Between fanaticism and loyalty: Algerian prisoners within the French Mediterranean Empire

Abstract

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 Abd al-Qadir 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 Abd al-Qadir's ideology of violent resistance and attempted to prove their loyalty to France by pointing to their military service and their belief in...