria it was a blend o f universal Islamic values and indigenous custom) becomes less relevant to the realities o f life as generations o f foreign influence o r rule alter those realities. While the personal and family aspects o f the cultural system usually remain m ore intact than the economic, political, and societal aspects, even these are threatened because o f the objective changes in living conditions and the com­ petition from European values. A m ong the narrow stratum o f elites in im perialized African and Asian societies given access to European education, values and ideologies bom out o f European experiences begin to have cur­ rency: individualism, secularism, liberalism, capitalism, socialism, national­ ism. O nly bits and pieces o f these values and ideologies can have mean­ ing to illiterate and pauperized masses still clinging to w hat they can o f a traditional cultural system, great portions o f which are equally irrelevant. A considerable gap may appear between the society’s natural leaders and the bulk o f its members, a gap which can impede communication and hinder mobilization. From the point o f view o f nation building, the main effect o f colonialism’s dissolution o f the segmentary system, overthrow o f tribal leadership, and creation o f a “national” market is to clear the ground for the emergence o f an authentic national com m unity. It is the thesis o f this book that in a sociological sense an Algerian nation—poor, confused, and riven w ith contradictions— came into existence sometime between 1871 and 1920. Between 1920 and 1962, the members o f that com m unity sorted through the contradictions as they launched a series o f initiatives that ultimately drove the occupying pow er from the national territory. Since that time the Algerians have struggled to escape from economic dependency and to fashion an econom y capable o f significantly raising standards o f living. They have sought to craft poUtical institutions capable o f assuring control and mobilization while at the same tim e accom m odating the country’s diversity. Finally, they have carried on a complex and confusing struggle to adjust their cultural system in such a way as

Introduction

5

(o legitimize these arrangements while maintaining a sense o f continuity w ith Algeria’s historical past.

THE PHYSICAL SETTING T he area o f contem porary Algeria is 2,381,741 square kilometers. Its seashore is 998 kilometers long, while the land boundaries separating it from M orocco, the Western Sahara, Mauritania, Mali, N iger, Libya, and Tunisia total 6,343 kilometers. M ore than seven-eighths o f the country lies in the Sahara desert. A lthough hydrocarbon and other mineral resources combine today w ith m ajor advances in transportation and communications technology to make the Sahara an indispensable part o f the Algerian economy, the heart o f historical Algeria is a band o f valleys, mountains, and plains extending rough­ ly three hundred kilometers inland from the Mediterranean. The northern part o f this band is know n as the Tell or hill country. T he m ost prom inent feature o f historic Algeria’s topography is a series o f m ountain ranges running roughly parallel to the coast w ith peaks ranging in height from 500 to about 2,500 meters. These consist o f a Tellian Atlas system close to the coast and a Saharan Atlas system at the edge o f the desert. South o f the mountains o f the Tell stretches a series o f plains variously know n as the High Steppes, the H igh Plateaux, or the High Plains w ith an average altitude o f about 1,000 meters. These end in the series o f more or less contiguous ranges that collectively form the Saharan Atlas. These ranges, w hose peaks rise from 1,500 to 2,500 meters, are from west to east the Ksour M ountains, the Djebel A m our, the M onts des O ulcd Nafl, the virtually impenetrable block o f the Aurès, and the mountains o f the Nementcha on the Tunisian border. The breaks between the five ranges provide the passes through which the bulk o f travel between Algeria proper and the desert takes place. The m ost famous o f these gaps is the Hodna depression between the Aurès and the M onts des O uled-N aïl which is prolonged by a pronounced depression in the H igh Steppes adjoining it to the north; this is the easiest route from the desert to the coast. In the other direction, the High Plains and the High Steppes have historically provided the m ost practical route for east-west travel. D raw ing an imaginary line from the Hodna depression through the tow n o f Miliana to the sea, geographers make a major distinction between the environm ents o f western Algeria and eastern Algeria. In western Algeria the arable lands are divided by a series o f parallel chains o r mini-chains. The m ost im portant o f the chains are the Dahra along the coast and the Ouarscnis south o f it. Between the tw o runs the C hélif River, whose valley and its extensions tow ard and beyond O ran arc the most im portant farming regions in the O ranie (O ran Province). Because the mountains o f the west are lower, because there are m ore rolling hills here and less flat alluvium, and because it enjoys less rainfall, western Algeria was more hospitable to pastoralists than to farmers. While peasants were certainly present, it is historically the land o f the nomadic and seminomadic tribesmen.

m ap

1 Northern Algeria, Pbyafcal

7

Introduction

7

East o f the imaginary line mentioned above, the M itidjian Atlas and the M onts de T itteri continue the Dahra and the Ouarsensis respectively until they jo in in the G rand Kabylia range east o f Algiers. T he Grand Kabylia ends precipitously in the deep valley o f die Soum m am River, beyond w hich is a series o f systems know n as die Lesser and Eastern Kabylia. N o rth o f the M iddjian Adas lies the M iddja Plain, which, separated from the coast and the M editerranean by a low range o f hills know n as the Sahel d'A lger, was the agricultural jew el o f both O ttom an and French Algeria. East o f Algiers, m ountains rise dramatically out o f the sea, leaving room for agriculture along the coast at Bejala (Bougie), Djidjelli, Skikda (Philippeville), and especially in the lush Plain o f Annaba (Bône).2 T he heart o f eastern Algeria, how ever, is the large Plain o f Constantine, which, separated from the sea by a single chain o f m ountains and protected from the desert by the massive Aurès, is historically the m ost productive single region in Algeria. In spite o f its higher mountains, eastern Algeria, which in many parts receives double the rainfall o f western Algeria, has favored sedentary farming over pastoralism not only in fertile valleys and basins but even on steep, terraced hillsides. T hroughout m ost o f history, it has supported a population density double that o f the western half o f the country. T he availability o f w ater has been the m ost im portant physical variable shaping Algerian history. Like the rest o f the M aghrib, Algeria’s climate is M editerranean subtropical w ith the great bulk o f the rain falling between O ctober and April. The major function o f the Adas ranges is to provide a barrier that traps the m oisture blow ing in from the Atlantic and the M editerra­ nean during those m onths, moisture that w ould otherwise be dissipated over the vast expanses o f the Sahara. U nfortunately, the Algerian ranges are not high enough to generate the extensive snow packs whose gradual melting could enhance w ater supplies during the dry season; there are no navigable rivers in Algeria, and, except in the Kabylia, m ost streams diminish to a trickle by late sum m er. The dry culture o f cereals, which are the staple o f the Algerian diet, is estimated to require an annual rainfall o f 400 millimeters. As show n by map 2, the 400 millimeter isohyet extends between 100 and 200 kilometers inw ard from the M editerranean, narrow er in the west and widening in the east. It is w ithin this band that the great majority o f Algerian populations have tradi­ tionally lived, while the areas to the south have been given over progressively to pastoralists. U nfortunately for the stability o f the economic system, how ev­ er, rainfall averages in Mediterranean climates are poor indicators o f the m oisture that can actually be expected in any given year. Because o f w ide swings in rainfall from one grow ing season to the next, the agricultural 2. During their occupation the French changed the names o f many Algerian towns and cities and gave names to several hundred towns they founded. After independence Algerians reverted to the original names o f the older towns and gave new Arabic names to most of the rest. I have chosen in my text to employ the name current during the period on which 1 am writing, because this is the way the reader who wishes to explore farther will usually find them. A list of some o f the more important places whose names have changed is included as an appendix.

map

2 Precipitation

Introduction

9

productivity upon which economic and fiscal stability depend has varied enorm ously from one year to the next. A nother problem related to rainfall is that o f deforestation. It is clear that the M aghrib, like m ost o f the lands around the M editerranean, was generously forested in antiquity but that these forests receded as hum an population grew. N ature was unable in these climatic conditions to replace the flora as rapidly as hum ans and their beasts consumed it. Colonial authorities, well aware o f the corrosive effects o f deforestation, took major steps to preserve and replant forests and to prevent overgrazing. U nfortunately, the progressive European appropriation o f the best lowlands drove Algerian peasants and pastoralists to put greater and greater pressure on forest and range lands, which vitiated m ost conservation attem pts. By the end o f the colonial period only 11 percent o f the Algerian Tell region was forested, a condition hastening soil erosion and inhibiting the soil retention o f water.

PEOPLE AND LANGUAGE Today the majority o f Algerians are Arab and 20 to 25 percent are Berber. Since it is evident that the great majority o f Arab as well as Berber Algerians are descended from Berber ancestors, the criteria for the distinction are linguistic rather than racial. Algerians whose native language is Arabic are called Arabs in this book, and those whose native language is Berber are called Berbers.3 T he w ord Berber goes back to the Greeks, w ho called the people they found living in the M aghrib at the dawn o f history barbarians, a term inology subsequently adopted in various forms by Romans, Arabs, Europeans, and others. But the term is not used by Berbers themselves when speaking their ow n languages. The Kabyles, the largest and m ost politically active com m uni­ ty o f Algerian Berbers, call themselves Imazighen (singular Amazigh), which means free or noble men. The literature on the origin o f the Berbers is full o f problems and am bigu­ ities. The balance o f opinion at present holds that the Berbers o f history were the descendants o f a paleolithic stock to w hom had been added a variety o f other racial inputs— m inor ones from Western Europe and from sub-Saharan Africa, and tw o major ones from the northeast and the southeast. The lan­ guage, which over the centuries splintered into scores o f dialects distributed am ong three main families, may be Hamitic in origin. If so it is a relative o f Galla, Somali, and Pharaonic Egyptian, a cousin rather than a sister to Arabic and the other Semitic languages. The language may have been brought to the region by m igration from the H orn o f Africa that w ould have taken place before the m ost recent desiccation o f the Sahara, which began at the start o f the fourth millennium. 3. It is difficult to settle on a figure for the number of Berbers because since 1%6 the Algerian census no longer distinguishes between Berberophones and Arabophones.

10

MODERN ALGERIA

The de-Berberization o f the M aghrib began w ith Punic settlement and accelerated under Roman, Vandal, Byzantine, and Arab rule as the cities, their environs, and the m ost productive crop lands came to be dom inated by the newcomers. The Arab invasion o f the seventh century brought about the Arabization o f many cities and several coastal areas, but it is clear that m ost Algerians in the countryside continued to speak Berber until well into the tw elfth century. The factor that accelerated linguistic transform ation from the late eleventh century was the invasion o f the Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym, nomadic Arabs from Egypt w ho progressively overw helm ed the countryside, absorbing as they did many Berber-speaking peasants and nomads w ho even­ tually forgot their ancestors had once been Berbers. The Arabic speech m ost widespread in Algeria today is a dialect descended from these nom adic invad­ ers. The sedentary Arabic dialects presumed to be pre-Hilalian are limited to the Arabic-speaking parts o f the Lesser Kabylia, the hinterland o f Bejaia, and a small coastal band in the extrem e west at the foot o f the Traras mountains. By the eighteenth century, Berberophony had been relegated to the least accessible parts o f the country—high mountains, distant oases, and isolated desert plateau and m ountain areas. Small groups o f Berbers remained in the Dahra, Ouarsenis, and Mitidjian mountains. The Mzab oasis was hom e to a thriving culture o f Ibadi M uslim Berbers, and a vast quadrant o f w hat was to become the southern and southeastern Algerian Sahara was dom inated by a nomadic group know n as the Touareg. The Aurès and m ost o f the N em entcha mountains were hom e to the Chaouia; but by far, the largest group—at least three-fourths o f all Algerian Berbers—lived in the Grand Kabylia and the western part o f the Lesser Kabylia. The economic, military, and political significance o f the Kabyles grew from the sixteenth century onw ard w hen Algiers became hom e for the first time to the rulers o f the country. T he Grand Kabylia was a stone's throw from the capital, and its inhabitants were available to fill jobs, provide military services, and frequently to mobilize resistance against unpopular regimes.

PREMODERN

HISTORY

Archeological and anthropological evidence indicates that by the fifth century b. c ., Berbers in w hat is now Algeria had established economics based on a mix o f farming and pastoralism, had mastered a variety o f manufacturing skills, were commercializing many o f their products, and had established a num ber o f states. By the third century b .c ., classical authors took notice o f Berber kingdom s for the first time, noting in particular the existence o f two: the kingdom o f the Masaesylcs that stretched from the M oulouya River in eastern M orocco to the Rhummel in eastern Algeria and the kingdom o f the Massyles in extrem e eastern Algeria and western Tunisia. By 203 b . c ., Massinissa o f the Massyles defeated his western rivals w ho had sided w ith Carthage in the Second Punic W ar and created w hat classical authors called the K ingdom

Introduction

11

o f N um idia, stretching from Tabarka in Tunisia to the M oulouya. This kingdom , w ith its capital at Cirta (later Constantine), which may have had as many as 100,000 residents, represented a high point in the evolution o f Berber civilization not matched for more than a thousand years until the rise o f the great medieval Berber kingdoms and empires. In spite o f the dogged resistance o f Massinissa’s descendant Jurgurtha (109-106 B .c .), the Romans, w ho feared the pow er o f the unified Berber kingdom , defeated N um idia and divided its territory am ongst three o f his successors. In the first century b . c ., they turned the Berber kingdom s into protectorates, and in the first century a . d ., they abolished them altogether and imposed their ow n direct rule. Entranced by the magnificent remains o f Roman buildings and engineering w orks, m any European scholars have thought the Roman era to be a high period in N orth African history. B ut the net impact on N orth African civiliza­ tion o f Rom an rule, which lasted over coastal regions and limited portions o f the interior until the fifth century, appears to have been negative. As Roman landlords assisted by Latinized Berbers turned the agricultural lowlands and plains into vast latifundia w orked by poorly paid eoloni and day laborers for the production o f grains for export to Europe, the rest o f Berber society was driven back into the hinterland where, rapidly retribalized, it m ounted a generations-long opposition to Roman hegemony. By the tim e the Vandals ended Roman rule in a . d . 429, the entire hinterland and m ost o f the w estern Algerian coast had reverted to Berber tribal rule. Little trace remained o f the sophisticated civilization o f the pre-Rom an era. While Christianity in the third and fourth centuries spread extensively through eastern and coastal Algeria, its implantation was hindered after the tim e o f Constantine by its association w ith the Rom an establishment. The D onatist heresy, which racked Roman Africa in the fourth and early fifth centuries, is thought to have reflected the disillusionment o f Berber Christians w ith the dom ination o f a Latin hierarchy tied to the exploitative Rom an system. W hen D onatism was finally extirpated under the leadership o f Au­ gustine, Bishop o f H ippo (Annaba), in the early fifth century, Christianity disappeared very quickly in m ost Berber communities. W ith the exception o f a few coastal ports where the Byzantines hung on, the Berber society the Arab conquerors encountered in the seventh century had been free from Roman control for m ore than tw o and a half centuries. The social order which had begun the process o f integration under the early kingdom s had been widely resegmented. It is thought that the highest form o f political organization in this period was the tribal confederation. While seden­ tary agriculture persisted in the m ost favored environments and in places like the Grand Kabylia, the majority o f Berbers by the seventh century were probably herders. By this time, too, the Sahara, which had posed since the fourth millennium an impenetrable barrier to the expansion o f civilization, had been opened up by a new breed o f grand nomads and traders. W ith the im portation from western Asia o f a saddle technology that for the first tim e

12

MODERN ALGERIA

made reliable the use o f camels for riding and as beasts o f burden, the desert that for Carthaginians, Romans, and earlier Berbers had been the end o f the w orld now became a highway inviting to distant lands, new sources o f wealth, and great power. The Berbers o f the central M aghrib, which was to become Algeria, m ounted the fiercest and longest lived opposition the Arab conquerors o f the seventh century m et anywhere in the w orld. While m ost o f Tunisia and M orocco succumbed to Arab rule after a few years o f resistance, the M uslim hold over the area that became Algeria was not assured for thirty-five years. Early Arab histories o f the conquest preserve in particular the name Kusayla, head o f a powerful confederation based in the Ouarsenis and, intriguingly, that o f a female w arrior in the Aurès w hom they named the Kahina or priestess4 w ho ultimately laid dow n her life in a vain attem pt to preserve her people’s freedom. Explanations for the tenacity o f the resistance in this part o f the M aghrib cite either the cohesiveness and military culture o f tribal com m unities o r the determ ination o f people w ith blood m em ory o f centuries o f foreign dom ination not to subm it to it again. While their resistance to Arab military and political control was fierce, the Berbers once conquered seem to have converted quickly to the Islamic faith the Arabs bore w ith them .5 With the exception o f small Christian com m uni­ ties on the coast that survived for about three centuries, it appears that a large m ajority o f Berbers converted to Islam during the eighth century, which is a very different pattern from that followed in the N ear East, where Islamization required centuries and was in fact never total. Because o f the effect Islam had on the subsequent evolution o f nearly every aspect o f life in the M aghrib, this conversion is undoubtedly the greatest and m ost enduring fact in N o rth African history. But Berber embrace o f Islam did not include embrace o f the Arabs. In 740, Berbers in M orocco and western Algeria, smarting under the oppressive taxation and discriminatory practices o f Arab governors, raised a revolt in the name o f Khariji Islam, the most egalitarian and democratic o f the medieval Islamic sects. For a brief period, the Arabs were driven completely out o f the M aghrib. Later they reconquered Tunisia, which they called Ifriqya, and a small slice o f w hat had been Numidia; but everything to the west, including all o f M orocco and three-fourths o f Algeria had shaken o ff Arab rule for good. T he success o f the Khariji rebellion opened a period that many call the golden age o f N orth African history, which witnessed the rise, flourishing, and decline o f a succession o f remarkable Berber kingdoms and empires. Three o f 4. One school o f thought holds that al Kahina was Jewish, another that she was Christian. In either case she would be one o f the few Berber resistance leaders who did not follow the indigenous animist cults. 5. The claim by Ibn Khaldun centuries later that the Berbers apostatized up to twelve times in seventy years is not borne out by historians closer to the period. His assertion may well reflea the memory o f the long period of seesaw conflict in which Arab commanders would require acceptance o f Islam as a corollary of military surrender. When tribes took the next opportunity to revolt, superficial and forced conversion would be shrugged off.

Introduction

13

these, the kingdom s o f the Rustamids (759-910), the Hammadids (1011-1151), and the cAbd al Wadids (1235-1545), were centered in territory that became Algeria. T he first o f these states was the K ingdom o f the Rustamids, which es­ tablished its capital at Tahert on the southern slope o f the Ouarsenis m ountains facing the High Steppes. This remarkable Khariji state, collaborating w ith that o f Sijilmassa at the base o f the Anti-Atlas to the west, survived for m ore than a century and a half. Its prosperity was based upon the regularizing o f trade routes across the Sahara, over which passed cargos o f gold, ivory, and— unfortunately—slaves in return for products manufactured in the M aghrib and beyond the Mediterranean. From this point on for centuries, much o f M aghribi prosperity depended upon control o f these trade routes and upon the region’s intermediate position between black Africa and the Mediterranean. T o the northeast, the Berbers o f w hat had been the Roman Province o f N um idia had lived in very uneasy relationships w ith Ifriqya to the east, which was ruled by the Arab Aghlabid dynasty on behalf o f the cAbbasid caliphs o f Baghdad. When Ismacili Shicis, w ho also claimed the caliphate, came look­ ing for allies to help them evince the Aghlabids, they were able to enlist the powerful Kitama Berber confederation centered in the Lesser Kabylia, the Plain o f Constantine, and the coastal ports. With a largely Kabyle arm y, the Ismacilis drove the Aghlabids out and, by the early tenth century, established the Fatimid caliphate in Tunisia. There ensued tw o generations o f struggle in the M uslim w est which transformed the M aghrib into a battleground pitting the Fatimids and their allies against the U m ayyad caliphate o f Cordoba and its allies.6 M uch o f the struggle was for control o f the gold trade, and an early casualty o f that struggle was the Rustamid K ingdom o f Tahert, destroyed by the Fatimids w ith their Kitama arm y in 910. Kharijism survived eventually only in a few oases o f the Sahara, the m ost im portant o f which was the Mzab. In 969, when the Fatimids, whose main objectives had always lain in the M uslim east, conquered Cairo and relocated their capital there, they left their M aghrib possessions in the hands o f a Kabyle leader from the Titteri m oun­ tains named Ziri. The Zirids had earlier founded the tow ns o f Miliana, Médéa, and Algiers, making central Algeria politically consequential for the first time in history. O n behalf o f the Fatimids, the Zirids now governed the eastern tw o-thirds o f Algeria and all o f Tunisia. By the early eleventh century, w ith their hands full in Ifriqya, the Zirids entrusted the governorship o f their western lands to a branch o f the family named Banu Hammad. These con­ structed a remarkable capital at the Q acala Bani H am m ad that dominated the heavily traveled Hodna depression and its access to the caravan routes. Later they founded Bejai'a, which, during the mid-eleventh century and thanks to the Saharan trade it brokered, was the m ost im portant port in the M aghrib. Very soon after their rise to power, the Hammadids broke w ith their Zirid 6. By 929, when the Umayyad amirs of Cordoba declared themselves caliphs, there were three contenders for Islam’s highest office: the Umayyads, the Fatimids in Ifriqya, and the cAbbasids at Baghdad.

14

MODERN ALGERIA

cousins, signalling this by renouncing loyalty to the Fatimids. Shicism, as it turned out, had never taken root in Algeria and survived only tem porarily in Tunisia. By breaking w ith the Zirids, however, the H ammadids had created the second m ajor M uslim state on w hat was to become Algerian territory, one w hose location was precisely in the heartlands o f Massinissa’s ancient king­ dom . A com bination o f factors in the last half o f the eleventh century helped to drain the vitality o f the H am m adid system, dependent as it was on both m aritim e and desert trade routes. The rise o f the Almoravids in M orocco diverted m uch o f the caravan trade to Sijilmassa and to their newly founded capital o f M arrakech, while at the same time the arrival o f N orm an marauders in the western M editerranean seriously dislocated the sea trade. T he gradual spread o f the Hilalian Arab nomads may also have impeded commerce through the H am m adid cities. The regime held on in weakened state, how ev­ er, until the middle o f the twelfth century when the Almohads, founders o f the m ost successful o f all the medieval empires emanating from M orocco, ex­ tended their rule over the entire M aghrib. B ut Almohad ability to police such a vast em pire was limited, and during the late tw elfth and early thirteenth centuries, the central M aghrib was periodically exposed to the depredations o f roving bedouins o r o f Almoravids hold outs in the Balearic islands seeking vengeance on these now Almohad shores. As opposed to the western M aghrib, w here the Almohad century was one o f great creativity, the period for the middle M aghrib marked a considerable regression. As the Almohads in their turn declined in the thirteenth century, the central M aghrib fell into a bipolar political arrangem ent w hose main features survived until the arrival o f the O ttom ans in the sixteenth century. In its western region, a tribe o f Zanata Berbers know n as the Banu cAbd al Wad had allied themselves w ith the Almohads and, as their mentors weakened, were able to carve ou t for themselves a new kingdom centered on Tlemcen. Tlemcen in its heyday was also a hub o f the Saharan trade and soon became the m ost im portant cultural centre in w hat was to be western Algeria. In succeeding centuries, the cAbd al Wadids found themselves in interm ittent conflict w ith the sultans o f M orocco w ho normally considered Tlemcen their ow n territory. In the eastern M aghrib, the Almohad governors o f Tunis, the Hafsids, survived the fall o f that sultanate to create a separate dynasty that survived until it succumbed to the O ttom ans in the sixteenth century. Hafsid sovereign­ ty extended over eastern Algeria up to the base o f the Grand Kabylia. A lthough Bougie, Constantine, and other Hafsid tow ns were subject to peri­ odic attacks by the cAbd al Wadids from the west, the Hafsids managed to hold on to them. The thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries marked a period o f accelerating economic decline for the entire M aghrib, which in turn weakened its political structures. The decline is clearly associated w ith the region’s loss o f control o f both the desert and maritim e frontiers through which flowed the wealth upon w hich urban life, armies, and states had depended since the eighth century.

Introduction

15

Reasons for the loss o f control are multiple and not completely understood. The penetration o f Egyptian M amluks deep into the Sudan appears to have diverted much o f the Sahara trade eastward, while the increasing control o f the western Sahara by Arab nomads unconnected w ith the Berber cities to the north served further to limit the trade into the M aghrib. At the same time, the rise o f Christian powers in the western Mediterranean, under way since the eleventh century but sealed by the fall o f C ordoba and Seville to the Castilians in the m id-thirteenth century, made it increasingly difficult for M aghribi merchants to profit from maritim e commerce. Faced w ith declining revenues from commerce, governm ents attempted to increase extraction from seden­ tary farmers, which met w ith much resistance but whose net effect was to drive peasants o ff the land and back to pastoralism w here they were less vulnerable to the tax collectors but also less productive. By the fifteenth century, the central M aghrib was in a period o f deep economic, political, and moral crisis. It was at this difficult time that the Spanish Reconquista exploded across the M editerranean to bring further destabilization.

c: n

a r

r t;

r

OTTOMAN ALGERIA AND ITS LEGACY

A s the forces of Castile and Aragon overran one North African port city after another in the early sixteenth century, the residents of those cities sent out anguished calls for help. When Aruj and Khayr al-Din, the brothers Barbarossa from the Aegean island of Mytilene, arrived in the central Maghrib in response to those cries, they entered upon a seriously disorganized and dispirited land. The eastern portions, from Constantine to the sea and southward to the caravan portal of Biskra, were under the sovereignty of the declining Tunisian sultanate of the Hafsids. The western portion was under the shaky control of the cAbd al Wadid dynasty of Tlemcen, which was engaged in a struggle for survival with dynamic new forces in Morocco. Within but especially between these two remnants of the medieval political order, power was disputed by a bewildering array of tribal power centers; along the coast a series of city-states, often led by merchant aristocracies only recently escaped from a collapsing Andalusia, struggled to maintain their autonomy in the face of pressures from the competing sultanates, the tribal confederations, and the expansionist exuberance of the Reconconquista. Three centuries later, when the commander of a French expeditionary force deported to Turkey the last successors of the Barbarossas, the state of Algeria had come into existence. While the Regency of Algiers of 1830 was theoretically a dependency of the Ottoman sultanate, the state that had come into being possessed all the classical attributes of sovereign independence: a defined territory, a human community, organized political authority, effective independence, and recognition by other states. After generations of contest, the borders between Algeria on the one hand and its Tunisian and Moroccan neighbors on the other had been almost completely defined. This chapter describes to the extent permitted by uneven documentation the structures and 16

O ttom an A lgeria and Its Legacy

17

institutions o f that new state, the society over which it presided, and the relations between the tw o.

THE

REGENCY

OF

ALGIERS

It was not mainly out o f altruism that the privateers Aruj and Khayr al-Din first came to the eastern M aghrib in 1504 and subsequently responded to pleas from the notables o f Algiers in 1516. B ut while pursuing their ow n interests, they soon became m ajor participants in the historic struggle between O tto ­ mans and the Spaniards and Hapsburgs for control o f the western M editerra­ nean. T o be effective in that struggle, they needed to consolidate their land base by assuring a m inim um o f unity am ongst the competing pow er centers o f the middle M aghrib. This effort elicited as much opposition from native populations as had earlier attem pts by dynasties o f Marinids, Hafsids, cAbd al Wadids, and others. Aruj was to die in battle against a coalition o f Spanish and M uslim enemies near Tlemcen in 1518. But Khayr al-Din w ent on doggedly to drive the Hafsids from Constantine and its coastal regions (1521-25); to evict the Spaniards in 1529 from the Penon, which dominated the harbor o f Algiers; to defeat Charles V before Algiers in 1541; and by 1545, to expel the cAbd al Wadids permanently from western Algeria. In order to secure those victories, Khayr al-Din had in 1519 sought moral and material reinforcement o f his position by offering his submission to the Sublime Porte. Accepting that submission, the Sultan granted Khayr al-Din the prestigious title o f Beylerbey (Governor General) o f N orth Africa and put at his disposal the services o f Janissary contingents o f infantry and artillery. Arm ed w ith its new legitimacy, small but efficient land forces, and an aggres­ sive fleet, the beylerbeylik grew rich, powerful, and increasingly independent. A half century later, presumably in order to secure tighter control o f this m ost distant o f the O ttom an provinces, Constantinople began assigning pashas to Algiers for fixed terms o f three years and shortly afterward eliminat­ ed the office o f beylerbey completely. But the new arrangem ent did not produce the expected results. Far from assuring central oversight o f Algerian affairs, the replacement o f a strong and independent governorship by a de­ pendent rotating one caused pow er to devolve progressively upon the ojaq1 o f the Janissaries, now the m ost cohesive and permanent O ttom an institution in the province. While the foundation o f the Algerian state was laid by seafaring men whose talents and interests were primarily maritime, it was the Janissary officers w ho became the principal architects o f the state’s political institutions and arbiters o f pow er. Renewed through the generations by continuous recruitm ent o f Anatolian Turks, the ojaq reached a m axim um enrollment o f 15,000 in its 1. Ojaq (wujâq) is an Arabic and Ottoman term for hearth or fireplace. It originally designated a platoon-sized unit o f men who ate, lived, and maneuvered together. It was subsequently applied to the whole body o f Janissaries.

O ttom an Algeria and Its Legacy

19

heyday and declined to about 3,700 by 1830. But following a pattern that had proved effective in m any parts o f the Islamic east, a small, ethnically distinct and jealously exclusive military caste, or the elites it supported, were able to rule, control, or neutralize for the better part o f three centuries a native population o f millions. Unlike the equally durable M amluks o f Egypt, w ho could fund themselves through extraction from easily accessible rural estates as well as from the profits o f trade, the Turks o f Algeria found their fiscal options narrow ly limited. Because Algerian agricultural surplus was smaller, less accessible geographically, and tapped by many levels o f intermediate extraction, the prim ary sources o f funds to pay the Janissaries and run the governm ent were overseas trade and especially corsair operations. These operations were man­ aged by the ship captains, whose organization, the taifa al rais, controlled by far the largest share o f liquid wealth that flowed into Algiers. While the ojaq was the force that made possible continuing O ttom an hegem ony over the lands and peoples o f Algeria, the taifa sat upon the only source o f income capable o f assuring regular remuneration o f that force. T he mid-seventeenth century inaugurated a tum ultuous period which saw the ojaq repeatedly revolting against pashas chronically unable to pay their bim onthly stipends. Eventually the agha or com m ander o f the Janissaries assumed de facto rulership, but the aghas were no m ore successful than the pashas at guarantee­ ing regular payment. Finally the military turned to the taifa. In 1671, they transferred supreme pow er for the first time to a rais, conferring upon him the new title o f dey,2 w ith the understanding that he w ould in turn assure the remuneration o f the troops. By institutionalizing the relationship between the holders o f military and financial pow er, the Algerian elite had hit upon a formula which eventually perm itted both stabilization o f the political process and de facto independence o f the O ttom an central governm ent. From 1683 to 1700, there were eight deys; from 1700 to 1750, ten; and from 1750 to 1800, four. The office o f pasha became increasingly symbolic until 1710 when the dey added that title to his ow n. The m em ory o f this root o f the dey’s authority was perpetuated afterward by the practice o f sending a triennial gift to the Sultan. Selection o f the dey was the responsibility o f a council o f some sixty dignitaries know n as the divan. D uring the seventeenth century, this divan was primarily an extension o f the ojaq, in that while it contained a num ber o f religious and non-Turkish dignitaries, its majority were always Janissary officers. As the institution evolved during the eighteenth century, however, the composition o f the divan changed as did the relative importance o f its key members. Gradually, the param ount roles in the council were taken over by a group o f officials w ho were clearly the creatures o f the dey rather than o f the ojaq and w ho collectively comprised an oligarchy related to but largely in2. The title dey was used earlier in Tunisia where it originally denoted a Turkish officer com­ manding a unit o f about 100 troops. The title acquired political significance after 1591 when deys supplanted the Ottoman appointed pashas at Tunis.

20

MODERN ALGERIA

dependent o f the ojaq. These officials included (in descending order o f in­ fluence): the khasnaji, or treasurer; the agha o f the Arabs, w ho com m anded the indigenous cavalry and auxiliary forces; the khujat at khil, o r master o f cavalry, w ho controlled taxes raised in kind and became a kind o f minister o f supply; the vakil khariji, w ho was a combination naval and foreign minister; and the atji-bashi, or head o f the horses, w ho managed the dey's household. D uring m uch o f the eighteenth century, the khasnaji was the unofficial heir pre­ sum ptive to the deycat; the remaining ministers each m oved up one position in the divan w hen he succeeded to the highest office.3 The changing composition o f the divan reflects a shift tow ard a quasimonarchical institution, but it also reflects changing economic realities. As the eighteenth century progressed and the Christian pow ers’ dom ination o f the M editerranean grew , the am ount and profitability o f Algerian privateering declined. This decline undermined the fiscal bases o f the regime and called into question the institutional arrangements o f the late seventeenth century. After the early eighteenth century, the office o f dey was not so frequently offered to a rais. O ne new source o f income that helped for a long tim e to compensate for the decline in corsair profits was the revenue extracted from Tunisia in the aftermath o f Algerian victories over the Husaynids. This income took the form o f several large hauls o f booty and, after 1728, o f concessionary advan­ tages and tribute payments. B ut internal rather than external revenues were nevertheless increasingly critical to the solvency o f the central governm ent, a reality which is reflected by the new precedence awarded to the officials entrusted w ith bringing in those revenues.

THE

POPULATION

Because the O ttom ans never took a general census o f Algeria that w e are aware of, judging the size o f Algeria’s population on the eve o f the French conquest presents serious methodological problems. These problems are com­ plicated by the fact that, as nationalist leaders have claimed, colonial officials and scholars may have deliberately underestimated the 1830 population in order to obscure the devastating demographic impact o f French conquest and colonization. Because o f the absence o f hard data from the period itself, attem pts to estimate the 1830 population have depended either on extrapolation from contem porary estimates or perform ing regressions from colonial counts. Es­ timates from a dozen contem porary or near contem porary observers range disconcertingly between a low o f 400,000 and a high o f 14,500,000. Since they are all based to a great extent on hearsay or other informal evidence, m ost are unacceptably anecdotal and conjectural in nature. 3. The proliferation o f titles drawn from equestrian traditions reflects the importance o f cavalry in early Ottoman history. Connoting mobility and power, such titles by the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries often reveal little or nothing about the duties of a particular office.

O ttom an Algeria and Its Legacy

21

T he first m ore or less systematic counting was undertaken by the occupa­ tion arm y in 1844 and 1845, fourteen years after the beginning o f the invasion. The first official census was not completed until 1856. These counts in their turn pose serious problems because much o f the country, including the densely populated G rand Kabylia, had not yet been brought under colonial control and data for those regions is based on estimates. It is difficult to count peoples against w hom one is in a state o f open warfare or w ho, recently defeated, remain still deeply suspicious o f the intentions o f the victors. Even w ithout this climate o f hostility, assuring accurate counts o f mobile populations is very difficult, especially w ithout sophisticated techniques o f enum eration unknow n in the nineteenth century. In spite o f these caveats, the bulk o f m odem scholarship has preferred to estimate the 1830 population by counting back from the 1845 o r 1856 figures rather than depending upon the speculative contem porary numbers. This procedure has in turn posed the question o f the appropriateness o f various assumptions in establishing the regression curve. The m ost careful o f these regressions, which tests a num ber o f curves and which has w on acceptance in many quarters, is that o f Xavier Yacono, w ho concluded that the population o f Algeria in 1830 stood at about 3,000,000, w ith the m ost plausible variation extending about 200,000 in either direction.4 The eastern Province o f C on­ stantine may have contained nearly half o f that population; the Province o f Algiers w ould have had about 1,000,000 inhabitants, and that o f O ran about 500,000.

URBAN

SOCIETY

While only 5 o r 6 percent o f the population lived in the cities in the early nineteenth century, those cities exerted disproportionate influence over the country because o f the moral, economic, and military pow er concentrated there. In the cities were clustered the principal institutions o f the official faith, including the great congregational mosques, the Shari*a courts, and the madrasas o r institutions o f higher learning. Algiers boasted thirteen congregational mosques including those o f the Hanafi rite, which served mostly Turks, those o f the Maliki rite, which served most native Algerians, and those o f the Ibadi Kharijites from the Mzabi oases in the Sahara. All im portant cities had (jadis or judges o f each rite, and Algiers was the seat also o f Hanafi and Maliki muftis w ho interpreted the law. A traditional center o f learning such as Tlemcen possessed fifty kuttabs or Koranic schools and tw o madrasas. N ear the central mosque or mosques stood the hammam, baths required by Islamic laws o f purification and M uslim standards o f personal hygiene. Also near the m osque lay the suq, or bazaar, which marketed goods brought to the city by sea or caravan, farmers’ produce, and the product o f the city’s artisans. 4. Xavier Yacono, “Peut-on évaluer la population de l’Algérie vers 1830?” Revue africaine 98, nos. 438-39 (1st and 2d trimesters, 1954).

22

MODERN ALGERIA

The m ost im portant cities also possessed a citadel (qasba, qasr) housing the local military force. The garrison’s function was to defend the city and to control the surrounding countryside, but the location o f the qasbas—apart from and usually above the main tow n—makes it clear that another o f its functions was the control, if need arose, o f the cities themselves. The population o f many cities, especially those on the coast, was ethnically diverse and predom inantly non-Algerian in origin. Turks dom inated the poli­ tical life o f Algiers and along the way had obtained significant economic interests in many sectors. Kouloughlis, men o f mixed Turkish and Algerian blood, played key roles in Algiers, Tlemcen, Miliana, Médéa, Constantine, and other cities. Descendants o f Andalusian refugees, w hom the French called Maures (Moors) and whose culture and dialect clearly distinguished them from the populations o f the countryside, constituted a large m ajority o f the popula­ tion o f Algiers and other cities. Proud, urbane, and reputedly relaxed in moral sensibility, M oors dominated the commercial and cultural life o f Algiers, Tlemcen, and some other tow ns. C ontinuing inputs o f Christian converts or “renegades” from around southern Europe adapted over tim e to M oorish culture, but in so doing they enriched M oorish culture, contributing to its widespread reputation for cosmopolitanism. D uring the early O ttom an centuries, Christian slaves were an im portant com ponent o f the population in the coastal tow ns, num bering as many as 35.000 in Algiers during the seventeenth century, where they labored mainly in quarries, shipyards, or on the docks. A m inority were employed in domes­ tic and other service jobs including, interestingly enough, the management o f governm ent-ow ned taverns, where quantities o f Spanish red wine were con­ sumed. The logic behind this arrangement appears to be that while the au­ thorities could overlook consumption o f alcohol by Muslims, they found it harder to overlook their dispensing it. W ith the decline o f privateering during the eighteenth century, the num ber o f white slaves declined, reportedly to 2.000 in the late eighteenth century and to around 200 by 1830. Black slaves, o f w hom there were about 1,000 at Algiers in the early nineteenth century and uncounted concentrations in other tow ns, w orked as laborers and domestics. A cultural dynamic that favored manumission had created a substantial free black com m unity whose vocations included music, masonry, and dock w ork. Small Jewish communities, composed primarily o f descendants o f the Andalusian o r Balearic communities, had planted roots in several tow ns. Reports o f travellers to Algeria indicate that the social standing o f these Jew s was low and that the economic situation o f m ost was marginal. As the eighteenth century progressed, Italian and French Jews assumed im portant middleman positions in the Regency’s European trade. Com m unities o f these wealthy and influential "juifs francs" remained distinct from native Jew ry and grew rapidly in Constantine, Bone, and Algiers. M any cities o f the Tell also hosted self-contained communities o f hinter­ land Algerians know n as barraniyun (strangers). A m ong such communities

O ttom an Algeria and Its Legacy

23

were the industrious and dose-knit Mzabis o f the Ibadi faith, w ho operated baths and ow ned butcher and grocery shops; Biskris, w ho were w ater carriers and porters; Kabyles, w ho hired out for a variety o f unskilled and semiskilled jobs. While they perform ed different functions and enjoyed very different social and economic standing, the barraniyun communities seemed to share a com m on sense o f distance from the rest o f the urban population. Reminiscent o f tw entieth-century Algerian émigré communities in Europe, m ost barra­ niyun identified more w ith their tow ns and villages o f origin than the host d ty and m ost returned significant portions o f their earnings to the families at home. Soriologically, the main divisions o f the Algerian city were quarters, ethnic communities, and guilds. The quarter was geographically self-contained, offering only one or tw o openings to the rest o f the city which for security reasons were closed and guarded at night and during emergencies. Each quarter was capable o f providing m ost services and m ost goods required on a daily basis by the residents, so the necessity to travel outside the familiar surroundings was limited. Its notables tried to manage the quarter’s internal affairs in such a way as to minimize the opportunity o r necessity for outside interference. Guilds regulated the techniques and economics o f the m ajor trades and also organized the practitioners o f those trades. U nder the patron­ age o f its ow n saint, whose feast day served as an annual expression o f group solidarity, the typical guild was for its members the principal focus o f loyal­ ties, arena o f social life, and hedge against emergencies. For city dwellers the guild filled in many ways the needs that the clan o r tribe filled for country populations. Because ethnic groups were often associated w ith specific trades and because individuals engaged in the same trade often inhabited the same neighborhood, the structures o f quarter, guild, and ethnicity often reenforced each other. The degree to which the state was able to use the amins (heads) o f Algerian guilds to assure control over urban populations, as it did in eigh­ teenth-century Egypt and other parts o f the Arab world, remains unclear. With a few exceptions, urban population was declining during the latter eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This regression was due in the first instance to increasing European domination o f the Mediterranean that led to the decline and then to the virtual termination o f privateering. M ore im ­ mediately it was due to the massive disruptions in European trade brought on by the Napoleonic wars and their aftermath. It is estimated that the population o f Algiers, which stood at 100,000 in the early eighteenth century, had con­ tracted to 30,000 by the time the French army occupied that city. An early French count in the west put the population o f O ran at 9,000, while that o f Bone, the main eastern port, probably did not reach 5,000. The population o f Tlemcen, traditional commercial hub and cultural center o f western Algeria, had contracted to around 10,000. The only large city to resist the negative trend appears to have been Constantine, which w ith its income from Saharan and Tunisian trade and from agricultural production o f vast estates in the surrounding plain, rivaled Algiers in population in 1830.

24

M ODERN ALGERIA RURAL

SOCIETY

T he m ost significant and universal characteristic o f O ttom an Algeria’s rural society is its segmentary tribal form o f organization, which encompasses the great m ajority o f populations w hether sedentary, nomadic o r sem inom adic. Beginning w ith the extended family, which is usually three generational, relationships extend outw ard in concentric circles to reach first a lineage, next a clan, sometimes a tribe, and less frequently a confederation o f tribes. In the Grand Kabylia, the largest sedentary area in Algeria, the adhmm, or clan, was the liveliest and m ost socially interactive unit, while the fourth circle, that o f the village, assumed greater economic and political significance because o f its relationship to the basic territorial unit and die mediating role it played in land and other disputes. A m ong nomadic and seminomadic Arab populations, the poverty o f vegetation and meteorological and geographic vicissitudes seem to cause the tribe to subdivide m ore readily so that the third circle, that o f the clan (firq), assumes political as well as social importance. In both sedentary and nom adic zones, the tribal confederation, so powerful in the days o f Khayr al-Din, appears by the nineteenth century to have declined measurably in importance, a possible reflection o f the effectiveness o f Turkish policies. W ithin each circle o f the system, the main organizational principle is consanguinity, which means that the relationships o f individuals to com m uni­ ty are defined and legitimized by reference to blood relationships w hether these are actual or, as frequently occurs w ith regard to the outer circles, fictitious. N o m atter how far out one progresses through the concentric circles, the model o f social organization is still the extended family. Since the family is patriarchal, patrilineal, and patrilocal, the ideal larger com m unity is a projection o f notions o f fraternity and solidarity and also o f patriarchy derived from the prim ary circle. It has been suggested that because the Algerian vision o f social and political relationships was based upon intuitive, largely unquestioned assumptions felt and experienced in intimate familial and communal settings rather than upon abstract, transferable principles, that vision decreased in practicality w hen one arrived at circles where names were unfamiliar and lineages mere abstractions. Thus, the farther out in the circle one traveled, the m ore fragile social and political organization became and the greater the likelihood o f fragmentation into preexisting or newly formed subdivisions. O thers have suggested that tribal society, inherently anarchical and self-regulating, more or less con­ sciously subdivided periodically in order to assure groupings small and hom ogeneous enough to perm it internal management o f their affairs and to avoid attracting outside attention or intervention. W riting o f Berber tribes in the M oroccan High Atlas, the British anthropologist Em est Gellner suggested that they followed the maxim “Divide that ye be not ruled.”5 The segmentary tribal system sought to manage tension by institutionaliz­ ing it. Adjacent segments w ithin any circle tended to view competition as a 5. Emest Gellner, Saints o f the Atlas, p. 41.

