![]() ![]() Under colonial rule, Algerian natives were French nationals yet were deprived of the rights granted to citizens. ![]() In 1841 Alexis de Tocqueville recommended fighting them “with the utmost violence.” He referred to policies of crop destruction, food confiscation and the seizing of unarmed women and children as “unfortunate necessities” to which “anyone who wants to wage war on the Arabs is obliged to submit.” ![]() Official French policy toward colonized Arabs was brutal. A central feature of colonial policy was the appropriation of fertile land in the northern part of the country through sequestration, which forced large portions of the Arab population southward into less desirable territory.īattle of Mazagran (1840), by Henri Félix Emmanuel Philippoteaux (Wikimedia Commons) Insurrections were nearly constant throughout the 19 thcentury, however, and roughly one-quarter of Algeria’s Arab population of four million died as a result of the on-going conflict. In 1847 the Emir ‘Abd al-Qādir was captured, ending the period of official resistance and allowing Paris to administratively assimilate northern Algeria into French departments. The French colonization of Algeria began in 1830 and was a protracted and violent affair. ![]()
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