Nearly all of northern Algeria is under…
1840 CE to 1851 CE
Important tools of the colonial administration, from this time until their elimination in the 1870s, are the bureaux arabes (Arab offices), staffed by Arabists whose function is to collect information on the indigenous people and to carry out administrative functions, nominally in cooperation with the army.
The bureaux arabes on occasion acts with sympathy toward the local population and forms a buffer between Muslims and rapacious colons.
Under the regime du sabre, the colons have been permitted limited self-government in areas where European settlement is most intense, but there is constant friction between them and the army.
The colons charge that the bureaux arabes hinder the progress of colonization.
They agitate against military rule, complaining that their legal rights are denied under the arbitrary controls imposed on the colony and insisting on a civil administration for Algeria fully integrated with metropolitan France.
The army warns that the introduction of civilian government will invite Muslim retaliation and threaten the security of Algeria.
The French government vacillates in its policy, yielding small concessions to the colon demands on the one hand while maintaining the regime du sabre to protect the interests of the Muslim majority on the other.
Locations
People
Groups
Arab people
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Berber people (also called Amazigh people or Imazighen, "free men", singular Amazigh)
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Jews
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Kabyle people
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Islam
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French people (Latins)
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Christians, Roman Catholic
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France, constitutional monarchy of
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Algeria, French Colony of
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France, Second Republic of
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