O ttom an Algeria and Its Legacy

25

norm al state o f affairs but to make com m on cause against threats from outside. Larger unities were always potential but characteristically did not materialize until danger com m on to the smaller units was perceived. In Algeria segmen­ tary tribalism proved an excellent system for allowing enough conflict to resolve differences that arose over land, water, and other resources w ithout putting society itself into m ortal danger. French anthropology o f the nineteenth and early tw entieth centuries, in conscious or unconscious attempts to deny the existence o f an Algerian nation and to justify French occupation, emphasized the discreteness o f the tribal segments and the destructiveness and sterility o f their conflicts. Later scholar­ ship (French, English, and Maghribi) has stressed the futility o f analyzing the segments outside the fram ework o f the larger whole. This scholarship insists that while political bifurcation is a profound empirical reality, this bifurcation can be accurately perceived only w ithin the fram ework o f a broader social unity. T hat unity is in the first instance conceptual and norm ative, form ed and conditioned by a deeply internalized Islamic w orld view and value system. This conceptual and norm ative fram ework is reflected by widespread adhesion to religious brotherhoods, many o f whose branches spread throughout the country, and by participation in local and international pilgrimage. Second, the unity is economic, related to the absolute need o f the constituent units to exchange products o f theirs and others' labor. Third, it is argued that inherent in the system o f consanguineous groupings was the underlying premise o f the interrelatedness and therefore the unity o f society, and that even w hen they were fighting each other, the participants were conscious o f struggling w ithin a com m on fram ew ork whose rules governed even the conflict. A bout 45 percent o f Algeria's population in 1830 were nomads o r semi­ nom ads, while 50 percent are estimated to have been sedentary cultivators. From a juridical point o f view, the three main categories o f sedentaries were landless peasants, qsouriens, and freeholders. The great m ajority o f landless peasants were located in the farmlands adjacent to m ajor cities (e.g., the M itidja Valley, the Sahel o f Algiers, and the Plain o f Constantine). While some o f these lands were held by their landlords as mulk, o r freehold, m ost belonged directly or indirectly to the dey or the beys and could be managed either directly for their accounts o r assigned to civil o r military officials as compensa­ tion for services. M ost labor on such lands was perform ed by khamamisa, or sharecroppers, w hose traditional contract accorded them one-fifth o f the har­ vest on the theory that o f the five elements o f production—labor, land, seed, tools, animals—the peasants supplied one. M any were constantly indebted and lived almost as serfs on latifundia bearing resemblance to classical feudal estates. D uring harvest or during other peak periods when m ore hands were needed, additional labor was supplied by nearby seminomads o r by Kabyles descended from their mountains in search o f supplemental income. Fewer in num ber were the qsouriens, inhabitants o f desert oases w ho grew vegetables under irrigation on intensively cultivated plots and frequently tended the date palms or other fruit trees. While there are many examples o f

26

MODERN ALGERIA

freeholding qsouriens, m ost were under the protection, am ounting to a kind o f vassalage, o f powerful nomadic tribes w ho extracted from them a large share o f their produce and returned cereals, hides, w ool, and manufactured products. By far the greatest num ber o f sedentaries were the predom inantly Berber peasantry w ho farmed the steep slopes and narrow valleys o f the m ountain regions. Besides the Grand Kabylia, significant peasant populations were located in parts o f the Aurès, in the Atlas o f Blida, the Dahra and Ouarsenis massifs on both sides o f the C hélif River Valley, and in the mountains o f extrem e w estern Algeria. Unlike cultivators o f the valleys and oases, the m ajority o f m ountain peasants held their land as mulk. Each extended family ow ned its ow n land but properties were in fact held in indivision, since the clan o r village could exercise a preemptive right o f acquisition know n as sk u fa , should an individual family wish to sell its share. The nearly total limitation o f small freeholding to m ountainous zones is explained by the difficulty free peasantries encountered competing for access to richer lowlands either w ith the powerful urban elites or w ith the militarily superior nomads and semi* nomads. Com pared to the sparsely populated plains, the mountains o f the Grand Kabylia were thickly settled and intensively cultivated even in the nineteenth century. Because o f the inelasticity o f the land base, m ountain folk frequently descended to the plain in search o f supplementary income. While sometimes able to avail themselves temporarily o f unoccupied land, they invariably succumbed to various kinds o f dependent relationships and ended up either as sharecroppers, subject tribes, o r casual laborers. But in the m oun­ tain heartlands, nothing close to feudalism emerged because peasants held on tenaciously not only to their lands but also to their guns. In the Grand Kabylia, w hose culture has been the m ost thoroughly studied o f the sedentary regions, the typical village was built at o r near the top o f the m ountain w ith the cultivated land laid out in stages below. Self-contained and inw ardly oriented, the village turned blank walls tow ard the outside and doors tow ard the inside. At the approaches to the settlement, a detour path pointed the way around the agglomeration for those not having business there. T he village itself was divided into quarters inhabited by the clans o r larger lineages w ithin which the closest relationships were knit and m ost day-to-day transac­ tions took place. Nearest the houses were located the vegetable gardens, cared for by the w om en. D ow n the slopes were the narrow , often terraced fields w here hard wheat, barley, and other crops were grow n. A t the bottom grew the carefully cultivated fig and olive orchards that were the mainstay o f the Kabyle econo­ m y. M ost Kabyles also maintained a few animals for local consum ption, w hich grazed on brush and grasses o f rocky slopes unsuitable for cultivation. A t the heart o f the settlement stood the building where the tajrrufath, or village assembly, met. This institution, composed o f tamans, or heads o f the lineages, created and administered a code o f village laws know n as qanuns, acted as arbiter o f village disputes, and determined punishments for infractions o f the code. Each village was affiliated w ith a circle o f villages o r tribe (carsh),

O ttom an Algeria and Its Legacy

27

in w hose assembly it was represented by an amin. While a num ber o f scholars have seen in these Kabyle “village republics” traditions that m ight under appropriate circumstances have propelled Algerian political developm ent tow ard representative government, others hold that the patriarchal structure o f these institutions represents instead a prolongation o f the authoritarian and patriarchal structure o f the family, which is very different from democracy. The lowland valleys and hills o f the Tell, the semiarid high plains, and the Sahara were the domain o f nomads and seminomads. These tribes lived essentially by herding sheep, goats, or camels around the countryside in search o f suitable pasture. Grand nomads generally wintered in the Sahara, traveling northw ard in late spring to find forage on the higher ground o f the Tell’s southern edges. Seminomads tended to w inter in the lowland valleys and sum m er on the high plains. Both types o f nomads raised animals and grew grains, the difference between them being the relative importance o f the tw o activities. Seminomads planted seed in the fall and generally stayed in the vicinity until after the harvest in late spring, spending the sum m er in cooler elevations where fodder for flocks m atured later in the season. Grand nomads w ould plant grains and return to them only at harvest time. Tribes from around Laghouat and Ouargla w ould sum m er in the western Tell in the Sersou or near Tiaret. Tribes from Touggourt and Biskra w ould travel to the high plains o f Constantine. Their livelihood depended upon the milk, w ool and wool products, hides, and meats supplied by their flocks and herds, in addition to the dates and vegetables from oases they frequented o r con­ trolled. While the exchanges and interaction am ong nomadic tribes often took place on a complementary and amicable basis, there were num erous occasions o f conflict over access to pasture, water, crops, and animals, and the surplus o f subject groupings. The lands occupied by nomads and seminomads accounted for about one-third o f the area o f the Algerian Tell. While certain o f those lands were considered beylik or governm ent domain, the majority fell under the juridical category know n as carsh in the east and center and as sabiqa in the west. U nder Islamic law as interpreted in Algeria, the ultimate ownership o f such lands rested in the M uslim com m unity as personified by the state, but m ore im por­ tant than the theoretical right o f ownership were the right o f occupation and cultivation, the right o f usufruct, and the right to transm it to male heirs, all o f which were guaranteed to the tribesmen. A m ong seminomads, individual families enjoyed the right o f usufruct and succession over lands they culti­ vated, while the grazing lands were considered the com m on property o f the tribe or clan. Even the grazing lands, however, were identified w ith specific tribal fractions.

M ARABOUTISM

AND

THE

BROTHERHOODS

Reference has already been made to the im portant function o f religion in providing a conceptual and normative framework for Algerian society. U n -

28

MODERN ALGERIA

derpinning that fram ew ork institutionally, helping to bridge the gaps between different life styles and am ong competing clan and tribal units, were the tariqas and the marabouts. O ne o f the m ost representative features o f M aghribi Islam was the cult o f saints, or maraboutism. These cults celebrated the lives, deeds, and pow ers o f holy men and occasionally wom en, some o f whose followings were narrow ly localized while others were famous throughout the country. Saints o f w hatever category were believed to be conduits and repositories o f baraka, divine grace, which they in turn could share w ith their followers. Their sanctuaries, qubbas, dotted the hilltops and road junctions o f O ttom an Algeria, and became objects o f pilgrimage where believers tried through prayer, offer­ ing, and ritual to appropriate a part o f the baraka w ith which the site was suffused. The term m arabout (English transliteration murabit) originally signi­ fied a holy man resident in a fortified m ountain o r desert hermitage; but over tim e in popular idiom its meaning expanded to include a living saint, a saint’s remains, the qubba that sheltered his tom b, the successor o f the saint, and sometimes even objects, trees, or animals associated w ith the holy site. The status o f m arabout could be achieved by personal merit, by lineal descent, or by nom ination o f a predecessor, so that m araboutism was in a state o f per­ petual renewal and proliferation. Anthropologists have suggested that m araboutism , w ith its geographic and genealogical specificity and its media­ tory functions, was the religious counterpart o f the ordered anarchy o f seg­ m entary tribal society.6 Related to m araboutism, but m ore systematic theologically and m ore widely spread geographically, were the tariqas, or brotherhoods, mystical sufi orders which had attracted increasing num bers o f adherents from the high M iddle Ages onw ard. Sufism offered Muslims an alternative or supplemen­ tary path to salvation which emphasized the intuitive, the affective, and the mystical as contrasted w ith the ritualism and legalism o f Sunni orthodoxy. Each order prescribed a separate road to salvation composed o f its ow n initiation requirements, mysteries, and physical and devotional requirements. While the tariqas were not generally considered heretical, the tension between their shaykhs and followers on the one hand and the orthodox culama’ on the other was endemic. This tension reflects not only a com petition for the loyalties and resources o f believers but also some basic differences between urban and rural culture as well as the political and economic interests o f each. While the interpenetration o f the urban and the rural was such that both styles o f Islam could be found in both places, the Islam o f the great city mosques, the scholars, and the jurists was essentially a reflection o f literate culture physical­ ly, economically, and politically dependent upon the urban milieu. T he Islam o f the marabouts and the shaykhs, relying upon signs and symbols—holy and marvelous men, places, things, deeds, events—clearly reflected a rural, less literate, dispersed and often mobile culture. Early M iddle Eastern sufism had represented an intensely personal search for the Divine Reality and may have survived the hostility o f official Islam 6. Written Arabic o f the period does not use the term murabit, but either wali (plural, awliya) or salih (plural salihun).

O ttom an Algeria and Its Legacy

29

precisely because its followers w ithdrew from the w orld m ore than they tried to change it. M aghribi sufism, however, while continuing to provide mystical answers to the persona] quest, was almost always activist to some degree, involving itself intimately in major social and political issues. The tariqas established chains o f zawiyas which served as monasteries, schools, hostelries, shrines, and sometimes as centres for revolt. M arabouts, shaykhs, and the representatives o f shaykhs often stood above the ordered anarchy o f seg­ mented tribalism, acting as arbiters, mediators, mentors, and guarantors o f access to resources shared by different groups. They mediated between com­ munities and the holders o f political power, and when such mediation proved unavailing, the tariqas in particular became the vehicles through which pop­ ular resistance to that political pow er was channelled. A t the same time, the existence o f m ore than one order in a region or com m unity could serve to create societal divisions or, m ore frequently, to give expression to divisions already existing. A m ong the m ost im portant brotherhoods in the late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries were the Qadiriyya, named after cAbd al Q adir al Jilani, one o f the m ost revered o f Islamic saints, w ho died in Baghdad in 1166. It centered mainly in O ran Province but established some branches in the other beyliks (provinces) as well. Especially influential during this era were three new er orders, whose founding was inspired by the neo-Sufi m ovem ent that progressed w estw ard from Islamic South Asia during the eighteenth century and was transm itted to the far West through the mediation o f M aghribi pilgrims and scholars in the Haram ayn and Cairo. These orders included: the Darqawa, founded by Sidi M awlay al cArabi al Darqawi o f Fez, whose Algerian strongholds were in the Ouarsenis mountains and the southern regions o f central Algeria; the Tijaniyya, founded by Ahmad al Tijani from southw estern Algeria, which spread internally as far as southeastern Algeria and widely into M orocco and West Africa as well; the Rahmaniyya, founded by M uham m ad ibn cAbd al-Rahman al-Azhari al Q ubrayn, a Kabyle from the Djurdjura mountains w ho had devoted years o f study at al-Azhar in Cairo and w hose m ovem ent spread throughout eastern and southeastern Algeria and into the Jarid o f Tunisia.

THE

ECONOMY

Some wealth in O ttom an Algeria was generated by manufacturing; m ore was generated by international trade and privateering; but the m ost came from agriculture. The tw in bases o f Algerian agriculture were grains and stock raising. Wheat and barley w ere grow n mostly through dry farming techniques in the valleys and on the hillsides o f the northern Tell w ithin the 400 millimeter isohyet. Stock raising, whose major products were sheep, goats, and camels, took place in many o f these same regions but extended also to the High Plains, the Pre-Sahara, and the Sahara.

30

MODERN ALGERIA

Tools and techniques o f grain cultivation appear not to have been im ­ proved for centuries, some implements seeming strikingly similar to those employed in Roman times. Seed was planted whenever in O ctober, N ovem ­ ber, or December rainfall had softened the soil sufficiently for plowing; harvest took place between late April and early June. Plowing was very shallow, fields were planted only in alternate years, and average yields were very low. B ut average had little meaning in a land where unpredictability o f rainfall, insect attacks, and political and intertribal turm oil caused yields to fluctuate enorm ously from one year to the next. O ne overview o f the grain sector suggests that in a typical six-year period cultivators could count on one good harvest, tw o fair ones, one or tw o poor ones, and one or tw o total failures. When European markets for Algerian grain were disrupted as a result o f the Napoleonic wars and their aftermath, prices o f grain fell so dramatically that considerable grain grow ing land—near ports like Bone, Arzew, Miliana— was turned back to pasture. A lthough sedentaries grew vegetables and variable quantities o f grain and also raised some sheep and goats, their principal contribution to the market was fruit. The urban-oriented farms and latifundia produced a variety o f them , the oasis farmers supplied dates, and the Kabyles and other mountaineers sold figs and olives. Along w ith grains and meat, olives were staples o f the Algerian diet, not only as fruit but m ore im portantly as the chief source o f cooking oil. They were also a major com ponent o f lubricants, cosmetics, lamp fuel, and related products. Crafts were well developed and sufficiently diversified in the m ajor cities to provide m ost o f the manufactured products required by the urban pop­ ulations. They do not seem to have been marketed in significant quantity in M orocco, Tunisia, or overseas, however. N or was there much internal market beyond the tow ns. Demand in the countryside was limited by the high level o f rents and taxes extracted from the rural surplus by the city elites and by a predisposition o f rural populations to minimize contact w ith the tow ns, whose ways they had come over the generations to know and to fear. A more im portant role o f the Algerian cities was in intraregional and international exchanges, which, at least since the Middle Ages, had provided the key to their economic prosperity and the viability o f their political systems. Im portant trading networks linked Mascara and O ran via Tlemcen w ith Fez. M uch o f Constantine’s economy depended upon trade w ith Tunisia. Across the northern Sahara, oasis and Pre-Saharan tribes throve on the commerce and travel connecting Fez, Marrakech, and Meknes w ith southern Tunisia, T ripo­ li, and the Arab East. O f considerably greater economic importance were the north-south link­ ages—across the Sahara by various routes to the Sudan and across the M editerranean to Southern Europe. In the sixteenth century, O ttom an forces had penetrated the Sahara as far as the oases o f Touggourt and O uargla in an apparent effort to capture a share o f the trade in slaves, gold, ivory, and ostrich feathers, which had enriched such centers since the early Middle Ages. This

O ttom an Algeria and Its Legacy

31

initiative and others like it enjoyed only tem porary success, and the Turks w ithdrew northw ard w ithout establishing a permanent presence astride the caravan trails. The regime continued to profit, however, from duties w hen such goods arrived at the portal cities o f the Pre-Sahara and the Tell. From the seventeenth century onw ard, Saharan trade through Algerian territory de­ clined steadily in reaction to European success in attracting this trade to the Atlantic, from whence cargoes could be transported by ship m ore cheaply to w orld markets. By the early nineteenth century, no cargoes from the Sudan passed through Constantine and only a trickle flowed along the m ore westerly trails. D uring the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, pashas and deys paid far m ore attention to privateering w ith its spectacular returns than they did to routine maritim e commerce. W ithin the context o f the Franco-O ttom an alliance against the Hapsburgs, a Marseille merchant had in 1520 been granted a coral-fishing and trading concession on the coast o f the Constantinois. This concession, added to and expanded over the years, gave French merchants a dom inant share o f the overseas trade o f eastern Algeria. As tim e w ent on, D utch, British and eventually Swedish and Spanish merchants also w on con­ cessions. While the deys received periodic payments for these concessions and surer access to tariff revenues, overseas trade was being progressively m ono­ polized by foreigners. When privateering declined by the eighteenth century, the Regency found itself in a dangerously vulnerable position w ith regard to the international exchanges upon which im portant sectors o f the economy as well as the solvency o f the regime depended. From a macroeconomic standpoint it is dear that a largely fragmented market was the counterpart o f a segmented social order. The 95 percent o f Algerians w ho lived in the countryside consumed m ost o f w hat they produced and produced m ost o f w hat they consumed. Yet, few segments enjoyed total economic independence, and for m ost some exchanges were not only bene­ ficial but necessary. For this reason, an economic system that was largely communal and compartmentalized displayed unmistakable aspects o f a genuine market. Grand nomads from the deserts brought northw ard w ith them in late spring animals, skins, and wool, as well as dates and other oasis products. O n their southw ard return they carried grains produced by seminomads; olives, oil, and figs supplied by sedentaries; and metal products— tools, pots and pans, weapons—manufactured in o r im ported by the cities. Peasants, for their part, needed the same metal products and usually were deficient in grains, leather, and wool. The city consumed all o f these products and more. If a “national” m arket clearly existed, however, that market was partial, fragile, and beset by difficulties. Problems included the prim itive condition o f roads and trails. There were no carriage roads beyond the suburbs and fields directly controlled by the cities; it took eight or nine days by pack train to travel from Algiers to either Constantine or O ran. O ther hindrances to trade arose from the endemic hostility which made it difficult for some groups to

32

M ODERN ALGERIA

interact economically or socially w ith others. Finally, the governm ent itself, realizing that access to markets was absolutely essential to the livelihoods o f m any o f its subjects, used the market tow ns and other points o f exchange as locations at which to extract taxes and political concessions. Such intervention by governm ent naturally had a depressing effect upon whatever tendencies existed for further expansion o f the economy.

GOVERNMENT

AND

SOCIETY

If the Regency o f Algiers was sovereign in a formal sense over a large territory, the kind o f rule it exercised differed markedly from one part o f the country to another and from one population to the next. By the seventeenth century, the Regency had created the three territorial subdivisions know n as beyliks, which m et w ith varying degrees o f success in projecting the authority o f the dey and the divan over the interior o f the country. These subdivisions were the Beylik o f the East, w ith its capital at Constantine; the Beylik o f the West, w hose capital was Mascara until the Spanish evacuation o f O ran in 1792; and the Beylik o f Titteri in the center, whose capital was Médéa. While the com m on translation o f the term beylik is “province,” there are grounds for considering “protectorate” a more appropriate rendering because o f the di­ vergent patterns o f institutional development and the degree o f autonom y they frequently enjoyed. In every case, the highest official was the bey, increasingly chosen from one o f the region’s leading families, w ho frequently attem pted and occasionally succeeded in keeping the office in their families for consider­ able periods. A truly hereditary succession never emerged in any beylik, however. Each o f the beyliks was subdivided into smaller units called watans, a term which here could be translated either as district or as canton depending upon the degree o f internal autonom y exercised there. Watans could be defined solely by territory, could be composed o f several tribes or other nonrelated populations, or could be the territory o f a single tribe. The head o f the watan was a qa’id, w ho was almost invariably a local tribal shaykh in the case o f a canton occupied by a single tribe, the head o f a competing clan or tribe if the bey or dey found him self needing to bargain to maintain his authority, or an official external to the d istria when heterogeneous populations needed no special consideration. The largest and richest o f the beyliks was the Beylik o f the East. Its greater wealth seems related to the fa a that a higher percentage o f its territory was devoted to intensive agriculture, and it was able to exploit to its advantage both a brisk Saharan trade and profitable exchanges w ith nearby Tunisia. Considerable M editerranean commerce passed through ports such as La Calle, Bône, and Djidjelli in sometimes successful attempts to avoid the customs exactions o f the central governm ent.

Ot*oman A lgeria and Its Legacy

33

W ith its w ide expanses o f plains and valleys, the Beylik o f the West was prim arily a land o f nomads and seminomads. T he prevalence o f nom adism was conditioned not only by geography but also by political and military considerations. Because o f the ongoing hostility o f Sharifian M orocco to its O ttom an neighbors and the existence at O ran through m ost o f the period o f a Spanish presence capable o f inciting tribes against Turkish rule, conflict was endemic and many tribes made the military their prim ary vocation. The Beylik o f Titteri, smallest o f the provinces, was the m ost consistently subordinate to the dey and the divan and therefore corresponded m ore to authentic provincial status than its tw o larger neighbors. This dependency related not only to Titteri*s geographic proxim ity to Algiers but also to the fact that a num ber o f its tribes and lands fell under direct authority o f the khujat al khil or other officials o f the central government. Its geographical position precluded unm onitored access to the Mediterranean, while a powerful family w ho were both tribal aristocrats and marabouts dominated the w hole south independently o f Médéa. A small territory close to Algiers was not assigned to any beylik but as D ar al-Sultan was administered directly by the central governm ent. D ar al-Sultan included the four cities o f Algiers, Blida, Koléa, and Tipasa, as well as the Sahel o f Algiers and a large portion o f the Mitidja Valley, the agricultural jew el o f the Regency. G overnm ent officials and wealthy families from Algiers drew income from many o f the M itidja’s and Sahel’s estates o r had country resi­ dences there. The fact that formal administrative arrangements existed for the gov­ ernance o f the whole o f Algeria should not obscure the fact, suggested earlier, that the actual pow er o f the dey over the Regency’s diverse lands and peoples varied enormously. For a sizeable m inority o f Algeria’s population, the dey was ruler in a direct sense. For others he was suzerain; for others, he was ally; and for still others, he was irrelevant. For any o f these four categories o f peoples, the dey under certain circumstances could also become an adversary. O ne m odel o f political organization suggests that the Algerian state can be analyzed in term s o f three concentric circles. T he heart o f the first circle consists o f the city from which political and military pow er traditionally emanate and tow ard which flows the surplus extracted from the countryside. The periphery o f the first circle is composed o f tax-exem pt makhzan tribes w ho help to protect the urban core, w ho collect taxes from other populations, and w ho exercise military control either alone or as auxiliaries o f the central armies. Surrounding this inner circle o f privileged urban and rural peoples— akl al makhzan (governm ent people)— is a second circle inhabited by taxpaying tribes and nontribal sedentaries. These are called the rayai, o r subjects. Finally, at the outer circle reside the dissident or usually dissident tribes w ho refuse to subm it and refuse to pay taxes. While there is no exact type w ithin each circle to which all elements unerringly correspond, the model approximately renders the pow er relationships that characterized eighteenth- and early nineteenthcentury society. The system was composed, according to Elbaki Hermassi, o f

34

M ODERN ALGERIA

"people w ho raise taxes, those w ho subm it to exploitation, and those w ho refuse it.”78Louis Rinn, the nineteenth-century French Arabist, recorded that Algerians rem em bered the society o f the Turkish period as consisting o f mangeurs and mangés.9 As certified by the etym ology o f m any languages, cities, w ith their ability to concentrate surplus and provide for a high degree o f division o f labor, have always lain at the heart o f civilized cultures. N ow here is the political pre­ eminence o f the urban more clearly manifested than in N orth Africa. T he names o f ancient and medieval N orth African states were taken from peoples, families, or movements: Mauritania, Ifriqya, Rustamids, Hafsids, M urabitun. By contrast, the names o f all the m odem N orth African states, w ith the exception o f M orocco, were identical to the names o f their capital cities: Tarabulus, Tunis, al-Jaza’ir. Equivalents o f Tripolitania, Tunisia, and Algeria do not exist in Arabic.9 Algiers began to achieve naval and economic significance in the eleventh century w hen it was realized that four rocky islets immediately o ff the coast offered protection from dangerous north winds, a situation which while far from ideal was superior to that afforded by other harbors o f the central M aghrib coast. After Khayr al-Din built a jetty 200 yards long and 80 feet wide linking the four islets to the mainland, the harbor acquired much greater protection from those winds. Some tim e later, when a mole to the southeast was completed, Algiers became the undisputed queen o f Algerian maritim e cities. W ith their superior wealth, political power, and elaborate life styles, the capital’s M oorish, renegade, and Turkish elites considered themselves socially and culturally superior to the Arab and Berber folk o f the hinterland. Ironical­ ly, however, for all o f its military, naval, and commercial preeminence, Algiers never achieved the cultural status o f neighboring capitals such as Tunis o r Fez or even o f the Algerian provincial centers o f Tlemcen and Constantine. Its functions were largely military and material, and there is little evidence that the Algerines ever exerted serious effort to transform their tow n into a major cultural center. The m ajority o f the Regency’s Turkish troops w ere stationed either in Algiers or surrounding D ar al-Sultan. Unless w ar or internal peacekeeping problems dictated otherwise, their main military duties were spring and fall campaigns called mahallas through the countryside for the purpose o f "show ­ ing the flag” o f the dey and extracting taxes from rayat. The Janissaries maintained a small num ber o f garrisons (nubas) at widely scattered strategic forts and crossroads. The southernm ost nouba in the Regency, located at Biskra on the edge o f the Pre-Sahara, held only sixty troops in the early 7. Elbalci Hermassi, Leadership and National Development in North Africa, p. 9. 8. Louis Rinn, “Le royaume d'Alger sous le dernier dey,” Revue Africaine (1897): 124. Rinn, of course, had every interest in emphasizing societal divisions. 9. Morocco, whose official Arabic name is mamlakatu 7 maghrib, Kingdom o f the West, is the exception, presumably because of the competition of Marrakech, Fez, and Meknès for dominion. It is at least arguable that the fact that Fez was never dominated by foreign military elites had something to do with the distinction.

O ttom an A lgeria and Its Legacy

35

nineteenth century, while the total Turkish military presence in the Province o f Constantine during the same period was about 400. In order to rule o r maintain m inim um control w ith so few troops, the Turks depended upon auxiliaries. The auxiliaries were the Kouloughlis, the Makhzan tribes, and occasionally Kabyle mercenaries. As sons o f Turkish fathers, Kouloughlis naturally shared the paternal sense o f superiority and desired to continue in the privilege to which they had been b o m and bequeath it to their ow n children. Early in the seventeenth century, the Kouloughlis were playing increasingly im portant roles in political and military affairs, but they found their way blocked by new generations o f recruits from Turkey. By 1629, in alliance w ith their maternal relatives, they launched a fierce revolt against the system. B ut after four years o f bloody struggle, the pure Turks defeated them and managed ever afterward to keep Kouloughlis in subordinate auxiliary roles between themselves and the Arab and Berber majority. Speculation about the failure o f the Kouloughlis to w in full membership in the ruling establishment centers both around the internal dynamics o f the constantly renewed ojaq, whose members resented com peting for limited prom otion possibilities w ith “inferior” half castes, and, alternative­ ly, upon the reluctance o f the ojaq to share scarce financial resources w ith the sons o f their elders. Proud and distinctive appearing, Kouloughlis often pretended to speak only Turkish and insisted on worshipping in Hanafi mosques w ith men o f their ow n ethnic background. In times o f emergency they were called upon to supplem ent the forces o f the ojaq. In normal times they garrisoned a num ber o f provincial tow ns and fortresses, assuring the principal defense o f Tlemccn, M ostaganem, Chendah, Mazouna, and other tow ns o f the Beylik o f the West. They were the majority o f the garrison at Médéa in Titteri as well as o f those at Blida and Koléa in D ar al-Sultan. While the military contribution o f Kouloughlis in the Beylik o f Constantine is more difficult to document, it is well know n that the intermarriage there o f Turks w ith families o f local notables and tribal aristocrats, jawad, served to create mixed blood families o f privilege and great pow er, w ho, except for the last years o f the Regency, generally served as agents o f the status quo. T hough the Kouloughlis constitute one im portant pillar o f Turkish power, their limited numbers and their distance from the internal dynamics o f much o f Algerian society compelled the central governm ent to rely even more upon the cooperation o f makhzan tribes. In m ost o f the literature, makhzan tribes are described as those w ho either are relieved o f tax liabilities or enjoy use o f beylical lands, or both, in exchange for policing and extracting taxes from rayat and for serving when needed as auxiliaries in the Turkish armies. While this description fits the average tribe, it is clear that makhzan tribes functioned under a great variety o f arrangements, some more favorable then others. Certain tribes had only to collect taxes and rents, others had to fight, and still others did both. Some supplied their ow n arms and equipment; others re­ ceived them from the state. Some received free use o f lands w ithout rem it­ tances o f any kind; others received lesser benefits.

36

MODERN ALGERIA

M akhzan tribes were constituted in tw o ways. T he Douafrs and Zmalas in the Beylik o f the West composed the so-called makhzan al-kabir, a highly integrated body o f forces created out o f diverse tribal elements and based upon rich beylik lands near Mascara. O ther makhzan populations, how ever, w ere preexisting tribes selected by the beylik o r the divan for their privileged role. There were m any such individual makhzan tribes in Titteri but fewer in D ar al-Sultan, where direct Turkish rule was m ore direct. In the Beylik o f C on­ stantine, the system had been widespread early in the eighteenth century, but it became rare as the authority o f the beys was consolidated and as the beylical governm ent was able to let out vast tracts o f the public dom ain to Arab or Kabyle families in return for individual com m itm ents to military service. For the w hole o f Algeria, nineteenth-century French studies identify 126 tribes as makhzan, controlling directly 3,400,000 hectares or nearly one-fourth o f the land surface o f the Tell. U pon the rayat fell the burden o f funding m ost o f the institutions that assured provincial governance and control as well as a grow ing share o f the revenues o f the central governm ent itself. There were several categories o f rayat. First were the khamamisa and the m inority o f sedentary freeholders w ho could not avoid taxes. M ore num erous were the inhabitants o ( cazl lands, which were state properties let to tribes in return for paym ent o f a special tax know n as hukr. M ost cazl lands, particularly prevalent around Constantine, had apparently been confiscated in the past as punishm ent for revolt and subsequently farmed out to tribal or non tribal populations under the new and onerous arrangements. Finally there were the rayat tribes w ho occupied their ow n lands, carsh, but were liable to a range o f payments to the beylik, to surrounding makhzan tribes, or to both. The 104 rayat tribes identified by French officers occupied about 5,000,000 hectares or 35 percent o f the Tell. The status o f rayat tribes, like that o f their makhzan cousins, varied widely. M ost, but not all, were seminomads. Some were well treated, either because o f their traditionally helpful roles, or because o f connections w ith influential tribes, or because o f geographic isolation. M ost, however, were subjected to levels o f exploitation which left them in perennial economic jeopardy. O f the 2,381,741 square kilometers o f territory that comprise contem po­ rary Algeria, only about 140,000 lie in the Tell. All o f the Sahara and m ost o f the Pre-Sahara lay outside the Algeria o f the O ttom ans. A round 1800, the Turks could claim direct or indirect rule over about 80,000 square kilometers o f the Tell. T he rest o f the Tell, and the Pre-Sahara were the homelands o f the third circle o f populations w ho usually managed to stay beyond the fiscal and military reach o f the Regency system but w ho could never totally ignore its presence either. These peoples included between eighty and ninety tribes or confederations in the Tell and the nearer Sahara w ho could be classified either as vassals or as allies o f the O ttom an regime. A m ongst such groups were the Awlad Sidi Shaykh, powerful in southwestern O ran, the hereditary shaykhs o f the Djebel A m our, the influential Awlad M ukhtar o f Titteri, the M uqranis o f Medjana, the Benhabylès o f Djidjelli, and powerful sedentary federations in

37

O ttom an A lgeria and Its Legacy

the Grand Kabylia. Each allied or vassal group was tied by its ow n historically derived arrangem ents to the central pow er in patterns susceptible o f as many nuances as existed in Europe in the Middle Ages. As observed earlier, the farthest south Turkish garrison in the nineteenth century was in Biskra at the base o f the Aurès. The makhzan system, too, was confined to the Tell. Beyond the Saharan Atlas resided a few allied tribes, but this region was primarily the domain o f the independents, over w hom the Regency maneuvered to maintain as much influence as possible and to prevent the emergence o f anti-Turkish combinations. T he m ost powerful card in the Turkish deck was their control o f access to Tellian m arket tow ns, which provided the locus for the levying o f duties and a lever for the extraction o f political concessions. By such controls Turks were able to maintain influence over developm ents in nearer oases such as Touggourt, Laghouat, and G hardaia. W hen economic pressures were insufficient, diplomatic maneuver and play upon internal or regional divisions could be effective. Recourse to mili­ tary coercion o r its threat could also produce results. The farther one travelled southw ard, the m ore episodic Turkish military penetrations became, but they were sufficiently effective over a wide enough zone to engender a degree o f respect for the pow er o f the north, and at the very least to prevent for generations combinations o f tribes capable o f seriously threatening the Regen­ cy system. While Turkish influence in the east extended several hundred kilometers into the desert, its penetration in the west was far m ore limited. In neither region did Turkish pow er in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries reach as far as the major caravan crossroads o f cAyn Salah o r Ghadamès or any o f the territories beyond, so that w hat remained o f the once lucrative Saharan trade was beyond their grasp.10

THE

MODE

AND

RELATIONS

OF

PRODUCTION

A ttem pts to identify the dom inant mode o f production in O ttom an Alge­ ria are complicated by the inadequacy o f research into precapitalist formations in general and into non-European precapitalist formations in particular. They are also made m ore difficult by the scarcity o f reliable data on O ttom an Algeria, by the extraordinary geographical and communal diversity o f the country, and by the question o f the transferability from one setting to the next o f the fragmentary hard data that does exist. It is clear that the level o f economic productivity in early nineteenthcentury Algeria was extremely low, a situation which in turn was related to lag in technological development, inadequacy o f market arrangements, and coun10. In the 1890s, Louis Rinn, assuming that the 480,000 square kilometers then claimed by France corresponded to the land surface of the Regency of Algiers, concluded that the Regency had contained some 200 independent tribes; but since the Regency system even in its most diffuse manifestations never extended beyond a fourth of that territory, it is clear that at least half o f these independent tribes cannot be viewed as Algerian at the time.

38

MODERN ALGERIA

terproductive fiscal policies. M ost communities tended tow ard autarchy even though few if any actually achieved it. O ne school o f thought holds that below a certain level o f productivity, extraction o f significant surplus from the peasantry becomes virtually impossi­ ble and, therefore, that significant social stratification fails to appear w ithin m ost Algerian communities. While economic dom ination o f individuals by other individuals exists, it is far from a universal or even m ajority pattern. M ost genuine exploitation is the exploitation o f one group by another rather than that o f a village com m unity by a lord. N o r is the central governm ent, which also attem pts to extract surplus, representative o f class interests, because its agents, not being hereditary, do not constitute a true social class. This being the case, the dom inant mode m ust be considered profoundly archaic and not clearly identifiable w ith any o f the five “classic” modes o f production.11 A nother school, observing the same data, concludes that Algeria presents a clear pattern o f m ovem ent away from communal tow ard feudal relationships. This school sees the progressive emergence o f an intricately layered extractive system pressing upon the basic communal framework, which is becoming m ore hereditary and m ore independent o f the central governm ent and w hose progressive entrenchm ent makes it increasingly difficult for the central gov­ ernm ent to com m and the resources it needs to function effectively.1112 Elements o f the same school, com ing from a different direction, hold that observers have been blinded by the apparent egalitarianism o f nomadic and village tribalism to the emergence o f real distinctions in wealth and property w ithin the consanguineous units themselves, which in turn establishes the pattern o f class relationships at the w ider levels as well. While the social relationships o f earlier models o f feudal society were defined by the ability to appropriate ground rents, the Algerian model o f relationships emphasizes fiscal extraction, and the reenforcement o f the privileged positions o f certain aristocracies gained through moderate economic advantage by their assumption o f public military and fiscal roles. This variant o f feudalism, which can also be seen in the Byzantine, Turkish, and Mashriqi Arab experiences, has been qualified as “com m and feudalism.” 13 A third mode o f production is the commercial tributary m ode identified by Samir Amin. While the communal systems in place did not absolutely prevent social differentiation, the available surplus was limited to the extent that lasting and obvious class distinctions were difficult to obtain w ithout access to outside surplus. This outside surplus was supplied by the profit o f regional and international trade, from which the majority o f the aristocracies benefited. A variant o f the commercial tributary mode is the military democracy, also 11. For a summary o f this school of thought, sec Lucette Valensi, On the Eve o f Colonialism: North Africa Before the French Conquest, pp. 13-34; also in Sur leftodalisme (Paris: Editions sociales, 1971), pp. 223-32. 12. See, for instance, André Prenant, in Yves Lacoste, André Nouschi, and André Prenant, L*Algérie. Passé et présent, pp. 146-50. 13. See, for instance, René Gallissot, VAlgérie précoloniale. Classes sociales en système précapitaliste. Mise en question du mode de production ftodal (Paris: 1968), passim.

O ttom an Algeria and Its Legacy

39

dependent upon profits o f long-distance trade, which is the “hinge between the last classless society and the first class society.”14 Finally, a m inority o f scholars w ould continue to hold, as did M arx, that the dom inant Algerian mode o f production was Asiatic and that direct extrac­ tion o f agricultural surplus by governm ent had prevented the emergence o f authentic Algerian classes. While under other circumstances, the agents o f governm ent, w ho extracted these resources over centuries, m ight have been expected to make that privilege hereditary and become a true social class, the structure o f the ojaq and its appendages prevented such evolution am ongst the Turks and tended to discourage it am ongst their Algerian auxiliaries. A variant interpretation ascribes an increasing role in that extraction to the overseas im pact o f the activities o f European bourgeoisies.15 It is evident that no consensus has yet emerged regarding the mode o f production in late O ttom an Algeria. It is perhaps wise to avoid attaching a single label to the extremely complex Algerian socioeconomic formation. In fact, it was characterized by no clearly dom inant m ode o f production but, rather, by a multiplicity o f military democracies and prim itive communities. These were undergoing varying pressures from a quasi-Asiatic state and long-term influences from European commercial capitalism, which combined were in the process o f modifying in varying ways and to varying degrees some o f their original structures. The mode and relations o f production were in full evolution, w ith different communities at different points in that evolution.

TH E CRISIS OF NINETEENTH

THE EARLY CENTURY

D uring the last decades o f the eighteenth century, the deys o f Algiers, w orking through a series o f increasingly effective beys in both the East and the West, succeeded in extending their governm ent’s authority to the greatest limits it w ould reach. The beys o f Constantine, w ho issued from marital unions between Turks and Algerian jaw ad, utilized a judicious combination o f family politics and strong military presence to extend the direct authority o f the state over w ider and w ider areas. While the Kabylia was never brought under perm anent submission, the independent mountaineers’ ability to spread sedition to the surrounding valleys was limited by the energetic activity o f the Dey M uham m ad ibn cU thm an (1766-91) w ho established a series o f forts in the valley o f the Sebaou and skillfully played upon the internal rivalries o f tribal segments. In the Beylik o f the West, subjugation o f some o f the m ost powerful tribes was begun at mid-century under cU thm an Bey and continued under M uham m ad al-Kabir Bey between 1780 and 1797. 14. Yves Lacoste, as quoted in Abdelhamid Merad Boudia, La formation sociale algérienne pré­ coloniale, p. 289. This work contains a lucid overview and analysis of the debate over the precolonial mode o f production in Algeria. 15. Abdelkader Djeghloul, “La formation sociale algérienne 1 la veille de la colonisation, " La Pensée 185 (February 1976): 61-81.

40

MODERN ALGERIA

W ith startling suddenness, however, the Regency, in the first years o f the nineteenth century, plunged into a prolonged period o f violent crisis, which dragged the political order to the brink o f collapse. The multifaceted crisis shook the institutions o f central governm ent, called into question the pre­ rogatives and stability o f the beyliks, and saw massive ongoing revolt in the countryside spearheaded by key tribal elites and especially by the religious brotherhoods. While specific institutional inadequacies and personality clashes can be adduced for many o f the conflicts, the leitm otif o f the whole period o f disorder is a profound economic and fiscal crisis caused m ostly by the commercial dislocations produced by the Napoleonic wars. France had always been O tto ­ m an Algeria’s principal European trading partner, but this trade was disrupted by the break in relations upon Bonaparte’s 1798 invasion o f O ttom an Egypt. Following this the extension o f the continental blockade and Britain’s counter­ blockade cut o ff the regency from its traditional customers in Livorno, M ar­ seille, and Spain. The English, w ho after Trafalgar reaffirmed their mastery o f the seas, acquired in 1806 the concessions long held by the French Com pagnie d ’Afrique, but this m onopoly, which the English held until 1816, in no wise compensated for the loss o f trade and customs revenues flowing from the earlier arrangements. In the meantime, Napoleonic Europe was discovering substitute suppliers—particularly Russia for grains—which proved so com­ mercially attractive that even after the Congress o f Vienna in 1815, Algeria was unable to w in back m ore than a fraction o f its European markets. In the meantime, European navies, particularly the British and the D utch, were taking such a toll o f the remnants o f the Algerian fleet that a return to broad-scale privateering was clearly impractical even though dreamers in Algiers continued to talk as though it were. Since the financial margin that kept the Algerian political system viable was supplied by international trade, its precipitous decline had repercussions throughout the country. Elite elements dependent upon fiscal extraction found themselves increasingly competing w ith each other rather than cooperating in maintaining the system. The dey and the divan, w ho had been able to tolerate and even benefit from the enhanced pow er and effectiveness o f the beys in Constantine and O ran, began to question their grow ing autonom y as the beyliks’ share o f revenues grew relative to their ow n. Between 1790 and 1825, eight beys were removed from office and sixteen were executed. So great was the tum ult in the Constantinois that seventeen beys succeeded each other in the thirty years between 17% and 1826. The fiscal crisis weighed m ost heavily, o f course, upon the tribal pop­ ulations. B ut it was the leaders o f the tariqas, arbiters o f morality w ith access to vast netw orks o f followers am ongst those populations, w ho controlled the most effective instrum ent for mobilizing collective action against the m ount­ ing burden. In the western regions the harsh measures em ployed to subjugate tribes and the heavy indemnities imposed to punish them had led to wide­

O ttom an Algeria and Its Legacy

41

spread alienation for which the shaykhs o f the Darqawa order became the principal spokesmen. Resentment and revolt simmered for years. Finally, in 1805, cA bd al-Q adir al Sharif, head o f the order in western Algeria, succeeded in mobilizing the w hole o f O ran Province and parts o f the T itteri against Turkish rule. In time m ost o f the countryside fell to them, they w on over the key tow n o f Mascara, penned up the Kouloughli garrison in the citadel o f Tlemcen, and laid siege to O ran. Between 1810 and 1815, w ith the w est still o u t o f control, Darqawa leaders in eastern and central Algeria succeeded in raising massive Kabyle revolts in the Babors behind Djidjelli, in the Djurdjura, and in the Wadi Djer. When the Darqawa-inspired revolts began to flag, the banner was picked up in the 1820s by M uham m ad al-Kabir, leader o f the new ly founded Tijaniyya tariqa. The heart o f the Tijani coalition was an alliance between tribal followers o f the order and the tribe o f the Banu Hashim , w hich was affiliated w ith the Qadiriyya order and to which the A m ir cAbd al Q adir, future leader o f resistance to the French, belonged. T he harm which fiscal oppression caused to the deys’ standing was ex­ acerbated by their increasing reliance upon the Livorno Jewish families Bushnaq and Bakri to assure commercial relationships w ith Europe. In 1805, N ephtali Bushnaq, a wealthy merchant w ho had great influence on M ustafa Dey (1798-1805) was murdered by a Janissary. After some culama’ signalled approval o f the act, Turks and other elements o f the Algerine population w ent on a rampage that took the lives o f about 200Jew s and led directly to a revolt o f the ojaq which m urdered Mustafa and his Treasurer and acclaimed a form er M aster o f Cavalry, Ahmad, as dey. The ensuing decade witnessed a return to the kind o f political turm oil reminiscent o f the seventeenth century. T he ojaq com peted w ith elements o f the divan in propelling a succession o f candidates to the highest office in search o f one w ho could please all o f the factions and assure fiscal stability. Including Mustafa, seven deys occupied the Janina palace on the Algiers w aterfront in eleven years and all but the last met violent ends. Ali Khodja Dey, an obscure but literate Janissary nom inated in 1816, drew appropriate conclusions from the fates o f his immediate predecessors and determ ined to break the hold o f the ojaq upon the governm ent. Supported by contingents o f Kouloughlis and Kabyles, the new dey deserted the Janina Palace for the protection o f the Qasba fortress, after having secretly transferred there the contents o f the state treasury. Alarmed at w hat was happening and refusing cAli Khodja’s sum m ons to allegiance, the garrison rose in revolt, supported by the mahalla o f Constantine and an urban m ob. Thanks to effective use o f artillery from the forts, 1,700 rebels died in cAli’s successful repression; a significant num ber o f the survivors were repatriated to Turkey. While cAli Khodja died soon afterward, it was the plague rather than the sw ord that carried him away. Before he succumbed, he personally nom inated as his successor Hussein Dey, w ho ruled until the arrival o f the French and w ho, in the twelve years allotted him , made marked progress tow ard restoring the authority o f the central governm ent in several parts o f the country.

42

MODERN ALGERIA ALGERIA

AND

THE

ALGERIANS

It was observed early in this chapter that a prim ary achievement o f the O ttom ans in N orth Africa was the creation o f an Algerian political entity possessing all the classical attributes o f statehood. But was there an Algerian nation? This question assumed m ajor importance during the early days o f the nationalist struggle against French rule, w hen colonialist apologetics argued that Algerian nationalism was illegitimate because no nation had existed in 1830. Before France, it was argued, a materially impoverished Algerian society had been prey to countless debilitating internal divisions and a destructive Turkish tyranny that played upon and nurtured those divisions for its ow n selfish ends. W hatever material progress, sense o f unity, and identity had been achieved by the tw entieth century were clearly the result o f the progressive policies o f the colonial regime. W riting in 1936, Shaykh cAbd al H am id Ben Badis, leader o f the Islamic Reform m ovem ent in Algeria, protested pas­ sionately that an Algerian nation existed then and had existed historically. O ther Algerian w riters since have pointed to tw o generations and m ore o f tenacious resistance to French aggression as an expression o f Algerian unity and one p ro o f am ong many o f collective Algerian identity. Given w hat has been observed in this chapter about the segmentary nature o f Algerian society, the fragility o f the markets, and the systemic tension that existed am ong competing segments and between the segments and the central governm ent, it is clear that the term “nation” in the m odem sense hardly applies to the Algerian society o f 1830. It is w orth observing, nevertheless, that in the three hundred years since the Barbarossas arrived in the country, the Turkish policy o f manipulating, and balancing tribal segments had resulted in the neutralization o f tribal pow er to the extent that even during the catastroph­ ic period 1800-25 they were unsuccessful in changing the form o f governm ent. Such neutralization o f the political potential o f segments is clearly a major step tow ard genuine centralization o f pow er which is a prerequisite o f nationhood. It is also clear that a process o f “deturkification” had begun early in the eighteenth century and accelerated as the state became increasingly dependent upon internal resources and hence upon the support o f indigenous elites. This process had resulted in a prise de conscience am ong certain layers o f Algerian society w hose exact strength and dimensions can probably never be know n from this distance. Given these political, ethnic, and psychological transform a­ tions, three kinds o f Algerian institutions at different levels m ight have given concrete political expression to the emerging sense o f identity. These are the institution o f dey, that o f the beyliks, and purely indigenous tribal or religious elem ents.16 When cAli Khodja Dey forsook the Janina Palace for the security o f the Qasba o f Algiers, he removed his person and the treasury from the covetous 16. la m indebted in this analysis to the work o f Charles-André Julien and Pierre Boyer; and especially to Jean-Claude Vatin, L'Algérie politique, pp. 96-104.

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grasp o f the traditional arbiters o f power. At the same time, by relying upon indigenous troops rather than the Turkish garrison which had supported the office for centuries, he also took a giant step tow ard the Algerianization o f the state. It is possible that between 1817 and 1830 the office o f dey was being converted into a genuine m onarchy, which could have become the focal point for the rallying o f national forces and aspirations. W hether this is true or not cannot be know n, because the French invasion cut short w hatever process m ight have been underway. It is possible as well that the office and institution o f bey, m ore distant geographically and ethnically from the Turkish pow er structure, could have served as foci for the crystallization o f national consciousness. D uring m ost periods com petition for this office was significantly less than for that o f dey, and in general the tenure o f beys was longer than that o f deys. The beys transm itted pow er more easily, legitimized themselves through alliance w ith im portant tribal and religious elites, and through the Kouloughli element built an ethnic and cultural bridge between native and outlander aristocracies. The beys o f O ran during much o f the nineteenth century showed increasing inclination to ally w ith indigenous elements against Algiers. In the Beylik o f the East, A hm ad Bey, a Kouloughli, related on the maternal side to the pow erful Ben Ghana o f the southern Constantinois, was able through his influence on local elites and his identification w ith local populations to create som ething like a national consciousness w ithin the confines o f his ow n prov­ ince. B oth in O ran and in Constantine, then, it is possible to hypothesize a national rallying o f peoples under the leadership o f provincial aristocracies. It is am ong the tribal elites and the religious elites o f the countryside that contem porary Algerians m ost frequently search for the roots o f their nation­ hood. As tim e had gone on, certain im portant families like the Ben Ghana or the M uqranis o f the Medjana, had transformed once elective leaderships into quasi-hereditary positions o f pow er and wealth from which they presided over vast collectivities capable o f mobilizing sizeable numbers o f clients, vassals, relatives, and allies. The tariqas, for their part, as custodians o f the religious values o f the countryside and arbiters o f w hat did or did not constitute appropriate behavior on the part o f leaderships, controlled by far the m ost pow erful instrum ents o f mass mobilization. As was dem onstrated in the first three decades o f the nineteenth century and again in the case o f cAbd al Q adir’s resistance to the French, the combination o f lineage and baraka could generate passionate loyalties and impressive force. The union o f a few powerful fami­ lies, particularly if it could have included alliance w ith one or another o f the great religious brotherhoods, m ight have provided the vehicle for Algerians to undercut Turkish rule and substitute a more truly national polity. Yet in the long run, neither jaw ad nor shuyukh were ever able to mobilize m ore than a part o f the country at once and both were undone by rivalries w ith competing tribes or orders which prevented ultimate victory. It is dear that by any acceptable definition o f the term , no Algerian nation existed in 1830. Yet sociopolitical evolution was clearly such that, given time,

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that nation m ight have emerged from one o f several possible formations o r com binations o f formations. T hat evolution was brought up short and pointed in different directions by the long years o f conquest, colonial im plantation, and resistance that followed the French invasion o f 1830.

