2022/09/01 by Raphaëlle Branche · 1 voice
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Multiculturalism, Politics, Migration, Gender #North African History and Literature #Political and Social Issues
paper · doi:10.1093/fh/crac050
openalex publication_date 2022/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
In 1870, France was defeated at Sedan. The Second Empire had to give way to the Republic and the French territory was amputated from its easternmost territories of Alsace and Moselle. Following the treaty signed in Frankfurt in May 1871, a war tax was imposed on the French. This was the same scheme that France imposed a few months later on the Algerian insurgents who had taken advantage of the war in Europe to shake off the colonial yoke. At the beginning of 1871, the populations of northern Algeria, particularly in Kabylia, rose up in protest against French colonization, the predatory nature of which had suddenly accelerated with the fall of the Second Empire. Defeated, the Algerians not only had to pay a war tax but their land was sequestered either individually or collectively, with colonial France making extensive use of the principle of collective responsibility. The colonization of land boomed. For several generations, the colonized populations were subjected to a discriminatory code de l’indigénat and their desire for collective revolt was stifled. The memory of the 1871 insurrection is inseparable from the evocation of its repression. For some, it was a reminder of what it cost to claim respect if not total freedom. For others, it permanently coloured the French settlement with bloody images and a visceral fear of indigenous uprising.