Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the revolt that broke out in 1871 in Algeria against French rule, spreading over hundreds of miles and countless towns and villages before being brutally suppressed. It began with the powerful Cheikh Mokrani and his family and was taken up by hundreds of thousands, becoming the last major revolt there before Algeria’s war of independence in 1954. In the wake of its swift suppression though came further waves of French migrants to settle on newly confiscated lands, themselves displaced by French defeat in Europe and the loss of Alsace-Lorraine, and their arrival only increased tensions. The Mokrani Revolt came to be seen as a watershed between earlier Ottoman rule and full national identity, an inspiration to nationalists in the 1950s. With Natalya Benkhaled-Vince Associate Professor of the History of Modern France and the Francophone World, Fellow of University College, University of Oxford Hannah-Louise Clark Senior Lecturer in Global Economic and Social History at the University of Glasgow And Jim House Senior Lecturer in French and Francophone History at the University of Leeds Producer: Simon Tillotson Reading list: Mahfoud Bennoune, The Making of Contemporary Algeria: 1830-1987 (Cambridge University Press, 1988) Julia Clancy-Smith, Rebel and Saint: Muslim Notables, Populist Protest, Colonial Encounters, Algeria and Tunisia 1800–1904 (University of California Press, 1994) Hannah-Louise Clark, ‘The Islamic Origins of the French Colonial Welfare State: Hospital Finance in Algeria’ (European Review of History, vol. 28, nos 5-6, 2021) Hannah-Louise Clark, ‘Of jinn theories and germ theories: translating microbes, bacteriological medicine, and Islamic law in Algeria’ (Osiris, vol. 36, 2021) Brock Cutler, Ecologies of Imperialism in Algeria (University of Nebraska Press, 2023) Didier Guignard, 1871: L’Algérie sous Séquestre (CNRS Éditions, 2023) Idir Hachi, ‘Histoire social de l’insurrection de 1871 et du procès de ses chefs (PhD diss., University of Aix-Marseille, 2017) Abdelhak Lahlou, Idir Hachi, Isabelle Guillaume, Amélie Gregório and Peter Dunwoodie, ‘L'insurrection kabyle de 1871’ (Etudes françaises volume 57, no 1, 2021) James McDougall, A History of Algeria (Cambridge University Press (2017) John Ruedy, Modern Algeria: The Origins and Development of a Nation (Indiana University Press, 2005, 2nd edition) Jennifer E Sessions, By Sword and Plow: France and the Conquest of Algeria (Cornell University Press, 2011) Samia Touati, ‘Lalla Fatma N’Soumer, 1830–1863: Spirituality, Resistance and Womanly Leadership in Colonial Algeria (Societies vol. 8, no. 4, 2018) Natalya Vince, Our Fighting Sisters: Nation, Memory and Gender in Algeria, 1954-2012 (Manchester University Press, 2015)
BBC sounds music radio podcasts.
This is in our time from BBC Radio Four and this is one of more than a thousand episodes you can find on BBC Sounds and on our website.
If you scroll down the page for this edition, you find a reading list to go with it.
I hope you enjoyed the program.
Hello.
In 1871, the macranian revolt broke out in Algeria against french rule, spreading over hundreds of miles and countless towns and villages before being brutally suppressed.
It was the last major revolt there before Algeria's war of independence in 1954, and it has become seen as a watershed between earlier ottoman rule and full national identity.
And in its wake came further waves of french migrants who settled on the confiscated lands, themselves displaced by war in Europe.
And their arrival only increased tensions.
With me to discuss the Macrani revolt of 1871 are Jim House, senior lecturer in french and francophone history at the University of Leeds, Hannah Louise Clark, senior lecturer in global economic and social history at the University of Glasgow, and Natalia ben Carlin Vince, associate professor of the history of modern France and the francophone world, fellow of University College, University of Oxford.
Natalia, why were the French in Algeria in the first place?
Well, this is a question that the French keep asking themselves throughout the period 1830 to 1870.
But let's begin in 1827 with a story that was told to generation after generation of french school children and indeed generations of algerian schoolchildren after independence as well.
And that is the story of the flywhisk slap.
So, in 1827, dey of Algiers, Hussein Dey, and he is the dey of the ottoman regency of Algiers, basically has a meeting with a french consul at the time, Pierre de Waal.
And Hussein day is furious that the French have failed to repay debts that they've incurred during the revolutionary wars, where Algeria has supplied a large amount of wheat to the French.
And basically, now the French don't want to pay for it.
Enraged, so the story goes, Hussein, they slaps Pierre de Waal around the face with a fly swatter.
And the invasion of Algiers three years later in 1830, is presented as the avenging of french honour.
The other reason sometimes, do you believe that?