CHAP T HR

INVASION, RESISTANCE, AND COLONIZATION, 1830-1871

^ c o n s id e r in g the enthusiasm with which the merchants o f Marseille greeted the preparations for the French expedition against Algiers, the invasion o f Algeria appears to confirm the thesis that imperialism is the creature o f capitalism. But if one looks at the actual mix o f historical, class, and conjunctural factors preceding the expedition, the question o f causation— at least initial causation— becomes less clear. Historically, France enjoyed more satisfactory relations w ith the Regency o f Algiers than did the other European powers. As recently as 1816, France had refused to join the squadron o f Lord Exm outh o f Great Britain that administered a devastating nine-hour bom bardm ent to Algiers in retaliation for Barbary slaveholding. France’s resistance to British pressures in this in­ stance had netted her in the very next year the return o f the trading concessions at La Calle and Bone that she had forfeited to the English during the war. Subsequently, France’s voice was the one voice in the concert o f Europe that most consistently counselled moderation when sanctions against the Barbary state were proposed. With regard to the influence o f the capitalists, it should be remembered that it was precisely during these last years o f the Restoration that the power o f the ultras was peaking and that o f the bankers and merchants was the lowest. The wishes o f the middle classes— Marseillais or other—simply did not enter into the calculations o f the aristocratic ministry that determined upon the expedi­ tion. But a financial problem had nagged for years at Franco-Algerian relations. D uring the period 1793 to 1798 the Jewish houses o f Bushnaq and Bakri had 45

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arranged shipments o f Algerian grain to the southern French provinces and to Bonaparte’s armies in Italy and Egypt. When Franco-Algerian relations were subsequently broken, a debt o f 7,000,000 to 8,000,000 francs had not yet been settled. By the tim e relations were restored at the end o f the Napoleonic wars, Bacri, w ho ow ed m oney to the Algerian state, had convinced the Dey he could not make good his debt until the French made good theirs; so a private business disagreement was transformed into an affair o f state. N egotiations dragged on for years, partly because o f the exaggerated interest claims made by the Algerians and partly because o f the reluctance o f Restoration ministers to make good on obligations o f their republican predecessors, especially w hen the ethical standards behind some o f the original dealings were open to some question. T he persistent difference degenerated into a m ajor crisis on April 29, 1827, when the long-tim e French consul at Algiers, Pierre Deval, w ent to pay his respects to Hussein Dey on the occasion o f cId al Fitr.1 When the Dey asked w hy the King o f France had not responded to his personal inquiries about the outstanding balance, Deval allegedly responded in w ords to the effect that His M ost Christian M ajesty could not low er him self to correspond w ith the Dey. Losing his custom ary self-control, Hussein struck the consul three times on the arm w ith the handle o f a peacock-feather fly whisk and ordered him to get o u t.2 In the following weeks as news o f the surprising confrontation spread am ong the foreign com m unity and then around the ports o f the M editerra­ nean, the Dey repeatedly explained that his actions were aimed only at the inadmissable conduct o f an individual and in no way diminished the high esteem in which he held the King and the nation o f France. Nevertheless, a French squadron appeared at Algiers during the second week o f June demand­ ing apologies and requiring that the Fleur-de-Lys be flown above the Qasba and honored w ith a hundred-gun Algerian salute. When the Dey refused these demands, the consul and his staff boarded the ships and the com m ander o f the squadron declared a blockade o f Algiers. In retaliation, Hussein ordered the destruction o f the French trading posts at Bône and La Calle. These dramatic opening blows were followed by a draw n out stalemate. Since the blockade was only marginally effective, the Dey saw no particular reason to capitulate to the humiliating terms France held out. The costs to France in the meantime were m ounting. The size o f the squadron was increased from four, to seven, to twelve, and eventually to eighteen ships w ithout for all that its being able totally to guarantee French merchantmen from Algerian retaliation. Shipping was obliged to travel in convoys, insurance rates soared, and the port o f Marseille, which was at the m om ent trying to adjust to the dislocations o f the Greek w ar, found itself plunged into an economic depression. As the standoff continued through 1827 and into 1828, Charles X ’s dom es1. The joyous Muslim feast of Breaking o f the Fast, Bairam in Ottoman, which marks the end of the month long fast o f Ramadan. 2. The versions o f the exchange communicated by Hussein to the Sultan Mahmud II and by Deval to his government differ markedly. Both agree, however, that the conversation ended with the famous “coup d’éventail.”

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tic pow er base began to erode. When the elections o f N ovem ber 1827 returned an opposition majority to the C ham ber o f Deputies, the King agreed to appoint as Prime M inister the moderate vicomte de Martignac. The latter decided in sum m er 1829 to send a plenipotentiary to Algiers in pursuit o f a negotiated settlement. But after the plenipotentiary had delivered an armistice proposal to the Dey and was starting to sail out o f Algiers port, batteries opened fire on his flagship. Charles X, w ho had never trusted moderates anyhow, now fired M artignac and, tram pling on the principle o f ministerial responsibility, replaced him w ith the archconservative Prince Jules de Polignac. The outraged parliamentary opposition and the liberal press condemned this exercise in royal absolutism and, in increasingly strident terms, m ost o f the governm ent’s other actions, including the futile and expensive Algerian policy. Polignac shared w ith others o f the generation that had watched Great Britain’s grasp on transoceanic empire tighten, the conviction that France’s overseas destiny now lay prim arily beside the Mediterranean, upon whose shores she was the only great power. While the vision o f a French base at Algiers was perfectly consistent w ith that conviction, he tempered realization o f that vision w ith a caution composed o f equal parts financial restraint and respect for British naval superiority. Polignac first pursued a face-saving com prom ise by trying to convince the Porte to extract concessions from its vassal. When the Sultan pleaded lack o f means, he turned to M uham m ad cAli o f Egypt, whose aspirations France increasingly encouraged as a counter to Britain’s support o f the sultanate. Egyptian forces, aided by a French subsidy and supported by French artillery and naval power, w ould march across the N o rth African littoral overturning autonomous O ttom an regimes as they w ent and replacing them w ith Egyptian rule, which w ould make various unspecified concessions to its French sponsor. But M uham m ad cAli ultimately declined the invitation, fearing public reaction to open collusion w ith the infidels and also the reaction o f Britain. O nly w hen indirect approaches had failed did Polignac begin to heed voices that had for m ore than a year been counselling direct French assault upon "the nest o f pirates.” His conversion was hastened by the argum ent that the alienation o f the French public from the m onarchy could be overcome by a striking foreign victory such as the conquest o f Algiers. T o prepare the ground diplomatically, French emissaries, invoking the solidarity o f Christian Europe against the latter-day Turkish menace, took steps to assure themselves o f the benevolent attitude o f all o f the major and many o f the m inor continental powers on the correct assumption that, although the T ory governm ent o f the D uke o f Wellington m ight grumble, it w ould not in such an international climate militarily obstruct a French expedition. In the meantime, the War and N avy Ministries retrieved a contingency plan for the occupation o f Algiers devised by M ajor Boutin during the sum m er o f 1808 and began the prepara­ tions for the expedition. Charles X chose the March 2, 1830, inaugural session o f Parliament to make the decision official, announcing that "In the m idst o f

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the grave events that have preoccupied Europe, I was obliged to suspend the effect o f m y ju st resentm ent against a Barbary power; but I can no longer allow to go unpunished the grave insult to m y flag; the resounding redress that I hope to obtain in satisfying the honor o f France will w ith the A lm ighty’s help turn to the profit o f C hristendom .”3 W hen new elections that spring returned a C ham ber m ore solidly anti­ royalist than its predecessor, a glorious victory to retrieve the fortunes o f the monarchy became all the m ore urgent. An air o f the absurd characterized the polemics that filled the newspaper columns. As open preparations for the expedition progressed in the south o f France, the m inistry kept repeating that a victory w ould w in over the opposition to the policy o f the King, while the same opposition consistently repeated that no m atter w hat the m agnitude o f the victory they w ould never be reconciled to such an authoritarian regime. O nly Marseille, on this issue oblivious to partisan distinctions, was unani­ m ously and unreservedly supportive o f the Algiers expedition.

T H E FALL OF ALG IERS T ow ard Marseille, Aix, and Toulon converged armies o f suppliers and purveyors, specializing in every manner o f goods and services the expedition­ ary force could require. O n the docks and in the warehouses accumulated the mountains o f stores required to equip and maintain a force that was to include 34,184 fighting men and 3,389 noncombatants in addition to the sailors w ho were to convey them to Africa. U nder the command o f the ultraconservative W ar M inister, C ount Louis de B ourm ont, the arm y was composed o f three infantry divisions plus field artillery, siege artillery, and cavalry. As a cheering crow d o f onlookers covered the hillsides around the road­ stead o f Toulon, the fleet o f 635 assorted ships hoisted sail on M ay 25 and heeled o ff tow ard Africa. It was the largest naval force assembled by France since the Napoleonic wars. The fleet raised the Algerian coast on M ay 31, but threatening weather convinced the admiral to retreat to the shelter o f Palma de Mallorca, a day’s run dow nw ind to the north. It returned on June 12, anchor­ ing the next day tw enty-seven kilometers west o f Algiers in the shallow harbors created by the prom ontory o f Sidi Ferruch. The spot had been selected by M ajor Boutin tw enty-tw o years earlier because o f the gently rolling land adjacent to the beach and the absence o f significant fortifications. A t first light on the m orning o f June 14, the landing began. In the next five days, against limited Algerian fire, the French were able to secure a perimeter, offload their mountains o f supplies and equipment, and establish a bustling encampment the size o f a city. U nder the com m and o f the D ey’s son-in-law, the Agha Ibrahim, the defenders had assembled a heterogeneous force o f about 7,000 Turks, 19,000 troops from the Beys o f Constantine and O ran, and about 17,000 Kabyles. The Algerian artillery was vastly inferior to that o f the French but their rifles 3. As quoted by Charles-André Julien, in vol. 1 o f Histoire dr VAlgérie contemporaine, p. 38.

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were o f longer range and m ost Algerians were better m arksm en than the French. While testim ony on both sides certifies the Algerians' individual valor as fighters, they appear to have been badly supplied and inadequately led. Probably bespeaking poor organization and inadequate logistics rather than the arrogant overconfidence some French w riters ascribed to him , Ibrahim 's forces directed only m oderate fire at the French for six days, allowing B ourm ont to consolidate a bridgehead that they could not subsequently reasonably hope to dislodge. By the tim e the Agha launched a m ajor attack on June 19, the invaders were too well entrenched. They turned back the M uslim charge, w ent on the attack themselves, and eventually overw helm ed Ibrahim ’s camp on the plateau o f Staouëli, sending the defenders back tow ard Algiers in disorder. After considerable delay and confusion, including one com m ander's mis­ taking the fog o f the Mitidja Valley for the sea, which resulted in troops m arching w est rather than east, the French began their advance on Algiers. O n June 29, they reached the plateau o f El-Biar overlooking the Sultan Kalassi (Fort l’Em pereur), the principal w ork guarding the western approach to the city. O n July 4, after five hours o f artillery bom bardm ent, the defending Turks evacuated that crumbling fort and blew up w hat remained o f it. T he expeditionary force had come to Africa w ith a large supply o f procla­ mations in Arabic reassuring the inhabitants that the French were com e to liberate the people o f Algeria from the tyranny o f the Turks. B ut num erous reports, m ostly true, o f French cruelty and destructiveness made the popula­ tion o f the city skeptical. When the defenses collapsed, panic filled the streets as thousands o f citizens fled the city by boat or by land to the south and east. W hen a delegation o f M oors w ent to learn the victors’ term s, B ourm ont personally dictated the convention o f capitulation which was signed the next m orning by the last O ttom an Pasha: The fort of the Casauba [sic], all the other forts belonging to Algiers, and the port of that city will be delivered to the French troops at 10:00 this morning French time. H ie General in Chief of the French Army pledges to His Highness the Dcy to allow him the freedom and possession of all his personal property. The Dey will be at liberty to retire with his family and his personal property to whatever place he determines; and as long as he remains in Algiers he and his family shall remain under the protection of the General in Chief of the French Army. A guard will guarantee his security and that of his family. The General in Chief guarantees to all the soldiers of the militia the same advantage and the same protection. The exercise of the Muslim religion shall be free. The liberty o f the inhabitants of all classes, their religion, their property, their business and their industry shall remain inviolable. Their women shall be respected. The General m Chief makes this engagement on his honor.4 4. France, Ministère de la Guerre, Collection its sues du gouvernement depuis l'occupation d'Alger jusqu'ou 1er octobre 1834 (Paris: 1843), pp. 1-2.

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The convention actually w ent into effect at noon on July 5,1830, w hen the w hite flag o f the H ouse o f Bourbon was raised above the Qasba. B ut its guarantees were meaningless. Before the day was over, rampaging French soldiers, including numerous officers, had violated persons, property, and holy places many times over and had left m uch o f the city in a shambles. O n July 10, the Dey and his family departed for Naples w ith only 30,000 gold sequins out o f their enorm ous personal wealth. U nm arried Janissary soldiers were repatriated to Turkey during the same week. O n A ugust 16, the rest o f the Turkish establishment was summarily deported w ith little opportunity to liquify and export their assets. T he fact that the deportations were encouraged by M oorish elements hopeful o f replacing their erstwhile superiors docs no t make the C ount de B ourm ont’s casual attitude tow ard his com m itm ents look better. T he issue o f French treatm ent o f the natives at the beginning o f their occupation is w orth dwelling upon, because it foreshadows a pattern o f relations between victors and vanquished that was to make discourse between the tw o peoples difficult at best. The physical violence and usurpation o f property w ith which the era began continued for many years, gradually giving way to institutionalized forms o f violence and usurpation which even in the later years could be reinforced by the form er means w hen the colonials felt threatened. A parliamentary commission o f inquiry sent to Algeria in the fall o f 1833 to gather facts and make recommendations concerning the future o f the territories wrote: We have sent to their deaths on simple suspicion and without trial people whose guilt was always doubtful and then despoiled their heirs. We mas­ sacred people carrying (our] safe conducts, slaughtered on suspicion entire populations subsequendy found to be innocent; we have put on trial men considered saints by the country, men revered because they had enough courage to expose themselves to our fury so that they could intervene on behalf of their unfortunate compatriots; judges were found to condemn them and civilized men to execute them. We have thrown into prison chiefs of tribes for offering hospitality to our deserters; we have rewarded treason in the name of negotiation, and termed diplomatic action odious acts of entrapment.5 The report vigorously condemned the transformation o f mosques into bar­ racks, the occupation o f buildings w ithout indemnity, the seizure o f habous (waqf, or religious endow m ent property), and the destruction o f cemeteries “in contem pt o f a solemn capitulation and the m ost fundamental and natural o f the rights o f people. In a w ord, we have outdone in barbarity the barbarians we 5. Procès verbaux el rapports de la Commission nommée par le Roi, le 7juillet 1833, pour aller recueillir en Afrique tous les faits propres à éclairer le Gouvernement sur l'état du pays et sur les mesures que réclame son avenir (Paris: 1834), vol. 1, pp. 333-34.

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have come to civilize and complain about our lack o f success w ith th em .”6 C oncurrently, colonial apologetics was justifying Voeuvre française on the grounds that it was liberating the natives from the hold o f an obscurantist w orldview and offering them the advantages o f a superior civilization. Few Algerians comprehended the argument.

E X T E N S IO N OF THE C O N Q U E S T By the 1870s, Algeria had been transformed into w hat is still considered the archetype o f a settler colonial regime, an outcom e that resulted not from preplanning by the constituted political leadership o f France but, rather, from a painful forty-year process o f interaction am ong m etropolitan France, Eu­ ropean colons, and the native population. While in retrospect the victory o f the settlers appears the m ost logical outcom e to this dialectical process, their victory was attained only after years o f tenacious Algerian resistance, efforts by the arm y and the hom e governm ent to limit them, and wide swings in national policy. T he greatest policy uncertainty characterized the first four years o f the French occupation. N ew s o f B ourm ont’s victory at Algiers reached Paris ju st after parliamentary elections had returned another large antigovem m ent m ajority to the Cham ber. O n July 25, Polignac invalidated the vote and called for new elections under restrictive new rules designed to reverse the outcom e. This interference in the constitutional process sparked the three-day revolution that ended the Restoration and propelled the liberal Louis-Philippe to the throne. Consistent w ith the calculation o f the Prince de Polignac and his advisors, the majority o f the French public had been delighted by news o f the conquest o f Algiers, but contrary to their calculations, their approval was insufficient to save the regime. By A ugust 1, pow er devolved upon a m inistry m ost o f w hose members had been loudly condemning Polignac’s N orth African project for m onths. Shorn overnight o f its partisan political connotations, the real issues connected to the Algerian adventure now stood out w ith greater clarity. There were many negatives. Besides its worries about the expense o f continuing occupa­ tion, the July M onarchy was uneasy both about leaving so many troops overseas during a tim e o f rising European tensions and about the occupation’s negative impact on Great Britain, whose goodwill it needed during the m ounting Belgian crisis. M oreover, liberal economists, well represented in the new governm ent, believed mercantilist colonial arrangements to be economi­ cally counterproductive. For these reasons astute observers during the fall o f 1830 considered evacuation o f Algiers to be imminent. They were w rong. T o save m oney, the m inistry did order the withdrawal o f a portion o f the expeditionary force. But to many ministers it seemed poor domestic politics to 6. Ibid.

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jettison the fruits o f a widely popular victory; it also seemed risky foreign policy, now that the Turks had been expelled, to leave a political vacuum south o f the M editerranean. For the next four years, an uncom fortable and divided governm ent temporized. In the absence o f an official Algeria policy, facts were created on the ground; ad hoc policies established by com m anding generals o r their sub­ ordinates, o r imposed by the logic o f events, limited m ore narrow ly every year France's real options. An even m ore im portant lim iting factor that em erged during the four years o f temporizing was a burgeoning Algeria constituency. In that tim e the original Marseille interest was significantly reinforced by an on-site constituency composed o f new property owners, speculators, w ould-be settlers, merchants, military officers and civil adminis­ trators, all o f w hose interests in different ways depended upon retention o f the conquest. French troops looted the Qasba on the afternoon Algiers fell, diverting m ore than half o f its 100,000,000 francs o f public treasure to private hands. This rampage and the uncontrolled pillaging o f private properties in and around Algiers were early signs o f the great importance the pursuit o f personal gain w ould have in the calculus o f France's Algeria policy. But m ore tangibly it was the transfer o f real property to Europeans that contributed the m ost to creation o f an Algeria constituency. As the Regency collapsed, and thousands o f Algerines fled or were driven into exile, their unprotected houses, shops, and country estates were summarily occupied by others o r sold o ff at ridicu­ lously low prices, often changing hands many times in a short period. W ithin days, w ord o f the bargains available across the w ater spread north o f the M editerranean, and a horde o f fortune hunters joined the military and civil cadres and the suppliers already in place. The first colonial decree o f sequestra­ tion targeted at properties o f absentee owners was prom ulgated in September 1830. Theoretically, this and subsequent sequestration measures aimed at extending governm ent protection to properties until ultim ate resolution o f claims could be made. In 1834, the War M inister ordered the drafting o f procedures to return properties irregularly o r unfairly seized by the state, but attem pts to draft those procedures floundered tim e and again, because the m ajority o f sequestered properties had in fact fallen into the hands o f in­ dividual Europeans little inclined to give them up and w hose influence at Algiers had already become enormous. Early impetus to acquisition o f rural land was provided by C ount Bertrand Clauzel, the second Com m anding General, w ho replaced the legitimist B ourm ont on September 2, 1830. In many ways a man o f the eighteenth century, Clauzel saw Algeria replacing France’s lost new -w orld em pire as a source o f exotic commodities, and he became a vigorous proponent o f active settlement in Algeria. He established a Ferme Modèle a few miles southeast o f Algiers on w hich he encouraged soldiers to settle. While this project was ultimately unsuccessful, Clauzel acquired for his ow n account three rural properties in the region, thereby helping to trigger a land rush that saw Europeans buying and

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selling agricultural lands at a feverish pace. M any o f these lands w ere not m ulk and therefore not legally alienable under existing law; m any lay beyond the perimeters o f French occupation. But these technicalities did not halt the land rush. A fter four years the French zone o f occupation was confined in the center to Algiers and a very small hinterland, in the east to Bône and Bougie, and in the w est to O ran, Arzew, and M ostaganem. A t Algiers and Bône during the early years, the occupiers associated the local merchant classes w ith the d ty administration. In O ran they w orked for a tim e through Turks w ho remained, while in M ostaganem they depended principally upon the Kouloughli aris­ tocracy. O ver m ore than 90 percent o f the country, how ever, the French did n o t rule at all. Their economic and security interests required the creation o f mechanisms for relating this vast interior to their enclaves. The m ost logical solution was to persuade the beys to accept French sovereignty in replacement o f the Turkish. Soon after the collapse o f Ibrahim ’s arm y, M oustapha Bou Mezrag, Bey o f Titteri, agreed to become the vassal o f France, but w hen he realized B ourm ont was not respecting the guarantees o f the Capitulation, he renounced the agreement. Subsequent French efforts to install surrogates in this Beylik and the form er D ar al-Sultan, which had traditionally been m ost closely controlled by the deys, m et w ith some tem porary but no perm anent success. In the other Beyliks as well, efforts to locate Algerians o f stature willing to accept a tributary relationship to the infidel proved extraordinarily difficult, and those agreements actually cut were characteristically unstable. T he aged Hasan Bey o f O ran did accept French suzerainty, but many powerful tribes around him rejected his leadership in the matter. Ahmad Bey o f Constantine, w ho along w ith Bou Mezrag had fought the French at Staouêli, categorically rejected inclusion in the emerging new order. In a search for alternative leaderships, C ount Clauzel concluded agree­ m ents w ith Hussein Bey o f Tunis under which the latter w ould supply beys from the Tunisian ruling family to govern both Constantine and O ran. The arrangem ents collapsed partly because the Bey o f Tunis came to understand that his representatives w ould be m ore dependent on France than on him self and partly because the governm ent at Paris ultimately vetoed their C om m and­ ing General’s initiative. In the fall o f 1833, the parliamentary commission conducted its exhaustive on-site investigation into the Algerian problem. In its report the commission observed that the first three years o f French occupation had been m arked m ostly by failure—administratively, economically, and in both native policy and settler policy. It decided w ith singular lack o f enthusiasm, how ever, that because o f public opinion and for reasons o f national prestige, France should stay on in its newly acquired territory. Behind the prestige question, o f course, was the specter o f Great Britain, which from Malta and Gibraltar was offering moral and some material support to elements o f the Algerian resistance. The commission believed, however, that any permanent French establishment in

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Algeria should be accompanied by a complete overhaul and rationalization o f the colony’s administration and by measures to make it economically selfsufficient. The C ham ber o f Deputies, after six tum ultuous sessions o f debate on the report that pitted colonialists against anticolonialists, found itself unable either to accept or reject the recommendations.7 Ultim ately it was the W ar M inister, Soult, D uc de Dalmatie, w ho resolved the deadlock by drafting for Louis-Philippe’s signature the Royal Ordinance o f 22 July 1834, recognized as the “birth certificate” o f French Algeria. This decree created a m ilitary colony nam ed “les possessions françaises dans le N ord de l’A frique,” placed under the authority o f die M inistry o f War. A Royal Ordinance o f 1838 changed the official name to the new ly coined “Algérie.” The W ar M inister was repre­ sented in the colony by a G overnor General invested w ith both civil and m ilitary authority. While the G overnor General was assisted by civil in­ tendants and an Administrative Council, an enabling decree o f 1 September 1834 provided that legislation until further order was to be by Royal O rdi­ nance, drafted by the War M inister upon recommendation o f the G overnor General. This measure conferred upon Algeria a regime o f legislation by executive decree totally at odds w ith French public law, which recognizes the principle o f separation o f powers but which in attenuated form survived until 1946. T he question o f the precise boundaries o f the French Possessions was not resolved in 1834. Instead the politically expedient notion o f “limited occupa­ tio n ,” generally confining direct rule to areas on or near the coast o f greatest commercial and strategic interest to France, became official policy dow n until 1840. Concurrently, however, the state for the first time officially encouraged colonial settlement—as a means o f making the colony m ore secure and es­ pecially o f making it pay its ow n way. Since many Europeans had already acquired interest in lands beyond the French enclaves and w ould continue to do so, such a policy unfailingly favored expansion o f the zones o f occupation, inviting continuing native resistance and French countermeasures. Such dy­ namics clearly doom ed from its inception the concept o f limited occupation. M ajor Boutin, during his clandestine reconnaissance o f 1808, came to the conclusion that Arab and Berber distaste for the Turkish regime was such that if the French scrupulously respected the Algerians’ religion, their w om en, and their property, they w ould be able to occupy the coast w ith little effort and penetrate the interior peacefully. Em erging French colonial theory o f the late 1830s and the 1840s invoked in vague terms the need to “assimilate” the natives by dem onstrating to them the advantages o f France’s superior form o f civilization. B oth scenarios beg many questions, including w hether Algerians w ould have tolerated non-M uslim rule under any conditions and w hether the resource extraction implicit in any kind o f colonial presence w ould not un­ failingly generate serious opposition. In the event, the conduct o f the A rm y o f 7. There were actually two Commissions d'Afrique. The travelling commission's report was deliv­ ered to a broader commission in Paris, which included peers and others. It was this second commission that took up the bulk of the report and transmitted it to the Parliament.

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Africa and the accelerating colon drive to appropriate lands left the underlying conditions o f the Boutin scenario unfulfilled.

TH E EARLY RESISTA N C E AND A H M A D BEY W hen the Dey o f Algiers capitulated, organization o f Algeria’s defense devolved upon the Algerians themselves. As early as July 23,1830, a council o f tribal leaders and marabouts met at Tementfous near Cape M atifou to concert resistance in the Algiers area. While French forces in the central zone succeeded m ore than once in penetrating to key cities like Blida and Médéa, the resistance was such that they were never able to stay o r even to maintain their native surrogates in the early years for more than brief periods. Resistance from the tribesmen around Bône kept the occupation so constrained that the place was twice evacuated before its permanent occupation in M arch 1832. T he ferocity and persistence o f resistance were such that no region o f the country failed to generate a rich store o f heroic and sacrificial acts w ith which to inspire the collective m em ory for generations to come. D uring the era o f conquest, 1830 to 1871, only the year 1861 passed w ithout major armed resistance in one part o f the country or another. Given the geographic dispersion o f the population, the segmentation o f Algerian society, the hierarchical ordering o f many tribal systems, and the centuries long O ttom an policy o f pitting tribes against each other, construction o f com m on and durable fronts was difficult, however. N o t all traditional tribal conflicts could be muted. M any makhzan tribes, like the powerful Douira and Zmala o f the Oranie w ho were reluctant to forego their traditional privileges, agreed to serve the French as they had the T urks before them . Organized religion, which provided the m ost potent and univer­ sal rallying point for opposition, was rendered less effective than it could have been by the competition am ongst powerful brotherhoods and their lead­ erships. D uring the early years, tw o movements made significant progress in overcom ing such divisions and uniting disparate social elements in their resis­ tance. T hat o f cAbd al Q adir, w ho became the greatest Algerian national hero, com m anded the loyalty o f m ost o f the populations o f western and central Algeria by the late 1830s. Even before cAbd al Q adir entered the scene, Ahmad Bey had extended his authority over much o f the Beylik o f Constantine and blocked French expansion there until 1837. Ahmad ibn M uham m ad o f Constantine was bom about 1784 o f the union o f an O ttom an father and a m other from the powerful Ben Ghana tribe o f the Pre-Sahara. As a young man he made the pilgrimage to Mecca and lived for a period in Egypt observing the reforms M uhamm ad cAli was im plem enting there. B om to privilege, he apprenticed in several im portant beylical offices before rising in 1826 to the office o f bey. In 1830, he led Constantinian contingents at the battle o f Saouëli, but when the Dey was defeated, he

map

4 The Stag«« o f French Conquest

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returned to mobilize his hom e province, which he was determined to keep from suffering the fate o f Algiers. W ith the D ey gone, Hajj Ahmad now considered his authority to flow directly from O ttom an Sultan M ahm ud II, w ith w hom he was in steady communication. If the Constantinois was still part o f the O ttom an Em pire, how ever, it was an Arab province o f that Em pire and thus entitled to its ow n administrative and institutional structures. He made Arabic the first language o f his administration, abolished the O ttom an system o f governm ent, and created a council o f provincial notables invested w ith legislative and executive authority. C onsidering him self but one M uslim am ong others, he appears to have given considerable authority to the council and frequently to have fol­ low ed its preferences. His reaching out to local elites, his substitution o f local zouaves for the tyrannical Janissaries, and his attempts to implement a m ore equitable and Islamically based fiscal order, clearly mark this aristocratic ruler as a reform er if not a revolutionary. With all o f the changes, however, Hajj A hm ad’s pow er was based fundamentally upon his connections w ith a num ber o f great families o f the province: the Ben Ghana, the M uqranis, the Awlad A chour, and the Awlad Azzedin, for example. The very successes o f a system based on the interconnections o f the leading jaw ad alienated competing tribes, particularly those low er in the pow er structure. Some members o f these tribes took refuge w ith the French at Algiers, while others in the coastal regions and the Pre-Sahara kept w hole regions perennially beyond the effective control o f the Bey. The French invaders, determined to occupy Bône at a m inim um and show ing increasing interest in other coastal points as well, made several attem pts to negotiate a settlement w ith the Bey. Because Ahmad Bey consid­ ered the lands he administered O ttom an territory held in trust, however, he was unwilling to enter any agreement ceding territory to France or recogniz­ ing its suzerainty in any form. This uncom prom ising stand made him the m ost formidable early opponent the French had to deal w ith. Exasperated, C ount Clauzel, during his second N o rth African tour in 1836, sent a force o f 8,700 m en to take A hm ad’s capital and break the resistance in the east. Badly supplied, weakened by illness, pelted by N ovem ber rains, and harassed by tribes along the route, the French forces failed to dent the defenses o f C on­ stantine and retreated in ignom iny, suffering the loss o f a thousand men. This victory m arked the high point o f the Ahmad Bey’s career.

cA B D AL Q A D I R A N D T H E I N D E P E N D E N T ALGERIAN STATE In the western part o f the country there was no comparable elite netw ork to fill the void created by the collapse o f the Turkish system. Lacking such structures, aspirations o f com peting tribal leaderships w ould only cancel each other out. B ut the large religious brotherhoods had dem onstrated repeatedly

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in recent years their capacity to mobilize the dispersed energies o f this pre­ dom inantly pastoralist region. cAbd al Q adir o f the Hashim Gharaba tribe was b o m on September 26, 1807, near Mascara in the village o f Guetna O ued el-Ham m am , which was the headquarters o f the Qadiriyya tariqa. His father M uhi al-Din, was the vener­ ated muqaddam o f the M aghribi branch o f that order and claimed an illustrious lineage through Idriss, the eighth-century founder o f Fez, to Hasan, the elder grandson o f the Prophet. K now n even as a child for his strong physique and excellent horsemanship, cAbd al Q adir received an education the quality and breadth o f w hich were unusual in O ran Province in the early nineteenth century. Studying Q u r’an, Arabic gram m ar, Islamic jurisprudence, and theol­ ogy at the Q adiriyya zawiya w ith its 800-volume library, the young m arabout was also tutored in the essentials o f mathematics, astronomy, and geography. Later he attended for almost a year an elite school in O ran, and still later, after he and his father had made the canonical pilgrimage to Mecca, cAbd al-Q adir attended lectures at Damascus, Cairo, and Baghdad. While the Q adiriyya leadership do not appear to have played prom inent roles in the brotherhood-led revolts o f the first part o f the century, the Banu H ashim during the 1820s became associated w ith an anti-Turkish coalition inspired by M uham m ad al-Kabir, the M oroccan-based head o f the Tijaniyya. This relationship, plus the fact that the zawiya at Guetna was a sanctuary w hich sheltered large num bers o f fugitives from Turkish justice, made the provincial leadership m ore than a little suspicious o f M uhi al-Din and his son. Hasan Bey actually kept the tw o under house arrest at O ran for tw o years. Then, in 1826, he perm itted them to depart for Mecca, which kept them out o f his w ay for an additional tw o years. The return o f the tw o marabouts to Guetna in 1828, shortly after a failed Tijaniyya attack on the Turkish garrison at Mascara, was the occasion o f such spontaneous jo y and widespread celebra­ tion that they made a conscious decision to low er their profiles by devoting themselves alm ost exclusively for the next years to the studious and con­ templative life. Even though the careful maneuvering o f the Bey neutralized the direct im pact M uhi al-Din could have on the political situation, it is clear that both father and son during the 1820s personified the anti-Turkish senti­ m ent o f significant elements in the society o f far-western Algeria. In fact, their influence only increased w ith their grow ing reputation for sanctity—enhanced even by their seclusion—and as apocryphal stories came to be circulated about the younger man. W ith the defeat o f the Dey, M awlay cAbd al-Rahman, the Sultan o f M orocco, initiated measures to recover Tlemcen and other portions o f western Algeria to which his dynasty still laid claims going back to the M iddle Ages. W hen active French diplomacy at Meknès convinced him that direct pursuit o f these goals was at the m om ent im prudent, the Sultan appointed the soundly anti-O ttom an M uhi al-Din to serve as his khalifa at Tlemcen. W ith the mandate o f the Sultan o f the West in hand, M uhi al-Din launched a campaign to liquidate the still considerable remains o f the O ttom an pow er structure in the Beylik. These vestiges included a substantial K ouloughh military presence

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at Tlcmccn, which he blockaded in the citadel o f that city, and the powerful D ouaïr and Zm ala makhzan tribes now serving the French at O ran. It appears to have been only gradually that the leaderships in the interior o f O ran province became aware o f the serious threat posed by the French on the coast. This lag in perception is probably related to the fact that Muslims, w ho had accustomed themselves for centuries to living w ith O ran or Melilia in nearby M orocco in Spanish hands,8 could not initially make the distinction between the weakened, status quo imperialism o f Spain and the aggressive, capital-rich imperialism o f France. B ut concern did grow . In April 1832, M uhi al-Din accepted from an assembly o f notables at Mascara the position o f leader o f the jihad, and from this point on the struggle against the elements still clinging to their O ttom an era privileges merged w ith the struggle against the French. From April to N ovem ber 1832, M uhi al-D in’s forces launched attacks on the French garrison at O ran and upon their makhzan allies. Although these operations succeeded in dislodging neither, they did provide numerous oppor­ tunities for cAbd al Q adir to demonstrate his leadership abilities and his personal valor. B y N ovem ber, when M uhi al-Din, pleading advancing age and infirm ity, asked to be relieved o f his responsibilities, an assembly o f tribal notables chose the twenty-five-year-old sharif to replace his father as leader o f the jihad, conferring upon him the historic religious title o f A m ir al-M u’minin (C om m ander o f the Faithful) and the ancillary title o f Khalifa o f the Sultan. Raised to his position by the election o f a few tribes around Mascara, the A m ir had in seven years extended his authority over more than tw o-thirds o f Algeria. By launching a m ovem ent which blended defense against the infidel w ith opposition to the privileged remnants o f the O ttom an system, some o f which now served the French, cAbd al-Q adir was able during 1833 to win the loyalty o f the m ajority o f tow ns and tribes o f the C hélif Valley. In so doing he denied the French garrisons at O ran, Mostaganem, and Arzew access to auxiliaries and reliable sources o f supply, rendering their position increasingly untenable. This dangerous situation convinced the O ran Com m anding Gener­ al, Baron Louis-Alexis Desmichels, to seek an accommodation w ith this new enemy. The result was the Desmichels Treaty o f February 1834, in which the Amir, in return for freeing French prisoners and recognizing French rule over their three enclaves and their right to trade in his domain, w on recognition o f his ow n sovereignty over the rest o f the province from the M oroccan frontier to at least Miliana and the headwaters o f the Chélif.9 The French governm ent thought the Baron had conceded far too much on the issue o f sovereignty, but they were not in 1834 in position to question the fait accompli. O n the issue o f territory, a French construction o f the agreement assumed any lands conceded 8. Oran was under Spanish rule from 1509 to 1792. Spaniards occupied Melilia in northeastern Morocco in 1497 and still do at this writing. 9. Neither the Governor General nor the government at Paris knew about this treaty before it was signed, and they wanted all such agreements to include Algerian recognition o f French suzerainty by requiring payment o f tribute. This treaty contained no such provisions. On the other hand, by recognizing eAbd al Qadir's title, his right to issue visas to Frenchmen travelling his territory, and his right to appoint what the Arabic version called consuls (quiuuil) to the French-held towns, the document clearly recognized the Amir’s sovereignty. A secret addendum whose text became available only in 1964 makes this fact even clearer.

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lay in O ran Province, over which Desmichels had command; but such a reading was not evident to the Amir, w ho before long was projecting his authority into Titteri, the western portions o f D ar al-Sultan, and to the edges o f the Constantinois. Between late 1832 and late 1839, when the uneasy peace between the tw o parties was broken for good, cAbd al Q adir laid foundations o f a truly Algerian state. Determined as this deeply religious leader was to build an independent state on Islamic principles, he was sufficiently pragm atic to un­ derstand the necessity o f accepting French presence in the coastal enclaves and even o f defending those interests against threats from m ore militant compa­ triots if this were the price for constructing his state on the bulk o f Algerian territory. Such pragm atism may have flowed naturally out o f his region’s experience o f accommodating Spanish presidios. It was a disposition m ostly absent, at any rate, in a Constantinian such as Ahmad Bey. Given the textual ambiguities o f the Desmichels Treaty and its essential inconsistency w ith the emerging imperial vision o f the French, it is not surprising that peace between them and the Arabs was fragile. T he French were gratified at the A m ir's crushing o f the Darqawi brethren w ho were calling for renewed jihad, at his reining in o f potentially hostile tribes, and at his facilitation o f supply to the French enclaves. They were disturbed, how ev­ er, by his installation o f a khalifa at Médéa, by his support o f the resistance o f the H adjoute tribe o f the western Mitidja, and especially by his insistence, pursuant to the secret addendum o f the Desmichels Treaty, on a trading m onopoly in western Algeria. In 1835, when a new com m ander o f the O ranie sent a 2,000-man colum n to punish him, cAbd al Q adir defeated it resounding­ ly at the swamps o f the Macta. C ount Clauzel returned to the attack that w inter, sending columns throughout O ran Province which seized and burnt several key cities, including the A m ir's capital at Mascara. Because the Alge­ rian continued to hold the countryside and could ambush the Europeans almost at will, how ever, the main effect o f these campaigns was to leave French forces isolated amidst populations made m ore hostile than ever by the destructiveness o f their punitive measures. Clauzel’s stunning defeat before Constantine, in N ovem ber 1836, not only ended his career as G overnor General but also convinced the W ar M inister o f the folly o f trying to fight all the Algerians at once. Lieutenant General Thom as Robert Bugeaud, whose name w ould one day crow n the hagiography o f colonial Algeria, was authorized to enter new negotiations w ith the A m ir, which eventuated in the Treaty o f the Tafna concluded on M ay 20, 1837. In addition to the bulk o f the Oranie, the new agreement explicitly conceded to the A m ir for the first tim e m ost o f central Algeria, leaving to France in this region only Algiers and the Sahel and part o f the Mitidja Valley to its south and west. The border o f the French zone southeast o f Algiers was less clearly draw n. A t peace w ith the French once again, the Am ir moved rapidly to con­ solidate his hold over the area allotted to him. After defeating dissidents on the

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Plain o f Angad near the M oroccan frontier, he confronted and w on over a pow erful tribal coalition in southern Titteri, moved southeastward into the desert as far as Bou Saada, and then began establishing his authority northw ard in the Sebaou region o f eastern Titteri and in the western Constantinois. By 1838, even Biskra had accepted his rule. The m ost steadfast Algerian opposi­ tion to cAbd al-Q adir’s unification drive came from the populations o f the G rand Kabylia and from the leaderships o f the competing religious brother­ hoods. After defeating Hajj Musa, o f the Darqawa, he laid siege to the Tijaniyya headquarters at cAyn M adhi, w hich he captured after a six-m onth siege. T he stubbornly independent Kabyle mountaineers were never w on over in significant num bers, however. T he embittered Tijani leadership sub­ sequently called upon Algerians to rally to French rule. In the meantime, w ith cA bd al Q adir neutralized, the French arm y could m ove forw ard w ith confidence to avenge the previous fall’s humiliation before Constantine. After A hm ad Bey rejected another request to recognize French sovereignty, Clauzel’s successor, Charles-M arie comte de D am rém ont, m ounted the second campaign against Constantine. After an eight-day siege that included four days o f artillery bom bardm ent followed by bitter house to house fighting, the city fell to the Europeans. Even after their victory, the French continued attem pts to co-opt Ahmad, proposing to restore his beylicate, his capital city, and his arm y in return for a tribute o f 100,000 francs per year. The form er Bey rejected the compromise, and he spent the next eleven years as a fugitive and guerrilla harassing the invaders from the southern reaches o f the province and the Sahara. He finally surrendered in 1848 and died tw o years later at Algiers. Unable to find an Algerian o f stature willing to govern the w hole o f the Constantinois on their behalf, the French entered into quasi-feudal arrangements w ith a series o f powerful tribal leaders, w ho, left on their ow n w ith litde m onitoring from above, frequently imposed such regres­ sive and exploitative conditions upon the local peasantries that the province entered a period o f progressive impoverishment. The willingness o f A m ir cAbd al Q adir to make peace w ith the French at the very m om ent they were openly preparing the renewed campaign against Constantine represents the single m ost troubling aspect o f his heroic career. It is the m ost outstanding example o f the difficulties Algerians encountered in building unity after three centuries in which governm ent stability had de­ pended precisely upon the exploitation o f society’s divisions. It is clear that the personal political ambitions o f Ahmad Bey and cAbd al Q adir stood in direct conflict w ith each other. In 1833, Ahmad and the notables o f Constantine had petitioned M ahm ud II to nam e him pasha o f all Algeria in replacement o f Hussein Dey. In 1835, a year after the A m ir concluded his treaty w ith Baron Desmichels and term inated the jihad, Ahmad signed letters urging the mara­ bout Musa ibn cAli ibn al-Husayn to lead a new jihad in cAbd al-Q adir’s territory. It is evident from the language o f the Tafna treaty and other docu­ ments, how ever, that cAbd al Q adir believed all Algerians outside the French enclaves were to be subject to his rule alone. B ut if personal am bition counted,

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it is probably less im portant than background and ideology in explaining the conflict. T he tw o m en represented radically different views o f how postO ttom an Algeria should be structured. While Ahmad Bey stood for the persistence in reform ed style o f a hierarchical system dominated by the old aristocracies o f blood, cAbd al Q adir stood for a m ore egalitarian system rooted uniquely in Algerian society and based more explicitly upon Islamic principles o f justice and equity.10 In the seven years between his rise and the outbreak o f the final w ar w ith France, cAbd al Q adir laid the bases o f w hat m ight have become, given sufficient resources and time, a thoroughly reformed Algerian state. By abolishing the fiscal and com m and privileges o f the makhzan tribes as well as the kharaj tax paid mainly by subject tribes, he made him self the hero o f the rayat m ajority and established the foundation for a far greater unity o f the body politic than was conceivable under the O ttom an system. While he continued to appoint socially or politically prom inent individuals to key positions, showing a marked preference for religious elites, he nevertheless selected his officials from a far w ider range o f tribal, urban, and religious elites than under the previous regime. U sing the traditional but m ore o r less representative form at o f a council o f notables as a starting point, the A m ir set about creating a more centralized and responsive system o f governm ent to parallel his m ore unified view o f society. This system included a paid central bureaucracy and a subdivision o f the country into eight khalifaliks o f roughly comparable size, all o f which were subject to the same law and were expected to follow the same administrative procedures. The territorially based khalifaliks were subdivided into mostly tribally based aghaliks. Because his authority was religious as well as civil, cAbd al Q adir directly appointed the qadis and could achieve a m ore uniform and responsive judicial system than the Turks had enjoyed. Given the tw in imperatives o f defense against the French and repression o f internal opposition, the main focus o f the A m ir’s governmental as well as economic initiatives was the creation and maintenance o f a reliable military force. The heart o f his arm y was a paid professional corps o f about 9,500 men, composed m ostly o f infantry along w ith some artillery. Khalifas maintained local professional contingents that the A m ir could call to his ow n service when needed and were also required to raise self-armed militias, often mujahidin, in tim e o f emergency. While it is almost impossible to know how big cAbd al-Q adir’s arm y ultimately became, a knowledgeable French observer es­ tim ated it at 50,000 in the late thirties. Like M uham m ad cAli o f Egypt, w hose accomplishments may have pro­ vided a model, the A m ir attem pted to stimulate economic developm ent w ith the prim ary aim o f strengthening his military capacity. A lthough his accom10. Most Algerian historians do not discuss at length the impact o f the Tafna Treaty on the fate of Constantine and the unity o f Algerian resistance. One o f the more interesting discussions is contained in the work o f the Tunisian historian Abdeljelil Temimi, Le Beylik de Constantine et Hadj ’Ahmad Bey (1830-1837), pp. 184-90.

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plishments were modest, they were not inconsiderable given the short am ount o f tim e allotted to him. In the agricultural sector, suppression o f the kharaj, a policy o f increasing the grain reserves, and active cultivation o f foreign grain markets all stimulated grain production, which by the 1840s was considerably greater than in the recent past. Industrially, he founded sawmills, tanneries, and especially industries related to arms manufacture. The latter included foundries, forges, a cannon factory, and a small arms industry, all on a m odest scale. After Clauzel sacked and burned Mascara and other tow ns in 1836, cAbd al Q adir determined to transfer his industrial development to a series o f fortified new tow ns in the south between the Tell and the High Plains. These tow ns included Boghar, Taza, Saida, Q alcaa, Tafraout, and Tagdem pt. The m ost im portant city was the last, founded southwest o f historic Tahert, which, after the burning o f Mascara, became the new capital. In an excellent location astride im portant trade routes, it contained by 1840 a still rather prim itively housed population o f 2,000, a mint, an arms factory, and a large supply depot storing powder, iron, lead, silver, and am m unition in addition to m ajor food reserves. It is clear that the capture o f Constantine marked the beginning o f the French shift away from the policy o f restricted occupation. O ne element o f that shift was abandonm ent o f the attem pt to rule the province through a single autonom ous prince and appointm ent instead o f a series o f tribal shaykhs. The other was the necessity o f assuring unimpeded land communica­ tion between Algiers and the newly occupied city o f Constantine. The Tafna Treaty had left the eastern boundary o f France’s Algiers enclave unclear, how ever, and cAbd al Q adir had extended his authority into regions occupa­ tion troops w ould have to cross in order to travel to C onstantine.11 After attem pting and failing to get a modified convention, the French forced the issue in O ctober and N ovem ber 1839 by sending a force headed by the C row n Prince on a fateful march from Constantine through the disputed territory to Algiers. cAbd al Q adir and his advisors, w ho had seen the break coming, had been collecting arms and making other preparations for m onths. N ow the A m ir issued a formal declaration o f jihad and on N ovem ber 20 Arab irregulars descended on French farms in the Mitidja Valley, destroying in a few days the settlement efforts o f several years and sending those colons fortunate enough to survive fleeing back to Algiers in panic. It was now clear that the policy o f restricted occupation—never, as w e have contended, a realistic option—had reached the end o f its road. France m ust evacuate the country o r subjugate it completely. While the politicians in Paris grappled w ith this hard and expensive reality, cAbd al Q adir, w ith his people m ore solidly behind him than ever before, was 11. Article 2 o f the Treaty o f the Tafna placed the eastern border o f French holdings in Algiers Province at the “Wadi Khadra and beyond,“ a confusing and ungrammatical construction which took away the boundary with one word that it had created two words previously. The French text reads “bornée i l'est jusqu’à I'Oucd-Kaddara, et au delà.“ The Arabic text, which cAbd al-Qadir signed, reads “min jihat al sharq lihadd wad khadra ila qaddam."

