The administration of Algeria between 1830 and 1914 falls into two phases: the first (1830-1870), primarily military and monarchist in character, reflecting the aggressive nature of the colonial occupation; and the second (1870-1914), civilian and pro-settler, reflecting the growing ascendancy of the local French colons over the Paris bureaucracy.
Following its capture of Algiers in July 1830, the French army established an administration, the legitimacy of which was confirmed after some hesitation by the incoming Orleanist monarchy. Under a succession of military governors-general, reporting to the French war ministry, the bridgehead at Algiers was extended through various expedients, including treaties with local rulers and piecemeal conquest, throughout the 1830s. The pace of this expansion quickened under Thomas-Robert Bugeaud (1841-1848), who defeated France’s erstwhile ally Abdel-Qadir after a long campaign, and in 1844 established the colony’s administrative basis: coastal areas of European settlement, organized on a civil basis; and in the interior, predominantly Arab/Berber areas under military governance. In these latter districts, existing bureaux arabes were formalized as administrative structures, with military officers “advising” traditional authorities, reportedly in a rather directive fashion. Meanwhile, those areas settled by Europeans developed along more metropolitan lines. In the wake of the 1848 revolution, and the renewed impetus given to assimilation policies, three departements (Algiers, Oran, and Constantine) were formed and given direct representation in the French parliament for the brief life of the Second Republic (1848-1852).
France’s Algerian policy underwent several shifts during the Second Empire (1852-1870). Bugeaud’s aggressive expansionist policy was continued by General Randon, later Napoleon III’s minister of war, who extended the practice of cantonnement, of taking for the state tribal land that was apparently unused. Napoleon then abolished the governor-generalship in 1858, and created a ministry for Algeria and the colonies, run by his nephew. His visit to the colony in 1860 brought about another policy change, with the restoration of the governor’s post, reporting directly to the emperor himself. However, the most radical turn occurred in 1863 when, influenced by his visit and his counselor, Ismail Urbain (a Muslim convert), he declared the colony to be an “Arab kingdom” (arabe royaume), with himself as protector equally of Muslims and Europeans, whom he regarded as equal partners in the state. Although his declaration greatly angered the colons, his policy differed in method rather than spirit from that of earlier assimilationists: a hybrid local government system (communes mixtes) was set up to bring Arabs and Berbers (meaning “Algerians”) into the French system, while in July 1865, a decree was introduced allowing naturalization only if Muslim civil status was set aside. The principle behind this legislation survived until World War II and ironically undermined its intrinsically assimilationist purpose, as few Muslims were prepared to reject Islamic values: only 1,557 Muslims had been granted French citizenship up to 1913.
The emperor’s final attempt at liberalism, a constitution that would have allowed Muslims to participate in elections to a new assembly in Paris, was aborted by the 1870 revolution. The Third Republic’s new parliamentary structure effectively excluded the Muslim majority, while rewarding the colons for their traditional republican loyalty. They were given direct representation in the assembly and senate, while the three departements became overseas provinces of France, separated from it only by an accident of geography. As a further mark of this administrative assimilation, in 1871, Algerian affairs were placed under the corresponding metropolitan ministries (rattachements), a policy that turned the governor-general into a minor functionary. Civil administration was progressively extended with the confiscation of tribal land after the 1871 revolt and the resulting spread of white settlement into the interior: communes mixtes were transformed into communes de plein exercice, corresponding to their metropolitan equivalent. Especially in urban areas, the communes were dominated by colons, who jealously guarded their exclusive right to elect their own mayors. The bureaux arabes, with their essentially paternalist attitude toward native Algerians, were eventually restricted to the military districts of the south (communes indigenes), much to colon satisfaction. After some years of formulation, the code d’indigenat was formally adopted in 1881, giving district officials powers to punish Muslims (with the exception of a privileged elite) without due legal process. Legal discrimination was matched by the imposition of the arabes impots, a wide range of taxes imposed on native Algerians for such items as plows and date palms, and who in consequence were paying 70 per cent of all direct taxes in 1909, despite their general impoverishment. In summary, the colons saw assimilation as a process related to their exclusive political (and economic) needs, and one from which Muslim Algerians were excluded. This was an assumption from which the local administration rarely dissented in the period up to 1914.
The only major exception took place in the mid-1890s, when in response to colon high-handedness, Governor-General Jules Cambon succeeded in getting the rattachement system abolished in 1896, thus strengthening his own position: thereafter, Algeria came under the interior ministry. Cambon himself paid the penalty for this intervention: Etienne, the Algerian-born leader of the colonial lobby in the French assembly, secured his recall. The next stage in the reform process ironically gave back to the colons more than they had lost. In 1898 anti-colonial deputies complaining about the heavy cost of Algeria to the exchequer managed to obtain a separate budget for the colony, with a view to curtailing metropolitan expenditure. A complicated mechanism to advise the governor-general, the delegations financieres (made up of three panels, two colons and one Muslim), was set up. Following colon protests, this body eventually secured actual control over more than four-fifths of the budget— a situation unmatched in the French empire—and gave the local settlers a wide measure of control over the allocation of services between themselves and the Muslim majority, even though they had only an advisory voice in the governor-general’s superior council. Thus, despite fitful attempts to protect the interests of the Muslim majority, colonial reformers were unable to achieve much before 1914, leaving the colons in a position of considerable influence over all levels of administration in Algeria.
Murray Steele
Further Reading
Ageron, Charles-Robert. Modern Algeria: A History from 1830 to the Present. London: Hurst and Co., and Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1991.
Amin, Samir. The Maghreb in the Modern World Har-mondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1970.
Confer, Vincent. France and Algeria: The Problem of Civil and Political Reform, 1870-1920. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1966.
Martin, Jean. L’Empire Renaissant, 1789-1871. Paris: Denoel, 1987.
Roberts, Stephen. The History of French Colonial Policy, 1870-1925. London: Cass and Hamden: Archon Books, 1963 (reprint of London: P. S. King, 1929 edition).
World History
