Between fanaticism and loyalty

Algerian prisoners within the French Mediterranean Empire

Bibliographic Data

ID3979290
AuthorsDzavid Dzanic (0000-0002-9368-7790, Harvard University, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume20
Issue2
Pages204-224
Publication date2015-03-15
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Journal of North African Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1362-9387 • E-ISSN: 1743-9345
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13629387.2014.928209
OpenAlexW2082015700
LanguageEN
References cited30

The violent military method of colonisation embraced by French governors general such as Thomas Bugeaud and the violent resistance espoused by local leaders such as ʿAbd al-Qādir have received the lion's share of attention in the existing scholarship on the first two decades of French rule in Algeria. Although some scholars have emphasised that a number of Algerians had become an integral part of the French army and fought on the French side in many important battles, indigenous notables' ideas on French imperialism, the civilising mission and their sense of loyalty remain opaque. This article examines the writings of a number of influential Algerian leaders who experienced captivity in the colonial prison in southern France during the 1840s and redefined their sense of loyalty as a result of that experience. Most of them jettisoned ʿAbd al-Qādir's ideology of violent resistance and attempted to prove their loyalty to France by pointing to their military service and their belief in the benefits of the French civilising mission, which they interpreted as the uniform extension of the French system of justice in Algeria. In addition, some of them attempted to harmonise the French monarchy with Islam by presenting the French conquest as a divinely ordained and thus legitimate event. By analysing the ideas of Algerian notables who adopted a new sense of patriotism, this article underscores the importance of re-examining the existing narratives of French imperial expansion in North Africa in order to recover the key role that indigenous collaboration played in that development

Ancient history · Art · Colonialism · Empire · Ethnology · Fanaticism · Greatness · Historiography · Ideology · Indigenous · Literature · Loyalty · Monarchy · Political science · Sociology · European Political History Analysis · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · North African History and Literature

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