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everywhere on the offensive and, by M arch 1840, had reached the apogée o f his pow er. G overnor General Sylvain Charles com te Valée, receiving m uch needed reinforcements, succeeded subsequently in establishing garrisons in tow ns like Cherchel, Miliana, and Médéa, as well as at several other key points; but as the individual garrisons were small and m ostly isolated from a countryside firmly under the A m ir’s control, 1840 ended w ith the tw o sides in a stalemate. A t this point General, later Marshal, Bugeaud reentered the scene. While Paris was not particularly pleased w ith his abrasive personality o r reactionary politics, he subm itted the only plan that appeared likely to break the stalemate, and he was appointed G overnor General in N ovem ber 1840. His tactics included placing at a few key strong points six contingents o f 7,000 men, w hose mission it was to sweep through cAbd al Q adir’s realm, destroying his ow n strong points first and then laying waste the countryside. Crops were to be burned or hauled away, stock slaughtered o r driven off, and Arabs forbid­ den to sow or to herd. It was total war, which depended for its effectiveness m ore upon destituting and starving noncom batant populations than on battle­ field results per se. In at least three cases, populations that fled this scourge to the refuge o f caves w ere burned or asphyxiated there w ith the permission or acquiescence o f Bugeaud. It was an all-out effort which by 1846 saw French effectives in Algeria rise to 108,000, a third o f their entire army. After Tagdem pt, Mascara, and m ost o f cAbd al Q adir’s tow ns were occupied during 1841, the A m ir created a mobile capital called in Arabic a zmala12 o f about 30,000 people, which included his family, administrators, loyal tribesmen, his 5,000 man central army, the treasury, and all his goods and herds. In M ay 1843, when a small force headed by the duc d ’Aumale surprised and defeated the zmala, the populations, already shaken by the systematic devastation to which they were subjected, began to defect en masse, and cAbd al Q adir’s painfully built political order disintegrated rapidly. D uring the second half o f 1843, the war deteriorated into a m anhunt for cAbd al Q adir, w ho w ith his greatly reduced entourage finally crossed the border into M orocco, w here cAbd al Rahman granted him asylum. U sing M oroccan soil as a base, the Amir now proceeded to launch raids against French units near the border and consciously to try to internationalize the conflict. D ragged along reluctantly because o f cAbd al Q adir’s enorm ous popularity am ongst his ow n subjects, the Sultan permitted m ore and m ore M oroccan troops to become involved. This led to a brief Franco-M oroccan w ar in 1844, which culminated in Bugeaud’s crossing the border and annihilat­ ing a M oroccan force on the Wadi Isly.13 M ost French observers thought the w ar was over at this point, but it was actually m oving into a new and m ore violent phase. As organized resistance collapsed and the populations—already bewildered, hungry, and displaced—were faced w ith both the often ex12. Literally family, household. 13. Bugeaud was subsequently raised to the peerage as due d’Isly; the principal commercial and ceremonial avenue o f Algiers was called the rue d’Isly until Algeria regained its independence.

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tortionist dem ands o f their military rulers and the mass confiscation o flan d s for the benefit o f colons, die w est and center o f the country erupted, seemingly spontaneously, into scores o f uncoordinated resistance movements. T he m ost notable o f these was that o f Bou Macza, the "G oat M an”, w ho claimed to be the mahdi, or Islamic messiah, come to drive out the infidels. In September 1845, cAbd al-Q adir was able to return to Algeria, score a num ber o f im­ pressive victories against the French, penetrate into Titteri and the Sebaou region, and even briefly to threaten Algiers from the east. Gradually, the French regained control o f the situation, however, and by July 1846, the Amir, having suffered serious casualties and being everywhere pursued, returned to his M oroccan refuge. By international agreement after Isly, the Sultan had already declared him outlawed. It was not until 1847, however, that cAbd al Rahman, under pressure from the British (who feared the A m ir's presence m ight give France the pretext to invade and annex M orocco) and fearing the A m ir was plotting insurrection in the north o f his country, decided to send his troops against him in his border refuge. C aught on the M oulouya River between the M oroccan and the French forces, cAbd al Q adir chose the French. O n December 21, 1847, he surrendered to General Louis de Lamoricière, C om m ander o f O ran Province, in return for a safe-conduct perm itting him to retire to Alexandria o r Acre. The governm ent refused to honor Lamoricière’s com m itm ent, how ever, and transported the A m ir instead to France, w here he was held prisoner until after the accession o f Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte. In O ctober 1852, the Prince-President perm itted him to leave for Brusa and settled on him a French pension o f 100,000 francs per annum; three years later he settled in Damascus, w here he maintained his hom e for the rest o f his life. D uring the bloody disturbances there in 1860, cAbd al Q adir made an enor­ m ously favorable impact on French public opinion by intervening to save the lives o f thousands o f Syrian Christians. The Em peror dem onstrated the na­ tion’s gratitude by increasing his pension to 150,000 francs and awarding him the grand cordon o f the Legion o f H onor. Invited to visit Paris in 1865, the form er prisoner was received w ith the greatest official and public respect. cAbd al Q adir died in Damascus at the age o f seventy-five on M ay 26, 1883. His remains were returned to his native land in 1968 after Algeria w on its independence. T hroughout the colonial period, the French were at considerable pains to manipulate the legacy o f cAbd al Q adir in such a way as to limit its value for Algerian reform ers o r nationalists. O ne line o f this manipulation focused on w hat appear to have been the A m ir’s rather good relations w ith the French after he left for the N ear East: his friendship w ith N apoleon 111, the contention that the resistance leader in his later years believed the French occupation to be beneficial for Algeria, and in particular the claim that he condemned the massive Kabylie insurrection o f 1871. Algerian nationalist historiography argues vigorously that the latter contention is either a distortion or complete fraud. Colonial authorities also took steps to assure the loyalty o f the A m ir’s descendants, w ho from 1892 onw ard were perm itted on a selective basis to

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return to Algeria. These steps were usually, but not invariably, effective, as will show n in chapter 5. Struggle over the A m ir's legacy was also conducted at the scholarly level. Some o f the earliest colonialist writers condemned him as a brutal religious fanatic playing upon the w orst instincts o f semicivilized populations. A later and broader strain o f colonialist treatm ent saw him as a decent, even heroic, leader w ho, after failing in his efforts to maintain the independence o f a hopelessly backw ard and "oriental" society, eventually saw the light and rallied to the cause o f a "superior" civilization. In the tw entieth century, as nationalist historiography began to claim that cAbd al Q adir's career and accomplishments were p ro o f either that an Algerian nation existed even before the French invasion or that his state was in fact a nation-state, the ground o f the debate shifted. Certain European historians argued that since his authority and appeal w ere clearly religious and the entity he constructed was based on an Islamic model, he could not possibly be considered a nationalist. O thers looked at the single-minded fierceness w ith which he suppressed internal opposition as p ro o f that the A m ir was motivated mainly by a taste for personal pow er or that he was not m uch m ore than a traditional tribal shaykh fighting m uch as his ancestors had for generations for the advantage o f his ow n group. It is clear that western political theory that insists on the secularism o f the nationalist model is o f little value in understanding the integrative dynamic in a historically fragmented social order where religious identity supplies the m ost im portant unifying element. Even though the basis o f cAbd al Q adir’s author­ ity was religious, his uses o f that authority were far from traditional. While the conceptual and legal bases o f the state he tried to build were clearly Islamic, the territorial and hum an bases were national: it was an Arab state, a state built on historically defined Algerian territory, a state organized and governed in accordance w ith principles o f Islamic law. If the A m ir used military force to suppress internal opposition to his centralization, so have countless builders o f states and nations the w orld over. While the unfinished edifice he was able to erect during the unsettled decade before the full weight o f imperialism de­ scended on him was not yet a nation-state, it was a major departure from the state-building efforts o f N o rth Africa's past and a sign that im portant seg­ ments o f Algerian society were ready for a new, m ore unified social and political order.

R E S IS T A N C E IN T H E M O U N T A I N S A N D TH E OASES W ith the defeat o f cAbd al Q adir and the surrender the next year o f the fugitive Ahmad Bey, the struggle for Algeria entered a new phase. It is possible to view the French conquest o f Algeria as taking place in three phases defined by the spatial objectives m ost central to each. W ithin each o f these spatially defined phases o f French penetration, a dom inant resistance leader­ ship and a characteristic ideology can be identified. The first phase focuses on

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the m ajor cities and encounters initially defenders from the deylical establish­ m ent and later elites associated w ith it, both determined to preserve w hat they can o f the old order. The second focuses on the open plains and the smaller interior tow ns and confronts defenders draw n from the predom inandy pastoralist Arab tribal leadership which, inspired by neo-Sufi visions o f renewal, is bent upon establishing a m ore egalitarian and authentically Islamic order. T he third targets the mountains, the desert rim , and the oases and encounters scores o f m ore popular resistances, which w hen they do become organized frequendy do so under the leadership o f a mahdi, belief in whose advent was an integral part o f popular culture and piety o f the era. The mahdi proclaims the apocalypse, the direct intervention o f God in the historical process, and thus the imminence o f His reign. It is precisely at those mom ents when recognized elites are perceived as letting history get out o f hand that masses are ready to see the acdon o f the Divine Hand. O ne o f the first such popular upheavals was the spontaneous and m ulticentered explosion o f 1845 mentioned earlier. It began in the Dahra mountains north o f the C hélif Valley, spread to the Ouarsensis to the south and ultimately into the Titteri, the Kabylia, and parts o f the Saharan rim. It was in the context not only o f Bugeaud’s oppression but also o f the bewilderment caused by the collapse o f cAbd al Q adir’s leadership in the lowlands that the tw enty-year-old Bou Macza proclaimed the apocalypse and for nearly tw o years confounded Bugeaud’s attem pts to bring him under control. A second im portant millenarian m ovem ent appeared almost immediately afterward in the southeast. D uring the early m onths o f 1849, not long after the capitulations first o f cAbd al Q adir and then o f Ahmad Bey, one Bu Ziyan o f the fortified oasis o f Zacatsha in the Ziban southw est o f Biskra learned from the Prophet in visions that he was the mahdi. Alarmed colonial officials tried twice to arrest him , but when both attempts failed, apparently miraculously, his reputation and credibility soared. Then when a small French contingent sent in mid-July to punish him retreated w ith heavy losses, the whole o f the Ziban, the H odna, and much o f the Aurès rose to support him. In the fall o f 1849, the com m anding general o f the Constantinois arrived w ith massive force. After a fifty-tw o day siege, the longest in the history o f the conquest up to that time, the oasis fell. All 800 inhabitants o f Zacatsha were methodically slaughtered, including Bu Ziyan, whose severed head was displayed on the wall o f the tow n. In further punishm ent the tow n was leveled and m ore than 10,000 date palms in the Ziban oases were systematically cut dow n. But Bu Ziyan became a legend. His ideals and exploits were celebrated for generations in poetry and popular ballads, and there were many successor movements. O ne o f the m ost significant o f these was that o f the Sharif M uham m ad ibn cAbdullah o f O uargla, w ho inspired resistance in the oases o f the southeast until 1855, after which he took refuge across the border in Tunisia. Millenarianism maintained its mobilizing pow er for years as larger o r smaller mahdist m ovements, many in the names o f his family members, reappeared until late in the century.

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By the 1850s, the only m ajor unoccupied regions left north o f the desert were the Grand and Eastern Kabylias. The doggedly independent spirit o f the peasant m ountaineers combined w ith the difficulty o f terrain for m ore than tw enty years to frustrate French efforts to bring these regions to submission. For years resistance was inspired by leaders o f the Rahmaniyya brotherhood and by a reputed sharif know n by as Bu Baghla, o r Mmule m an.” After Bu Baghla died in battle in 1854, the female m arabout Lalla Fatima became the principal sym bol o f the resistance. The tactics o f General A rm and Leroy St.-A rnaud and his successor, Marshal Jacques Louis Randon, am ounted to a m ountain variant o f the total w ar policy o f Bugeaud. They cut dow n o r uprooted tens o f thousands o f olive and fig trees, which were the lifeblood o f the econom y, and at the same time, they torched hundreds o f villages. By 1857, Randon was able to establish French control on the dom inant, 1,700m eter ridge line o f the G rand Kabylia, establishing Fort-N ational and other bases at strategic positions. W ith the establishment o f perm anent military and administrative presence in the m ountain heartland, the French had established formal control over all o f the Tell, the Pre-Sahara, and the northern desert. As the colony extended its dom inion, Algerian resistance retreated into m ore and m ore inaccessible places, from the fertile plains to the rocky hillsides, from the grassy plateaux to the m ountaintops, from the lush and productive oases to the emptiness o f the desert. In Eastern Kabylia, attem pts by the authorities to lim it the powers previously granted to the Awlad Achour and the Ben Azzedin, provoked a general rebellion by 1858 under the leadership o f Bou Renan, a qa’id w ho had previously served as French representative. After his defeat and exile in 1860, the populace turned to the leadership o f the Rahmaniyya; they were not subdued until 1865. D uring the same period, the occupiers also had to cope w ith a massive uprising in the southw est o f the country, that o f the Awlad Sidi Cheikh, w hich spread from the Djebel A m our to Titteri and even into the Dahra mountains. It was not until the last decades o f the century that French Algeria felt secure enough to become other than an armed camp.

COLONIZATION If the motives behind the early French advances were complex and fraught w ith contradictions, the Algeria constituency was becoming an irresistible force by 1840. By the time Thom as Robert Bugeaud outlined his master plan for destroying the state o f cAbd al Q adir, colonization had become both the engine o f conquest and the guarantor o f its permanence. D uring the bloody decade o f the 1840s, which witnessed the subjection o f m ost o f the fertile plains o f the Tell, the European population o f Algeria more than quadrupled from 26,987 to 125,963 while 115,000 hectares o f agricultural land were distributed to colons. By the m id-tw entieth century, the colon population w ould grow to nearly one million and had long since acquired a total m onopo-

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ly o f political and economic pow er, including ownership o f m ore than 2,700,000 hectares o f the richest cultivable land in the country (see table 3.1).

Table 3.1 European Population and Land Ownership Year

Land in Hectares

Population

1841 1851 1861 1872 1881 1891 1901 1921 1954

20,000 115,000 340,000 765,000 1,245,000 1,635,000 1,912,000 2,581,000 2,818,000

37,374 131.283 192,746 279,691 412,435 530,924 633,850 791,370 984,031

Sources: Adapted from Gallissot, L'Economie de l’Afrique du Nord (1969), p. 28, and selected censuses o f die Service de Statisdque générale.14

The colonial constituency was made up o f tw o major components, o f w hich one was dem ographic and the other financial. D uring the nineteenth century, as population in southern Europe grew m ore rapidly than the econom y, population pressures generated continuous overseas emigration, a portion o f w hich w ent to the southern shores o f the Mediterranean. T he overwhelm­ ing m ajority o f the settlers w ho came to Algeria in the nineteenth century were from Spain, Italy, or southern France, some so poor, according to colonial m ythology, that they arrived barefoot and were popularly called pieds noirs. N early half were not French, though their children later received French citizenship. In France itself, the population pressures sent waves o f displaced peasants searching for jobs in the northern cities, particularly Paris, where, underpaid or underemployed, they contributed to the chronic social unrest o f the French capital from 1830 until the 1870s. The governm ent deported for labor in Algeria m any o f the proletarian revolutionaries o f 1848, encouraged other Parisian w orkers to emigrate voluntarily, and deported still others rounded up after the Napoleonic coup d ’état o f December 1851. Even m ore im portant was the influence o f French capital. The in­ frastructural needs o f the expanding colony, in port facilities, roads, railways, telegraphs, housing, and public buildings provided multiple opportunities for profitable investment. Capital was also attracted to the agricultural sector. With the right connections, enorm ous acreages could be had free or virtually so and could be exploited w ith native labor for a fraction o f going European rates. A t a period w hen slow grow th kept French interest rates in the neigh14. Population figures for Europeans from 1872 onward include Algerian Jews who were natural­ ized by decree o f the Government o f National Defense in 1870. In that year the census counted 34,574 native Jews.

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borhood o f 2 o r 3 percent, the returns on investment in Algeria provided irresistible alternatives. While a large m ajority o f the colons settled in the cities and tow ns rather than the countryside, it was rural colonization which had the greatest impact upon Algerian society because o f its overwhelmingly peasant and nomadic composition. By systematically expropriating both pastoralists and farmers, rural colonization was the m ost im portant single factor in the destructuring o f the traditional society. U ntil 1871, the state, master o f an ever-expanding public dom ain in rural properties, was the principal intermediary in transfer­ ring Algerian land to Europeans; from the 1870s onw ard, changes in land legislation facilitated direct acquisition from Algerians and made this as im por­ tant a vehicle as the domain for transfer. While some attractive properties, m ostly around Algiers, passed into Eu­ ropean hands directly in the early years, the fact that m ost desirable rural properties were not m ulk and not legally transferable from individual to individual, made m ost o f these acquisitions irregular and manifestly risky. U ntil a series o f ordinances between 1840 and 1873 succeeded in eliminating the rights o f collectivities in land, the surest way to acquire landed property was to apply to the state. Holdings o f the public domain, already considerable in the 1830s, continued to increase as the conquest advanced in the 1840s and 1850s and as the governm ent enacted successive measures to limit the spaces available to the tribes. T he heart o f the rural public dom ain was the state lands o f the Turkish regime know n as beylik, to which the G overnm ent General fell heir by right o f conquest. Some 158,000 hectares o f beylik had been identified and recuper­ ated by 1851. Very little o f this land was vacant, however. The majority was assigned to tribes or individuals in return for services o r under various hered­ itary usufructuary tenures. When it was turned over to settlers, the con­ sequences for the natives differed little from any other form o f dispossession. The second largest source o f dom ain lands was confiscation, meted out either directly, as punishm ent for insurrection o r support o f the enemy, or indirectly, because o f vacancy pursuant to the com m on-law principle that “les biens sans maître sont à l’état.” M ost vacant lands became so through the flight o f populations fleeing before the advance o f the French army. Still others reverted to the state when, pursuant to the Land Ordinance o f 1846, all claimants to vacant land had to subm it their titles for verification to a Council o f Claims. The procedure resulted in state appropriation o f thousands o f hectares o f “em pty” land, m uch o f which had in fact been communal grazing land o f the nomadic or village communities. Hubusls lands were taken under control o f the D om ain A dministration in 1839, which assumed responsibility for the funding o f the religious institutions to which their revenues had been dedicated but which proceeded to alienate the properties as it saw fit. Finally, the governm ent also resorted to the procedure o f judicial condemnation in the public interest, the public interest being defined in this case as the need to settle Europeans on the affected lands. 15. Waqf in the Middle East.

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D uring the 1850s, as European demand for lands grew and the supply o f good agricultural lands available to the dom ain decreased, the Second Em pire adopted the procedure o f cantonnement to replenish the supply. U nder the assumption that m ost nomads controlled m ore territory than they really needed, the governm ent concentrated them onto the area o f land it thought suitable and took the rest for the purposes o f colonization. The questionable legal rationale behind cantonnement was that the tribes did not have hereditary right to the carsh and sabiqa lands they occupied; instead, by virtue o f the original Islamic conquest, the state was die ow ner and could grant or w ithhold usufructuary rights at will. Cantonnem ent inflicted immense material hard­ ship on many tribes, w ho usually were left w ith the poorest o f their lands, while the best w ent to the Europeans. It also created a debilitating sense o f vulnerability am ong peoples w ho feared the erosion o f the whole basis o f their way o f life. D uring the 1840s and early 1850s, it was official colonial policy to populate Algeria as rapidly as possible w ith a class o f small European freeholders. The first colonization decree, that o f April 1841, provided for the state to make provisional grants o f four to twelve hectares to immigrants possessing a m inim um capital o f 1,200 to 1,800 francs and w ho agreed to effect m inim um im provem ents w ithin a specified period. When these improvements were completed, the colon could apply for clear tide to the property. O ther versions o f basic colonization law followed, but France never succeeded in creating the society o f smallholders at which it aimed. Part o f the problem was bureau­ cratic delays, part was an absence o f credit to w ould-be farmers w ho could not use the land as collateral, and part was the fact that authorities in the métropole used the program as a safety valve for ridding themselves o f surplus urban w orkers rather than recruiting experienced peasants. O f a European popula­ tion o f 109,000 by 1848, only about 15,000 were rural setders, and o f these only 9,000 were French. With the Second Em pire even m ore supportive o f private enterprise than the July M onarchy, the role o f big capital and large corporations expanded rapidly in the 1850s and 1860s. In 1853, a corporation know n as the Compagnie genevoise contracted to setde 500 families on some 12,000 hectares o f domain land near Sétif in the Constantinois. As compensation for its efforts, the corporation received for itself the right to exploit another 8,000 hectares. The com pany found a m ultitude o f reasons for delivering on only a fraction o f its obligations, and the state did not press. Ultimately, it became by far the largest enterprise in the region, exploiting the entirety o f the 20,000-hectare estate for its ow n account by em ploying thousands o f underpaid Arab farm laborers, many o f w hose fathers had once farmed or herded on the land in their ow n right. After the Com pagnie genevoise had shown the way, other investors hastened to follow. In the early sixties, 160,000 hectares o f prim e forest were turned over to thirty entrepreneurs. The Société générale algérienne, controlled by tw o large banks and headed by the G overnor o f the Crédit Foncier de France and the D irector General o f the Compagnie des Chemins de Fer de Paris à la Méditerranée et de VAlgérie, received a huge land grant in the Constantinois o f

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100,000 hectares; the Sotiété anonyme de VHabra et de la Macta in the O ranie was granted 24,100 hectares for a cotton plantation. While colonialist m ythology w ould for generations extol the legend o f the intrepid, hardw orking pioneer tam ing a harsh land by sheer w illpow er and braw n, the agricultural developm ent o f the Algerian countryside was in fact overw helm ingly the achievement o f large individual and corporate landhold­ ers. If there were a few individual pioneers on the land, the typical European colon did n ot become a farmer but became instead a small businessman, a tradesman, o r a governm ent employee, or he involved him self in the construc­ tion or other support industries. A typical European w ho came to Algeria expecting to become a farm er m ight well end up opening a bar to serve wine and absinthe to French soldiers. The hard labor in both the rural and urban economies was supplied by the dispossessed Arabs and Berbers.

COLONIAL GOVERNM ENT AND ADMINISTRATION While Bugeaud briefly considered maintaining cAbd al Q adir’s administra­ tion based upon large khalifaliks, he ultimately abandoned that concept in favor o f smaller aghaliks and qa’idates m ore amenable to direct French control. In the Oranie, the A m ir’s original six khalifaliks became thirteen subdivisions; the khalifalik o f Tlemcen became three qa’idates. Invested by the divisional commanders o r their subordinates, m ost o f the appointees were tribal shaykhs rather than religious figures, often those w ho had opposed the Amir. Respon­ sible for the maintenance o f order and the paym ent o f their ow n salaries through collection o f taxes and fines, many o f these shaykhs became notorious for their heavy-handed exploitation o f fellow tribesmen. In much o f Algeria, French administration was taking on some the w orst characteristics o f the Turkish that had preceded it. The principal interm ediary between colonial authority and native society during the m id-nineteenth century was an Arab affairs establishment pop­ ularly know n as the bureaux arabes, a separate service w ithin the arm y com­ posed o f Arab specialists. While the model o f such a service was established in the 1830s, its final form only appeared after Bugeaud’s destruction o f the state o f cAbd al Q àdir made m ore direct administration o f the Arabs inevitable. A ministerial decree o f February 1,1844, formalized the existence o f an Office o f Arab Affairs at Algiers and o f subsidiary offices attached to each arm y divi­ sion. T he fieldwork o f these divisional offices was carried out by whatever num ber o f bureaux arabes was needed for effective performance o f functions. The officers o f the bureaux arabes were assigned the dual tasks o f gathering intelligence on native affairs and providing for native administration. While they reported formally to the divisional commanders, the latter, burdened w ith com m and and logistical problems, were largely dependent upon their Arabists for the inform ation and analyses upon which their decisions in this

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sphere were based. Thus the bureaux arabes, dow n to the tim e o f their elimination in the 1870s, were the de facto formulators o f m ost native policy as well as its executors. While it appears that in the early years some Arab affairs officers hoped to assimilate the Arabs to European civilization by associating them w ith col­ onization and turning them into French style peasants, by the middle forties m ost were convinced that colonization’s main effect was to despoil Algerians o f their land and thus vastly to complicate military efforts at pacification and their ow n task o f governing. Increasingly, they became spokesmen for Arab rights, which caused them to be viewed by the colon lobby as the principal obstacle to realization o f their ow n ambitions in the Algerian countryside. U nfortunately, how ever, the Arab affairs officers were not all idealistic de­ fenders o f the Arab patrim ony. Left to themselves w ith little supervision from higher m ilitary com m and and none from the political level, many turned into overbearing tyrants guilty o f arbitrary governm ent, sum m ary and often brutal justice, and scandalous venality. The result was that long before the end o f the Second Empire, the bureaux arabes had earned the unanimous enm ity o f the colons and the nearly unanimous enm ity o f the Algerians. The Royal O rdinance o f 15 April 1845 recognized the de facto division o f the colony into three provinces, dissolving the Titteri and D ar al-Sultan into Algiers Province. It also created three separate types o f local administration to accommodate the different populations o f which the colony was composed. These were the civil territories, know n later as communes de plein exercice, where concentrations o f European population were considerable and in which French com m on law was applicable. N ext were the mixed territories ruled by the military w ith limited internal self-government for the small communities o f European residents. Finally, there were the Arab territories, subject to com­ pletely military administration. O ne scholar has suggested that this tripartite regime am ounted to the division o f the country into territories that were occupied, those in the process o f being occupied, and those still to be occupied.16 B y design, the distinctions am ong them were flexible and ex­ pected to change as the conquest advanced. The three forms o f administration, w ith periodic modifications, lasted until well into the tw entieth century. As the settler population swelled during the 1840s and the victories o f French arms became m ore impressive, the European population became m ore certain that the military and their bureaux arabes were putting unnecessary impediments in the path o f their enjoying the fruits o f those victories. Popular opinion accused the military o f coddling the natives and o f exaggerating security concerns o r o f encouraging insurrection in order to justify their ow n control and make themselves indispensable. Civilian leaders began to call for an end to the “régime du sabre” and the assimilation o f the colony to France so that colons could enjoy their full rights as Frenchmen. Opposition to military rule and the m onarchy it represented made the majority o f settlers welcome the republican coup that overthrew the monarchy in February 1848. But the 16. Jean-Claude Vatin, L 'Algérie politique, p. 114.

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settlers were far from being republicans in the liberal mold o f the 1848 revolutionaries. Their republicanism was a means to end arbitrary military rule so that they w ould be free to impose their ow n rule unhampered upon the colony and to exploit the colony for their ow n advantage. Because o f their predom inantly lower-class origins, their antipathy for the army, their support o f the republican idea, and their opposition to the M onarchy and the Em pire, the European population o f Algeria before 1870 had a reputation for radicalism that needed careful m onitoring. In fact, because both capitalist and lower-class colons shared a com m on goal in dominating the M uslim majority, the class distinctions which provided the political dynamic o f métropole politics had little political significance in Algeria. While many colons insisted dow n un­ til the 1870s and 1880s that "assimilation” was designed to im prove the lot o f natives, they had no intention o f extending to the Algerian majority the civil o r political rights o f Frenchmen, and they w ould be hard pressed to explain w hat specific aspects o f the assimilation they proposed w ould bene­ fit them. It was the Second Republic that, for the first time, declared Algeria to be French territory and transformed the provinces created in 1848 into dé­ partements as in the métropole. The process o f assimilation w ent only part way, how ever, because the Republic w ent only part way in attaching governmental functions in Algiers to the appropriate ministries in Paris. Really critical functions stayed in the War M inistry. The Republic did, however, perm it the French inhabitants o f the civil territories to begin, for the first time, electing municipal councils and choosing their ow n mayors and some other officials. The principle was established that citizens w ould be assured a tw o-thirds m ajority on the councils, while appointed Algerians w ould hold the other third and could not serve either as mayors or assistant mayors. The principle o f assuring by law that the majority com m unity w ould constitute a m inority in representative bodies w ould survive until the last years o f the colonial period. After Louis-Napoleon had succeeded in reestablishing the Empire, m ost o f the steps taken tow ard civilianizing the governm ent o f Algeria were rescinded. The Em peror considered military rule all the more appropriate after tw o trips to Algeria convinced him that w ithout such controls the greed o f the settlers w ould run rampant. Advised by a num ber o f Arabists, it was the personal involvem ent o f the Em peror that led to tw o watershed pieces o f legislation that projected their shadow dow n through much o f the rest o f the colonial period^ often in ways Louis-Napoleon w ould never have anticipated. These were the sênatus-consultes o f 22 April 1863 and o f 14 July 1865. The first o f these represented the coming together o f tw o ideas: the need to protect native property from the colons, and the desirability o f introducing the M uslims to the benefits o f a nineteenth century liberal order. The policy o f cantonnement had terrified the natives, depriving them o f hundreds o f thousands o f hectares o f land, and had cast an aura o f desperation and hopeless­ ness over many communities. The first article o f the sénatus consulte o f 1863 declared the tribes o f Algeria owners o f all lands they traditionally and per­ manently occupied under any title whatsoever, thus effectively term inating the

Invasion, Resistance, and C olonization, 1830-1871

75

state’s claim to ultimate ownership. The legislation then w ent on to prescribe three operations o f implementation: the first was to identify the lands belong­ ing traditionally to each tribe; the second was to divide these lands am ong the constituent duw ars o f each tribe, each o f which would be governed by a jam aca o r council, in whose name the title w ould reside; the third was that, wherever and whenever possible or appropriate, the lands o f the duw ar could be further subdivided into individual private property o f the members. O nly then w ould the tribal lands become legally transferable. But given the com­ plexities o f clan and family structure, it was assumed that the final stage w ould take decades or generations to reach. T he colons were unanimous in viewing the sénatus consulte o f 1863 as another imperial maneuver to deny them their rightful access to Algerian land. Happily for them, the civil authorities responsible for the law ’s implementa­ tion were largely sympathetic to the colon point o f view, and they managed in their proceedings to transfer to the public domain a significant portion o f the land inventoried. By 1870, the lands o f 372 tribes w ith a total population o f 1,037,066 had been surveyed and divided among 667 constituent duwars. O f the 6,883,811 hectares processed, 1,186,175 reverted to the domain, 1,336,492 were declared communal property and 2,840, 591 were declared mulk. The constitution o f individual property on tribal land had been completed for only 7,355 hectares in one duwar. The creation o f duwars at the expense o f historically constituted tribes and the assignment o f authority to tribal councils was explicitly aimed at detaching the Algerians from the control o f traditional tribal leaderships. N one o f the authors o f this legislation doubted for a m om ent that this process, combined w ith the ultimate constitution o f individual private property, was the best formula for achieving the emancipation o f the natives from “feudal” con­ straints and for assuring their moral and material progress. While such faith seems today naive, the question o f w hether such outcomes w ould have been achieved remains forever open. With the collapse o f the Second Empire, the colons w on overnight their long battle for control o f Algeria, its people, and its resources. The sénatus consulte o f 1863 provided an ideal platform for the final destructuring o f Algerian society, sociologically and economically. The companion legislation o f 1865 represents another example o f good, if naive intentions, gone awry. The Em peror, after his second visit to the colony in 1865 had given him greater familiarity w ith the contradictions o f its differ­ ent constituencies, concluded that there w ere really three Algerias. These were a military base, a French colony, and an Arab kingdom . Each had different needs, each was called upon to perform different functions, and each required a separate status. Legislation was needed to define those functions and statuses. The sénatus-consulte o f 1865 formally recognized and attempted to codify for the first tim e the difference in personal status required by the different cultural heritages o f Frenchmen and Muslims. Its first article declared that Algerians were French but specified that they were to be ruled under M uslim law. They could serve in the military, become civil servants, and perform other functions in the French establishment, but they were not citizens o f France. In order to

76

MODERN ALGERIA

become citizens, they w ould have to renounce their M uslim civil status and agree to live under French law. Since the latter w ould be tantam ount to apostasy w ithin a society where civil status was determined by religious law, only about tw o thousand Muslims ever requested naturalization during the eighty years the law remained in force. T he sénatus consulte o f 1865 became the cornerstone o f a legal edifice that consigned Algerians to a status o f perm anent civil and political inferiority.

TH E V ICTO RY OF THE C O L O N S AND THE KABYLIA IN S U R R E C T IO N The defeat o f the imperial armies by Prussia and the proclamation o f the Third Republic in September 1870 paved the way for the colons at long last to assume full pow er in the colony and also provoked the last massive armed revolt o f the Algerians. Across Algeria the colon communities responded energetically to the call o f republican War M inister Léon Gambetta for the form ation o f local committees o f national defense. W ith fervent patriotism, these committees welcomed the coming o f republican freedom, prom oted the m ost expeditious “democratization” o f colonial institutions, and encouraged the departure o f troops for the front in Europe. Verbal and even physical abuse was heaped upon troops that remained. European opinion had long argued that the possibility o f m ajor insurrection was a threat conjured by the military, w ho, they argued, even w ent so far as encourage native unrest in order to prove themselves indispensable. The position o f Bonapartist Governor General D urrieu, a sym bol o f the régime du sabre, became so difficult that he requested and was granted recall in O ctober 1870. The Governm ent o f National Defense at Tours, which was already considering legislation to establish a civilian regime in Algiers, made the tactical error o f designating another general, Walsin Esterhazy, com* m ander o f O ran Province to assure the interim. O n O ctober 28, a massive riot in the city o f Algiers forced him to resign as well, and the governm ent fell into the hands o f the M unicipal Council o f Algiers and the local C om m ittee o f N ational Defense. A t Tours, where the G overnm ent o f N ational Defense sat while Paris was under siege, the new republic proceeded in the fall and w inter o f 1870-71 to issue a series o f thirty decrees designed to break the pow er o f the arm y and its bureaux arabes and to implement the colon program o f assimilat­ ing the colony to France. T he m ost significant o f these decrees w ere those o f 24 O ctober 1870, which instituted trial by ju ry , and o f 24 Decem ber 1870, which aimed at vastly expanding the civil territory. T he one extended colon judicial pow er over hundreds o f thousands o f Algerians, and the other ex­ tended their legislative and executive authority.17 17. The logistical, and financial problems o f extending the authority o f the mayors overnight into overwhelmingly tribal areas were so great that this decree as such was never actually implemented. But the psychological effect upon native populations was as great as if it had been. More measured legislation in the next decade secured to die civil communes part, but not all of the territory targeted by the 24 December decree.

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Algerian society was in such a fragile and vulnerable state in 1870 that it was unusually ill prepared to cope w ith the new pressures applied to it. T he country was ju st beginning to recover from four successive years o f natural disasters, which had included drought, insect infestation, earthquake, and epidemics that had taken a frightening toll o f native lives and seriously affected economic stability and morale in many regions. D uring the same years, the military administration had been gnawing perceptibly at the prerogatives o f the tribal jaw ad, through whose offices most o f the country was still ruled. Behind the military, the colon press regularly demanded the deposition o f the tribal “aristocracy”, whose alliance w ith the bureaux arabes it saw as the principal mechanism blocking the march o f civilization into the hinterland. It is clear that the news o f the defeat o f the Em peror and his armies in Europe had a profound effect upon Algerian consciousness. The subsequent revolt o f the civilians against the military and the scom they endlessly heaped upon the institution w hose w ord had heretofore been law to m ost Algerians com pounded the effect. At the same time, the prospect o f rule by the colons, w ho had made no secret o f their program for Algerian society, filled the country w ith fear. M ore tangibly, the new civil administration signalled its contem pt for native leaderships by refusing to honor the previous regim e’s com m itm ent to reimburse wealthy shaykhs for emergency loans governm ent urged them to make to the needy during the economic crisis o f the sixties. M any tribal aristocrats felt financially as well as politically threatened. D uring extensive investigations conducted after the insurrection, a num ber o f European observers contended that outrage over the so-called Crém ieux decree,18 which naturalized the Algerian Jewish com m unity, had helped spawn the insurrection. It seems clear, however, that the colons were m ore distressed than the Algerians about this measure, because it adm itted to citizenship a sizeable com m unity o f natives whose culture they considered abhorrent and backward and whose numbers could dilute their ow n authority. While at the height o f the revolt some native rhetoric did condemn the Crém ieux decree, the great majority o f Arabs and Berbers in the regions that revolted m et few if any Jews in the conduct o f their daily affairs and were little concerned w ith the question. It is w orth noting that the départem ent o f O ran, w here the greatest concentrations o f Jew s were located, remained the quietest area o f the country. It seems clear, moreover, that the overwhelming majority o f Algerian M uslims w ould not have considered acquisition o f French citizen­ ship an honor but, rather, a sign o f disloyalty to one’s ow n religion and com m unity. T he first shots o f the revolt were fired in late January 1871 at M oudjebeur and Ain G uettar when units o f the native police refused orders to be trans­ ferred to France. T he spirit o f rebellion spread during February from tribe to tribe; there were attacks on individuals, trouble in the m arket tow ns, and cutting o f telegraph lines. But it was the leadership o f M uham m ad al-Hajj al-M uqrani, the m ost im portant tribal leader o f the Constantinois, that 18. Named after the minister in the Government o f National Defense who promulgated this and more than two dozen other measures relating to Algeria during the period.

78

MODERN ALGERIA

brought scattered unrest to the level o f general insurrection. Given all that had happened in recent m onths, M uqrani became convinced the tim e was ripe to attem pt to return to the kind o f autonomous khalifalik his father had enjoyed in the early days o f the occupation and to keep the French at a greater distance. Local colonial authorities, o f course, w ould not entertain such a proposal. As the situation grew m ore tense, w ord spread that the governm ent considered him responsible for some o f the violence and m ight seek his detention. O n February 27, he w rote to the local commanders subm itting his resignation as bachagha and asking permission to w ithdraw w ith his family to Tunisia. W hen the commanding general replied in the perem ptory manner o f a superior to a subordinate, M uqrani called a council o f w ar on M arch 14 and w ent on the attack tw o days later w ith the not inconsiderable but nevertheless limited aim o f forcing the occupiers to reestablish the khalifalik. While many o f the jaw ad joined him, some stood on the side o r were positively hostile. This insurrection o f tribal leaders, many o f w hom had long since become associated w ith the exploitative regime o f the occupiers, w ould never have become as widespread if it had not been able to tap into the mobilizing pow er o f religion. T o accomplish this, Al-M uqrani solicited the support o f the Rahmaniyya. The aged muqaddam o f that brotherhood, Sidi M uham m ad al Haddad, after urging from his son, proclaimed the jihad in the marketplace o f Seddouq on April 8, 1871. Al-M uqrani now assumed the title o f amir al mujahidin, com m ander o f the holy warriors. W ithin a week, 150,000 Kabyles and others, impoverished and fearful after years o f natural disaster and colonial spoliation, joined the revolt. Tariqa support had turned an aristocratic action w ith limited objectives into an authentically popular war. T he w ar spread quickly from the outskirts o f Algiers in the west to Collo in the east and from the desert in the south to the Mediterranean, including the Grand Kabylia, the Eastern Kabylia, and m ost o f the valleys and plains round about. The insurgents burned farms, destroyed villages, sacked Bordj Menaie and Palestro, and attacked tow ns as far apart as Dellys, Serif and Ouargla. When al-M uqrani was killed by a shot to the head on M ay 5, his brother Bu Mazraq picked up the standard o f leadership. The resistance continued to hold under siege ten major strong points, including Bougie, Fort-National, Tizi-O uzou, Dellys, and Sérif. In the west it spread as far as Cherchel, well beyond Algiers. B ut already by the rime o f M uham m ad al Hajj al-M uqrani’s death enorm ous French reinforcements were arriving from Europe. As the weeks w ent by, the ride began slowly to turn. As the French managed to relieve one o f their tow ns and forts after another, the resistance was driven back into the mountains—the D jurdjura, the Babor, the Hodna. The last major battles were fought in early O ctober 1871; on June 20, 1872, a French patrol apprehended Bu Mazraq when they discovered him passed out from exhaustion by a pool o f w ater near the oasis o f Ouargla. The rebellion was officially over. Including deaths from illness, it had claimed the lives o f 2,686 Europeans, and although the exact toll o f Algerian lives will never be know n, it was clearly many rimes greater. Even the m ost thoroughly colonialist historians o f the insurrection, w ho

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79

never questioned France’s inherent right to occupy and rule Algeria, agree that the repression the colony meted out to the defeated rebels was out o f all proportion to the alleged misdeeds. The colonial mind is chillingly reflected in the newspaper rhetoric o f the times. O ne editor asserted that “w ith such wild beasts the only law is that o f the noose.” Another demanded “a holocaust o f marabouts offered for the m em ory o f our dead colons.” Such outrage soon blended, however, w ith the optimistic realization that Mthe insurrection fur­ nished a providential occasion to retake possession o f this soil that the tribes do not know how to profit from and which is essential for the firm seating o f European rule.” 19 The colon reaction to the insurrection was therefore an orgy o f vengeance com pounded w ith a pell-mell rush for economic gain. The inhabitants o f the eastern half o f Algeria were punished as defeated belligerents, as native subjects, and as Frenchmen. As defeated belligerents, the inhabitants were saddled w ith a reparations bill o f 36,500,000 francs even if they belonged to tribes w ho had taken no part whatsoever in the insurrection. As native Algerian subjects, they were struck w ith collective punishment in the form o f land confiscations which, by 1875, had reached the awesome total o f 574,000 hectares. Those lands which the Europeans did not w ant or could not use could be bought back, and eventually Algerians paid 63,000,000 francs to regain possession o f some o f their poorer properties. Finally, as Frenchmen, thousands o f rebels were haphazardly dragged before colon juries clearly bent m ore on vengeance than on justice. It took tw o generations for many o f the affected regions to recover from the direct effects o f repression. From the social dislocation and the economic dependency m ost regions never recovered. Kabyle poets preserved for the generations the pain and the bitter memory: Your heart, oh France, is implacable; Since we faltered, your blows never cease.20 They have sowed hatred in the villages. We store it under the ground where it remains, The abundant yield of a harvested field.21

19. As quoted by Charles-Robeit Ageron, in vol. 1 of Let Algériens musulmans et la France (1871-1919), p. 24. 20. Small Assikiou, as translated from a French version in Ageron, Les Algériens, I, p. 35. 21. Anonymous, as translated from the French in vol. 1 of Ageron, Les Algériens, ibid.

C H A P

I i; R

THE COLONIAL SYSTEM AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF ALGERIAN SOCIETY, 1871-1919

U nder the Second Empire, the army had not actually slowed the European drive to monopolize Algeria’s landed resources, but because it said it wanted to, the colons were frightened and angry. They were relieved to encounter in the Third Republic, however, the most supportive political environment since 1830 in which to pursue their goals. One reason for this was political uncertainty in France. From 1870 until well into the 1880s, it was by no means clear to the republican leadership there that it could withstand the forces pressing for restoration of the monarchy. The colons, militantly repub­ lican since the 1840s, were awarded three seats in the Senate and three in the Chamber of Deputies. There, in return for much needed support, the parlia­ mentarians enacted with little dissent the bulk of the program presented to them by their trans-Mediterranean colleagues. Republican gratitude went so far by 1881 that Parliament doubled the colon representation in the Chamber to a grossly disproportionate six seats. Beyond the obvious political trade off, however, there is evident in the thinking of many metropolitan politicians of the era a desire to compensate south of the Mediterranean for the demoralizing losses France had sustained on her eastern frontier. The allocation of 100,000 hectares of Kabyle land for the purpose of settling some 1,200 refugee families from Alsace and Lorraine is the best remembered initiative bom of an in­ stinctive drive to offset the humiliation of defeat by a program of vigorous expansion and national rejuvenation at Arab and Berber expense.1 1. O f the 125,000 Alsatians and Lorrainers who chose to leave their home provinces after German annexation, no more than 5,000 settled in Algeria. O f the 1,183 families recipient of land grants in the 1870s, only 387 remained on those grants by the turn of the century, and 277 had left Algeria for good. Nevertheless, as late as the 1950s, French voices could be heard citing the Republic’s commitment to the descendants of the refugees from the lost provinces as reason to retain the Algerian colony.

80

T he C olonial System and the Transform ation o f Society, 1871-1919

81

As the colon program for expropriating Algerian lands moved into high gear, it accelerated the disarticulation o f the native economy and the pro­ gressive im poverishm ent o f Algerian society. Economic disarticulation in turn was the m ost im portant o f several factors precipitating, by the last years o f the century, the first clear signs o f déstructuration o f the society which up to then, in spite o f multiple traum a and dislocation, had largely maintained its tradi­ tional form s and relationships. By the 1890s, many observers in France, including a num ber o f influential politicians like Jules Ferry and Jules Cam bon, w ere becoming alarmed at the destructive effects unbridled colonialism was having upon a people w ho against their will had been forced into French tutelage. By the turn o f the century, new Algerian elites beginning to emerge out o f the sinking traditional society were in a better position than their predecessors to analyze the Algerian situation and enter into dialogue w ith the m etropolitan leadership. T he resulting series o f reform proposals, effectively countered by massive colon opposition, were so diluted in final form that m ost Algerians found that little about their situation had im proved by 1919. These issues provide the main subjects o f the present chapter.

THE

HIGH

TIDE

OF

RURAL

COLONIZATION

In spite o f the enorm ous quantities o f land made available to the public domain through the operations o f the sénatus-consulte o f 1863, the colons continued to see that law as the principal hindrance to colonization. The sénatus-consulte therefore became one o f the first targets o f the settler par­ liamentary delegation at Paris, which was headed by D r. Auguste W amier, the m ost articulate and effective colonialist spokesman o f the era. When it became d ear that legal and administrative complexities made outright repeal inadvis­ able and that repeal was opposed by the first nonm ilitary G overnor General, W amier adopted the new goal o f reorienting the existing statute so as to make it a vehicle for dismantling native property. The so-called W amier Law o f 26 July 1873, along w ith the Law o f 22 April 1887 became the prindpal in­ strum ents through which the colons between 1877 and 1920 came into posses­ sion o f some 1,750,000 hectares o f native property in addition to those ac­ quired under the previous regimes and through the Kabylia sequestration. The W amier Law began a process o f gallidzation o f property by subjecting all transactions between Europeans and Muslims to French law, as well as trans­ actions between natives when these took place on lands previously subjected to cantonnem ent or to inventory o f the sénatus-consulte. It also abrogated the instructions for implementation o f the 1863 law, so that the goal o f the statute was now expliritly the dismemberment o f native properties rather than their protection. Finally, it narrow ly limited the right o f shufa, by which ow ners o f jointly held m ulk could preempt prospective outside purchasers. The com­ plementary law o f 1887, sometimes know n as the lesser sénatus-consulte, mandated the resum ption o f land delimitations am ong populations not

map

5 Colonial Al

7

T h e C olonial System and the Transform ation o f Society, 1871-1919

83

affected by the 1863 statute and hence the progressive gallicization o f the rest o f the native patrim ony. By 1900, 4,000,000 hectares had been inventoried, and by 1934, 9,000,000. This legislation also directed the administration to proceed w herever possible to inventory jointly held m ulk and, w herever feasible, to issue deeds o f property for the individual shares. After the Second Empire, which had looked increasingly to large-scale capitalist initiative to develop the colony, the Third Republic returned to the vision o f populating Algeria w ith a class o f small European freeholders. T he principal instrumentality for realizing that vision was a reinvigorated program o f official colonization, which in turn required mechanisms for steady replenishment o f the public domain. Between 1873 and 1892, the state “recov­ ered” 309,891 hectares o f public land in the 2,239,000 hectares gallicized. As the state attem pted to deal w ith w hat became a perennial problem o f diminish­ ing colonizable reserves, the percentage o f lands assigned to the domain through operation o f the lesser sénatus-consulte rose. Some 26 percent o f carsh lands were declared to be state forest or vacant during the inventories o f the 1890s and 1900s. In northern Algeria, the procedure left the tribes an average o f only 10 percent o f their communal lands. A t the same time, individual initiative was taking advantage o f the new laws to m ove hundreds o f thousands o f hectares o f carsh and jointly held mulk into the European sector. Wherever a European, by buying out a single jo in t ow ner o r by being able to claim a loan default on any jo in t ow ner, could dem onstrate the smallest interest, the French courts could proceed to the dissolution o f the entire property. Some real-estate agents became specialists in program m ing such scenarios. Because hundreds o f native owners could be involved in such litigation and because each had to pay court costs to defend his interests, the legal fees were often m ore than the individual co-ow ners could raise and frequently totaled more than the value o f the property; many extended families and even whole villages were expropriated by default. Since settlement was such a highly charged political issue in the European com m unity, figures concerning its progress were subject to manipulation for political purposes, particularly those related to official colonization. Official recapitulations never accord w ith annual figures o f which they are ostensibly composed and hardly ever w ith the data in parliamentary reports or those o f the local representative body. Table 4.1 represents an attem pt to show the relative importance o f official colonization and private colonization during the period. In the long run, the effort o f the Third Republic to recreate on Algerian soil a replica o f rural French democracy was a failure. O f 32,976 people settled in the countryside between 1871 and 1885 at a cost o f 66,000,000 francs, roughly 17,000 were new French immigrants, the rest were foreigners or settlers already in the colony. O ne study showed that o f 13,301 properties created through official colonization after 1870, only 9,558 remained in 1902. O f these, 202 were in the hands o f foreigners, and 616 were held by Muslims. At the same time, powerful forces throughout the entire period favored the

84

MODERN ALGERIA

Table 4.1 R a n i Colonization, 1871-1910

Period

Official Centers Created

Hectares Distributed by State

Net Private Purchases (ha)

1871-80 1881-90 1891-1900 1901-10 TOTALS

264 107 46 112 529

401,000 176,000 126,000 175,000 878,000

60.0C0 227,000 159,000 352,000 798,000

Sources: Bcnachenhou. Formation du sous-développement en Algérie (1978), p. 217; and Ageron, Histoire de l’Algérie contemporaine, vol. 2 (1979), pp. 76-97.

increasing concentration o f property. While the operative colonization statutes called for grants o f not fewer than tw enty nor more than fifty hectares, depending upon quality o f soil and accessibility o f water, it is clear that such plots were, in m ost districts, incompatible w ith topographical and climatolo­ gical realities. Since the N orth African agricultural base was grain grow n through the w inter on rain-watered tracts requiring alternation o f planting and fallow years, tw enty- to fifty-hectare farms were inherently too small. T he scale and demands o f the expanding market economy, which made m ost small farms non competitive, bolstered the natural forces. As the plains were trans­ formed from the nomadic or seminomadic mode o f exploitation to the in­ tensive agricultural, estates reminiscent o f the latifundia o f antiquity were reemerging. Table 4.2 demonstrates how little impact official settlement poli­ cy had in the short and middle term upon rural European settlement. In spite o f enorm ous effort and expenditure, the percentage o f rural settlers in the total European population at the turn o f the century was nearly w hat it had been in 1871. This percentage was much low er than in France, where rural inhabitants were tw o-thirds o f the population in 1870 and remained in a m ajority until the census o f 1931. In the longer term , official policy proved even less effective. The data, seldom totally reliable, show the num ber o f European rural settlers peaking in the 1890s, declining, and then stabilizing in the next decade. But as a percentage o f total European population, agricultural population declined steadily in the tw entieth century until it reached 21.7 percent in 1948. It seems clear from the figures in table 4.1 that had the lesser sénatus-consulte o f 1887 not spurred the dism em berm ent o f jointly ow ned and carsh properties by individual entrepreneurs, the percentages o f rural settlers w ould have been far smaller. After experimenting in the first decades o f the occupation w ith a variety o f exotic crops (e.g., hemp, cotton, indigo, tobacco), European farmers fell back m ostly on hard and soft wheat by 1870. By the 1880s, however, tw o factors converged to produce a marked shift tow ard viticulture. O ne was the devas­ tating spread o f phylloxera in France, which made the métropole for several years dependent on wine imports. The other was a tw enty-year slump

The Colonial System and the Transformation o f Society, 1871-1919

85

Table 4.2 European Rural Population

Year

European Rural Population

% o f Total European Population

1872 1881 1893 1900 1911 1926 1936 1948

100,549 146,647 201,541 189,164 153,441 236,672 230,311 201,009

41 38 41 39 35 28 25 22

Source: Ageron, Histoire tk l'Algérie contemporaine, vol. 2 (1979), p. 97, Les Algériens musulmans et la Fronte, vol. 1 (1968), p. 551; and selected censuses from the Service de Statistique générale.

in w orld wheat prices brought on by the arrival on the m arket o f large new overseas supplies. Vineyards, which covered fewer than 10,000 hectares under the Second Em pire and had expanded to 18,000 hectares by 1878, grew explosively to 71,000 hectares in 1885 and 103,000 three years later. While viticulture was both labor and capital intensive, it required less extensive plots o f land than cereals, so that its spread tended to mask to some extent the overall acceleration in concentration o f agricultural property. By 1914, vine­ yards accounted for 44 percent by value o f European real property, while wine contributed one-third by value o f the colony’s exports. B ut as tim e w ent on and metropolitan wine production recovered, it was the political influence o f the trans-M editerranean deputies that kept France im porting very large quantities o f Algerian wine. Thus, the extraordinary grow th o f the Algerian wine industry rested less on genuine market forces than on political factors, a situation which w ould later present independent Algeria w ith serious prob­ lems o f agricultural readjustment.

THE

INSTRUMENTS

OF

COLONIAL

CONTROL

The last militarily significant resistance to the French occupation occurred during the decade after the Kabylia insurrection in the form o f three small disturbances in regions still on the margins o f effective occupation. The first o f these took place in the Biskra area in April 1876, when the nomadic tribe o f the Bu A rid, eventually joined by other elements o f the Ziban, occupied the oasis o f El cA m ri and kept a French garrison surrounded until reinforcements arrived tw o weeks later. The second took place am ong Chaouia Berbers o f the western Aurès in May and June o f 1879 and was directed initially at the French appointed qa’id, w hose fiscal and other exactions appear to have exacerbated an already difficult economic situation in the area. The last and largest revolt,

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from spring 1881 until the end o f 1882, was characterized by a series o f raids led by the m arabout Bu cAmama against native silos and new settler facilities in the northern Sahara and southern Oranie. It had taken the Europeans a half century to overcome the Algerians’ determined but perennially disunited military resistance. They assured mainte­ nance o f the occupation for another seventy years by institutionalizing a system o f legal discrimination that kept the native m ajority in a position o f perm anent inferiority. The major elements o f that legal edifice were civil, political, juridical, and fiscal inequality. As was noted in chapter 3, the de facto inequality o f the tw o peoples was institutionalized by the sénatus-consulte o f 1865, which declared Algerians French w ithout according them citizenship. In order to become citizens, Algerians were required to renounce their M uslim civil status and live under the code civil, a step taken by only 1,557 o f them between 1865 and 1913. Very few M uslims w ould com m it w hat am ounted to apostasy by renouncing the religious law that defined their individual status, but even those w ho chose to make the great leap were not assured o f a w arm welcome on the other side. In the decade between 1899 and 1909, 551 Algerians applied for citizenship, and 337 received it. M any o f the 214 rejected were turned dow n on the vague grounds o f "unw orthiness.” The heart o f the colon program coming into the republican era was the drive for "assimilation” o f Algeria to France. B ut as Auguste W amier made clear, immediate assimilation was appropriate only for the Europeans. Since M uslim society was still in a "relatively barbarous state,” it should be assimi­ lated only "gradually and sensibly.”2 Through legislation enacted from 1870 into the early 1880s, this m inority colonial com m unity was assimilated organi­ cally to the French Republic by limiting the powers o f the G overnor General, by attaching m ost functions to the relevant ministries in the métropole, and by giving the colons a high level o f parliamentary representation. Thus, by 1881, the colony was effectively theirs to do w ith as they pleased. A decade later, however, many m etropolitan observers were becoming alarmed at the de­ structive effects colon freedom was having upon a native society that was sinking into greater and greater poverty and disorganization. When a par­ liamentary commission began to propose serious reforms, the colons con­ cluded that the policy o f assimilation and “rattachements” cut tw o ways. While it had certainly accorded them freedom to design and implement pro­ grams favoring their goals in the country, it had also permitted an alarming degree o f m etropolitan meddling in their affairs. D uring the 1890s, therefore, settler opinion backed away from assimilation tow ard something called "association.” M ost o f the colonial offices went through a process o f "dé­ rattachem ent” in order to diminish Parisian control over them; the governor generalship was reconfigured so as to make it as much as possible a conduit for colon opinion and interests; by decrees o f 1898 and 1900, the colons were given budgetary autonom y through the creation o f a new body called the 2. As quoted by Charles-Robert Ageron, in vol. 2 of Histoire de l'Algérie contemporaine, p. 11.

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Délégations financières. The latter remained for half a century the most im por­ tant representative body in the country, the closest institution Algeria had to a colony-w ide assembly. While Délégations financières budgetary decisions were legally subject to approval by parliament, the Prime M inister and ul­ timately the President o f the Republic, these authorities seldom involved themselves in such internal matters. The assembly was made up o f sixty-nine members, o f w hom forty-eight were elected Europeans. The tw enty-one M uslim members were partly elected by a small electorate o f about 5,000 men and partly appointed. Except for occasional plenary sessions, the M uslims m et and debated separately and had little if any actual impact upon the allocation o f resources. The patterns o f local and provincial governance o f the colony had already been established during the preceding periods, but now there was a substantial increase o f the am ount o f territory assigned to the communes de plein ex­ ercice, a dramatic expansion o f the mixed communes, and an equally dramatic shrinking o f the military territories. Effectively, the latter were confined after 1881 to the Territoires du Sud in the Pre-Sahara and beyond, in which by 1918 about one-ninth, o r 500,000, o f the native Algerian population lived. The total o f 12,000 kilometers under the jurisdiction o f ninety-six civil communes in 1869 was increased by 1881 to more than 17,000 square kilome­ ters under the control o f 196 communes, many o f which had been very hastily constituted. Europeans, o f course, dominated the municipal councils. By a law o f 1884, a limited M uslim electorate was granted, for the first time, the right o f choosing the M uslim members o f the municipal councils, but at the same time their representation was cut from one-third to one-fourth and they lost the right to participate in the election o f mayors. In order to qualify as a municipal elector, a M uslim needed to be a male at least twenty-five years o f age and a resident in the com m une for a m inim um o f tw o years. Additionally, he had to be either a landowner, a leaseholder o f land, an active or retired civil servant, or a recipient o f a French decoration. In the 1880s, about 38,000 Algerians out o f 3,300,000 m et these criteria, a num ber which grew only to about 50,000 by 1920. While in the larger tow ns and in the cities the Europeans w ho dominated the councils were fairly numerous arid sometimes actual majorities, in many regions the com m une de plein exercice represented a caricature o f French democracy. In 1914 the commune o f Randon contained 561 Europeans and 4,978 Muslims, that o f Charon 197 Europeans and 5,105 Muslims, and that o f Mekla 140 Europeans and 9,098 Muslims. Whole du wars were attached to communes w ith as few as fifty or sixty European voters, w ho through their statutory control o f the councils collected and disposed o f tax revenues ex­ tracted overwhelm ingly from the native majorities. Travelers from the m otherland remarked on the affluence and amenities o f the rural colonial tow ns they visited, which they found generally in far better material condition than comparable communities in France. Besides the supply o f cheap labor they enjoyed, the principal reason for this was the taxing authority the tow ns exercised over the Algerian population and their total control o f budgetary

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allocations. They were subject to little or no higher control in such matters. The European tow n m ight boast statuary, fountains, and tree lined and beauti­ fully paved streets while the Algerians o f the surrounding countryside did w ithout the m ost rudim entary dirt road upon which to bring their produce to market. The 1911 census showed that 1,078,365 Muslims, or 25.3 percent o f the native population, lived in the communes de plein exercice. The other m ajor instrumentality for bringing the Algerians under civilian control was the extension and restructuring o f the mixed communes. U nder the Second Empire, these were transitional regions into which a few colonists had m oved but which, because their populations were still overw helm ingly M uslim, continued to be governed by the local military commander. The com m ander was advised and assisted by an appointed council o f settlers and natives. M ost o f his representatives w ithin the various tribal jurisdictions were politically prom inent qa’ids, bachaghas, or shaykhs. U nder the Third Repub­ lic, the military commanders were replaced by civilian officials draw n m osdy from the colonial bureaucracy and advised by jo in t European-M uslim muni­ cipal commissions. The Europeans on these commissions were elected, b u t the M uslims were appointed by the Governor General upon nom ination o f the prefect o f the département, and they were removable at will. D uring this period, as the integrity o f the tribal system eroded and the great families declined, the appointm ent o f natives o f stature to the commissions and the qa’idates gave way progressively to the appointm ent o f “dependable” and dependent individuals to w hom both Algerians and French applied the derisive label o f “Beni oui-oui.” The successful civil administrator listened carefully to the advice o f his colon commissioners and sought out native adjoints w ho w ould be satisfied w ith the material profits to be won from their positions w ithout interfering w ith the “civilizing” programs o f the Europeans. In the meantime, the jam acas o f the duwars, which through operation o f the sénatusconsulte o f 1863 were supposed to become the centerpiece o f a program o f democratization and “de-feudalization” o f tribal society, had been abolished in 1874. By 1881, the greatest part o f the territory o f the Algerian Tell, m ore than 87,000 square kilometers, had been organized into seventy-seven communes mixtes. They varied greatly in size, but were characterized ethnically by the existence o f extremely small, politically powerful European communities surrounded by immense M uslim majorities. The average mixed com m une covered 1136 square kilometers and contained a population o f 294 Europeans and 20,348 Algerians. It was central to the Algerian experience because, while economic opportunities were drawing Algerians slowly tow ard the com­ munes de plein exercice, some 3,000,000 o f Algeria’s 4,500,000 M uslims still lived in the mixed communes by 1920. M idw ay between the communal councils and commissions and the Délé­ gations financières stood the general councils o f the départements. Beginning in the 1870s, the Algerians were represented in each o f these assemblies by six assesseurs musulmans, w ho were appointed by the G overnor General. M ost o f these assesseurs were members o f the municipal councils or commissions or

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w ere chosen from the ranks o f native civil servants. The latter in particular showed little disposition to question the system or its priorities. From the start, the colons resented participation o f Muslims, even as a m inority, in the w ork o f the General Councils, while from the 1890s onw ard, a recurrent issue in Algerian reform petitions was the demand that the delegates should be elected rather than appointed. It was noted in the last chapter that an O ctober 1870 decree o f the Govern­ m ent o f National Defense extended trial by ju ry to the civil communes, which meant that as these jurisdictions spread more deeply into the country m ore and m ore natives were subject to settler justice. Such inherently biased justice was at best paternalistic. When it dealt w ith alleged crimes by Algerians against Europeans, however, it could be savage and vindictive; when it dealt w ith alleged crimes by Europeans against Muslims, it could be scandalously in­ dulgent. In cases affecting only Muslims, on the other hand, the juries were often singularly detached and even careless. In the mixed communes, justice was dispensed either by a French justice o f the peace w ithout assistance from a ju ry or by the civil administrator himself. Beginning in the 1870s the colon delegation in Paris induced parliament to enact a series o f exceptive laws outside o f French com m on law designed to ensure peace and order am ong the natives. Passed in the decade after the Kabylia uprising, this legislation was supposed to deal w ith a tem porary security emergency. Yet, it in fact imposed on Algerian Muslims a humiliat­ ing regime o f exception, know n as the code de Vindiginat, the basic elements o f which survived until World War II. The heart o f the code was a list o f thirty-three infractions which were not illegal under the com m on law o f France but which were illegal and punishable in Algeria when com m itted by Muslims. These included such offenses as speaking disrespectfully to o r about a French official, defaming the French Republic, or failing to answer questions put by an official. They also included travelling w ithout a permit, begging outside o f one’s hom e commune, and shooting weapons in the air at a celebration. Avoiding corvée, refusing to fight forest fires or grasshoppers, and forgetting to declare a family birth or death were equally punishable. Failure to pay taxes and some other infractions were punishable both under the com m on law and the code de l’indigénat. In the communes de plein exercice, the code was enforced by the justice o f the peace, and in the mixed communes by the administrator. The rare appeals from this sum m ary justice were seldom successful. While the maxim um penalties under the indigénat were five days im prisonm ent and fifteen francs fine, the frequency o f their application, partic­ ularly in the early days, provided a constant humiliating reminder o f the pow er relationship between the tw o communities. In 1902, in the aftermath o f a small disturbance know n as the M argueritte Affair, Parliament voted a new court system to deal w ith more serious cases o f flagrant delict. These courts, the tribunaux répressifs, were designed to afford quicker disposition o f cases than was provided by the ju ry system and to try cases m ore serious than those listed in the code de l’indigénat. In dispensing

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justice, the presiding judge or administrator was assisted by a European and a M uslim adjoint, neither o f w hom was necessarily trained in the law. From prison sentences shorter than six m onths or fines less than 500 francs there was no appeal. In the same year, Parliament created special criminal courts to hear cases involving only Muslims. These, too, were presided over by justices o f the peace or administrators aided by European and M uslim assistants. Because the native criminal courts removed many cases from the jurisdiction o f the colon juries, some Algerians thought them an im provem ent. Critics o f the criminal courts observed, however, that the training o f the presiding officers was frequently deficient and that the sentences handed dow n were characteris­ tically harsher than those o f the juries. As a kind o f safety device, the G overnor General during the entire period exercised a pow er o f administrative detention. It was applicable in a variety o f cases w hose definition the governm ent kept deliberately vague, until spelled out by reform legislation in 1914. In principle, administrative detention was aimed at threats to colonial authority, at seditious speech, o r at religious incitement. But it was also used to administer punishment in cases where insufficiency o f evidence or other procedural difficulties in the courts had resulted in the exoneration o f individuals the regime w anted out o f the way. The G overnor General, usually upon application o f a départem ent prefect, could intern the accused at Calvi in Corsica, send him to one o f the three Algerian penitentiaries, o r place him under “tow n arrest” in an isolated duw ar. Term s could extend as long as three years. Between 1901 and 1909, 415 sentences o f administrative detention and 540 tow n arrests were handed dow n. A t least as effective as the regime o f judicial inequality in assuring sub­ ordination o f the Algerians was that o f fiscal inequality. This inequality began in the earliest days o f the occupation when the French had claimed the right to continue collecting taxes levied by the preceding regime, which they called impôts arabes. B ut at the same tim e they gradually subjected the Algerians to a range o f French taxes as well. Algerians were responsible for both. The colons, on their side, were naturally exem pt from the im pôts arabes, and, as a m atter o f public policy aimed at encouraging European imm igration, they were also exempted from the era’s m ost burdensome direct tax, which was that on land. They began to pay taxes on developed real estate only in 1891 and remained exem pt from taxes on undeveloped real estate until 1918. The Arab taxes included the cushr,3 o r tithe, collected on the annual cultivated acreage o f six categories o f crop. They also included the zakat, classically a canonical alms but in Algeria a very heavy tax on camels, horses, cattle, sheep, and goats that yielded as much as the ‘ushr. Kabyles paid significantly lighter taxes know n as lazima. Both Kabyles and Arabs were subject to compulsory labor obligations (corvée), which included fire duty in forests, grasshopper and locust drives, and official transport. Both also paid a tax, originally in kind but increasingly in specie, which the French called 3. The cushr, or tithe, was collected in the Algiers and Oran départements. In the Constantinois the comparable tax was the hukr.

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prestations, theoretically collected for the maintenance o f roads and other public services and facilities. As the period w ent on, receipts from cushr and zakat tended to fall, reflecting declining productivity o f the native economy, while the burden o f the prestations became heavier. In addition to the im pôts arabes, European-style direct taxes the Algerians were liable for included the property tax on developed land, trade and pro­ fessional licence fees, rent taxes, m arket usage fees, and additional herd taxes. Indirect taxes included customs duties, tariffs on tobacco and other goods, and various registration fees. As the expansion o f colonization effected the gradual im poverishm ent o f the Algerians, the receipts from the Arab taxes declined, but the European taxes were boosted so that total taxes rem itted by Muslims increased. From 1901 to 1919, their tax contribution increased by 26 percent, while population grew by only 16 percent, this at a time when economic productivity o f the native sector was slipping. By 1909, Muslims were paying nearly half o f all taxes in the colony, contributing about one-third o f the central budget, tw o-thirds o f the département budgets, and half o f the com­ munal budgets. An Algerian jurist concluded in 1912 that while Algerians ow ned 38 percent o f the land and capital goods o f the colony, they paid 71.19 percent o f its direct taxes. While certain European analyses yielded som ew hat low er figures, it is clear that the prosperity o f the settler com m unity rested in large measure upon their ability to extract a strikingly disproportionate tax contribution from the Muslims. A control policy that was ultimately less effective than those outlined above was that o f dividing the Arab and the Berber communities. As early as the 1830s, French observers, taking note o f cultural differences between Kabyle mountaineers and predominantly lowland Arabs, came to the conclu­ sion that Algeria was inhabited by tw o distinct “races.” In tim e a Kabyle m yth grew up that in one form or another survived dow n to the end o f the colonial era. The Kabyle, attached to his ancestral soil, was industrious, practical, curious, democratic, expansive, and far less religious than the Arab, w ho was soft, lazy, slow -w itted, introspective, and given to dreaming and fanaticism. Depending upon w hom one read, the Berbers were Celts, the descendants o f Roman settlers, or form er Christians only reluctantly and superficially Islamized. As the m yth developed, along w ith theories o f assimilation, im portant strains o f colonialist thought concluded that the Kabyle culture was destined to be fused w ith the French and that this fusion w ould become the principal vehicle for the projection o f European civilization over the barbarous Arab majority. Prelates developed elaborate programs o f evangelization. Beginning under the Second Empire, priority in locating French schools was given to the Kabylia; a vocational school was established at Fort-National. Taxes were lowered, village jam acas were encouraged, and many Kabyle tow ns were assigned new French names. Efforts were made to codify custom ary law w ith a view to having it supplant sharica m ore than it already did in that region; Kabyle qadis were urged to draft and deliver verdicts and opinions in French.

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Berber linguistic studies were officially encouraged: effort was expended to subject the different dialects to systematic grammatical analysis, and, at the Faculty o f Letters at Algiers in 1885, a chair o f Berber studies was established. Behind all o f the pseudoscientific cultural, racial, and historical analysis hid, o f course, the self-serving policy o f divide ut impera, which France and other colonial pow ers followed extensively in the nineteenth and tw entieth centur­ ies. In the long run, efforts to implement a policy o f assimilating Berbers to colonial society were wrecked because they rested on tw o basic fallacies. The first was that the cultural distinctions that obviously existed between some o f these m ountain people and the Arabs were so fundamental that the form er could be weaned from loyalty to the com m on Algerian heritage. While Berbers during the colonial period did learn French in greater num bers than Arabs, those num bers were not greater than m ight be expected given the larger num ber o f French schools in the Kabylia and the traditional mobility o f the m ountaineer labor force. Attem pts at evangelization were a total failure except in cases where orphans o r the children o f the very poor came under the care o f the clergy. Colonial analysts were shocked during the last part o f the century to observe that in spite o f all o f their efforts to define and strengthen the Berber com m unity, the num ber o f berberophones was actually declining and that knowledge o f Algerian Arabic was spreading rapidly. This phenom ­ enon was the unexpected outcom e o f political and economic integration forced by colonialism. W herever French railways and highways went, there also w ent dialectal Arabic as the principal language o f commercial and in­ tercom m unal discourse. T he second fallacy underlying the Berber policy was the assumption that settler ambitions were reconcilable w ith a policy o f favoring this o r any sizeable native group. Through the 1870s and the 1880s, when the guiding ideology was assimilation, colons could be induced by m etropolitan planners to sanction program s aimed at accelerating integration o f the Kabyles. But in the 1890s, as the dogm a o f assimilation gave way to that o f association, colonial leaders put m ore and m ore impediments in the way o f initiatives favoring Kabyles. Ultimately, governm ent stepped back from its m ore am bitious assimilation program s while quietly continuing to privilege this region educationally, to encourage emigration, and to prom ote where it could pride in the Berber heritage. At the same time, however, by its insistence on the maintenance o f traditional Kabyle communal structures and customs, some observers believed that the governm ent was deliberately trying to slow modernizing transform ation o f the region.

D E M O G R A P H IC IM PA C T OF C O L O N IZ A T IO N A N D TH E D E T E R IO R A T IO N OF THE ALGERIAN EC O N O M Y Four decades o f warfare combined w ith the shock o f massive land ex­ propriations, forced relocations, and disruption o f traditional markets, to

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Table 4.3 Algerian Population, 1830-1886 (In Millions)

1830

1836 1841 1846 1851 1856 1861 1866 1871 1876 1881 1886

•I •i •i I i i i i I i i i i I i at i i i i i a§ i •i i i i i i i i a•i t j i i t t i i i •i f i i •i j

O

Source: Adapted from Yacono, Ttut-on évatuor la population da rAlgérte vara 1830?* Revue africaine 96: 277-307.

make Algerian society more vulnerable than usual to the ravages o f drought, insect infestation, and epidemic. The result was a devastating decline in pop­ ulation, the main outlines o f which are demonstrated in table 4.3. Between 1830 and the first official census in 1856, population fell from about 3,000,000 to an official 2,307,000, o r an average o f 0.8 percent annually. Since that portion o f the curve represents a backward projection, w ith the only fixed point a military count in 1845, the actual decline for the period is probably less regular than it appears. While it seems unlikely that the surge o f population in the decade after 1856 could have been as marked as this graph shows, there is m uch evidence to indicate that the famine and epidemics o f the period 1866-70 in fact took an enorm ous toll o f Algerian lives. Liberal and anticolonialist opinion in the métropole was shocked at the results o f the 1872 census and the evidence they bore o f the appalling impact o f the occupation on the native population. But colon opinion, fresh w ith social darwinian insight, saw in the apparent disappearance o f some 600,000 natives between 1861 and 1872 corroboration o f their conviction that the barbaric culture o f Algeria m ust unfailingly vanish before the superior civilization o f Europe. With the w inding dow n o f armed resistance in the 1870s and the end o f the era o f m ost violent turm oil, population began to increase again, a trend that has continued at varying rates until the present (see table 4.4). The steady grow th o f population, even under oppressive colonialist circumstances, is imputable partly to the decline in mortality related to im proved control o f diseases like small pox, cholera, and typhus. It may also have been stimulated by the rapid increase in demand for labor that accompanied the concentration

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o f the factors o f production in colon hands, a progression discussed in greater detail later in this chapter. B ut if the era o f violent assault upon Algerian lives and livelihood was ending, the Algerian economy was entering into an irreversible deterioration which entailed inexorable pauperization o f the society. Economic deteriora­ tion was due to the increase in tax burden discussed earlier, to steady and catastrophic loss o f land, and to insertion o f native agriculture into a m arket econom y dom inated by the Europeans. Land was, o f course, the principal factor o f production in a society that was 95 percent agricultural. As indicated in table 4.1, nearly 878,000 hectares o f that land had been granted to colons by the state between 1871 and 1910 under the colonization laws. O f equal or greater importance as a cause o f economic deterioration was the commercialization o f land brought about by the land laws o f 1873 and 1887. Commercialization reduced the viability o f native agriculture both by breaking up jointly held and communal holdings and by progressively fragmenting them at a time when population was grow ing. M any o f the remaining farms became so small as to be economically nonviable, particularly during the recurring bad agricultural years. Eventually, as many plots were sold to Europeans because o f economic hardship as were lost to them through legal maneuvers. Natives could buy back such com­ mercialized property, o f course, and they frequently did. B ut the final out- 4

Table 4.4 Growth o f Algerian Population4 Year

Muslim

1830 1845 1856 1861 1872 1881 1891 1901 1911 1921 1931 1936 1948 1954

3,000,000 2,600,000 2,307,000 2,737,000 2,134,000 2,842,000 3,577,000 4,089,000 4,741,000 4,923,000 5,588,000 6,201,000 7,460,000 8,546,000

Non-Muslim _

96,000 159,000 193,000 280,000 412,000 531,000 634,000 722,000 791,000 833,000 946,000 922,000 984,000

Total 3,000,000 2,696,000 2,466,000 2,930,000 2,414,000 3,254,000 4,108,000 4,723,000 5,463.000 5,714,000 6,421,000 7,147,000 8,382,000 9,530,000

Source: Selected censuses from the Service de la Statistique générale. 4. Native Algerian Jews are included with the Muslims through 1861, and with the non-MusKms beginning in 1872 after they had been naturalized. By deleting the Jews from the non-Muslim column in 1872, the actual European population was about 245,000, representing what colons considered a dangerously slow growth rate since 1861.

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come, as seen from the table, was a net transfer to the settlers o f around 800.000 hectares—almost always o f the better lands. Equally significant is the fact that commercial exchanges over time favored the capital-rich Europeans, w ho bought cheaply in times o f native distress and resold to them at higher prices when the cycle put m ore Algerians back in the market. Land records show that from 1878 to 1914, Europeans purchased from Algerians 1,224,000 hectares o f land at an average price o f 119 francs per hectare. D uring the same period, Algerians bought from Europeans 337,000 hectares o f distinctly poor­ er land at an average price o f 223 francs per hectare. It was not only to individual Europeans that native property was trans­ ferred, however. The state long before 1919 had become by far the largest land holder in the colony. While figures for the public domain like m ost figures for the period present problems, it appears that in the late 1880s, the public domain held about 3,000,000 hectares o f forest and other land. By operation o f the lesser sénatus-consulte, the governm ent appropriated an additional 1.900.000 hectares o f farm and pasture land, only a part o f which it turned over to individuals, and about 1,200,000 hectares o f forests. By 1919, in spite o f the more than 900,000 hectares it had granted to colons since 1870, the public domain still held between 5,000,000 and 6,000,000 hectares. The constitution o f the national and communal forests was for the native econom y one o f the most damaging facets o f colonial policy. The Service des Eaux et Forêts, inspired by the forestry experiences o f France, was determined to preserve, to replant, and to make, as the Service saw it, m ore rational economic use o f Algeria’s limited w ood resources. These priorities ran directly into the new pressures placed on these resources by Algerian peasantries driven by colonization from the lowlands to the hillsides and also into traditional usage by nomadic and seminomadic populations, whose flocks and herds historically fed upon different kinds o f forest vegetation. O ne pattern that particularly appalled the Forest Service was the native practice o f burning o ff the dry brush in late sum m er or early autum n so that the first rains would cause m ore grass to grow . The difference in perceptions and priorities that existed between the Forest Service and the Algerian pastoralists constituted one o f the m ost fundamental and painful cultural confrontations o f the entire colonial period. Algerians saw forest-bum ing as a routine procedure necessi­ tated by their pastoral life style; many Europeans saw it as an act o f open insurrection. T o counter it, they levied huge fines, imposed criminal penalties, and confiscated lands o f entire tribes. O n the m orning o f April 26, 1901, about a hundred men from the Adelia duw ar in Algiers département killed their French-appointed qa’id and a forest ranger and then seized the colon settlement o f M argueritte, where they ex­ ecuted five o f the inhabitants for refusing to pronounce the shahada, the M uslim profession o f faith. A company o f sharpshooters from nearby Miliana soon arrived, and by five o ’clock that afternoon, they retook the tow n, killing sixteen o f the rebels against the loss o f one o f their own. Small as it was, the so-called rebellion o f M argueritte shook the colony and strengthened the hand

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o f antireform forces. It also produced a careful investigation o f conditions and causes which is an instructive case study o f the impact o f colonial land policy upon one native group. The operation o f the sénatus-consulte o f 1863 had taken 1,463 hectares from the duw ar so that in 1868, the Adelia, w ho num ­ bered 2,194 people, held 9,286 hectares o f m ulk and about 3,000 o f communal grazing and forest land. Between 1868 and 1900, the colony condemned a total o f 3,285 hectares for the creation o f M argueritte and the neighboring centre o f Changarnier; individual colons managed through bilateral transactions o r legal intervention to acquire 3,329 hectares, almost the entire proceeds o f which w ent for paym ent o f legal fees; and the Forest Service had virtually closed o ff the brush lands where their animals grazed. In 1900, however, the duw ar was able to rent nearly 1,400 hectares o f European land. The result was that the Adelia, w hose population had grow n since 1868 to 3,206, now had access to only 4,068 hectares o f land. This meant that by the turn o f the century this particular native group was living o ff o f 1.2 hectares per capita compared to 5.6 hectares per capita thirty-tw o years previously. They were farming only 2,343 hectares; their cattle herd had shrunk to 1,122 from 2,000 in 1868 and their flock o f sheep from 10,934 to 1,537. It was observed in chapter 2 that, although elements o f a “national” market existed in Algeria before the French invasion, the dom inant characteristic o f the Algerian m arket was its fragmentation. But if agricultural productivity was low, it was peculiarly adapted to the cyclical conditions imposed by climate. In general, peasants and seminomads relinquished only the portion o f their harvests required to satisfy tax liabilities and acquire the few necessities they could not produce locally. In good crop years, the balance o f the harvest was stored in silos as insurance against poor harvests that could be expected in the future. The penetration o f the national and global market induced peasants to sell o ff the surplus o f the good years (usually at depressed prices caused by the overproduction o f those years), which left them w ithout reserves to see them though the bad years. In such years, they w ould have to buy food and seed grain for the next year’s planting. M ost had to borrow to survive, at annual rates norm ally ranging between 25 percent and 50 percent but which frequently w ent as high as 100 percent. But the cost o f loans to peasants was not expressed as an annual rate. For small sums, it was expressed as seven or eight douros due for each five lent. For larger sums, the debtor w ho received a loan o f 100 francs for three m onths m ight sign a note for 150 francs. It was ordinarily assumed that loans were automatically renewable (with interest compounded) until the lender judged the risk too great, which led to many families being tied to the same lenders for years or for lifetimes. Foreclosures became, o f course, a principal instrumentality for transferring Algerian farms to Europeans and small peasant holdings to wealthy Algerians. The debt burden in time became as onerous for many Algerians as the fiscal burden, and in many cases it was an even more im portant mechanism than taxation for draining the resources o f the native economy.

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Table 4.5 Native Wheat and Barley Production, 1875 -1915 (In Millions of Quintals)

11 _

1875

1880

1885

1890

1895

1900

1905

1910

1915

I

I

I

I

I

I

I

i

I

210Sourer Adapted from Ageron, Les Algériens musulman* «r te Franco, vol. 1 (1968). pp. 379*61 ; and vol. 2, pp. 793-602.

Agriculture continued, as in the past, to be based primarily on grains and livestock. B ut as population increased, the am ount o f land cultivated by the Algerians was falling, from 2,571,892 hectares in 1876 to an average o f 1,967,955 in 1916-1920. The contraction o f the land surfaces available to the Muslims, the expropriation o f the better lands, and the absence o f significant im provem ent in agricultural technique, meant that production after 1870 leveled o ff and then, in all the im portant sectors, began an unspectacular but marked decline. Since this decline occurred at a tim e when population was grow ing steadily, per capita agricultural production was falling sharply during the period. See Table 4.5 for the grain sector. Given the dispersion o f nomadic populations, systematic and continuous data for livestock production were considerably more difficult to collect than those for crops before the late 1880s. T he total cattle herd in the 1870s appears to have averaged som ew hat m ore than 1,000,000 head. The num ber o f sheep in 1876 was put at 9,699,000. Because animal population is affected by longerrange variables than crop production, the livestock figures in Table 4.6 are expressed in five-year averages. As w ith the grain sector, the absolute decline in num ber o f livestock is less troubling than the sharp per capita decline. The num ber o f sheep fell from 285 head per 100 population to 165. Goats w ent from seven for each five people to four for each five. Cattle were dow n from one for each three people to one for each five people. Reduction o f the herds reflected a significant change in life styles brought about by the irresistible contraction over eighty-five years o f the open spaces available for grazing. By 1914, only 1,000,000 Algerians, less than 20 percent o f the population, were still predom inantly pastoralists. It will be recalled that 45 percent had been nomads o r seminomads in 1830.

MODERN ALGERIA

98

Table 4.6 Native Livestock, 1885 - 1 9 1 4 (In Millions of Heads)

1885-89

1890-94

I

I

1895-99 I

1900-04

1905-09

I

I

1910-14 I

3cattle

1 - ▼--------------- v--------------- v-------------—v-------------------------------- v 0 Source: Adapted from Ageron, Lea Algériens musulmans et (a Franc», vol.2 (1968), pp. 806-11.

TH E B E G IN N IN G S OF THE D E S T R U C T U R A T IO N OF ALGERIAN SOCIETY AND THE EM ERGENCE OF NEW SOCIAL CLASSES Pauperization o f Algerian society was clearly docum ented by changing modes and relations o f production. In 1914, the percentage o f khammis, or sharecroppers, in the peasant population had grow n to about 32 percent. In the last years o f the Second Empire, settlers had been surprised, for the first time, to see large num bers o f natives searching for w ork in the colonization centers. By 1914, wage labor had become one o f the m ost characteristic features o f colonial agricultural production, and there had come into existence a rural proletariat o f some 600,000 Algerian men, w om en, and children, m ore than 16 percent o f the rural population. It is true that by 1914, 48.6 percent o f the rural population still farmed land they owned, but the majority o f the landed peasants lived on plots o f insufficient quality o r size to provide for their total support. T he colonial governm ent calculated that ten hectares on the average was the m inim um space necessary to support a native peasant family. But in 1914, fully 60 percent had farms smaller than that, while only 1 percent boasted holdings larger than 100 hectares. Thus many freeholders sup­ plemented income by w orking during peak times on colon or larger Algerian farms or by encouraging family members to enter the full- or part-tim e labor

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force. Daily wages ranged from 50 centimes o r 1 franc for w om en and children to 2.25 francs for male ploughm en. Permanent frill-time labor earned annual salaries o f from 360 to 500 francs. The turn o f the century also witnessed a still small but accelerating migra­ tion o f w orkers to the cities. This urban proletariat—in small factories, w ork­ shops and businesses, on the docks, in semiskilled or unskilled public sector jobs—num bered some 50,000 in 1905. By the start o f the First W orld War, about 10,000 Algerians had already found job s in France itself, die pioneers in a m ovem ent that w ould become enormous as the century w ent on, w ith im por­ tant demographic, economic, cultural, and political consequences. Sociologically, the m ost im portant effect o f colonization was dearly the proletarianization o f the m ost vulnerable layers o f rural sodety, a process that w ould accelerate after the Great War. B ut colonization also jolted the other end o f the social order by bringing about the rapid disappearance in the last third o f the century o f the great tribal jaw ad. With French law underm ining the legal bases o f their authority, w ith French arm y and police relieving them o f their military functions, w ith French administration and tax authority rem oving the sources o f much o f their income, the jaw ad became historically redundant. The son o f Shaykh al Aziz, a grandson o f al-Haddad, was a lowly khuwaja, o r secretary, in a com m une mixte; one branch o f the M uqranis became shop­ keepers; the great grandson o f Shaykh Benchérif w ho had besieged the T urk­ ish garrison in O ran was a day laborer in the same d ty . By 1938, o f the 721 qa’ids w ho were France's prindpal officials in the communes mixtes, around 100 only were o f jaw ad descent. Those aristocratic families that survived did so by managing to adapt to the new order, d th c r by entering into the spirit o f the new economic system, by making themselves administratively o r political­ ly useful to the French, or by encouraging th rir sons to attend French schools as preparation for entering the liberal professions or the colonial bureaucracy.5 If the traditional tribal nobilities were rapidly disappearing, there still remained before the First W orld War in the larger dties—Algiers, Tlemcen, Constantine—a few descendants o f the great "M oorish” families w ho made up the urban bourgeoisies o f the O ttom an period. As tim e w ent by, these fami­ lies, proud o f the andent heritage, became prindpal repositories o f the old values. This small but tenadous class formed the core o f the group the French came to call the vieux turbans. Deeply religious, they were notew orthy for their opposition to innovation and for their insistence upon faithful application o f the letter o f Islamic law. Because o f the narrowness o f the native electorate constituted by the French, they enjoyed more influence in the early tw entieth century than many larger constituendes. D uring the 1890s, there also appeared a newer M uslim bourgeoisie, which before the war, at least, mixed very little w ith the traditional families. In the lesser colonial tow ns and villages, small businessmen, tow n-dw elling land­ lords, and governm ent offidals began to constitute a small m ore o r less 5. For a thoughtful discussion o f the disintegration of the jawad, see Augustin Berque, “Esquisse d'une histoire de la seigneurie algérienne," in Ecrits sur l’Algérie, pp. 55-68.

100

MODERN ALGERIA

gallidzed middle class that had learned how to w ork and m ore o r less thrive w ithin the new system. In the larger cities, the middle class was made up partly o f businessmen (e.g., small shopkeepers, agricultural wholesalers, building ow ners, operators o f oil presses and flour mills). T o these were added the small French-educated elites w ho staffed the religious institutions and the native schools, or w ho were members o f the liberal professions o r the bureau­ cracy. Finally, in the countryside there was em erging a new landowning class that had managed to take advantage o f the commercialization o f collective and jointly held lands. If, at the poorer levels o f native society, the tendency was tow ard such subdivision o f land that plots were becoming economically non viable, the other end o f the spectrum saw increasing concentration, through purchase from Europeans or from other natives, o r through foreclosure. While data on the distribution o f native property for the entire colony are not yet available, such data do exist for the Constantinois.6 These data conclude that, ju st before 1914, there were in that département 1626 M uslim ow ners o f farms larger than 100 hectares and 7,650 o f farms between 41 and 100 hectares. While large personal estates had existed in O ttom an times in the suburbs o f the m ajor cities, these new estates were being created principally out o f the wreck o f the tribal system w ith the progressive privatization o f collective lands.

RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL CONFRON TA TIO N S T he m ost poignant and permanent cultural confrontation during the colo­ nial era took place in the area o f religion. Frenchmen, w ho throughout the nineteenth and early tw entieth centuries were struggling to institutionalize the secular and liberal society they had first envisaged in 1789, were largely incapable o f comprehending or respecting a society which insisted on the centrality o f religion to its identity and behavioral norm s. M ost Muslims pitied the m inority o f Frenchmen w ho were observant Christians and held in secret contem pt those w ho were not. For many Muslims, the conqueror’s aversion for their religion and his assaults on its institutions m ust have been a greater cause o f bitterness than economic and political oppression. They did not forgive the closing o f mosques and zawiyas, the confiscation o f hubus, the desecration o f cemeteries, the harassment o f Islamic education, or the periodic interference w ith the canonical duty o f pilgrimage. M ost o f all, perhaps, they resented the colonial governm ent’s takeover o f the principal religious in­ stitutions. After confiscating the hubus, the governm ent assumed manage­ m ent o f the official religious establishment, including appointm ent and supervision o f the culama as well as their remuneration. It also controlled the three madrasas, the only institutions in the country licensed to train men for 6. See the thesis o f André Nouschi, Ensuite sur le niveau de vie des papulations rurales canstantinaises de la conquête jusqu’en 1919, p. 591.

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clerical positions. These schools, staffed by Arab and French professors, dispensed a bilingual and bicultural education, w hose quality at both levels was mediocre at best. N o t only did French cooptation o f the official religious establishment erode its credibility in the eyes o f the faithful, but the parsimony o f France’s funding arrangem ents assured its stagnation and even regression. By decree o f 23 M arch 1843 the governm ent had absorbed into the general public dom ain the hubus properties previously only sequestered. Therew ith it ceased to keep a separate accounting o f hubus revenues but undertook to fund from the general budget the institutions and organizations those funds traditionally un­ derw rote. T he total o f these funds in 1843-44 was put by the M inistry o f the Interior at about 100,000 francs, and this figure became effectively a ceiling on state expenditures for Islamic religious institutions for many years. When population grow th and plant deterioration made increased funding o f religion inevitable, colon coundlm en and delegates w ho controlled the appropriations process assured that such increases were never adequate. In 1875, there were in the w hole country only 100 official imams and qadis,7 assisted by 390 sub­ ordinate employees, to minister to 2,600,000 faithfitl. Even though population continued to grow over the next decades, there was no increase in the total num ber o f paid religious positions before W orld War I. M ore imamates were created, but at the expense o f the low er positions. Because physical facilities after half a century o f neglect were in advanced stages o f disrepair, a m odest program o f mosque construction was authorized in the 1890s, but many older buildings continued to deteriorate. Total enrollment in the three madrasas, in the meantime, fluctuated from fewer than 100 to a m axim um o f about 250. T he M uslim consensus was that imams trained in M orocco o r Tunisia, how ever, were far superior to those produced at home. Reluctance o f colons to spend tax revenues on religious institutions they considered incubators o f fanaticism came to a head in 1904 w ith the enactment o f the Law o f Separation terminating the Napoleonic C oncordat w ith the Rom an Catholic Church. If the links between the Church and the Republic were severed, w hy, they asked, should France continue to support the mosques? Natives were quick to respond that France should, because it had undertaken to do so when it nationalized the hubus. Eventually, m ore pragm atic colonial voices convinced the majority that it was more in their interest to maintain control o f the Islamic institution, even if at some financial cost, than to allow it to develop freely. The second half o f the nineteenth century saw, in the meantime, a con­ siderable increase in the membership o f the tariqas.8 O ne reason for this grow th seems to have been popular alienation from the official orthodox establishment, too tightly controlled by the infidel. Indeed, the greater au­ thenticity and freedom o f the orders are attested by the virtual paranoia w ith 7. In colonial bureaucratic usage an imam was a qadi, a mufti, a muezzin, a hazzab, or a mudarris. 8. Augustin Berque, in “Décadence des chefs héréditaires“ (Ecrits, pp. 42—48), argues for a very pronounced increase in membership; Ageron, in vol. 2 of Histoire, pp. 172-75, believes growth was more moderate and probably ended about 1880.

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w hich colonial officials beheld them and by their frequent closing o f zawiyas, arrests o f shaykhs, and continuing policy o f playing the leaders o ff against each other. It has been suggested that another reason for the grow th o f the brother­ hoods was the decline o f the secular aristocracy, which had long served as a check on the am bitions o f the sharifs and im portant marabouts. O ne effect o f their demise was clearing the field for religious aristocracies w ho were in a sense the last traditional leaders still in place. There is general agreement, how ever, that the rush o f faithful to the zawiyas caused a rapid erosion in the neo-sufi orthodoxy that had characterized the m ost renow ned o f them , a decline in the search for authentic mystical experience, and an increase in eclecticism, superstition, and charlatanism. By the twentieth century, the quality o f the leaderships declined to such an extent that they became m ore and m ore susceptible to colonial cooptation. Historical process combined w ith colonial policy to produce the irony that, in the twentieth century, the colony depended for much o f its religious support upon the m ovem ent that had been the principal mobilizer o f resistance to its implantation in the nineteenth. In 1903, when the renow ned Islamic reform er M uham m ad cAbduh visited Algeria from the far livelier intellectual climate o f the Arab East, he was appalled by the backwardness o f m ost aspects o f Algerian Islam. His visit galvanized a num ber o f Algerians to launch a campaign for the rejuvenation o f the faith in their country. Prom inent reformers included a noted legal scholar, Abdel Halim ben Smaïa, and also the Imam o f the Safir M osque in Algiers, Kamal M oham m ed ben Mostefa. The latter, to give an idea o f reform ist concerns, was author o f a book called La tolérance religieuse dans l'Islamisme and o f another called Les droits de la femme. For these tw o and kindred jurists and w riters, the true spirit o f the Koran was one o f liberalism, scientific enlighten­ ment, and tolerance. Almost all readers o f'A b d u h ’s famous journal al-Manar, these reformers launched in Algiers, Constantine, and Tlemcen an attack upon the “superstition” and “decadence” o f the marabouts, which was the begin­ ning o f a m ovem ent o f Islamic renewal that w ould gather m om entum as the century moved forward. For a certain num ber o f Muslims neither holding on to the past nor dreaming o f Islamic reform could compensate for the sense o f powerlessness and hopelessness generated by the colonial situation. Faced in 1907-08 w ith the probability that they w ould be compelled to serve in the Christian army, even perhaps to fight against the C om m ander o f the Faithful in M orocco, some 140 young men o f Tlemcen simply left the country. O thers followed them in 1910 and 1911, heading mostly for Syria. By 1912, in spite o f governm ent attem pts to retain them, some 4,000 individuals from Tlemcen and other districts had succeeded in emigrating, choosing exile to submission. Almost as central as religion in the struggle for cultural dom inion was the conflict over education. Education is never culturally neutral but exists to transm it to the young the values o f the culture w ithin which it is established. In m ost societies until very recently education was one o f the essential func­ tions o f religion. Ironically, it was precisely during the period when France

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was fighting to impose itself upon Algeria that the major battle between church and state for control o f education was being fought in the métropole. It was only w ith the watershed public education law o f 1881 that France itself finally made up its m ind that education should no longer be the province o f religion and laid the groundw ork for the final trium ph o f the école laique. It is natural that Algerians should have seen in the French school an institution appropriate to the education o f Christians but not to that o f Muslims. Since education by definition existed primarily to transm it a religious heritage to the young, attendance by a M uslim boy at a French school, even a secular school, could only be viewed as a step tow ard apostasy and tow ard secession from the com m unity o f his fathers. It has been argued by Algerian historians that because o f traditional M us­ lim emphasis upon scriptural literacy and the wide attendance at Koranic schools, kuttabs, the Algerian literacy rate in 1830 was greater than the French. While hard data to prove the point have not been produced, such a contention seems reasonable. It is clear, however, that one result o f colonial implantation was the rapid dismantling o f the existing educational system, and this caused the spread o f illiteracy, which worsened as the forced illiteracy o f one genera­ tion disabled the next. The dismantling o f kuttabs and madrasas was the result o f hubus confiscation, destruction o f buildings and displacement o f peoples. For a time, zawiya schools filled some o f the void, but because they were politically suspect, they were subject to arbitrary closure for security reasons. A t the same time, the conquerors were establishing their ow n schools. For Europeans, they created public or church prim ary schools, replicating those in the métropole, along w ith a secondary system o f collèges and lycées and a group o f faculties that eventually became the prestigious University o f Algiers. A very small num ber o f Algerian pupils, usually the sons o f notables, attended elementary and occasionally secondary schools from the beginning. Some sons o f notables, held as virtual hostages, were educated in France. There was a parallel school development. The original doctrine o f assimila­ tion, co-opted after 1870 by the colons, reflected the Enlightenm ent view o f the brotherhood o f man. In that tradition, a few early colonialist idealists dreamed o f a fusion o f the races through a netw ork o f schools where French, M uslim , and Jew ish pupils w ould all be immersed in an identical bilingual curriculum. Besides French schools, the colony therefore established in 1833 the first experim ent in w hat later became a system o f bicultural schools called écoles arabes-jirançaises. But the results were disappointing. European parents early made clear their objections to associating their children w ith semicivilized natives, while M uslim parents o f all classes were equally horrified at delivering their sons up to infidel teachers. In the 1830s and 1840s, the écoles arabes-françaiscs were frequented principally by Jew s (then considered the low est stratum o f Algerian society), by foundling M uslim children the au­ thorities collected in the streets, and by children o f poor families to w hom the authorities paid bounties or scholarships in return for attendance. As the écoles arabes-françaises spread under the Second Empire, a few native functionaries

104

MODERN ALGERIA

began to see the advantages for their ow n careers and their children’s future in sending their sons to the schools. Attendance grew a little, but the overw helm ­ ing m ajority continued to boycott them. By 1870, some 1,300 M uslims w ere enrolled in thirty-six Arab-French prim ary schools in addition to a few w ho attended the all French schools, and some 200 older students w ho attended tw o colliges arabes-français. There was also a small norm al school for training teachers as well as a vocational school in the Kabylia. Given the im pact o f the invasion on traditional education, attendance at Koranic schools had fallen at the same tim e to an estimated 27,000. If the numbers are at all correct, less than 5 percent o f Algerian children were attending any kind o f school in 1870. After forty years o f association w ith the French, Algerian society was in the throes o f a cultural disaster. Aléxis de Toque ville had w ritten a tittle earlier that MA round us the tights are going o u t . . . . We have made M uslim society much poorer, m ore disorganized, m ore ignorant and barbarous than it was before it knew u s.”9 Colons, w ho had always been critical o f the attem pt to create a special school system for natives w ho did not w ant it, were quick, after 1870, to dismantle the Arab-French system. They claimed that M uslims were now free to attend the French schools, m ost o f which at the tim e were still operated by the clergy. Few accepted the invitation. A major crisis developed in 1883 w hen the Paris governm ent attempted to apply to Algeria the com pulsory education laws o f 1881 and 1882 and required the construction in each com m une o f at least one school for native Algerians. The colons, w ho now controlled munici­ pal expenditures, managed largely to avoid implementing this law, pleading, am ong other things, lack o f funds. All through the years before W orld War I, they w orked at limiting both the quality and content o f education available to the natives. They insisted that whatever education was offered should be vocationally oriented, focus on the needs o f the agricultural labor market, and avoid academic subjects that m ight tend to politicize the natives. While there were several versions o f the native school curriculum from the 1880s, all courses o f study shared an emphasis on the practical rather than the theoretical, and all were taught almost exclusively in French. A graduation test in written Arabic was required only until 1898. After 1900, the choice to administer an oral Arabic examination was left to the local academic commissions. As the years w ent by, in fact, few Algerian and even fewer French schoolmasters had sufficient com m and o f literary Arabic to teach in o r about it. The geographical distribution o f schools followed a political logic that bore little relationship to educational needs. Even though the central governm ent agreed to pay between 60 percent and 75 percent o f the costs o f native schools in the communes de plein exercise, m ost municipal councilmen were reluctant on philosophical or financial grounds to appropriate their budgetary shares. M ost schools in the Kabylia and in the communes mixtes, however, could be established w ithout approval o f colon councils. Thus, the majority o f the schools were built in backward, rural areas, where education, particularly in 9. Aléxis de Toque ville, part 1 of vol. 3, Otuvres complètes, p. 323.

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French, was the least needed, whereas in many urban areas, w here it was m ore appropriate, Algerians found access to schooling difficult o r impossible. For about tw o generations, a combination o f massive M uslim boycott and colon hostility limited the expansion o f European-style education in Algeria. A round 1890, however, the climate began to change. Some Algerian families were realizing that France was in Algeria to stay and that, if their children were to maintain o r im prove their standard o f living, they w ould have to learn to function in the w orld France had created. The new m ood spread slowly but unmistakably in the last decades before W orld W ar I. In 1882, there w ere 3,172 M uslim children in French prim ary schools; but by 1914, there were 47,163, an increase from less than 2 percent o f school-age population to alm ost 5 percent. In the same year, in deference to M uslim sensibilities, there w ere only sixteen schools for girls, however, whose total enrollment was 3,992. Second­ ary school enrollm ent rose from 86 in 1899 to 180 in 1910, and it then spurted to nearly 400 by 1914. W ithout exception secondary scholarships were aw arded to sons o f qa’ids or aghas, an indication o f the extent to which access to education was being used as a reward for correct political behavior. Be­ tw een 1877 and 1911, only 226 Muslims had received either the baccalaureate, awarded after secondary school, or a higher degree. There were, in 1914, eight o r ten M uslim physicians, tw enty to tw enty-five lawyers, a doctor o f pharma­ cy, and about fifty holders o f predegree certificates in letters o r science.

TH E VIEUX TURBANS AND THE Y O U N G ALGERIANS The crushing o f Algerian armed resistance and the systematic im poverish­ m ent o f the country had, for practical purposes, eliminated the society’s elites—Turks, Koughlouglis, jaw ad, sharifs, even the bulk o f its traditional intelligentsia. For a long tim e after 1870, Algeria was eerily silent. Then in the late 1890s and particularly in the first years o f the new century, Algerian voices were once again heard contesting in different ways w hat the French were doing to the country. Conventional history has retained m ost vividly the m em ory o f the Young Algerians, the first generation o f w hat were called the “évolués," men educated in the French manner and functioning prim arily w ithin the intellectual, professional or economic w orld created by the victors. This narrow elite o f 1,000 or 1,200 men o f the tw entieth century are one o f the m ajor sources o f Algerian nationalism. But before discussing the Y oung Algerians, it is necessary to indicate that there were other voices, less clearly heard because they were speaking a different language, literally and figurative­ ly. These voices reflect a more profound cultural reality than those o f the m odernists and belong to a group o f traditional, largely religious leaders the French and the évolués called vieux turbans. Economic, administrative, and legal strictures had constrained the culama materially and intellectually and had relegated them politically to marginal

106

MODERN ALGERIA

positions far from the Christian-dom inated centers o f pow er. The typical vieux turban was moderately to well educated in Arabic and in traditional Islamic disciplines. B ut some were ignorant by any standard, and others, such as the jurist M oham ed ben Rahal, had extensive exposure to French education and were perfectly bilingual. But here on the margins o f the official w orld, they stood their ground and defended traditional religion, its teachings, and its prerogatives. They condemned the moral laxness o f the young, their wearing o f European clothes, their grow ing fondness for wine, and their neglect o f religious obligations. They defended the institutions o f Islam: the sharica, w hose sphere the French were systematically narrow ing, as well as French attem pts to codify and update it; the prerogatives o f the qadis, increasingly usurped by the civil courts; and the threat to disestablish Islam by applying the Law o f Separation to Algeria. They excoriated the French-speaking elites w ho applied for French citizenship, and they condemned the proposal to conscript M uslims into the French army. Some o f the things traditionalist leaders condemned could have proved o r ultimately did prove beneficial to the cause o f Algerian liberation. Service in the French army, for example, became the surest ladder o f upw ard m obility for impoverished young peasants. While im proving their economic standing, such service afforded an environm ent o f relative egalitarianism that rew arded personal achievement and equipped many Algerians w ith personal selfconfidence and a social vision they had not had before. In the case o f dis­ establishment, on the other hand, which did not occur, and which the tradi­ tionalists opposed, such a measure by freeing the Islamic institution from governm ent control could have made it to be m ore responsive to the needs and interests o f the M uslim faithful. But the point is that, for the great m ajority o f the population, Islam had become consciously o r unconsciously the principal repository o f the collective personality and the ultimate psychological bulw ark against total dom ination by the Christians. Thus, any attem pt to tam per w ith Islam was an attem pt on the moral survival o f the people. While it was not the vieux turbans or their descendants w ho eventually led the great m ovem ent o f liberation against colonialism, it is d ear that had they not helped the masses guard the ideological and psychological fortress o f national identity, the m od­ ernist nationalists later in the century w ould have found few followers. The first signs o f a secular political opposition to colonial polides appeared during the hearings o f the 1892 Senatorial Com m ission o f Eighteen, w here a few Algerian offidals convincingly articulated their objections to a range o f colonial polides. But these petitioners were individuals. The Young Algerians w ho appeared in the next decade were the first to form a recognizable op­ position m ovem ent. They included a new class o f young M uslims w ho had found their way to and through the French educational system and were beginning to constitute a small professional and intellectual elite. They also included a few M uslim businessmen w ho had integrated successfully into the European w orld o f commerce and finance. The majority o f the Young Alge­ rians were frankly and openly assimilationist, demanding rights in the name o f

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the values and principles they had learned from France in France’s schools. While a m inority stressed the need to preserve the M uslim and Arab heritage, m ost spoke only o f a desire for acceptance into the French com m unity and body politic. They were looking to France to emancipate them not only because o f the degree o f their understanding o f and com m itm ent to French civilization but also because they could become a bridge to the millions o f their com patriots w ho in their view had been consigned by centuries o f ignorance and barbarism to their present state o f poverty and degradation. The Y oung Algeria m ovem ent was not monolithic, however. Even more diverse than the vieux turbans, they covered a considerable spectrum o f évolués from a tiny handful o f Christianized Kabyles and self-proclaimed agnostics to a larger group o f French citizens w ho continued to consider themselves Muslims, to a still larger group w ho refused to take the step o f seeking individual naturaliza­ tion. T he question o f whether it was m ore appropriate either to accept citizen­ ship individually, as a few had, or to w ork for collective naturalization was the largest single issue separating wings o f the Young Algeria movem ent. After the model o f the Young Tunisians w ho had created influential societies such as the Khalduniyya and the Sadiqiyya, the Young Algerians founded a num ber o f fraternal and cultural clubs w ithin which to discuss the im portant ideas and prom ote the vital causes o f the day. The Rachidiyya was the m ost durable and visible society in Algiers; it spawned branches in the surrounding département as well as in the Oranie. The m ost serious o f the societies intellectually was the Circle o f Salah Bey organized in 1907 at C on­ stantine. Societies were also active in Tlemcen, M ostaganem, Mascara, Bône, and other towns. Unlike the vieux turbans, w ho were never able to hunch a periodical publication that lasted, the Young Algerians founded and sustained a half dozen or m ore successful periodicals and newspapers in the years before W orld W ar I. Some o f these were bilingual, but the majority were w ritten exclusively in French. The m ost influential was the French language L ’Islam which styled itself “the democratic organ o f the Algerian M uslim s.” A weekly published in Algiers, L ’Islam was the best w ritten o f the Young Algerian journals; it enjoyed good contacts w ith the Parisian press and attracted many French contributors. While it may not in all instances have been the m ost representa­ tive native publication, its visibility and good connections w on it recognition as the m ore or less official voice o f the évolués. Q uite different in tone was El-H ack,10 subtitled Le Jeune Egyptien, which began publication at O ran in the fall o f 1911. O n many questions, its editorial views were similar to those o f L ’Islam. But the paper’s choice o f a masthead invoking the Egyptian reform ­ ers, its launching o f a fund drive to aid M uslim victims o f the 1911-12 Italo-O ttom an war, and its opposition to Franco-Algerian marriage were all indicators o f a concern for cultural solidarity clearly at odds w ith the assimila­ tionist views o f L ’Islam. Neither the editors o f El-Hack nor other Algerian activists o f the period spoke o f Arab or Algerian nationalism or seemed 10. A1 Haqq in standard English transliteration, the truth.

108

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explicitly attracted pan-Islamic ideologies. Yet, behind El-Hack’s thinking lay a sense o f identity and cultural pride that are elemental ingredients o f authentic nationalism. O f the several score évolués whose names became prom inent in the prew ar period, four will illustrate the range o f Young Algerian types. O m ar Bouderba and D r. Benthami ould Hamida were both French citizens, both municipal councilmen, and both extremely ambitious politically. Bouderba, scion o f an old Algiers family that had long ago made its peace w ith France, was a successful businessman. Benthami, o f m ore m odest family, a practitioner and professor o f ophthalm ology educated at Montpellier, France, was granted citizenship after a considerable struggle in 1906. He was elected to the Algiers M unicipal Council in 1908, headed the m ost im portant Young Algeria delega­ tion to Paris in 1912, and was generally considered the leader o f the Y oung Algeria m ovem ent. B oth he and Bouderba were Freemasons and members o f the Ligue des Droits de l’Homme, and both were scornfully labeled by vieux turbans’ opponents as Mashab al bulitik” or Hpolitical types.” O f som ew hat different stripe was Fekar Ben Ali, o f an old scholarly family o f Tlemcen, w ho earned a doctorate in law, taught for a time in Lyon, and became an editor o f a bilingual paper in O ran, which he described as the link between the French and M uslim communities. The m ost intellectually powerful o f the four was the qadi C hérif Benhabylès, w ho had also earned a French doctorate o f law and was one o f the guiding lights o f the Salah Bey Society. His book L ’Algérie française vue par un indigène is a thoughtful and, in places, poignant exposition o f the cultural and psychological contradictions faced by Algeria’s évolués. The first collective political action taken by the Young Algerians was the sending o f a delegation to Paris in O ctober 1908 to discuss w ith Prime M inister Georges Clemenceau the then pending proposal to conscript Alge­ rians into the French arm y. While their petition expressed opposition to conscription under current circumstances, it agreed in principal to the idea if Arabs and Berbers were awarded the totality o f civil rights. When Clemenceau signalled that he was ready to consider reasonable quid pro quos, the Y oung Algerians began to orient their demands tow ard the compensations they hoped to extract in return for supporting compulsory military service. Examination o f the position papers, petitions, and debates o f the m ove­ m ent reveals tw o very different themes in their program , parts o f which were potentially contradictory. A t one level is a group o f demands aimed at benefitting the Young Algerians as a group. This first level included easier access to citizenship, preferential exemption from the code de l’indigénat, extended voting rights, and alteration o f qualifications for public office in such a w ay as to shift the balance for elective or appointive office away from traditional classes—alternatively very conservative or very compliant—tow ard people like themselves. A t the second level, they prom oted initiatives aimed at im proving the status o f the Algerian masses. Perhaps the closest to an "offi­ cial” program the Young Algerians ever produced was the list o f demands that appeared in L ’lslam in April 1911. The list called for the unification and

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equalizing o f the tax codes, elimination o f the indigénat and tribunaux répres­ sifs, broadening o f the municipal voting rolls, and reform o f M uslim represen­ tation in elective bodies in such a way as to “reserve a preponderant place for the intellectual elements o f the country able to collaborate effectively."11 In addition to this last self-interested demand, the Young Algerians asked for the end to the practice o f filling appointive offices w ith members o f traditionally cooperative families and the establishment instead o f a process o f competitive examinations. M ore disinterested parts o f the program included extension o f schooling, opening forests to native livestock, protection o f native property from usurers, and m ore careful m onitoring o f governmental abuse and corruption. A separate element o f their program requested either parliamen­ tary representation o r membership in a special council in Paris which w ould give them the regular access to the central governm ent enjoyed by the colons. The Young Algerians attracted enorm ous European attention at the time, eliciting enthusiastic encouragement from many metropolitan politicians. Charles Gide, an eminent economist, warned in a 1913 lecture at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Sociales that the program o f the Jeunes Algériens was the surest path to creating an amalgam between the races w ithout which the colons w ould unfailingly one day be throw n into the sea. The overwhelming major­ ity o f colons, however, feared the Young Algerians and rejected their program as a dangerous threat to the stability o f French Algeria. For their part, this very narrow gallicized elite seemed to be more at hom e in the company o f French liberals than w ith their ow n people. They never perform ed particularly well at the polls, a fact which they attributed to the conservative composition o f the narrow electorate but which certainly reflects a degree o f cultural and ideologi­ cal disconnectedness. It is probably because they sensed this isolation that Benthami and B ouderba thought it useful, in 1913, to enlist in their cause Em ir Khaled, the presti­ gious grandson o f cAbd al Qadir. Khaled ibn Hashimi ibn Hajj cAbd al Q adir, w hom the Algerians called Emir, was bom in 1875 in Syria, where he spent his entire childhood. Subsequently he studied at the elite Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris and was later admitted to the military academy at St-Cyr. His admission to St-C yr was arranged “pending naturalization," a step which he sub­ sequently refused to take. As an officer in the French army, he rose to the rank o f captain and served w ith Marshal Lyautey in M orocco; but when he sup­ ported the form er M oroccan Sultan Mawlay cAbd al Aziz, after the French had begun to back his brother, cAbd al Hafiz, his superiors became increasingly suspicious o f his politics. Khaled signed his name to the Young Algerian charter o f demands, pressed for them during talks in Paris in 1913, and the following year joined w ith Bouderba and Benthami in founding the Union jranco~algérienne, which became the principal propaganda organization o f the movement. In this period, Khaled proclaimed his loyalty to a French Algeria but complained that the settlers and the colonial governm ent were the chief im pedim ent to any program for the amelioration o f the native condition. As 11. As quoted by Ageron, vol. 2 o f Histone, p. 235.

MODERN ALGERIA

1 10

for the M uslims France singled out to represent Algerian interests, Khaled claimed that these “so-called representatives are really created to block o u r legitimate demands and serve their personal interests.”12 Because o f such blunt talk, the colons in the last year before the w ar considered Em ir Khaled the m ost disruptive and dangerous o f the Young Algerians.

R EFO R M PR O G R A M S, W ORLD WAR A N D T H E J O N N A R T LAW

I,

The formation, in 1892, o f a Senatorial Com m ission o f Eighteen headed by Jules Ferry and the appointm ent in 1893 o f his friend and colleague Jules C am bon to the Governor Generalship marked the beginning o f a m ajor effort on the part o f the métropole to reform the Algerian system. For a while in 1892 and 1893, the issue o f reform remained high on the agenda both o f Parliament and the Parisian press. The colons, however, through their par­ liamentary representation and the Algerian press launched an acerbic and doggedly aggressive campaign to foil reform and eventually w ent on the offensive themselves. Once they had blunted the reform ers’ offensive, they launched the campaign mentioned earlier for greater autonom y from the métropole. A militant fringe in 1898 and 1899 was even talking insurrection and independence. O ne unpleasant aspect o f the colon counterattack was a vitriolic and sometimes violent anti-Jewish movement. While the rhetoric invoked the Jew s’ influence over financial and business matters as well as their bloc voting in closely fought electoral contests, the main issue seems to have been that the enfranchisement o f native Jew ry, never popular w ith the colons, remained a sym bol o f the Republic’s determination to impose its will on the colony. The Republic, w ithin the context o f the emerging victory o f the pro-D reyfus forces in France, never agreed to denaturalize the Algerian Jews. It did, however, as was noted earlier, accord a large measure o f satisfaction to the colony by its policy o f Hdérattachements” and by granting it considerable financial autonom y. Finally, if there had still remained by the turn o f the century any significant m om entum for meaningful reform o f native policy, this m om entum was halted by the backlash from the M argueritte affair o f 1901. The reform m ovem ent acquired m om entum again in 1907, a m om entum that persisted until the outbreak o f the First W orld War. T w o factors account for the new thrust. O ne was the arrival on the scene o f the organized and vocal Y oung Algeria movement; the other was the debate over and the ultimate im position o f compulsory military service on the natives. As France faced in this period the grow ing possibility o f a w ar w ith a much m ore populous Germany, the notion o f tapping Algeria’s m anpow er through conscription became increasingly attractive. Ironically, the majority o f colons and the m ajority o f M uslims came together in opposition to this proposal. T he colons 12. Ibid, p. 240.

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111

feared that arm ing the natives could lead to insurrection or, alternatively, to inordinate native arrogance and political demands; Algerians saw little reason to fight or die for a Republic that had subjugated and humiliated them. The Young Algerians, however, perceived in conscription a vehicle through which to begin the process o f extracting reforms. They were certain, as were many French liberals, that France w ould not long bear to ask men to die for France w ithout according them basic civil rights. In September 1908, Prime M inister Georges Clemenceau did, in fact, make one concession. H e accorded M uslims the right they had been demanding for years o f electing the Algerian members o f the départem ent general councils, w ho since the 1870s had been appointed. Since the population qualified to vote in départem ent elections included only the same 5,000 w ho chose members o f the Délégations financières, the reformers did not see Clemenceau’s concession as one o f overwhelm ing significance. A major Young Algeria delegation traveled to Paris again in 1912 to present a charter o f reforms. Finally, in the w inter o f 1913 and 1914, several sessions o f Parliament were devoted to debating the Algeria question. The only significant results were some lessen­ ing o f penalties under the indigénat, the exemption from its provisions o f certain categories o f évolués, and the increase o f M uslim representation in the municipal councils from one fourth to one third. In Algeria, both natives and settlers had been passionately interested in these debates; so in Paris was the daily press, led by the influential and usually proreform Le Temps. B ut metropolitan French politicians seemed far less concerned, since an average o f only tw enty or thirty o f them attended the debate sessions. O n m ost issues the colon deputies prevailed. Further serious consideration o f reform was put o ff until the last years o f the w ar, partly because the Republic had other preoccupations but mainly because the sitting G overnor General, Charles Lutaud, was one o f the m ost persistent defenders o f colon prerogatives. C ontrary to the nervous ex­ pectations o f Frenchmen w ho remembered 1871, Algeria remained fun­ damentally quiet and loyal through those difficult four years—in spite o f G erm an-O ttom an attem pts to encourage sedition.13 Including career soldiers, conscripts, and volunteers, more than 206,000 Algerians served under the tricolor during the war. Nearly 26,000 were killed o r missing in action, and 72,000 were wounded, including 8,770 w ho were permanently disabled. An­ other 89,000 men were requisitioned for labor in France in addition to 30,000 w ho volunteered to w ork there. In all, more than a third o f the male popula­ tion between the ages o f tw enty and forty was in France during the w ar, a fact that w ould have enorm ous economic, cultural, and political consequences later. W hen the philosophically anticolonialist Georges Clemenceau returned a final tim e to pow er in 1917, he determined to reward Algerians for their 13. André Nouschi, in La naissance du nationalisme algérien, pp. 24-28, presents discussion of aspects o f German subversion and suggests that unrest in Algeria was more significant than allowed by most accounts.

112

MODERN ALGERIA

contribution to the w ar effort. He recalled Lutaud from Algiers and replaced him w ith the sympathetic but paternalistic Charles Jonnart, w ho had already served tw o term s as Governor General. The cabinet’s publication, in late 1917, o f the reform program it intended to implement unleashed such a storm o f settler protest that Jonnart eventually substituted a considerably m ore m od­ erate progfam . In 1918, a plan to eliminate the impôts arabes was voted on June 21; and on 1 A ugust the tribal jam acas were restored and given jurisdic­ tion over communal lands and other duw ar resources. The bulk o f the reforms were contained in the so-called Jonnart Law o f 4 February 1919, however. This law expanded the M uslim electorate to about 425,000, or about 43 percent o f the adult male population; and by instituting a separate college o f non-French voters, it created, in effect, a kind o f intermediate native citizen­ ship. Em powered to vote in communal elections were all honorably dis­ charged veterans, owners o f land or businesses, active o r retired civil servants, recipients o f French decorations, graduates o f elementary school, and m em b­ ers o f chambers o f commerce or agriculture. Muslim municipal councilmen could now participate in the election o f mayors. The num ber o f voters quali­ fied to choose members o f the general councils was raised to a little over 100, 000 . Since the m axim um representation o f natives in the municipal councils was still limited to one-third and in the general councils to one-fourth, this newly qualified electorate was invited into a w orld o f political activity designed to assure that m ost o f its goals could be systematically frustrated by the repre­ sentatives o f the m inority. At the same tim e the idea o f a Council o f Algeria seated in Paris to represent both Europeans and Muslims, which the Clemenceau cabinet had said in 1917 it favored, was dropped completely. The Jonnart legislation can be viewed in one sense as France’s final rejection o f the doctrine o f assimilation14 and in another as a fateful step in the direction o f political instability. In the area o f personal status, all voters were exempted by the Jonnart Law from the jurisdiction o f the indigénat and the tribunaux répressifs, and all Algerians were declared, in principle, eligible to hold any position in the civil service. O n the critical issue o f citizenship, however, no significant con­ cessions were made, and the Jonnart Law was in some ways m ore restrictive than the sénatus-consulte o f 1865. A lm ost no one was satisfied w ith the reforms o f 1918 and 1919. The colons thought far too much had been conceded. The widespread perception am ong natives was that France had promised much when accepting the tribute o f Algerian lives in her hour o f need, but that she had delivered little. The m ajority o f Young Algerians, however, considering that progress had been made, decided to make the best o f things. But Em ir Khaled broke w ith his m ore gallicized compatriots. He called for a m ore thorough-going reform that included French citizenship w ith retention o f Muslim personal status, M uslim 14. .This is clearly the interpretation of Ageron, in vol. 2 of Histoire, p. 276.

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113

representation in Parliament, abolition o f the communes mixtes, and com­ pulsory and free bilingual education for all Algerians. W hen a test o f strength came in the Algiers municipal elections o f 1919, the Em ir's ticket w on hands dow n. For the next four years, Khaled ibn Hashimi was the undisputed leader o f the Algerian opposition movement.

c: Il A I' I H k

THE ALGERIAN NATIONALIST MOVEMENT, 1919^1954

1 he settlement in Algeria of a European population determined to improve its standard of living had entailed the expropriation of the best of the country’s productive resources, the progressive déstructuration of the pre-1830 social order, and the reorientation of native energies toward the needs of a colonial economy, the most striking aspect of which was creation of a cheap labor pool in the countryside and later in the towns. Colonial apologet­ ics all this time continued to insist upon the benefits that France’s occupation conferred upon both land and people, a rhetoric which reached a crescendo in 1930 during the jubilant celebration of the centennial of the invasion. Young Algerians and their successors during the interwar period were to continue urging France to confirm those benefits by empowering and enfranchising the more advanced elements in society and by adopting programs to improve the abject economic condition of the masses. Yet, it is clear that survival of a colon society whose per capita income was seven times that of the Algerians de­ pended upon the continued subordination of the majority. So it tenaciously resisted the establishment of mechanisms that would permit even the most gradual extension of rights to natives, lest they use those rights to erode European privilege. As they had since early in the century, the évolué leaders tried, between the wars, to circumvent colon intransigence by appealing to politicians of the metropolitan left, an effort which was to reach a dead end by 1938. In the meantime, a small group of separatists calling for an independent Algerian nation had made its appearance as an insignificant fringe group in the late 1920s. As their movement grew in the 1930s, it became the vocal extremist 1 14

T h e Algerian N ationalist M ovem ent, 1919-1954

115

wing o f the native opposition. Finally, in the 1940s, w ith the virtual collapse o f the assimilationist program , nationalism in one form o r another became the mainstream. As the old Algerian society disintegrated, the new social formations appeared at different rates, often in isolation from each other and w ith few established patterns o f communication am ongst them horizontally o r ver­ tically. While all classes or subgroupings were profoundly touched by colo­ nialism, they were touched by it in different ways and often had different perceptions o f that reality. This meant that they developed different analyses o f the colonial situation and different or only partially convergent agendas for remedy even after m ost accepted the basic concept o f an Algerian nation. In this widely differentiated social setting, no leadership appeared before 1954 capable o f building a broad consensus about either goals or tactics.

DISTORTED ECO N O M IC DEVELOPM ENT T he Algerian nationalist m ovem ent appeared and developed w ithin the context o f a progressively deteriorating economic situation which was caused by the conjuncture o f negative w orld market forces, a scries o f bad crop years at home, and demographic pressures, all o f which contributed to the grow ing disequilibrium w ithin the economy as a whole. The w ar effort had produced a staggering rate o f inflation which ate into the purchasing pow er o f urban and some rural Algerians, leading to a period o f labor unrest to which the authori­ ties responded w ith sharp repression. A t the same time, the index o f industrial prices was rising far m ore rapidly than that o f the agricultural products, which were the heart o f the Algerian economy. Hardships caused by surpluses o f unsold grain in 1919 were followed by failed harvests in 1920 that evoked for m any the legendary famines o f 1866 to 1870. M ortality rates soared, spurred on by the ravages o f the lethal postw ar epidemic o f flu which the Frenchspeaking w orld called la grippe espagnole. The harvest o f 1922 was almost as bad as that o f 1920, and the harvest o f 1924 was the w orst ever (see table 5.1). It is w orth noting that the native component o f hard-w heat production, for instance, which fluctuated between four and six million quintals before the w ar (see table 4.4), now ranged between tw o and five million quintals. Yields from Algerian fields also varied m ore from one year to the next than did the European, reflecting the climatic vulnerability o f the steppe and high plains locations onto which much native farming had been pushed, as well as mini­ mal mechanization and backward technique. While population was grow ing in the period at between 1.6 percent and 2.2 percent annually, grain and m ost other basic food production was stagnating or regressing. The brief period 1925 to 1930 was one o f general economic recovery tied to metropolitan and w orld prosperity as well as to various w ater and other im provem ents undertaken by the government. A closer look at the period

116

MODERN ALGERIA Tabte 5.1 Grain Production, 1018 -1 9 5 4

On Million» of Quintals) 1918

1925

1930

1935

1940

1945

1950

1954

reveals, however, that the great bulk o f the im provem ent was in the European sector, which benefited the Algerians largely through the consequent upturn in dem and for their labor and services. Viticulture, the m ost profitable area o f the agricultural sector, was 90 percent in European hands; vegetables and citrus production, almost as profitable, were 70 percent European. Even in the grain sector, traditionally left to the Algerians, colon entrepreneurs now accounted for 40 percent o f production, including virtually all o f the soft wheat. As will be seen later, this was a period o f increasing marginalization o f Algerian smallholders and o f continuing difficulties in the southern agricultural zones w hich devastated native livestock herds. Sheep, which had num bered about 8,000,000 head in the prew ar period, were dow n to 3,300,000 by 1926-27; cattle, which had num bered about 900,000 in 1914, were dow n to 707,000 the same year. By 1954, the cattle herd had returned to its 1914 size, but sheep had recovered only to the 6,000,000 level. An im portant aspect o f the agricultural recovery was the spectacular in­ crease in wine production, which at more than 18,000,000 hectoliters annually in the mid-1930s made Algeria the third largest wine producer in the w orld, after only France and Italy (see table 5.2). While viticulture was overwhelmingly a European enterprise, it was rela­ tively labor intensive, absorbing between the wars a higher and higher per­ centage o f the rural proletariat in pruning, various cultivation procedures, and harvesting. The business was clearly in competition w ith the French industry, which was the largest in the world. Algeria’s flooding o f already saturated French markets became a major political issue. As early as 1921, colons had to mobilize en masse to defeat a bill in the C ham ber to curtail their exports to France. By the 1930s, metropolitan authorities came back on a different tack, however. They limited the size o f new vineyards that could be planted first to ten and then to three hectares; by 1935, they implemented a program o f

117

T he Algerian N ationalist M ovem ent, 1919-1954

Table 5.2 Wine Production, 1918-1954 (In Millions of Hsctolitsrs)

1918

1925

1930

1935

1940

1945

1950

• I i i i i I i i i i I i i i i I ■ i i • I • i ••

19 17 15 13 11 9 7 5 3 1

1954

I i i i i

-

Source: Amuoho otodstiquo do fMgirio.

payments to landowners for voluntary destruction o f vineyards, which may have been a factor in the leveling o ff o f wine production thereafter.1 When the w orld depression reached Algeria in 1930, the country was particularly susceptible because o f the prim ary nature o f virtually all o f its production. Iron and phosphates, both o f which Algeria exported unrefined, were am ong the first industries hit. Between 1929 and 1932, iron ore produc­ tion fell 75 percent; phosphate production in 1934 was half o f w hat it had been in 1925. In the agricultural sector the price o f a quintal o f wheat dropped from 140 francs in 1929 to 80 francs in 1935-36. The bottom had fallen so com­ pletely out o f the food-oil market that Kabyles could hardly earn enough from their olive harvests to buy the grains they needed, even at their historic low prices, reflecting an almost classic deflationary cycle. U nem ploym ent and underem ploym ent in the countryside and the cities reached critical levels, a phenom enon that was contributed to by a sharp decline in im m igration to France, and, in 1933-34, an actual reversal o f the flow. The distortions in the Algerian economy, particularly its lack o f the m ost elementary industrial base, w ould become painfully dear during the Second W orld War. C ut o ff from Europe, shortages o f energy, machinery, and spare parts seriously curtailed productivity in almost every sector. Disappearance o f the captive market for wine exports came close to ruining the entire viticulture sector. Observers at the time noted that an Algeria which exported w ool had shortages o f cloth; that even w ith its considerable reserves o f phosphate rock, it was short o f fertilizer; and that in spite o f its huge iron deposits, it made no steel. In 1936 Algerian industry, excluding building and public works, employed 1. T h e sharp drop in w ine production d u rin g W o rld W ar II w as precipitated by the tem porary disrup tion o f the French m arket.

118

MODERN ALGERIA

about 90,000 people, half o f w hom were Algerians. The average industrial concern em ployed only six people; in 1939 only 40,000 o f the industrial labor force w orked in establishments w ith tw enty or m ore employees. M ost were clustered around the ports and were in one w ay o r another linked to agricul­ ture (oil presses, breweries, cork factories, crate and box and barrel man­ ufactories, etc.). B ut there were also sheet-iron w orks, cement factories, some metallurgy, and, o f course, furniture manufacturers. While the m ost obvious explanation for the minimal level o f industrial developm ent is that it reflected the economic logic o f the classical colonial relationship, this relationship was, in fact, far from classical w here settlers were concerned. For a century these settlers had demonstrated an uncom m on ability to stand up to French politicians and to influence policy form ation in their ow n favor. It seems more useful, therefore, to consider factors that are not necessarily specific to the colonial relationship. O ne such factor was that, lacking coal or major hydroelectric potential and before the crude-oil and natural-gas resources o f the Sahara were discovered, energy cost 50 percent m ore in Algeria than it did in France. Added to this disincentive was the smallness o f the 1936 Algerian market, which, in demographic terms, was not a fifth the size o f the French market, and which, in terms o f purchasing power, was much smaller yet. It should also be noted that the small landholding-colon oligarchy, which controlled the Délégations financières, consistently imposed heavier fiscal burdens on manufacturing and commerce than they did on agriculture. M etropolitan manufacturers did, in fact, perceive the economic advantages o f cheap and less demanding Algerian manpower; but given the above factors, it was m ore efficient and profitable to bring that labor to France than to take the jobs to the labor. In 1944, the central governm ent embarked upon a program to attract light industry to the colony through various tax incentives and subsidies. Since the Assemblée financière2 refused to grant the tax incentives, m ost o f the encouragement took the form o f borrow ing or subsidies from the m other country. Some eighty-tw o companies employing 9,500 workers were created by 1948. The year 1949 saw the inauguration o f the first o f tw o four-year plans designed to build up the industrial infrastructure. It was in this period that some o f the first heavier industry implanted itself in the country, mainly around O ran, Bône, and Algiers, at which many requisite raw materials arrived. By 1954, in spite o f these efforts, only 146,000 M uslim and nonM uslim w orkers were employed by industry out o f a total o f 910,000 in the nonagricultural w ork force. In the decades before the Revolution, the Algerian economy developed in a distorted and extremely unbalanced pattem , as table 5.3 illustrates. The m ost striking observations about this evolution between 1880 and 1955 include the decline in the prim ary (agriculture and mining) sector’s percentage o f G D P from 46 to 31 and the increase in the secondary (industry, 2. A b o lish e d d u rin g the w ar by the Pétain régim e, the institution o f the D élégation s financières w as reinstated after the co m in g o f the Free French under this new name.

119

T he Algerian N ationalist M ovem ent, 1919-1954

Tabic 5.3 Algerian Gross Domestic Product, 1880-1955 (In Billions o f 1955 Francs)3 1880

1910

1920

1930

1955

78

138

162

194

210

— 12 — 5 1 29 32

4 17 1 8 5 51 59

10 22 1 11 8 65 62

14 31 2 13 12 82 75

19 91 13 47 16 137 116

Gross Domestic Production Government Salaries

155 13

285 26

340 33

425 36

650 80

Gross Domestic Product

170

310

375

460

730

Agriculture (Including Stock Raising and Fishing) Mining Industry (Including Crafts) Energy Public works. Construction Transport Commerce Services

Source: A m in ,

L ’Ecottamit du Maghreb,

vol. 1 (1966), p. 101.

energy, construction) sector’s percentage from 10 to 21. O f secondary sector production, however, only tw o-thirds was industry per se and o f that tw othirds, one-third was contributed by crafts, so that transforming industry itself accounted for only 8 percent o f the gross domestic product. While the place o f the tertiary sector grew m ore slowly, from 44 percent to 48 percent, the fact that nearly half o f G D P came from sources other than the production o f goods was a clear sign o f a seriously underdeveloped economy.

DEMOGRAPHIC TRENDS T w o sets o f contrasting phenomena best characterize the demographic changes in Algeria during the thirty-five years before the revolution: O ne is the slowing grow th rate o f the European com m unity and the accelerating grow th rate o f the M uslim com m unity. The other is the increasing overpopulation o f many regions o f the countryside coupled, w ith almost explosive grow th after 1936 piTfliif iirKan Myslim population. Except for a surge during the Spanish Civil War o f 1936-39, European im m igration had narrowed to a trickle by the Second W orld War, and m ost population grow th was due to natural increase, which was much slower than that o f the Muslims. After undergoing a net out-m igration during W orld W ar II, European population stabilized and then grew to 984,000 by 1954 (see table 3. Betw een 1945 and I960, the value o f the French franc, eroded b y W o rld W a r II forces, stood at between 300 and 500 to the U .S . dollar.

120

MODERN ALGERIA

4.4). O n the other side, M uslim population reached 8,546,000 by 1954. A lthough apparent m ortality and birth rates both fluctuate suspiciously, es­ pecially in the nineteenth and early tw entieth centuries, this grow th in popula­ tion is clearly due to a conjuncture o f declining death rates and increasing birth rates. T he colonial occupation had begun w ith years o f brutal, life destroying conquest; but once it had succeeded, for all o f its inequities, colonial rule established a level o f security superior to that o f the O ttom an period. It also created a m arket in which genuine famine had disappeared even if un­ dernourishm ent was endemic. Colonial rule at the same tim e introduced in some areas rudim entary public health measures (e.g., small pox vaccination, w ater purification and quarantine measures). The infant m ortality rate on the eve o f W orld War II still stood at 160 per thousand live births and Algeria possessed only one hospital bed for each 4,581 people. Yet, plague had disappeared, and cholera and typhus, which had decimated whole villages and tribes in the nineteenth century, had been reduced to sporadic and limited outbreaks. These changes created an environm ent conducive to a general if uneven decline in death rates. Typical death rates which, between 1900 and 1910, ranged between 24 and 27 per thousand and still stood at nearly 20 per thousand during and immediately after W orld War I, declined into the teens during the 1920s and 1930s, only to peak again at a new high o f 27.4 per thousand during W orld War II before declining to 17.5 per thousand by 1954. A t the same time, birth rates which stood in the range o f 27 to 29 per thousand in the first decade o f the century climbed during the entire 1919-54 period. Averaging 38 per thousand between the censuses o f 1921 and 1926, the birth rate was 44 per thousand between 1926 and 1931 and w ent as high as 47 per thousand by 1954. The average annual grow th o f the M uslim population for the period 1886-1911 was 1.4 percent. For the period 1926-31, it had risen to 1.6 percent; for 1931-36, 2.2 percent; for 1936-48, 1.7 percent; and for 1948-54, 2 percent. But this grow th was not w ithout posing its ow n problems, which is the second set o f contrasts involved in this analysis. Table 5.4 illustrates the evolution o f urban and rural populations for both communities. These figures are far from perfect. There are particularly serious questions about the accuracy o f the censuses o f 1931 and 1936 in addition to problems around the definition o f rural and urban. They nevertheless afford a clear idea o f the enorm ous grow th o f the rural M uslim population, which in turn sparked the dramatic rush o f Algerians tow ard the cities in the 1930s and especially in the 1940s and later. By 1936, Algerian rural population had reached an average density o f 74.67 persons per arable square kilometer, while in som e districts, such as Tizi O uzou in the Grand Kabylia, it was m ore than 150. Observers have, in fact, suggested that given the physical environm ent and the level o f technical developm ent o f the era, the countryside had probably reached saturation shortly before or after 1930. This overpopulation was accentuated by accelerating farm mechanization, which brought about a quad-

The Algerian Nationalist Movement, 1919-1954

121

Table 5.4 Urban and Rural Population Urban Population

Rural Population Total

NonMuslim

%

Muslim

%

Total

523,431 783,090 1,100,143 1,247,731 1,431,513 1,838,142 2,186,594

167,515 233,431 236,672 234,345 230,311 201,009 196,000

5 6 5 5 5 3 3

3,061,091 3,704,453 4,107,546 4,419,943 4,847,814 5,747,930 7,147,437

95 94 95 95 95 97 97

3,228,606 3,937,884 4,344,218 4,654,288 5,078,125 5,948,939 7,343,437

NonMuslim

%

1886 1906 1926 1931 1936 1948 1954

297,305 441,499 591,908 641,291 709,220 708,670 788,031

57 226,126 43 56 341,591 44 54 508,235 46 51 606,440 49 50 722,293 50 39 1,129,483 61 37 1,398,563 63

Source:

Résultats statistiques At dénombrement de la papulation

Muslim

%

(1948, 1954).

rupling in the num ber o f tractors between 1934 and 1954 and a seven-fold increase in the num ber o f harvest combines. Each o f the latter could do the w ork o f a hundred agricultural laborers. A t the same tim e the cities, which had for decades been predom inantly and in many cases overwhelm ingly European, began receiving from the mid-1930s an accelerating influx o f rural migrants. While Algerian society was still only 16.6 percent urban by 1954, that figure represented a doubling in percentage term s since 1906 and at least a quadrupling numerically. Just as im portantly, it marked the end o f a hundred years o f symbiosis, as it were, at arms reach. U ntil the second third o f the tw entieth century, m ost Algerians, while firmly integrated into the economic order created by colonialism and maintained there by the political pow er colonialism projected, lived socially and culturally at considerable distance from Europeans, w ho were concentrated in the cities, particularly in the larger ones. The city o f O ran, only 12.7 percent M uslim in 1921 was 40.5 percent Algerian by 1954. Algiers which was about threefourths European in 1926 was 45.5 percent M uslim by 1954. In m ost smaller tow ns, the Muslims were now small to substantial majorities. In the thirty tow ns where the great bulk o f European population lived, the population was now 60.7 percent M uslim. Physical proxim ity w ithin a fram ew ork o f in­ stitutionalized inequality only heightened intercom m unal tensions.

STRATIFICATION AND IM POVERISHM ENT IN R U R A L S O C IE T Y The social m ovem ent apparent in rural society before W orld W ar I contin­ ued and accelerated after that war. At the upper end o f the scale, property continued to concentrate, while at the low er end, holdings fragmented even m ore and the agricultural proletariat and subproletariat swelled rapidly. In between the bottom and the top, there appeared m ore distinctly than before

MODERN ALGERIA

12 2

the w ar a class o f middle-sized landowners. While the data series are difficult to correlate because o f changes in categories after the w ar and because the inform ation collected sometimes concerns the whole o f Algeria and other times only the northern part, table 5.5, for the period from 1930 to 1950, indicates the direction o f changes in landholding patterns along w ith ideas o f their m agnitude.4

Table 5.5 Muslim Algerian Landholding in 1930 and 1950 1930

1950

100 or More Hectares Number of Properties % o f All Properties Area o f Land % o f AU Land

7,035 1.1 1,593,498 21.1

8,4% 1.3 1,688,800 23.0

50 to 99 Hectares Number o f Properties % o f AU Properties Area o f Land % o f AU Land

35,962 5.8 1,595,398 21.0

16,580 2.6 1.0%, 100 14.9

10 to 49 Hectares Number of Properties % o f AU Properties Area of Land % o f AU Land

140,010 22.7 2,635,275 34.8

167,170 26.5 3,185,800 43.3

Less Than 10 Hectares Number of Properties % o f AU Properties Area o f Land % o f AU Land

434,537 70.4 1,738,806 23.0

437,647 69.5 1,378,400 18.7

Size o f Holding

Total Number o f Properties, 1930 Total Number of Properties, 1950 Total Land, 1930 Total Land, 1950 Source: A ge ro n ,

Histoire de l'Algérie contemporaine,

617,544 630,732 7,562,877 7,349,100

vol. 2 (1979), p. 495.

4. These data were draw n b y C h arles-R obert A ge ro n from the respective editions o f Statistique in vol. 1 o f L'économie du Maghreb, also uses them . A n indication o f the kin d o f problem s they posed is dem onstrated in the 50 to 99 hectare category fo r 1930. I f one divides the stated num ber o f properties (35,962) into the to u t land area assigned to that category (1,595,398 ha), the average size o f such a h o ld in g is o n ly 44.4 ha, w h ich is m athem atically im possible.

quinquennale agricole. Sam ir A m in ,

T he Algerian N ationalist M ovem ent, 1919-1954

123

While m ost specialists in tw entieth-century Algerian social history have correctly stressed the im poverishm ent and proletarianization o f rural society, this observation should not obscure the fact o f a concom itant social stratifica­ tion, as w ell.5 By 1950, the 8,4% largest landowners controlled 23 percent o f the land ow ned by Algerians, while 437,647 in the less-than-10-hectares cate­ gory farmed only 18.7 percent. The average size o f the holding in the richest category was 199 hectares, while the average size in the poorest category was only 3.1 hectares, far less than enough to live on in all but the richest and best watered soils. The average size o f the smallest farms had shrunk 22 percent, from 4 hectares, in only tw enty years. The large landholders em ployed tens o f thousands o f Algerian workers, while the smallholders were for the m ost part themselves blended into that labor pool, at least on an occasional o r seasonal basis. It was to the middle group that colonial apologists pointed w ith great pride, claiming that France’s dismantling o f carsh and jointly held mulk had perm itted emergence on the land a comfortable native middle class which, given rime, w ould become the mainstay o f rural society. Since the average size o f the holdings in the larger o f the tw o middle groups, the 10-to-49-hectare category, is only 19 hectares (which in m ost Algerian soils m ust be considered die low er lim it o f “comfortable”),6 it seems logical to conclude that half, at m ost, o f this group could be considered well off. If this half is added to the category ow ning 50 to 99 hectares, this new rural middle class seems to num ber about 100,000, or 16 percent, o f the 630,732 Algerian landowners counted in 1950. B ut the significance o f this “comfortable” class needs to be appreciated w ithin the total rural context. Because o f problems w ith definitions and the floating o f individuals between categories, it is very difficult to discuss the agricultural proletariat in precise quantitative terms. M ost analysts, however, indicate that the rural proletariat reached its greatest size in the 1920s or 1930s and then shrank som ew hat as grow th o f agricultural production slowed and as European agriculture mechanized. Permanent employees in the agricultural sector, w ho are the easiest to count, were said to be 108,000 in 1954. Occasion­ al o r seasonal w orkers were estimated at between 400,000 and 500,000. W hat is m ost striking in the period, however, is a massive increase in rural unem ploy­ m ent, which in 1954 was put at 400,000. If one adds to this num ber 250,000 underem ployed and a portion o f the sharecroppers and herders, a total o f nearly 1,000,000 w orkers appears usually to have been unemployed, about half o f the rural population o f w orking age. Studies from the 1930s indicated that between 65 percent and 75 percent o f the rural population was at the rime “poor” or “very poor.” U sing categories significantly different from those in table 5.5, the econo­ m ist Samir Amin developed the following figures to illustrate the unequal distribution o f income in the countryside in the mid-1950s. 5. Amin, in vol. 1 of L'économie, pp. 121-31, was one of the first to stress this growing social differentiation. 6. The French word translated is aisé.

124

M O D E R N ALGERIA

Table 5.6 Agricultural Income Distribution (In Thousands o f 1955 Francs) Number o f Persons

Total Income

Per Capita Income

Workers Permanent Occasional & Seasonal

100,000

10,000,000

100

500,000

24,000,000

40-60

Landowners Small Medium Large

210,000 210,000 50,000

13,000,000 42,000,000 28,000,000

60 200 560



93,000,000



1,070,000

210,000,000

no

European TOTALS Source:

A m in ,

L ’Economie in Maghreb, vol. 1 (1966),

p.

130.

THE NEW URBAN SOCIETY T he French historian Charles-Robert Ageron claimed that Algerian society changed m ore between the years 1920 and 1950 than it had in the preceding century.7 N ow here is this dramatic transformation more apparent than in the cities, which had held 5 percent o f the Algerian population in 1830, held 8.5 percent ju st before W orld W ar I, and, as we have seen, 16.6 percent in 1954. A t the top o f the urban social structure sat a small upper bourgeoisie o f perhaps 5,000 to 6,000 economically active men. Because their path to pow er was blocked by the European ruling classes, this modernized native bourgeoisie could not be considered a true capitalist bourgeoisie in the M arxist sense. Yet, by standard o f living, influence w ithin the M uslim com m unity, and social cohesiveness, they stood out as a successful elite on which other urban classes modelled. M embers o f this bourgeoisie were factory owners, proprietors o f large commercial firms, high-level civil servants and managers, and the m ore affluent practitioners o f the liberal professions. While not all had benefited from advanced levels o f French education, it was the French edu­ cated intelligentsia w ho gave the bourgeoisie its dom inant tone. M ostly, they lived in French style homes, adopted or adapted to many French custom s and values, and supported assimilationist program s o f the Young Algerians and their successors. In 1920, they w ore the fez as a sign o f cultural inheritance and class distinction; by 1954 they dressed completely in the European style. W ith 7. A ge ro n , vol. 2 o f

Histoire de I*Algérie contemporaine,

p. 517.

T h e Algerian N ationalist M ovem ent, 1919-1954

125

som e exceptions the upper bourgeoisie affiliated w ith conservative to m od­ erate political movem ents through which, in the years before W orld War II, they dom inated M uslim electoral politics in the cities. M uch larger and m ore significant for the future political evolution o f the country was the middle class,8 whose economically active com ponent num ­ bered around 200,000.9 This class included less affluent members o f the liberal professions, craftsmen, small and middle businessmen, middle-level civil ser­ vants, technicians, white-collar workers, and the best paid skilled workers. Sandwiched between the M uslim upper bourgeoisie (whose life-style they alternately emulated and railed against) and the privileged European middle classes (level for level much better o ff materially than they and w hom they bitterly resented), this class presented, by the 1940s, a fertile field for the recruitm ent o f nationalist militants. After W orld War II, they w ould come to dominate the urban political scene, slowly relegating m ost o f the upper bourgeoisie to the political sidelines. The proletariat, the third im portant component o f urban society, was composed o f three distinct elements: At the bottom , was a mass o f un­ employed, officially counted in 1954 at 133,000, o r 28 percent o f the urban w ork force, but which one specialist claims ranged, in the 1950s, between 150,000 and 230,000.10 Piled up as they were in the old Arab quarters and the swelling bidonvilles that had first begun to appear on the edges o f the Algerian cities in the 1920s, this lumpenproletariat represented the hum an surplus pushed out o f the overcrowded and impoverished countryside, and they were notoriously difficult to count. C ounting dependents, the lum pen represented a mass o f about 600,000 people w ithout visible regular means o f support. A t the next level were the workers themselves, the largest group, consist­ ing o f 146,000 unskilled laborers scattered through the construction industry, dock w ork, manufacturing, and the services. There were additionally, in 1954, some 72,000 skilled workers distributed through a broad range o f trades. The third level o f the Algerian urban proletariat did not live in Algeria at all. Reflecting the dependence o f the Algerian economy upon industrial pro­ duction located in the métropole, nearly 300,000 Algerian workers were employed in France in 1954, significantly m ore than the 228,000 w ho had found jo b s in Algerian cities. M ostly bachelors w ho rotated in and out o f the French w ork force, these young workers had a profound impact on cultural and political life in Algeria, both because o f the nature o f their experiences in Europe and because o f the leavening their ideas and attitudes provided once they came hom e again. 8. French so c io lo g y n o rm ally distinguishes bourgeoisie from (lasses moyennes o n the basis, first, o f capita] controlled, and, second, o f levels o f consum ption. 9. A m in , in vol. 1 o f L ’iconomie, p. 156, finds 225,000 in this class. H is data, how ever, refer to the “n o n -agricu ltu ral” population, w hich is considerably larger than the "u rb a n ” population. A gero n , in vol. 2 o f Histoire, refers to about 181,000 in cities per se, but here he also includes the better paid skilled w orkers. 10. A m in , vol. 1 o f L'économie, p. 155.

126

MODERN ALGERIA E D U C A T I O N F R O M 1919 T O 1954

By 1919, M uslim resistance to French education had for practical purposes disappeared and had been replaced by a grow ing chorus o f demands for the building and upgrading o f schools. Yet all through the interw ar years the Délégations financières resisted those demands, partly for financial and partly for ideological reasons. D uring the period, 10 percent to 12 percent o f the colonial operating budget w ent to education, but o f those fluids, only 20 percent was devoted to educating Muslims, w ho were 86 percent o f the population. In 1921, the num ber o f Muslims in prim ary schools was 46,000; in 1931, it was 69,000. Finally, by 1944, the prim ary school enrollm ent had reached 110,000, which was not quite 9 percent o f the children between the ages o f seven and fourteen. The great majority were taught in special native schools or in separate classes attached to the European schools, which w ere characterized by very high student-teacher ratios, physical overcrowding, and lowered academic standards. In 1944, the Provisional G overnm ent o f the French Republic, then located in Algiers, took several pressing matters, including education, directly into its ow n hands. O ver vocal colon objections, it ordered an increase o f the educa­ tion expenditures to 18 percent o f the operating budget and an accelerated program o f school-building. In the next ten years, the num ber o f classrooms grew from 6,500 to nearly 12,000 and the num ber o f prim ary school pupils to 397,000, nearly a fourfold increase over 1939 but still representing only 12.75 percent o f the elementary-age group. D uring the same era, M uslim enrollment in secondary schools grew from 690 in 1927 to 1,358 in 1940 and then to 5,308 in the fall o f 1954. T he U niversity o f Algiers matriculated 47 Muslims in 1920, 94 in 1939, and 686 in 1954. In spite o f the restricted access to the colonial education establishment, the influence o f French ideas, particularly the liberal and liberating ideologies o f the Enlightenm ent and the French Revolution, was to influence enorm ously the way Algerian elites shaped the movem ent tow ard national liberation. B ut when the W ar o f National Independence broke out, 86 percent o f Algerian men and 95 percent o f Algerian w om en were still illiterate, a m onum ental indictm ent o f a system that for m ore than a century had claimed to be civilizing the uncivilized.

ALGERIAN W OM EN While the status o f w om en differed som ew hat in the various types o f Algerian communities, law and custom in all o f them insisted upon a high degree o f segregation o f the sexes. W omen and men were viewed as occupying tw o separate spheres: the internal procreative, nurturing one for the former; the external, civic, political one for the latter. M en knew their m others as

T h e Algerian N ationalist M ovem ent, 1919-1954

127

parents w ho doted on them and derived pride and status from the fact o f their existence; later they knew w om en as wives, w ho satisfied their sexual urges and produced sons for them. O ther than in these tw o relationships, there was little communication between the sexes. B oth the Maliki rite o f Islamic law and Berber custom ary law tended to assure not only the segregation o f the sexes but, to the extent they could, the subordination o f the female to the male. That subordination was social and economic as well as legal. While such subordination is found throughout the Islamic w orld, it clearly reflects patterns antedating the coming o f Islam. O ne can find it in Catholic Sicily, fifth-century Athens, orthodox Judaism, and Kabyle custom. The latter accords w om en even less protection than does the sharica. T he French ethnologist Germaine Tillion, using data collected mainly in Algeria, suggests that the segregation/subordination pattern is essentially M editerranean and the product o f a continuing transition o f populations from nomadic or seminomadic tribal organization to that o f tow ns or cities.11 O ne’s clan (firq), viewed as a single large family, represented the most noble and pure o f people. O ne sought to preserve that nobility by assuring the purity o f its bloodlines through instituting a system o f endogamy that favored the marriage o f brothers’ children to each other. M embers o f the firq were mutually pledged to uphold and defend the lives, property, and the purity o f the bloodline o f all o f their kinsmen. W omen w ithin this system, according to Tillion’s hypothesis, were a m an’s property, but the entire clan respected and defended that property. Because o f the security o f the environm ent, w om en enjoyed great freedom in the ways they circulated, communicated, and related to other members o f the com m unity. As nomadic and seminomadic peoples moved to tow ns and cities, however, the protections o f the firq disappeared. T o compensate, men devised other measures to protect their honor and the purity o f their bloodlines. These included grow ing restraints upon the liberty o f w om en as demonstrated in the Algerian case by the restrictions found in Berber qanuns and in Maliki law. M any scholars have argued, incidentally, that the Q u r’an and M uham m ad’s authentic teachings put far fewer restraints on w om en than does the m ature sharica, which was formulated during a period o f rapid urbanization. W omen in tow ns and in many villages are more restricted in m ovem ent and in dress than they are in the traditional tribal setting. But the m ost im portant Maliki restraint upon a w om an’s freedom is found in a series o f provisions which make her a ward o f males throughout her life. As an unm arried female she is the ward o f her father, grandfather, o r brother; as a married w om an she is the ward o f her husband.12 In m ost cases the guardian may give her in marriage w ithout consulting her. Once she is married, she is required to obey her husband, w ho may punish her physically for conduct he finds offensive and may divorce her w ithout cause. A husband is perm itted up to four wives simultaneously. A wife, on the other hand, is permitted only one 11. G erm aine T illio n , Le harem et les cousins. 12. In m any instances, how ever, the divorced o r w idow ed w om an is free from such guardianship.

128

M ODERN ALGERIA

husband at a tim e and may divorce only in certain narrow ly defined circum­ stances. It should be noted, however, that since m ost Algerian marriages tended through the period considered here to remain endogamous, family considerations limited to some extent the mistreatment o f wives and un­ justified divorce. Islamic law, however, provides certain benefits to w om en that are absent in some o f the Berber codes. These are especially evident in the economic sphere. The husband is required to support his wife at a material level compa­ rable to that she enjoyed in her father’s house. The mahr, o r dow ry, remains the wife’s property throughout the marriage and provides her w ith a certain financial security. In many instances it serves as a guarantee against divorce, particularly if she has lent any o f it to her husband, since he is required to repay it in the event the marriage dissolves. The sharica leaves very little individual choice to M uslims in the distribution o f their estates. It provides that females receive only half o f the inheritance due a male in the same degree o f relation­ ship. B ut these inheritances, which women o f the middle and upper classes may expect to receive periodically over the course o f their lives, are solely their property. The colonial authorities did not attem pt major alterations o f Algerian family law. A Royal Ordinance o f 26 September 1842 established a dual judiciary that formally made M uslim justice a branch o f the French legal system. For generations, qadis trained in state madrasas handed dow n Islamic justice in the nam e o f the French Republic. The only major innovation in family law, one that was frequently ignored, was a tw entieth-century provi­ sion that forbade the marriage o f girls under the age o f fifteen. But, law aside, the presence o f France over many generations was having an effect upon the status o f w om en and the perceptions o f that status. French influence w orked in opposite directions. In one direction, it actually favored the pattern o f segregation and the subordination o f w om en by dis­ mantling the tribal system and accelerating the process o f urbanization. Fur­ therm ore the cosmopolitan nature, racially and morally, o f the centers to w hich many tribespeople were displaced certainly exacerbated the anxieties referred to by Tillion in her model. Studies also suggest that some male Algerians denied access and recognition by the colon system took out their frustrations by turning into tyrants at home. B ut the French models, values, and institutions that were affecting other aspects o f Algerian life could not fail to make some Algerians, particularly those w ho lived in the cities, question family values and the structure o f gender relations. Surveys showed that the marriage o f very young girls was in­ creasingly frowned upon. With regard to polygamy, French figures, which m ay or may not be accurate, showed that while 16 percent o f married Algerian males had m ore than one wife in 1886, only 3 percent did in 1948, and the average age o f these men was more than sixty-five years. It is unclear, o f course which factors weighed m ost heavily in the decline o f polygamy: French disapproval (which was continuous and vocal), changing economic realities

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and housing patterns, o r changing attitudes tow ard the practice in the broader Arab w orld. French education clearly influenced the attitudes o f many men tow ard w om en. It also influenced the attitudes o f the girls w ho had access to it. In 1907-06, 2,667 M uslim girls were attending French prim ary schools; bu t by 1953-54, there were 76,610 female prim ary pupils, 952 secondary students, and 22 university students. While still only a small m inority o f all girls had access to schooling o f any kind, attitudes tow ard the education o f girls clearly changed substantially during the first half o f the tw entieth century. Such changes reflected a readiness in m any families to consider different roles for their daughters than those their m others had filled, and they also began producing a generation o f young w om en w ho w ould w ant different roles for themselves. A t the same time, however, as key sectors o f the public sphere that traditionally belonged to males came under control o f the French, the inner, w om en’s sphere was perceived by men, as well as by many w om en, as the last redoubt o f cultural authenticity that m ust be preserved from change at all costs.

THE ALGERIAN O PPO SITIO N AFTER WORLD WAR I After enactment o f th e jo n n a rt laws o f February 1919, the Y oung Algerian opposition split into tw o broad groupings. O ne, whose nominal leader contin­ ued to be D r. Benthami, largely resigned itself to the equivocal nature o f the new legislation and began to devote itself mainly to the pursuit o f specific goals o f interest to their various district constituencies. The other, headed by the Em ir Khaled, determined to keep campaigning for full realization o f the Y oung Algeria program . The central elements o f the Em ir’s program were his continuing call both for citizenship w ithout renunciation o f personal status and for M uslim representation in Paris equal to that o f the Europeans. W hen, during the sum m er o f 1920, the colon delegation in Parliament persuaded the legislature to reinstate the indigénat (on a “tem porary” basis that lasted until 1944), abolition o f the exceptive laws became the third m ajor element o f the E m ir’s program . By broadening the franchise o f the second, or M uslim, college, th e jo n n a rt Law had created a new political climate in Algeria. The existence o f a M uslim electorate o f 500,000 led to much m ore overt political discourse and activity than before the war. In the long run, this expanded body o f voters, w hom some planners had envisioned serving as a body o f communicators between French and Algerian communities, became the m ost visible victims o f a blocked system organically incapable o f perm itting the m erger o f the tw o peoples. In the short run, they provided a basis for a considerable broadening and popularization o f politics, which redounded mostly to the benefit o f Khaled, w ho was by now the m ost popular politician in the country. In the

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spring 1920 municipal décrions at Algiers, his slate overw helm ed a more moderate Young Algerian slate organized by Benthami. W hen the prefectural council subsequently invalidated the results on the grounds that Khaled’s campaign had appealed to “religious fanaticism,” the electorate proceeded later the same year to return him to the General Council o f the départem ent by an even larger margin. The colons, in the meantime, determined to foil the Algerian “nationalists” and “trouble-m akers,” had organized a conference o f m ayors which in turn galvanized the Délégations finandères, whose prindpal victory was engineer­ ing the reinstatement o f the code de l’indigénat. T h d r m ost eloquent and, in m any ways, m ost influential spokesman was a D eputy from Constantine, M orinaud, w ho, in a 1920 speech, elaborated m ost succinctly the basis o f colon opposition to assimilation o f the natives. In the same 1920 speech, he offered his analysis o f the “native problem ,” which is a dassic o f the genre: The colons are the best friends o f the natives. That is the truth. They know our natives, their faults and their virtues . . . and they treat them as they should be treated, believe me. The good native, hardworking and honest— this is the majority—is their friend, their protégé. That is the truth. . . . To represent France as their adversary, as their exploiter or as a sort o f slave driver who crossed the Mediterranean to enrich himself at the expense o f the natives, is not only to commit an enormous error, but to commit an injustice and an odious calumny.13 The prindpal troublemaker, from the colon point o f view, was Khaled, w ho in spite o f constant attacks from official and unoffidal elements o f the colon establishment, continued to press for his program . When President Alexandre Millerand visited Algeria in 1922, the Em ir took the occasion to declare unequivocally to the chief o f state that “the people o f Algeria are all, w ithout distinction as to religion or race, equally children o f France and have an equal right in her hom e.” He w ent on to argue that “the desire we have to create w ithin the bosom o f France a status w orthy o f us and w orthy o f France is the best p roof that we are good Frenchmen and wish only to strengthen the bonds that attach us to the m other country.” In spite o f such explidt evidence o f Khaled’s assimilationist vision, a num ber o f Algerian as well as French w riters have tried to portray Khaled ibn Hashimi as the first Algerian nationalist.14 This argum ent rests partly in the false accusations the establish­ ment made against him and partly in the fact that the French C om m unist party, searching for the “bourgeois nationalist” elements w ith which Lenin had recommended alliance, claimed for a while to have found such a national­ ist in him. In 1924, in fact, after Khaled had been exiled from Algeria, he accepted a C om m unist invitation to lecture before their Union intercoloniale at 13. As quoted by André Nouschi, in La naissance du nationalisme algérien, pp. 57-58. 14. See, for instance, Mahfoud Kaddache. vol. 1 of Histoire du nationalisme algérien pp. 182-86. See also Charles-André Julien, L*Afrique du Nord en marche. Nationalismes musulmans et souveraineté française, 3d ed, pp. 100-1.

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Paris. There he came into contact w ith some o f the same émigré w orkers w ho were shortly to found the Etoile nord-africaine, the first explicitly nationalist m ovem ent. B ut even though he perm itted his name to be used by the C om ­ m unists because, at the time, they represented the only French m ovem ent willing to speak out against colonial injustice, there is no evidence that he ever made the long leap from aspiring son o f France to nationalism. By 1923, Khaled was becoming frustrated and bitter at French in­ transigence while, at the same time, the colonial governm ent was encounter­ ing considerable success at isolating him from his colleagues, w ho came to fear personal and career consequences o f close association w ith his brand o f “radicalism.” In April, Khaled abruptly w ithdrew from the race for the C on­ seil Général o f the Algérois and halted publication o f Ikdam, his newspaper. Then, at the end o f July, he left Algeria for the last time, em barking into exile first at Alexandria and then in Damascus. Some contemporaries claimed he had been brutally expelled, others that French political and tactical successes had impelled him to make the decision himself. But pressures other than the political were involved, because Khaled was seriously in debt and was there­ fore personally vulnerable. It appears the governm ent agreed to pay o ff his debts, to pay for his passage to the Near East, and to increase both his military pension and his pension as a descendant o f cAbd al Q adir. He pressed his program for another year o r tw o from the N ear East and from Paris, but as tim e passed, his activity and his influence declined. A decade later in January 1936, when news reached Algeria o f his death at Damascus, Algerians across the w hole political spectrum rose up to m ourn his passing and extol his legacy. They lionized him to such an extent that Khaled ibn Hashimi became, from that tim e onw ard, one o f the sainted ancestors in the Algerian national tradi­ tion. TH E F É D É R A T IO N DES ÉLUS IN D IG È N E S In the 1920s, four movements emerged to give voice in four different idioms to Algerian dissatisfaction w ith the status quo. The fact that these movem ents all sprang into life w ithin a year or tw o o f each other is clearly sym ptom atic o f a decisive prise de conscience w ithin the country. O f differing size, and c o n s titu e n c y , each movement., w ent through im portant m utations over the .decades^ but am ong them, sometimes in.competition.and sometimes in rn lla h n ra rirm , they provided the fram ew ork through which increasingly J n u tra ie d „Algerian elites sought to juse^xhc political process to change or abolish the colonial system. But the fact that their analyses o f the Algeria problem and their program s for solution differed so markedly from each other (fid not augur well for the creation o f a unified national movement. These movements w ere the Fédération des élus indigènes. the Jslam ic Reform -m ove* m en t, the Etoile nord-africaine, and the Algerian C om m unist moyenicnL. which will be discussed in turn. A t least until the middle 1930s, it was the évolués wielding the Y oung

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Algerian reform program w ho dominated the native side o f the FrancoAlgerian political dialogue. While they never inspired o r spoke for m ore than a small m inority o f their compatriots, these gallicized elites held their prom inent place as long as they did because o f the superior skills w ith which French education had equipped them , because they had been the first natives to enter the political arena, because o f the encouragement they received from French liberals, and because other groups until the 1930s remained insufficiently politicized. In 1926, the Y oung Algerians m ost involved in political life, having draw n lessons l o m thè~Mipeiioi organization o f French elected officials, determined to try to increase their effectiveness by form ing the Fédération des élus in­ digènes. The gallicized and moderate Benthami ould Hamida, w ho at the tim e was editor o f the principal Young Algerian weekly, Attakadoum, was the first president o f the organization and remained in that position until he was unseated in 1930. W ith 150 men in attendance, the Fédération held its first Congress at Algiers in September 1927, adopting a program that railed for ^.-native, representation in Parliaments p y ——» for rq yal w ork in the bureaucracy, equality in length o f military service,15 free travel between “A lgeria ancTFrànce, abolition 'O f chéindigénat, development o f academic and vocational education, extension o f metropolitan social legislation to Algeria, and reorganization o f electoral procedures in the communes mixtes. While it is still possible in this period to find an articulate m inority o f very Europeanized élus w hose main goal was unqualified assimilation into France, by the late 1920s, the key concept for m ost was no longer assimilation but equality— civilly, politically, juridically, an3~lîT professional and economic access. For “m o st o f the élus, being French did not connote the negation o f Algerian or Muslim jjdenrtfy~Kiit, rather, a freer, nondiscriminatory environm entjyithin w hich jo . ptirsnr* thrir individual paths and fortunes. Algerian culture and personality should remain intact while the smaller Algerian fatherland m oved progressively .toward the greater French fatherland or, as the 1920s student leader' Ferhat Abbas“put it in the title o f his collected essays, while Algeria m oved ^from colony to province." 16 FronTthe beginning, the Fédération des élus was beset by divisions both vertical and horizonal which translated into tactical, personal, and occasionally ideological quarrels. A significant majority in the organization were officials in die com m unes mixtes, w ho by and large stayed closer to the day-to-day native reality and were consequently unable to share totally the vision o f the Eu­ ropeanized politicians o f the communes de plein exercise. There were also regional differences. M ore populous, m ore urban, and o f deeper intellectual tradiïîori,' the' Constantinois throughoutthfe'tw entieth century supplied Alge­ ria w ith even m ore than its share o f intellectual and political leadership. W ith the exception o f Tlemcen, Oranie, whose nomadic and seminomadic society 15. M u slim s w ere liable b y this tim e fo r tw o years o f com pu lsory m ilitary service; Europeans fo r o n ly one. 16. Ferhat A b b as, De la colonie vers la province. Le jeune algérien, 2d ed. T h e o rigin a l edition w as published in 1931.

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had propelled it to such prominence during the phase o f armed resistance, contributed far fewer leaders to the new political phase o f struggle. The Algiers départem ent swung between the tw o tendencies. Partly ow ing to these structural anomalies and partly ow ing to dissatisfaction w ith the leadership o f Benthami, w hose m oderation made him appear to some as alm ost an adminis­ tration candidate, the Federation, in 1930, divided itself into three de­ partmental federations, which occasionally met together in congress but which henceforward eschewed perm anent colony-wide organization. From this reorganization the Fédération d**« *1»« «nHigfrn»« n f Constantine emerged in a clear position o f leadership, and from it em ergccLthejtw ojnost pro minent leidere o fth e movement. The m ost influential o f these, from 1933 through 19367 was M oham ed Salah Bendjellpul o f Constantine. B om in 1898 into a middle-class~fam3y o f modesifmeans, he attended lycée in his native city, earned an M .D . degree from the University o f Algiers, and became a public health service physician in 1924. Entering politics in the early thirties, he distinguished him self initially by his victories against proadm inistration candidates, and he seemed to presage a significant radicalization o f the Y oung Algerian-élu m ovement. The major instrum ent for projecting his program s was the newspaper La Voix indigène in which, dow n until 1942, he tirelessly prom oted the advantages o f assimilation to France. While he was anefleC rivc orator and the m ost visible and powerful leader in the élu m ovem ent for several years, Bendjclloul’s personal ambition in tim e seemed to take pre­ cedence over ideological com m itm ent, and eventually Algerian political dis­ course left him behind. The m ost famous and durable leader to emerge from the élu m ovem ent was Ferhat Abbas (1899-1985). H e was bom at Taher in the Lesser Kabylia, the son oi an appointed qa'id w ho had been decorated w ith the Legion o f honor and w hose ow n father had been one o f the victims o f the Kabylia repression o f 1871. Abbas, by climbing through the French educational system and earning a degree in pharmacy, represents one o f the best examples o f the track followed by the m inority o f traditional Algerian families that suc­ cessfully made the transition into the colonial system. Head o f the M uslim student organization at the U niversity o f Algiers, he became passionately involved in the issues o f equality and assimilation that energized his class in the period. After opening a pharmacy in Sétif in 1931, he entered local politics, w inning election to the General Council o f the Constantinois in 1933, the M unicipal Council o f Sétif in 1935, and the Délégations financières in 1936. In 1935, he founded L'Entente franco-musulmane at Constantine, the organ o f the Fédération des élus, which stood out as the m ost influential évolué publication during the rest o f the decade.

TH E ISLAMIC REFORM M O V E M E N T It was noted in chapter 4 that the Islamic Reform m ovem ent, inspired by M uham m ad cAbduh and his pupil M uham m ad Rashid Rida, had already

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attracted a certain Algerian following during the first decade o f the century. It was not until the 1920s, however, that the m ovem ent began to create the kind o f organization that w ould perm it it to exert significant cultural and political influence. U ndisputed leader o f the reform ist m ovem ent until his death in 1940 was Shaykh cAbd al-Hamid Ben Badis. Bom in 1889 at Constantine, o f a patrician family w hose grandfather and father had both held high office in the colonial administration and whose brother was a French educated lawyer, Ben Badis chose a different route. After a private traditional education in Algeria, he completed his studies at the venerable Zituna mosque university in Tunis, made the hajj, and then visited the major N ear Eastern cities. While a man o f deep personal, almost mystic faith, he proceeded upon his return to Algeria to devote the rest o f his life to the very public w ork o f the renaissance and purification o f Algerian Islam. O iliei figures in die iilUVfluent included Bashir Ibrahimi o f Bougie (18801965), w ho spent ten years in the Arab east, studying at M edina and teaching at Damascus, and w ho eventually became leader o f the m ovem ent at Tlemcen. Shaykh Tayyib al-cU qbi o f Biskra (1888-1960) spent m ost o f his formative years in the Hijaz, where he was greatly influenced by neo-W ahhabi doctrine. Finally, the m ost intellectually powerful o f the group was M ubarak al Mili, w ho, after studying w ith Ben Badis in Algeria, followed in his steps by completing his education at the Zituna. In 1924, under Ben Badis’s leadership, these and other reformists m et to lay the plans which culminated in the creation o f the periodical al-Muntaquid in July 1925. When this publication was shut dow n, in 1926, for including an article judged sympathetic to the M oroccan R if rebellion, the culama replaced it w ith al-Shihab (The Meteor), a m onthly which remained their principal organ until its suppression on security grounds at the advent o f W orld W ar II. T he program p f the reformers, w hich called for a purification o f Islam by - returning to its roots in the Q u r’an and the early Sunna o f the Prophet, stressed additionally the necessity o f opéning tHe Islamic_CQjnjiiuP^fy fr> th f «pirir n f m odem scholarly inquiry and scientific method. By invoking the example o f the salafi of earliest Arab Muslims, the reform ers’ program also prom oted allegiance to Arab ancestors, to the Arab "m étropole” in the east and to the Arabic langua'gerthos explicitly repudiating the évolué notion that salvation for Algerian M uslims lay in m erger w ith or into France. Between 1928 and 1932, M ubarak al Mili produced in tw o volumes the first national history in Arabic, T a’rikh al ja za ’ir f i l qadim wa l hadith (History o f Algeria in A ntiquity and in M odem Times). In his discussion o f the discipline o f history, al Mili sees it not only as the m irror o f the past but as the creator o f the present, the p ro o f o f nationhood, and the prerequisite o f national recovery. Even m ore remarkable was the history o f Ahmad Tawfiq al-Madani, another o f the Shihab group, which was published in 1932. His w ork, Kitab al ja za ’ir (Book o f Algeria), begins w ith a preface in which he points to the absurdity o f supposing that tw o peoples w ith totally different customs, language, and

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history can ever be one. The preface concludes w ith the appeal to his readers to adopt both in w ord and in deed the it m y r^ligmn; Arabic is m y language; Algeria is m y fatherland.” This slogan, recited for years by pupils in the Q ur'am c schools founded by the reformist m ovem ent, eventually became the official-motto o f the independent Algerian Republic. From the beginning, tEé refbrinist^i3âmâ~vîgorously attacked the mara­ bouts and brotherhoods for their prom otion o f destructive heterodoxy and superstition. They clearly saw them as anachronistic survivals o f a rural aristocracy long since subverted by the colonial exploiters. N o r did they spare in their attacks much o f the official religious establishment, which in its espousal o f the narrow est forms o f malikism and in its self-serving subordina­ tion to colonial authority seemed almost as responsible as the marabouts for the deplorable state into which Algerian Islam had fallen. By 1931, zawiya chiefs, sm arting under the barrage o f attacks, sought an agreement w ith the m ore moderate elements o f reform ism on the basis o f a com m on program o f religious and m oral renewal. Discussions resulted the same year in creation o f the Association o f M uslim Algerian cUlama under the presidency o f Shaykh Ben Badis and the vice presidency o f Bashir Ibrahimi. After a year o f very uneasy cohabitation and conflict, the reformists expelled the tariqa representa­ tives, w ho w ent on to form a separate movement. K vërîtable w ar o f religion ensued, which saw the reformists increasingly “Using the mosques as fora to attack the obscurantism and subservience o f the other side. The colonial governm ent, which had at first considered the Ben Badis people a narrow ly intellectual m ovem ent o f little political consequence, now began to react. The Desmichels Circular o f 1933 forbade access to official mosques to all but official imams, an initiative that provoked such widespread outrage through­ out the country that it is said to have contributed materially to the wave o f agitation and unrest that soon surged up and lasted for years. At the same time, the so-called w ar of religion, w ith its scarcely concealed political overtones, reached a crescendo in 1936. In July o f that year, the Maliki M ufti o f Algiers, Bendali M ahm oud, sent a telegram to Paris protesting the credentials o f a group o f reform ist ^ulama members o f a w ider delegation carrying the Alge­ rian agenda to the recently installed Popular Front government. T w o weeks later the M ufti was assassinated. Suspecting reformist complicity, the police arrested Shaykh Tayyib al-cU qbi, w ho was freed only after a long period o f litigation. M any saw in the whole affair the manipulative hand o f an adminis­ tration determined to preserve the official religious institution, support coop­ erative marabouts, and undermine their challengers. H istory's evaluation o f the contribution o f the reform ist culama m ovem ent is mixed. While it did nTUrirrP stimulate Tfrê rc n e w a ln f Algpp^n Islam in a formal sense, it never attracted a broad following. It has been argued, furthermore, that, to the extent the rcforinerc ’wernA ^ f arfrir.p m n l frrm» »h» m digenous~lbrins'oTtlieir religion, they may actually have contributed to a lessening ö f religiuus observance. I n the cities, it has been observed that many

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young people, listening intently to the culama's blazing indictments o f their parents’ religion, and witnessing the brutal internecine religious infighting, came to reject religion entirely. O n the positive side, the main contribution o f the reform ist culama was that they were the first to articulate w ith clarity and eloquence the proposition that Algerians belonged to~a distinct nation w ith its ow nspêcific culture and glorious past, which could never bé confounded iir anuthgr. In a celebrated 1936 Entente article. Ferhat Abbas w rote that after questioning history, the living and the dead, and visiting the cemeteries, he had concluded that the Algerian fatherland did n o t exist and that therefore nnr should link one’s fu tu re definitively w ith that o f France.17 .Ben Badis responded tw o m onths laterln al-Shihab that the Algerian nation indeed existed and that that nation “is not France, cannot be France, and drr"r in I“ 'France. Jllg In spite o f such examples o f ideological clarity, however, the reform ist m ovem ent always seemed tom between its, cultural and religious vocation on the one hand and w hat m any o f its leaders considered as the secondary and potentially corrupting distraction o f political activism. Som etiniM its leaders sounded like nationalists and other times they feared being labeled radicals; still other times they sent telegrams o f loyalty to the head o f the French Republic. .Such ambiguities in the long run limited the contributions the m ovem ent could make to grow th o f the national movement.

THE ETOILE NO RD -A FRICAIN E While the Islamic reformers were trying to return religion to the true path and évolués through their fédérations des élus w ere campaigning for the rights o f Frenchmen, Algerian workers in Paris were creating a national m ovem ent. By the middle 1920s, the N orth African w orker com m unity in France, which was overwhelm ingly Algerian, had grow n CO about i UO.OOU. cu ltu rally iso­ la te d and confronted with numerous material problems, the workers dis­ covered that only the French far left, the anarchists and especially the C om ­ munists, dem onstrated much interest in their issues o r their w elfare. A small groupoFAtgeriSfisjoined the French C om m unist party and a som ewhat larger group the Confédération générale du travail unitaire (C G TU ), the party’s labor confederation. The C om m unists’ Union intercoloniale, where the exiled Em ir Khaled had already lectured, apparently encouraged the convening o f a con­ gress o f M aghribi workers in December 1924. T hat congress, in addition to taking up die Em ir Khaled’s agenda, also drafted a detailed list o f economic and social demands. Eventually, in a series o f meetings between M arch and July 17. N o t as often cited, how ever, is A b b a s's adm onition five paragraphs later that “w itho ut em ancipation o f the natives there is n o durable French Algeria.** Q u o te d in C lau d e C o llo t and Jean-Robert H en ry, Le mouvement national algérien p. 67. 18. Al-Shihab, A p ril 1936, as translated from the French in C o llo t and H en ry, Le mouvement, p. 69.

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1926, the Etoile nord-africaine was founded, the first perm anent M aghribi political organization in "France. It was governed by a board o f directors com posed principally o f C om m unist party or C G T U members o f which Hadj Ali Abd al Q adir was president and Messali Hadj secretary general. Messali Hadj, w ho for a quarter o f a century w ould personify the m ost radical and nationalistic w ing o f the Algeiian Uppusilioii, fiisi lifted out 'm France as a day laborer, then as a delivery boy, andfinally, between 1926 and 1933, kept a stall in a market. B om in Tlemcen in 1898 o f a low er middle-class Kouloughli family, he attended a kuttab operated by Darqawa brethren and earned an elementary school diploma at a colonial school. He served three years in the French army in the Bordeaux region. Shortly after his discharge from the service in Algeria, he returned to France to w ork in 1923, married a French C om m unist activist, joined the party himself, and became increasingly involved in émigré affairs while at the same time auditing classes in classical Arabic at the Ecole des langues orientales. In the Etoile’s formative years, the C om m unist party provided meeting places, budgetärysubsidies. and the printing facilities through~w hkh It pub­ lished its first newspapers. It appears that from the beginning,~hbwevrer7'theie was té n ^ ^ ^ ty ^ n T H ç _ p a r ty , which was trying to co-opt the émigrés for its ow n purposes, and many o f the Algerian militants w ho were less interested in the universal proletarian cause and Marxist-Leninist revoIutTôhary~theöTythaH in th ey p eriflc grievances of their colonized society. Specifically, the official K om intern line at this time, while favoring tactical alliances w ith bourgeois nationalist parties for the purpose o f weakening imperialist governments, saw fn r a« ? fr OIT1 jh c ^ c la S S Struggle. In February 1927, Messali delivered the Etoile’s first list o f “Algerian dem ands” to a conference organized by a so-called League Against Colonial Oppression at Brussels. The list’s political agenda called for the independence o f Algeria, withdrawal o f the arm y o f occupation, building oTa nationaform y, abolition of.the~cQ^rti Au peuple algérien (PPA) w ith a m ore m odest program, which both enemies and suppor ters assum ed Had been formulated m ofeas a tactical than a philosophical retreat. Its m otto was now: “N either assimilation nor separation, but emancipation.” But that July 14, 3,000 PPA members marched, chanting through Algiers under the green and w hite flag he had created for them. The next m onth MessaU and five directors o f the PPA were arrested and sentenced, under th eK ég n iër decree, to the m axim um tw o years imprisonment. Released in A ugust 1939, he was rear­ rested soon afterward and, after refusing repeated overtures to cooperate w ith the governm ent, was condemned, in March 1941, to sixteen years at hard labor. B ut his party^ remained the most popular and active o f the Algerian movements until jt was banned in September 1939. It attracted increasing num bers o f urban workers and more and more younger members o f the urban middle and low er middle classes. It fùnctidhédlihdëfg'rôühd at reduced levels dining W uild W ir 11 both m 'Algeria and in France. B ut before this, the fragility o f the Algerian Muslim Congress itself had been amply demonstrated. Apprehensive about w hat they saw as the radical­ ism o f the culama and the Com m unists, the élus began a progressive defection from the Congress in fall iv3o. Clearly, the united m ovem ent had brought together tw o fundamentally antithetical-movements: the one anxious to prrt/rec n f gaiiirirariQp, and the other anxious to avoid it at all costs. T he process o f disintegration accelerated during the w inter o f 1936-37 as the Islamic reform ers began to voice second thoughts about much o f the C harter o f Demands as well as the implications o f the Blum-Viollette Bill. The position o f the Algerian C om m unist party, ideologically as incompatible w ith the social conservatism o f the Islamic m ovem ent as it was from the bourgeois évolués, was weakened by its obvious interest in keeping in step w ith the French party, which was more concerned w ith the escalating struggle against European fascism than in Algerian programs that m ight weaken anti-Fascist France. A second convention o f the Algerian M uslim Congress was held during July 1937, but by 1938, the Congress was m oribund and the first attem pt at creating a grand native coalition had clearly failed. Bendjelloul, w ho had earlier considered using his base in the Fédération des élus indigènes to found a political party, now proceeded to create a kind o f electoral coalition o f political clubs and associations. Ferhat Abbas, originally allied w ith Bendjelloul in this enterprise, was convinced, how ever, ,that the assimilationist m oygment .needed to expand its base o f support by creating a truly popular movement.' This led him, in July 1938, to found the Union populaire algérienne, w hose stated goal was to w ork for craancipation^withitL the fram ew ork o f an Algeria reconstituted as a French jproyince. But in spite o f

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his not inconsiderable efforts over the next year, the party failed to develop significantly; and when W orld War II broke out, in a gesture o f solidarity w ith France, he suspended his political activity and volunteered for military service. Before this, in 1938, the colons’ Federation o f Mayors had gone on strike to express its opposition to the Blum-Viollette Bill, and the Blum governm ent, sm arting under accusations that its policies were contributing to Algerian unrest jeopardizing the national security, refused to press its ow n legislation. Even though elected Algerian politicians also resorted to strikes, the bill was buried in a C ham ber committee and, in the Senate where it did come to a vote, it was defeated. Disappointed and embittered, those assimilationists w ho survived the debacle politically were to do so by joining the m ore moderate w ing o f the nationalist m ovem ent in the 1940s. This evolution seemed to fulfill the February 1926 prediction o f Maurice Viollette, w ho had w ritten to the M inister o f the Interior that he found in Algeria 100,000 educated and pro­ ductive évolués w ho felt they belonged no place. MSix out o f ten o f these,” he contended, Mare ready to adopt the French fatherland w ithout second thoughts, but if the French fatherland rejects them, raises itself so high that they cannot reach it, they will make their ow n fatherland, and we will have willed it.”21 After France had, in fact, rejected the évolués, French liberals created a w hole interpretive school which made o f interw ar Algerian history a tragic sequence o f lost opportunities. Such analysis has been rejected by M arxist and nationalist historiography, both o f which believe it implies that there could exist such a thing as "good colonialism.” M arxist thought sees revolution as the only possible outcom e o f the colonial juxtaposition o f classes, while some Algerian nationalist historiography, by positing the existential distinction between French and Algerian cultures and national spirits, insists upon the absolute inassimilability o f the tw o. The latter thinking is peculiarly reminis­ cent o f the French colonialist school which earlier had insisted upon the absolute distinction between O riental and Occidental in its ow n rejection o f assimilation. While the historian w ho is neither a M arxist nor a nationalist is not inclined to accept the concept o f historical inevitability, it is difficult to imagine the scenario in which 25,000 enfranchised Algerians could have turned back the forces o f economic deprivation, social inequity, and psychological alienation that colonial success had created and set in m otion. In any event, 1938 saw the final defeat o f the Young Algeria program conceived thirty years earlier w hich sought salvation through the extension to Algerian shores o f the Rights o f M an and the Citizen.

TH E S E C O N D WORLD WAR AND THE M AN IFESTO OF THE ALGERIAN PEOPLE T he Algerian opposition entered the difficult years o f W orld W ar II divided and demoralized. Those opposition newspapers and movements which did not 21. A s quoted b y A ge ro n , vol. 2 o f

Histoire,

p. 392.

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voluntarily close dow n were banned on security grounds. Yet, m ost o f the conditions w hich had led to their protest not only continued but worsened during the w ar. The economic situation in particular worsened from year to year ow ing to bad harvests, requisitions o f grain for Europe, the closure o f European markets, the virtual cessation o f transfers from overseas w orkers, and shortages o f the m ost elementary im ports. Inflation, unem ploym ent, and hunger all worsened from one year to the next. It was the Allied landing in N orth Africa, in N ovem ber 1942, that p ro ­ pelled the nationalist m ovem ent once again into the center o f the political arena,. AlgerianTeaders dfcw~~new hope and greater confidence from IfieT perception that a greatly weakened France was now dependent upon a far m ore pow erful U nited States; that U nited States had co^uthored riie Atlantic C harter, w hich called for the liberation fîf p ~ r l~ When the Govern­ m ent General began preparing to conscript Algerian m en for the continuing w ar against Fascism, tw enty-four Algerian leaders headed by Ferhat Abbas saw the opportunity to reopen their case. In December 1942, they drafted a "Message from the Algerian M uslim Representatives to the Responsible Au­ thorities” recalling the American President's com m itm ent to the liberation o f peoples, draw ing attention to the unfree status o f Algerians, and calling for a M uslim conference to draft a new economic, social, and political status for Algeria. In return for its implementation, the authors com m itted Algerians to sacrifice themselves whole heartedly for the liberation o f m etropolitan France. B ut it was only after the Algerians had readdressed their message to the “French authorities" and specified that they sought liberation w ithin an "es­ sentially French fram ew ork" that Admiral François Darlan, de facto head o f governm ent, agreed to accept his copy o f the message. G overnm ent responses even to the reformulated message were hostile or evasive, however; so a small, but representative group o f Algerian notables, including representatives o f the banned PPA, met, in early February, and authorized Abbas to draft the docum ent that became the Manifesto o f the Algerian People. After more than a m onth o f arduous negotiations, which resulted in modification o f some o f the first draft’s m ore direct and radical positions, Abbas secured the signatures o f the majority o f the élu leadership and presented the docum ent to G overnor General Peyrouton at the end o f M arch 1943. While still moderate in tone, T he Manifesto o f th e A lg e ria n People marked a m ajor milestone in the progression o f Algerian f«™» assimilationism to separatism. After a nine-page historical and analytical ex­ posé o f the Algerian condition, the Manifesto reveals its program : a) The condemnation and abolition of colonization, that is, the annexation and exploitation o f one people by another. . . . b) The application to all peoples small and large o f the right to determine their own fate. c) The endowment o f Algeria with its own constitution guaranteeing: 1) The absolute freedom and equality of all its inhabitants without distinction as to race or religion.

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MODERN ALGERIA 2) The abolition o f feudal property by a major agrarian reform and the right to well being o f the immense agricultural proletariat. 3) The recognition o f the Arabic language as official on the same basis as French. 4) Freedom of press and association. 5) Free compulsory education for children o f both sexes. 6) Freedom o f religion for all inhabitants and the application to all religions of the principle of separation of church and state. d) The immediate and effective participation o f Algerian Muslims in the government o f their country. . . . Only this government will be able to realize in a climate o f perfect unity participation of the Algerian people in the common struggle. e) The release o f all political prisoners and detainees regardless o f party.22

The G overnor General accepted the Manifesto as a “basis for future re­ form s”; and he asked that the M uslim officials draft a list o f concrete, im ­ mediately realizable proposals, promising to appoint him self a commission to study M uslim economic and social reforms. The commission he named, on April 13, was heavily weighted in favor o f conservative administration candi­ dates sitting w ith some moderates. Abbas, seeing the governm ent's approach as one o f delay rather than real acceptance o f the Manifesto, now took the offensive by persuading tw enty-one o f the tw enty-four Arab and Kabyle Financial Delegates to sponsor an A dditif au Manifeste, which was m uch m ore radical than the original document. It called for the recognition after the w ar o f “the political autonom y o f Algeria as a sovereign nation w ith droit de regard23 by France and Allied military assistance in case o f conflict.” It demanded in the interim a long list o f social, economic, and political reforms, the centerpiece o f which was the erection o f an interim governm ent based upon equal participa­ tion o f the French and M uslim communities. Messali Hadj, still interned, had orally approved but not signed this Additif, which represented the conversion o f m ost o f the élus, at least for the m om ent, to virtually the entirety o f his separatist program . O n June 1, KU3, r? W W Gaulle assumed pow er in Algeria as head o f the Comité français de libération nationale and, four days later, appointed General Georges C atroux to the governorship o f Algeria. U nw illing to enter­ tain any discussion about French sovereignty, De Gaulle told C atroux to order thé reform commission, then wavering between the nationalist proposals and its original mandate, to concentrate on immediate social and economic reforms and to get back on track. In the battle o f wills between the A dditif people and the new French leadership, the latter prevailed; Bendjelloul and the m ore conservative élus retreated from their support even o f the original Manifesto. When Abbas and fourteen o f the other delegates boycotted the September session o f the Délégations financières, he and Sayah Abdelkader, President o f 22. C o llo t and H en ry, Le mouvement, pp. 163-64. 23. A ju rid ical term m eaning “righ t o f inspection,’* w h ich seems to im p ly som e vague French interest short o f sovereignty.

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the Arab section, were placed under house arrest. In December, w hen Abbas was released, he, too, though not to the extent o f other élus, moderated his position, pressing thereafter for an autonom ous Algeria freely federated to France. While de Gaulle and C atroux had succeeded by their harsh tactics in pushing the level o f official Franco-Algerian discourse back from the in­ dependence issue, they became convinced that France was facing a very serious native problem that needed attention. In a speech at Constantine, de Gaulle announced his intention to proceed w ith reforms which, in sum, am ounted to a remarkably generous and forthcoming version o f the assimilationist pro­ gram. C atroux appointed a new reform commission, this tim e representing the spectrum o f native opinion from Com m unists and PPA to reform ist culama and élus, to draft details o f such a reform. As divergent in view point as ever, the commissioners could come to agreement only on a few issues; so the discussions dragged on. W anting to get ahead o f the nationalists, the govern­ m ent unilaterally prom ulgated the Ordinance o f 7 M arch 1944. the first alteration o f Algerian fundamental law since die Jonnart Law. It granted French citizenship w ithout change o f personal status to abput 65,000 m ore Algerians in sixteen' difleieiii categoriesf O ther Muslims were to receive citizenship on terms to be specified by a national constituent assembly to be convened after the liberation o f the métropole, but in the meantime all adult males could vote in the second. Mjislim, college. M uslim representation in all elected bodies, including the Délégations financières, was raised to 40 percent. Finally, juridical equality w ith Europeans was established by abolition o f the entirety o f the code de Tindigénat. Welcomed by Bendjelloul and the conservative wing o f the élus as well as by the socialists and Com m unists, the O rdinance o f 7 M arch 1944 was rejected by the Messalists and by m ost o f 't he reform ist cûîama._,It was also rcjectecTbyTerhat Abba^an^^'is'fnTlowers, y^io henceforward constituted a middle ground o f moderate nationalism or autonom ism between'tKe~radical n a tio n aiism ^fth eT P A tQ lheir left andT^f assihiilationisni öTthe old guard to •theirrigK trT he de Gaulle concessions, which the great rriäjöfity o f Algerian ^elites w ould have joyfully welcomed in 1936, w e^e too little too late for that majority eight years later.

T H E A M I S D U M A N I F E S T E E T D E LA L I B E R T É A N D T H E I N S U R R E C T I O N O F M A Y 1945 A week after prom ulgation o f the 7 M arch Ordinance, Ferhat Abbas decided to take his cause to the masses by organizing a political m ovem ent called the Amis du Manifeste et de la Liberté (AML). N o t quite a political party, because it welcomed members o f collaborating movements whose parent organizations stayed intact, the main goals o f the AML were (1) to enlighten both Algerian and French opinion about the benefits o f the Manifesto, (2) to

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unm ask the reactionary maneuvering o f both French and native feudalist forces, (3) to propagate the idea o f an Algerian nation federated w ith a renovated and anti-imperialist France, (4) to wage w ar against the privileges o f the ruling class, and (5) to preach hum an equality and the Algerian people’s right to the pursuit o f happiness and national life. The reform ist culama, led by Shaykh Ibrahimi, gave their enthusiastic endorsement while continuing sepa­ rately to press their ow n religious and cultural agenda. Messali Hadj, w ho had by now been m oved from prison to house arrest, also supported the AML, although w ith some reservations, and advised his followers to join. B ut Bendjelloul’s assimilationists and the Com m unists condemned the new initia­ tive. W ithin m onths the AML had proved a sensational popular success. Its weekly newspaper, Egalité, attracted 500,000 subscribers, a circulation that no native or European publication had ever enjoyed. The illegal f B A , in the meantime, copying C om m unist organizational techniques, started creating netw orks o f clandestine political cells across the country. It was especially successful at recruiting young roiddly-ffos men. It completely took over the M uslim Scouts and established a netw ork o f cells at fhr 1 Tr>'*">rg'*r and in secondary schools. In a ca'mpaign tö convince young men to resist conscrip­ tion, it made enough progress to w orry the authorities. M ost significantly o f all, how ever, the PPA Started p a ra m ilira ry ™llc n f civ tn m+n in the Kabylia a n d th e Constantinois. M ore publicly during the w inter o f 1944—45, PEA loyalists.Jatere flocking to the AML, and they soon overwhelmed it by their numbers. Tensions between them and the Abbas factioiisoon began to surface and reached a critical stage during thcTTMU Congress convened in March. While Abbas’s ally, A hm ad Saadane, 'w âs'ëlëctëd president at that meeting, the PPA suc­ ceeded in pushing through resolutions clearly favoriiig__th£ independence theses -of Messah over the autonom ist positions o f the founders. In a clear affront to Abbas and the moderate leadership, the m ajority attached to a resolution calling for the liberation of Messali Hadj a statement qualifying him as “the uncontested leader o f the Algerian people.” i n the m eantim e, conditions-conspired to~ aggravate the average Algerian’s sense o f deprivation and hopelessness. The w inter o f 1944—45 was one o f the driest in m em ory. O nly a fraction o f the seed grain had germinated, and the harvest o f 1945 was to be only one-third that o f 1944. Shortages o f m ost manufactured goods had reached critical proportions, while unem ploym ent in many regions was catastrophic. As signs o f social unrest multiplied through the m onth o f April, police began to predict serious trouble. As a precautionary measure, Messali Hadj was removed from his residence to the Sahara and then, on April 30, was transported to the French C ongo. In M ay Day dem onstra­ tions coordinated by the AML in tw enty-one large and small tow ns across the country, crowds o f Muslims marched under the green and white flag w ith the red star and crescent to demand freedom for Messali and in^rpfnrifnr'» Algeria^ D emonstrations led toViolcncc that in Algiers, O ran, and other places

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left scores o f w ounded and took three lives. After these bloody confrontations, a kind o f grim determination settled over the nationalist leadership; and as the day approached when the final liberation o f Europe w ould be celebrated, they determ ined that the day should be the occasion for Algerians to dem onstrate for their ow n liberation and to fly their ow n flag along w ith those o f the victorious allies. F~rh i*i,MT P P A i t i d m t t t abiimt irrganiring tm r r h n and parades all over the country._ 7 /-É Day was M ay 8, Î945. In m ost cities the demonstrations and marches w ent o ff w ithout major incident. But this was not the case at Guelma and at Sétif in the Constantinois. A t Sétif, organizers had been told they could dem onstrate on ly 'if national flags and provocative placards were not dis­ played. M ay 8 happened to be market day at Sétif, so that the m ajority ot marchers, organized early in the m orning by AML representatives, were country folk come to tow n for the weekly marketing. Shortly after the march began, about 8:30, the forbidden flag and placards were unfurled contrary to orders^ police chargedto break up the demonstrations, some M uslims fought back, and others took out after hapless European civilians or attacked build­ ings that stood as symbols o f colonial authority. By 11:00, some forty M us­ lims and Europeans were dead. As w ord o f the violence in tow n spread to the countryside, villagers armed themselves and began attacking colon settlements, post offices,'and governm ent buildings. O pen insurrection soon swept, over the region between Sétif and_the seajindjin theäreas surrounding Guelma to the northeast w here a second demonstration had run afoul o f the autTföfifieSV W ith the police overwhelmed, m ore than 10,000 troops had to be called in; planes bom bed and strafed Arab and Kabyle villages, and a cruiser bom barded coastal m ountain settlements. After a week, the w orst o f the insurrection in the northern Constantinois was controlled, though cleanup operations contin­ ued until the last week o f May. But, totally out o f phase w ith these events, attacks on governm ent property were launched in O ranie on M ay 18 and in Kabylia on M ay 23, and a plot to seize military headquarters at Cherchell was uncovered. T o com pound the violence and confusion, JBEA-leadas^in the Algiers département, responding belatedly to calls for help from the C on­ stantinois, issued a call for general insurrection several days after it was already, evident that the colonial forces had passed onto the offensive, a miscalculation that contributed needlessly to the suffering. In all, about 100 European men, w om en, and children had died in the insurrection, some brutally mutilated. B ut the num ber o f M uslim lives taken in retaliation was out o f all proportion to that toll. French governm ent estimates spoke o f 1,500 dead, the arm y o f 6,000 to 8,000, American sources o f from 7,000 to 40.000. and some Algerian nationaEsts~o f 45^(KS- Before the end o f the year, 5,560 M uslims had been arrested, ninety-nine o f w hom were condemned to death and several hundred to life im prisonm ent. The m ost celebrated prisoner was the moderate Ferhat. Abbas, w ho had been waiting in the anteroom o f the G overnor General to offer his congratulations on the Allied victory when w ord o f the violence arrived and he was taken into custody. The governm ent dissolved the AML

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one week later, ending the second and last effort before the Revolution to create a broadly based national movement. Interpretations concerning the origin o f the M ay 1945 uprising vary wide­ ly. A pair o f early interpretations saw it as a provocation engineered either by right-w ing colonial elements or by the French army; another school still sees it as an unintended accident resulting from demonstrations getting out o f hand and subsequent police response; still a third views it as a preplanned insurrec­ tion that w ent aw ry because o f faulty planning and inadequate com­ munications and leadership. Further investigation concerning the origins is clearly called for.24 W hat appears m ost probable in the present state o f research is that thg PPA had issngd instructions o f a generalized tn 1/wv>1 lf0/lerships in some areas, to h* p re p a re d f a r in s u rre c tio n. Because the party’s constantly harassed communications and command structures were very faulty, some local cell chiefs, ready to react violently, were not equipped to know w hen H -hour had actually come. In the case o f the events o f M ay 8, the central leadership probably wanted no m ore than demonstrations. When, in fact, these turned violent, local leaders in the Constantinois sent out the call for insurrection. Q uite apart from the PPA, peasant villagers, seeing the outbreak p f w arfare and the startling breakdown o f T re n c h 'aüTHbntv1~descende3~~gn colonial settlements to begin wreaking vengeance on their torm entors, much in the manner o f theirlm cestors a century earTîer^X«eV Algerian tustonography, while condemning the overwhelming brutality o f the colonialist reaction, has no t always been forgiving o f incompetent leaderships that sent men prem aturely and unnecessarily to their deaths. Far m ore significantly, how ev­ er, the events in northern Constantinois marked the first time the dispossessed iand pauperized masses o f the countryside, th e principal victims ofcthf rolonii l Isystem, had linked up for meaningful action w ith a nationalist m ovem ent that urban Algerians had created and which had been spreading, in .lh r ritierHhr fifteen years.

T H E O R G A N I C LAW OF A LG ERIA The violence and bloodshed o f M ay 1945 served further to polarize the European and Algerian communities, the form er 'COfiVlfifmgitself that central governm ent concessions to the Muslims had emboldened them to the point o f insurrection and the latter, embittered by the low price France attached to Algerian life, m ore determined than ever to push for separation. As postw ar France embarked over the next tw o years on a search for new national and imperial institutions, the Algerians strove to make their case in the three successive assemblies that were created for that purpose and to which Alge­ rians were now entitled to elect the same num ber o f delegates as the colons. The thirteen M uslim members o f the first Constituent Assembly, elected in 24. The most compelling analysis at this writing is found in Radouane Ainad-Tabet, Le mouvement du 8 mai Î945 en Algérie.

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O ctober 1945, were all governm ent candidates or assimilationists like M oham ed Bendjelloul. They were swept into office largely because M essali Hadj and Ferhat Abbas, w ho were still under arrest, b o th u rg e d th e ir followers to abstain from the voting. A bout half o f the Algerian electors, both in the first and second colleges, did, in fact, abstain. In Paris, Bendjelloul and his col­ leagues pressed unsuccessfully for the creation o f an Algeria directly bound to France and represented in parliament by a unified Algerian delegation. In any case, the point became m oot when the French electorate, in M ay 1946, rejected the constitution subm itted to it by the first Constituent. A second C onstituent Assembly was elected in June. By this time Ferhat Abbas, w ho had been freed in March, had created a new party, the Union AitmnrrMi^ie du manifeste algérien (UDM A). With the PPA boycott continuing, the U D M A easily overwhelmed the assimilationists, winning eleven o f the thirteen seats? In August, standing at last in the Palais Bourbon, Abbas subm itted a proposal to transform Algeria into an autonom ous Republic w ithin the fram ew ork o r a new ly created FreffCh'Uiriorr,'which would have responsibility for defthsc antf fbreign affairs. When this proposal w ent dow n to defeat, his and his party’s prestige were considerably diminished. T he second Constituent eventually adopted an organic law that per­ petuated the tw o separate electorates forcbooSiftf^Tgerian'representatives in parliament, perm itting thirty Algerians in the National Assembly o f the Fourth Republic and fourteen in the upper house or Council o f the Republic. H alf o f each were to be chosen by the second college. Unable to agree on other aspects o f the organic law, the Constituent left the task to the first N ational Assembly o f the Fourth Republic, which was chosen in N ovem ber 1946. By then Messali Hadj had been released from internm ent and, after consultations w ith colleagues at Paris and in Algeria, hastily organized a m ovem ent to front (M TLD). In spite o f the fact that several M TLD candidates were disqualified, the new party managed to win five o f the fifteen second-college seats in the N ational Assembly. The true significance o f this showing under less than ideal circumstances is obscured by the fact that the U D M A , em bittered by the failure o f its autonom ist initiative, boycotted the Assembly elections and ran no candidates. The fact that, in the subsequent elections to the Council o f the Republic, Abbas’s partisans nevertheless took four o f the seven M uslim seats indicates that support o f this middle ground may have remained considerable in spite o f the 1946 setbacks. D uring the draw n out parliamentary debates on the organic law that extended interm ittently from M arch into September 1947, the., majority o f Algerian deputies pressed for an autonomous Algerian Republic federated w ith T u nisia and M orocco w ithin the framework o f the French U nion. The M TLD m inority, however, steadfastly denied the competence o f the French parliam ent tô determ ine the status o f Algeria. For their part, the colon repre­ sentatives stood firmly against any modification in the basic statutes at all. The O rganic Statute o f Algeria that finally passed the National Assembly on 20

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September 1947 was enacted w ith the abstention o f the entire C om m unist bloc and over the nays o f all but four Europeans in the thirty-m em ber Algerian delegation. While it declared all residents o f Algeria citizens o f France w ithout distinction as to origin, race, language, or religion, it perpetuated the Jonnart Law principle o f separate electoral colleges by authorizing 510,000 voters o f T re n c h civil status” to elect the same num ber o f representatives as the 1,500,000 voters o f wlocal civil status.” The law substituted an Algerian uparliam ent,” named the Algerian Assembly, for the Délégations finan­ cières.25 B ut the competence o f the Assembly was explicitly limited by exclud­ ing a sizeable list o f vital sectors such as defense, elections, local governm ent, administrative and judicial organization, civil and penal procedure, determina­ tion o f felonies and misdemeanors, land policy, and customs. Its bills required prom ulgation by decree o f the Governor General, w ho was appointed by the French governm ent. Budgets needed not only his approval but the signature o f the Ministers o f the Interior and Finance. O ther clauses o f the Organic Statute looked to the abolition o f the communes mixtes and the Southern Territories administration as well as to the extension o f Arabic language education. The tim ing and procedures for implementing these latter changes were left to the G overnm ent General, which, in fact, did nothing. In m ost respects the long awaited O rganic Statute was simply a reconfiguration o f the old status quo. Algerian reaction to the new law wa&jccflected in the next m onth’s electioris. To French alarm, they'proved a spectacular v i r t n r y tr>r nai^n aH ciY.irn1iiliHfs. n u >sl n o ta b ly th o s e -o fT H e M T L f), which swept all the large cities - and carried a total of 110 municipal cotnic.il». In response, Paris, in February 1948, appointed as Governor General the hard-liner M arcel-Edm ond Naegelen, w ho came into office determined to wage w ar on the nationalists. Besides police and judicial powers, that w ar employed as a key tool a system­ atic campaign to control the electoral process. Elections for the new Algerian Assembly were scheduled for April. It was mathematically possible, given recent grow th o f M uslim representation in the first college and its enhanced potential for alliance w ith small European liberal elements there, that Alge­ rians could control the legislative agenda. This was a possibility the colons were determ ined to prevent. M ore than a third o f M TLD candidates were under arrest by the eve o f the elections. Armed forces were everywhere, voters were intimidated, and ballot boxes were either stuffed or mysteriously carried off. T he result, after the second, runoff round, was that forty-one o f the sixty M uslim assemblymen were administration candidates. The M TLD , which, in spite o f harassment and repression, had garnered 31 percent o f the vote on the first round, elected only nine men in the final round. Criminal proceedings prevented four o f these nine from taking their seats. The same pattern o f election rigging tainted the Assembly elections o f 1951 and 1954 as well as the cantonal elections o f 1949 and the municipal elections o f 1953. While many Algerians across the political spectrum continued to partici­ pate in electoral politics, a grow ing num ber o f younger men understood the 25. Since 1945 known as the Assemblée finandire.

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message the colon establishment was attem pting to communicate: natives need not look to representative institutions for im provem ent o f their condition or for a shift in the pow er balance.

THE PPA-MTLD AND THE MARCH TOWARD REVOLUTION Messali’s^abrupt decision to present slates o f candidates in the parliamen­ tary elections o fl9 4 6 , atter years o tu rg in g Algerians to boycott elections, spread cowfi««nn «-k» PPA nrH imp; ~T " :mn$ for direction. Was the PPA preparing to s ^ rights by direct action or was it to engage in the electoral games prom oted by the rulers? Its first party congress, held clandestinely in February 1947, decided that it was to do both. The newly created M TLD was to pursue the route o f electoral politics, making w hatever rhetorical or tactical compromises were necessary to be effective in that arena. But it was decided to continue the ~PPA at a secret level for the purposes o f cultivating the m ovem ent’s nationalistic purity and quietly com­ municating to Algerians that, although public statements m ight o f necessity 'change from time to time, th o-goaL n f absolute independence w ithin an ~Arab-Isia£ri'iÛTn3fi~o f Muslima into the street to counter FAF dem onstrations o f the preceding tw o days. Countless "Hand-sown green and white national flags appeared spontaneously all over the d ty as marching, chanting Algerians poured out o f their poorer quarters into the central districts o f the capital. It was by far the m ost massive d ra m a s dem onstration o f Algerian nationalism the capital had yet seen. " T he referendum, held ön schedule January 8, 1961, asked citizens if they approved o f “the plan subm itted to the French people by the President o f the Republic concerning the self-determination o f the Algerian population and the organization o f the public pow ers in Algeria prior to self-determ ination.” The result was an apparently convincing affirmative vote o f 75 percent. O nly 60 percent o f the electorate had gone to the polls, however. In Algeria itself, the FLN, not w anting to surrender the initiative on the question o f independence to de Gaulle, urged a M uslim boycott, w ith the result that the measure carried there by a bare~35 pet m il. in January 1961, the FAF w as banned for its seditious activities, but the next m onth, thé ultras created the final and, ultimately, the m ost destructive o f their organizations. This was the Organisation armée secrète (OAS), sparked by the colon extremists Pierre Lagaillarde andTjean-Jacques Susini. Its military leadership was provided by Raoul Salan, by this time in exile in M adrid, and by M arie-André Zeller, a retired chief o f staff, as well as by Edm ond Jouhaud. It received an enorm ous boost w ith the adhesion o f Maurice Challe, w ho, disillusioned w ith the self-determination program , took early retirem ent and flew clandestinely to Algiers in April. There he agreed to coordinate a military putsch the O A S had been organizing for several weeks before his arrival. O n the night o f April 21 1961, using the First Foreign Legion Parachute Regiment as their main instrum ent, the O A S took over all o f the key governmental, communications and security facilities in Algiers and detained the military com m ander and governor. O n the m orning o f April 22, Challe w ent on the radio to announce that he and his colleagues had assumed full powers in Algeria and the Sahara so that both French Algeria and France itself could live. U nfortunately for the conspirators, only the unit commanders o f the capital region were clearly on their side. The com m ander o f the Oranie rejected the O A S appeal and the com m ander o f the Constantinois temporized. While many frightened contemporaries expected disaffected units in France to join the putsch and Parisians kept watching the skies for paratroopers, the arm y in France maintained its loyalty. After the evening o f April 23, when de Gaulle made yet another o f his stirring pleas to the troops, the m ovem ent began to unravel. By April 25, the coup had failH C halk «rurrmdenul, and other putchists were arrested or Hed into hiding. T here followed a widespread purge o f disloyal and questionable- elements in the officer corps. While this purge finally assured the securIty- oFtReTfcpublic and its constitution, it effectively

180

MODERN ALGERIA

crippled the military instrum ent w ith which France had for so long been trying to contain the Algerian drive tow ard in^p'» "'^* -.» As a colon organization 'reflecting the fury and despair o f a dying society,The O A S continued in ever m ore destructive paths as the m ovem ent tow ard independence accelerated,6 but it had lost hope o f changing the regime in France or altering the course o f history.

CONFLICT

IN

THE

FLN

It was observed in chapter 5 that Algeria alone am ong France’s N o rth African possessions failed to develop a broad-based nationalist m ovem ent capable o f articulating national goals or coherent strategies for achieving them . A t least one explanation for this failure lies in the success o f the colonial system h r p r evcnting the emergence of any class w ith sufficient self-confidence an d /popular Credibility to articulate the goals and lead the movement. The Alge*'jta n insurréCTlOtTWi!» less'an cwprcssiuil 61 a national consensus than o f frustra­ tion w ith the nationaTTniihihty W tftrge*a consensus. In the early years, the FLN proved remarkably successful at mobilizing popular resistance and at integrating^ representatives u f die various p olitical tendencies Him its I n ­ stitutional framework. But it experienced great difficulty in hm idjng con­ census J |myi n un*-^r>r,-»ry and institutions, still more in outlining the shape o f the new social ana eco n o m ical dêl ^envisaged or the nature o f the political institutions it wanted to give the independent nation. The Algerian political elite was extraordinarily heterogeneous and became m ore so as it strove to broaden itself and as the differing w artim e experiences differentiated one faction from another. O ne model suggests that much o f the difficulty lay in the progression o f elites that succeeded to the m ovem ent’s leadership, a progression that took place because each group that came to the top perceived its predecessor as having been inadequate to its taskv_Mcssali Hadj and th? P P A /M T I P ftrizH the iniri^tjye from Abbas’s assimilationist/ ,^21110110111151 moderates because they believed the latter to be fauTfyin their analysis p f rh«»rnnTlmnn mindless oftKe*needs ot the masses, and UnefÜMiye^in lr> pvfr3rt~rnnrrecir>nc fro m , .ehp fflfnnials. T he GR-UA .and early FLN revolutionaries r r jr r tr d in rum the leadership? hnfh -p*— for continuing to play self-serving political games long after it was proven that the national interest could not be served by such activity. Later, the officers o f the ALN rejected the leadership o f tf» revolutionaries on the grounds, am ong others, that many w ere pursuing the cult o f personality and attem pting to divide the country into individually dominated tietdoms. Ütill later, as the governm ent in exile expapdfd, a » f fmreaperats amTtcchnicians em erged, generally better educated than either the guerrillas or the AI M r>*fiffrci lut'nci‘ level o f competence and understanding madeltKeïfi uncomfortable w ith the 6. Individual retired or renegade officers continued to participate in the OAS campaign of terror.

T h e W ar o f Independence, 1 954-1962

181

leadership claims o f the former. Yet, all attem pted to coexist wjtjhjn the inadequate institutions o f the FLN and the result was continuing and w orsenmg internal conflict. ~ A ttem pts have been made to portray the intra-elite conflict in ideological terms, and it is clear that the FLN did contain a mixture o f liberals. M arxists. Islamists and others whose w orld views differed markedly. B ut the m ajority o f the leadership had little systematic exposure to or concern w ith the ideolo­ gies o f the day. Aside from the fact that most, because o f their m odest backgrounds, rejected the middle-class orientation o f w hat they called wB ourguibism ,n it seems that the compartmentalization o f experience and interest imposed by circumstances as well as interpersonal conflict and pure pursuit o f pow er were the causes o f m ost o f the dissension. By the early 1960s, thousands o f Algerians w ho had played leadership roles o f many different kinds in the revolution could lay claim to a share o f political pow er but no mechanism had been created to adjudicate and apportion such claims. If the years 1954—56 witnessed a progressive coming together o f nationalist leader­ ship, the years 1957-62 witnessed an ever greater segmentation o f the elites. This was in~confrasTTo the society as a whole, which, through the shared experiences o f w ar and repression, had developed the d ear sense o f identity referred to earlier and demonstrated so dramatically in the events o f December 1960. From 1958 onw ard, one axis o f conflict was dissension between the m od­ erates o f the form er U D M A (such as Ferhat Abbas, Ahmed Frands, and Ahmed coum endiel) and thé more M arxist radicals (such as Benyoussef Benkhedda, M ’H am m ed Yazid, and Lamine Debaghine). ^ p o th e r and m ore im portant axis o f TPnn;/~*~ »hf antj th e m ilita fv . The leaders_of the interior Wilayas (Tw oL Three, and Four) were increasingly alienated from thepoljtig^ lçadfi sjiip that claimed to speak for the nation. The cp«^r«Q Tut c " m l r v T f p ---- one sym ptom o f that conflict. In the long run, internal military opposition proved less significant than that o f the external ALN. As the political institutions o f the FLN in Tunis, Tripoli, and Cairo were weakening due to personality and other conflicts, the external ALN, alm ost by default, was becoming the m ost cohesive institution w ithin llie Algerian m ovem ent and therefore its m ost powerful. D uring the early stages or its forriUHOTl, ft CôMpetéd for Influence w îtïf wilaya leaders or those still attached to them such as Krim. N ext, it faced the formidable logistical problems caused by its division into Tunisian and M oroccan wings. But in time, attracting numerous experienced veterans from the French arm y and profiting from the freedom to establish regular training program s and coherent com m and structures, the ALN created an impressive force o f dis­ ciplined and responsive soldiers commanded by a corps o f professional and equally disciplined officers. 7. This is the basic model o f William B. Quandt in Révolution and Political Leadership: Algeria, 1954-1968.

182

M ODERN ALGERIA

Rising by steps to the top o f the external arm y during the years 1957 to 1960 was Colonel H ouari Boumediene, w ho later became the second President of~Xlgërîï.' B um M otraim neihB en Brahim Boukharouba at Clauzel near Guelma in the Constantinois, Boumediene had attended both French and Q uranic prim ary schools as well as a conservative madrasa. A participant in the 1945 insurrection w ho fortunately emerged unscathed, Boumediene later chose to flee the country rather than fulfill his military obligation to the French arm y. While in exile in Cairo, he broadened and deepened his Islamic educa­ tion by enrolling at A1 Azhar. While essentially a secularist,_his attachm ent to the Arabo-Islamic heritage _was m ore profound than that o f other top FLN leadersT Serving after the rebellion "Began as B oussoufs assistant in Wilaya Five, he rose to com m and the M oroccan w ing o f the ALN under the second C C E. In 1959, w hen a group o f ALN colonels in Tunisia were apprehended plotting the overthrow o f the GPRA, it was Boumediene w ho presided over their court martial, thus establishing him self as the m ost prom inent officer in the em erging arm y. But his sum m ary handling o f the rebels appears to have been less a sign o f loyalty to the politicians than o f concern for military discipline. W hen the third meeting o f thc.C N R A convened at Tripoli on December 1 ^ 1952». fbr~what turned out to be an acrimonious fhlPCy-fhrW dayTession, one o f the m ost difficult issues it faced was widespread dissatisfaction w ith the conduct o f the war. Belkacem K rim came under w ithering attack for his stewardship o f the M inistry o f War. Eventually, his m inistry was dismantled and a unified General Staff was created that assumed not only operational but policy responsibility as well. An interministerial com m ittee o f three main­ tained a fiction o f GPRA oversight, but real authority had passed to the General Staff. The retiring but determined Colonel Boumediene was chief o f that General Staff. In spite o f the fact that many fighters o f the beleaguered interior wilayas rejected Boumediene’s authority, his strong base in the ex­ ternal ALN and the border wilayas was such that he rapidly became a force that no one could ignore. After weeks o f C N R A infighting, a new GPRA was formed, in January 1960, which saw itrim deiuuied Tm tiC'FtfreigrT M inistry and the radical politicians Debaghine and Benkhedda eliminated—apparently because o f their close relationship to Krim and the other revolutionaries the ALN was unhappy w ith. While Abbas was reconfirmed as President, he was hardly m ore than a figurehead i'n~~thir~second _GPRA, winch retained him more for h i s j n jernational stature than because of. any. internaT p o w er base. T h e m oderates’ proposals for positive response to de Gaulle’s self-determination speech were soundly defeated. A pivotal achievement during the long meeting was drafting and ratification o f a constitution which, for rhffirst; rim«», a ffirm ^ rhai- Algeria was conducting not only a war o f national liberation but also a revolution. E ar. the first time, the FLN was specifically designated the single party-responsihle. for carrying out that revolution. Considering the depth and pervasiveness o f the conflict that tore at the very heart o f the Algerian independence m ovem ent through these crucial years, it is surprising that virtually none o f it ever became

T he War o f Independence, 19 5 4 -1 9 6 2

183

public and that the FLN continued, w ith apparently m onolithic determination, to pursue its all-or-nothing strategy in dealing w ith the colonial power.

THE

EVIAN

AGREEMENT

The hard-liners’ strategy o f waiting for France to cave in had slowly yielded dividends. From his white flags and “peace o f the brave” offer in 1958, de Gaulle had moved, by 1959, first to a vague right o f self-determinarionexcluding the FLN, then to inviting its representatives to M elunAand finally, by the fall ot 1V60, co a république algérienne?1*"In the late w inter o f 1961, 'G eorges Pom pidou, ? ri/i-h^TVnprars. conducted a series of secret meetings in Switzerland w ith the Algerian law yer A hm ed Boumendjel to pave the wav for peace tally . Eventually the GPRA ancftKe governm ent o f T rance began negotiations, on M ay 20, at~Ëvian on the French sidcToFTac Lémari, 10 w lliüi ik lk a u u n K rim and the Algerian delegation traveled daily from their accommodations on the Swiss side. While the French, in hopes o f eliciting a conciliatory attitude on the part o f the Algerians, had ordered a unilateral cease-fire and released several thousand Algerian prisoners, the chasm between the tw o sides gapped as broad and deep as ever when they sat dow n to talk. Casting long shadows over the negotiations from the beginning were the questions o f guarantees for the French m inority that was expected to remain in an independent Algeria; sovereignty over the Sahara, where major petroleum deposits had been discovered in 1956; the status o f French military, air, and naval bases on Algerian soil; and a formula for association between France and Algeria. The distance between the tw o sides was so great on the first tw o issues that the negotiators never got around to serious consideration o f the last tw o. The French negotiators sought assurances that settlers in an independent Algeria would have a right to dual liluuishipv that they w ould enjoy norm al civil and political rights, and that their property rights w ould be guaranteed. The Algerians argued that such arrangements could only be made once a sovereign Algerian state was in place and in a position to negotiate on the basis ftf pgnaliry the governm ent of France, it is especiâïïy~worth noting in regard to property rights that land reform, which had been a stated goal o f the FLN since its inception, had become increasingly focal as the revolutionary goals o f the struggle became m ore explicit. With regard to the Sahara, w hose oil resources many Frenchman saw as the key to their economic future, France argued that the great desert had never been a part o f Algeria, had only been pacified and developed thanks to French effort and investm ent, and could therefore never be ceded to an independent Algeria. The Algerians, on the other hand, maintained since the Soum m am Valley Conference that the Sahara was an integral and inalienable part o f their homeland. After thirteen sessions, the meetings broke dow n in June. T he negotiators reconvened, in July, at Lugrin in the mountains above Evian, but, after six more fruitless sessions, they recessed indefinitely.

184

M ODERN ALGERIA

These negotiations took place against a disheartening background o f O A S terror-EombingS and assassiiUtlonsTwhich the FLN finally, though reluctant­ ly, decided «Hfh its ^^vn ^rimpnign ^T vioIence. IH the m eantim e; behind the'SCenes. the FLN was undergoing its greatest leadership crisis to date. As the second round o f negotiations was limping tow ard impasse at Evian, Boumediene and his key aides sent a bitter letter o f protest and resignation to the GPRA. While at one level the General Staff s accusations against the GPRA concerned substance (alleged corruption, alleged softness at Evian, too m any bourgeois ideas), at a m ore fundamental level the ji«pnr^ w « gKompow er, specifically about the GPRA’s authority ov^r the A LN . These were the issues that preoccupied the fourth C N R A when it convened at Tripoli on A ugust 5, 1961. While the members o f the GPRA continued to indulge their ow n internal conflicts, they were virtually unanimous in resisting any further transfer o f pow er to the General Staff; many even wanted to discipline the officers. But suppo rt for Boumediene came from a jtiflfgrent dirertinp—that o f Ahmed Ben~ Bella and the other prisoners France had been holding since 1956 and 1957. T he five hacTBecome an increasingly im portant factor both diplomatically, as the tw o sides began creeping tow ard a settlement, and politically, as the internal conflicts in the FLN sharpened. The fact o f their incarceration and the circumstances o f any release became m ajor agenda items in Franco-Algerian dialogue from M elun onw ard. Through all the years o f their im prisonm ent, the ideological and personality conflicts that characterized the m en’s rela­ tionships before their apprehension persisted and even worsened. This was particularly true o f the relationship between Ben Bella and Ait Ahmed. B ut few, if any, outsiders knew this. As the luster o f the active FLN leaders became progressively tarnished by the rough and tum ble o f politics, by varying degrees o f incompetence, and by the consequences o f making hard decisions in difficult times, the untainted prisoners in far-off France assumed greater and greater symbolic importance. The m ost physically arduous years for Ben Bella and his colleagues were those spent in La Santé prison in Paris until M arch 1959. But as the French governm ent attem pted to send positive signals to the Algerians and the international com m unity, they were transferred to a series o f m ore comfortable accommodations, ending up ultimately in the luxurious Château d ’Aulnoy. As their conditions o f internm ent improved, so did their access to the outside world; before long Ben Bella, in particular, was becoming again a m ajor political force. It was to Ben Bella that Boumediene turned, in 1961, in his struggle w ith the old line politicians and revolutionaries, and it was largely because o f Ben Bella’s support that the fourth C N R A was able to make enough changes to induce the staff officers to w ithdraw their resignations. That meeting also reshuffled membership o f the GPRA one more time. T o a considerable extent, the reshuffling reflected the A LN ’s hostility to Krim, w ho was now dem oted still further to the Interior M inistry on the questionable grounds that his negotiating stance lacked firmness. The reshuffling also resulted in the expul-

T h e W ar o f Independence, 1954-1962

185

sinn o f Abbas and the moderates and the return o f Benkhedda and the radical politicians w bo had beeff excluded from the second GPRA—not because the military found them m ore congenial but because, after arguing so strenuously for firmness, they could hardly reject the candidacies o f men w ith w hom firmness was a byw ord. When the fourth C N R A concluded, differences had been papered over; but the major question, that o f authority, was as far from resolution as ever. As the fall o f 1961 w ent on. urban Algeria, thanks to the O A S and its so-called' plastiques, was collapsing into bloody anarchy; regional and in­ ternational pressures on France were becoming unbearable; and the French people overwhelm ingly wanted out o f Algeria. De Gaulle finally broke the dam by announcing his willingness to give up the Sahara, a concession which left only the status o f the settlers as a major potential stum bling block. T he overw helm ing majority o f the GPRA, alarmed by the breakdown o f order and w hat it m ight portend, wanted to return to the bargaining table. T hough Boumediene remained as adamant as ever, Ben Bella this tim e sent w ord that he, too, thought the tim e to settle had arrived. With this, the Algerians agreed to go back to Evian. Preliminary talks took place at Yéti, in the Jura Alps, during February 1962, but for the official negotiations the full delegations reassembled once again at Evian, w here the final agreement was signed on M arch 18. The ninety-three page docum ent began w ith the formal recognition o f the in­ dependence o f Algeria over its entire territory. It called for an im m ediate cease-fire, which w ent into effect the next day but which did not end the violence'because the O A S responded by launching the bloodiest phase yet o f its campaign o f nihilism. Measures were taken for the immediate release o f prisoners. France was assured leases on key air and naval facilities. O n eco­ nom ic questions, Algeria agreed to remain in the franc zone, Algerian w orkers could remain in France, preferential trade arrangements were established, and France agreed to continue funding the Constantine Plan and other aid projects at 1962 levels for a m inim um o f three years. With regard to the im portant oil sector, the agreement recognized Algeria’s ownership o f its subsoil resources, but it confirmed all exploration, production, and transport rights previously granted to French companies and gave French firms preference in new con­ tracts for a period o f six years. The agreement also made arrangem ents for a binational Provisional Executive to manage the transition to independence. This governm ent assumed pow er on April 7. The French negotiators had labored long and hard to secure the best possible deal for the European com m unity, but in the long run, the con­ cessions they w on proved largely unnecessary. Already in February, Eu­ ropeans'w ere beginning to head for the ports and airdromes. T he exodus accelerated after M arch 18, and in June alone, m ore than 300,000 departed in an exodus which reached panic proportions. By the end o f 1962, nine-tenths had departed; ultimately, not m ore than 30,000 settlers, m any o f them too old or poor to m ove on, remained in Algeria. D uring the last phases, departing

M ODERN ALGERIA

186

colons methodically and vindictively destroyed libraries, hospitals, govern* m ent buildings, factories, machinery, and w hatever else was w ithin their reach that they could not take w ith them . It was the violent, cataclysmic demise o f a com m unity, many o f w hose mrmhrr»; rnnld claim roots in Algeria gniiifrti lrlr four and even five generations. B ut m ost were clearly unready to remain in-a« Algeria w ithout the m onopoly. o/ jm ?W.CLand means nt production which h^d assured triièir superior standard o f living or in w hich the values and styles o f the Iong^suSoHEnatc .culture wÖUM"become nortogtive. IM PA CT OF WAR O N ALGERIAN SOCIETY AND EC O N O M Y As noted in chapter 5, the Algerian econom y entered a period o f crisis after the First W orld W ar from w hich it was only starting to recover by the early 1950s, thanks to im proving postw ar performance o f the m etropolitan eco­ nom y and the investm ent stimulated by the tw o four-year plans. But recovery and grow th did not affect all sectors equally, as table 6.1 shows.

Table 6.1 Gross Domestic Product, 1930-1955 Value in Billions of 1955 Francs

Annual Rate of Growth

1930

1955

Agriculture Mining Manufacturing, Energy Building and Public Works Transport, Business and Services Civil Administration

194 14 33 13 169 36

210 19 104 47 269 80

.3% 1.2% 4.6% 5.4% 1.9% 3.3%

Gross Domestic Product

460

730

1.8%

Source: Amin: L'Economie du Maghreb, vol. 1 (1966), p. 190.

B oth m ining and agriculture were stagnating; the m inor grow th in the latter was located exclusively w ithin the m odem sector dominated by the colons. Traditional agriculture, which still provided the economic base for the m ajority o f the population, was continuing to regress as it had for sixty years. Grain production had scarcely increased since the turn o f the century; the livestock herd had shrunk measurably. In 1953, the colon earned 34,000 francs for an average hectare cultivated, and the fellah, 6,400 francs. The annual per capita income o f the 5,840,000 fellahin was 19,200 francs; that o f the middle classes, w hich were 92 percent European, was 227,000 francs; and that o f the upper classes (bourgeoisie) was 1,500,000 francs.

T h e W ar o f Independence, 195 4 -1 9 6 2

187

B ut while the prim ary economic sector was stagnating, grow th o f the other sectors was accelerating. Between 1950 and 1954, the secondary grew at an average annual rate o f 3.8 percent, m oving up, between 1954 and 1958, at 6.4 percent. The tertiary sector averaged grow th o f 5 percent a year during the first period and speeded up to 11.6 percent during 1954-58. These grow th rates reflected, in the first instance, the investm ent from the tw o four-year plans begun in 1949, capital com m itted almost entirely from the public sector. Second, much o f the grow th after 1954 was generated by the dem and for services occasioned by the enorm ous military buildup. In either case, the beneficiaries were prim arily city dwellers, mostly, if not exclusively, Eu­ ropean. Finally, the emerging hydrocarbon sector attracted very substantial public and private investment from 1956 onw ard, and soon afterward it began contributing substantially to the G N P. The opening bell in w hat was to become a rush for oil and gas in the Sahara was sounded in 1952 when the governm ent’s Bureau de Recherches de Pétrole began letting five-year exploration contracts to a series o f companies. The m ost active o f these companies were S. N . Repal (Société nationale de Recherches de Pétrole en Algérie), the Algerian affiliate o f C. F. P. (Compagnie française des Pétroles), and C. R. E. S. P. (Compagnie de Recherches et d'Exploitation de Pétrole au Sahara), all o f which were mixed-capital corporations. But by 1961, m ore than a dozen firms were involved, including affiliates o f Royal D utch Shell, Socony M obil, and Standard O il o f N ew Jersey. While the Sahara contains tw o million square kilometers o f desert and steppe, only the broad northeast­ ern basin, extending from the Atlas to the H oggar and from Tanezrouft to the Tripolitania border, had been systematically explored before 1962. By 1956, m ajor oil deposits had been found first in the Edjeleh Basin near the Libyan frontier and a little later in the Hassi-Messaoud Basin east o f the O uargla Oasis. Large reserves o f natural gas were discovered south o f Lagouat at Hassi R ’Mel and later at Gassi-Touil; lesser ones, to the south around In Salah (see map 7). By independence, the petroleum reserves u»««; M essaoud were estimated at between 300 and 500 million tons, tl Edjeleh at about 140 million. The gas reserves at Hassi R ’Mel we 800 billion cubic meters. C rude oil began to flow to m arket in 19. tion reaching 9 million tons in 1960 and 25 million by 1962. Annual natural gas production at independence exceeded 200 million cubic meters. The news from the Sahara had stimulated, during the late 1950s, a frenetic rush o f French businessmen, financiers, and investors hoping to share in the bonanza—a new com m itm ent to Algeria that was totally out o f phase w ith a politico-m ilitary reality that augured im m inent disengagement. Between 1954 and 1961, the oil and gas sectors attracted 588 billion francs in investment, a fact that explains, even better than the real yearning for energy independence, the French governm ent’s insistence until the eleventh hour that the status o f the Sahara was not negotiable. This impressive investm ent in oil and gas tended to mask the decline and then progressive liquidation o f private invest­ m ent in other sectors o f the econom y ju st as, after 1960, gas and oil production

188

MODERN ALGERIA

map

7 Independent Algeria

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tended to mask the declines in productivity in the agricultural and industrial sectors. T he Constantine Plan, which was launched by Charles de Gaulle in O cto­ ber 1958 as the economic centerpiece o f his campaign for an Algeria o f equals, had actually been in the making since about 1955, when a group o f French technocrats at Algiers became convinced that the key to financial stability for Algeria lay in thorough restructuring o f a seriously unbalanced economy. Its investm ent priorities w ould target not only the anemic industrial sector but the long-neglected traditional agriculture and social infrastructure as well. This five-year plan, interrupted by the coming o f independence in the middle o f its fourth year, aimed at revolutionizing traditional agriculture by launching a crash program o f education, by sending teams o f agricultural experts into the field (one for each 200 farmers), by establishing cooperatives and democratic village institutions, and by draining marshes and extending irrigation. A massive program o f industrialization from the ground up included basic steel and petrochemical industries as well as a great variety o f manufacturing and processing ventures. The num ber o f elementary school students was to reach 1,100,000 by 1963-64, and the num ber o f secondary school students, 70,000. B oth the technocrats w ho designed the Constantine Plan and the President w ho prom ulgated it assumed an ending o f the w ar to be imminent. In fact, the plan itself was supposed to hasten the reconciliation. But the political analysis was faulty, the w ar did not end as hoped, and the m ost fundamental premises underlying the plan were invalid. Schools, hospital beds, lodging, and some industries were built as planned. But as the w ar raged on and the m ood o f the country became m ore unsettled, private capital actually began to flee Algeria so that, in spite o f new public investment, industrial production grew very little. Because o f the arm y’s spreading policy o f regroupement, o f transporting peasants away from farms and villages to vast resettlement camps, and o f prohibiting or limiting access to large stretches o f land on which they made their livings, traditional agricultural production plummeted. T he policy o f concentrating Algerian peasants in centres de regroupem ent camps, w ith impeccable logic, the series o f colonial policies that began w ith the sequestrations o f the 1840s and proceeded to the cantonnement o f the 1850s and to the sénatus-consulte o f 1863 and the W amier Law o f 1873. By 1950-51, m ost Algerian peasants no longer ow ned land. But o f those w ho did, 69 percent possessed fewer than ten hectares, and the average plot consisted o f 3.1 hectares, far less than enough to support a family. Nevertheless, w hether on their ow n land, or as workers on the land o f colons and the better-off M uslim landlords or as casual laborers doing anything that was called for in the neighborhood, some 6,000,000 fellahin still clung precariously to the village way o f life. The policy o f regroupem ent and the effects o f unending war, however, ended that way o f life forever. By 1960, 2,157,000 M uslims were piled up in m ore than 2,000 internm ent centers under night and day sur­ veillance o f the French army. Several hundred thousand more had been driven across or fled across the borders o f Tunisia and M orocco. Still others sought

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shelter and sustenance in the already overcrowded cities. By the tim e the w ar ended, m ore than 3,000,000 rural Algerians had been displaced from their hom es, the m ajority o f which had long since provided only a marginal standard o f living. Hundreds o f villages had been razed, fields, pastures and forests burned. W hen the w ar was over, fewer than half o f the displaced peasants even tried to go home. Between 1954 and 1960 alone, the population o f the cities increased by 67 percent, a destination which w ould attract nearly half o f the displaced once the French gave up their internm ent centers in 1962. It was w ith millions o f impoverished, uprooted, culturally deprived, and bewildered ex-peasants that independent Algeria w ould begin the difficult task o f restructuring itself. It is not only in its im pact upon Algerian social structures and their relationship to land that French colonial policy displays a disturbing continuity for 130 years. T hat continuity is also seen in the recourse to violence to insure control and in the im pact o f that violence upon the Algerian people. As noted in chapters 3 and 4, the toll on hum an life extracted by the wars o f conquest effected an absolute decline o f population over the first forty years o f colonial presence. In attem pting to retain the colony, in the 1950s and 1960s, by the same recourse to force w ith which it had originally acquired it, the hum an cost was on an annual basis even greater. Fortunately, the W ar o f Independence did n o t last as long as the wars o f conquest. T he aggregate num ber o f deaths, however, is the subject o f a grisly debate in the literature. Beginning in 1962, Algerians claimed the W ar o f In­ dependence had cost 1,000,000 lives, and this figure has gained w ide currency. Later, there were even claims that the death toll had reached 1,500,000. Supporters o f Algérie française, for their part, adm itted a m axim um o f 375.000 lives, claiming that at least half o f these were victims o f the FLN. M any Algerians suggest privately that the num ber o f deaths should be either 500.000 or 600,000. A noted French dem ographer generally sympathetic to the Algerian national cause concluded, after a careful study o f preindependence and postindependence census data, that there could not have been m ore than 300.000 deaths in excess o f those that current m ortality rates w ould have yielded.8

THE

CRISIS

OF

INDEPENDENCE

U nder the term s o f the Evian Agreement, the Provisional Executive was required to hold a referendum on independence between three and six m onths after the cease fire. Since there was not a shade o f doubt concerning the electorate’s choice on the question, the struggle for pow er w ithin the fractured FLN grew m ore frenetic as the dock ticked dow n to w ard the d ay vr>f1np in a last attem pt to resolve the internal conflicts before independence, the C N R A 8. Xavier Yacono, “Les Perns algériennes de 1954 i 1962,” Revut de l’Ocndent musulman tid e la Méditerranée no. 2 (1982).

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m et at Tripoli, in M ay and early June 1962, for w hat turned out to be its final session. While the Council had made some progress, during recent meetings, tow ard laying out in general ways the philosophy and goals o f the revolution, it had made none at all tow ard establishing the political institutions that w ould govern an independent state or even mechanisms for creating them. Scarcely concealed behind the ideological and institutional questions was the ongoing struggle for pow er am ong individuals and factions. M ore than a dozen sepa­ rate centers o f contention can be identified: the GPRA: the moderate politi-. dans; the radical politicians: fo1*G m rrai CrafT- civ wilaya m m im m lt; the finandally im portant Fédération de France du F L N (FFFLN); the Union générale des travailleurs algériens TtXGTÄJ; ancf, most im p o rta n tly th e prisoners o f AulttOy* py**. ITSOHic iumenipuiarlC!Tgàffé