Pied-noir: Encyclopedia II - Pied-noir - History

Pied-noir - History

European settlers started colonizing the Barbary Coast from 1830 when France conquered Algiers from nominal Ottoman control. These settlers came from all over the Catholic parts of the western Mediterranean, particularly coastal and island regions in the present-day countries of Italy, France, Spain, and Malta. They became known as colons or pieds-noirs. The Algerian Jews, however, had a different history. While a Jewish presence had existed since late Roman times, the majority had arrived as refugees from the Reconquista around 1500, when Sephardi Jews and Muslims were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula. After centuries of dhimmi status, the local Algerian Jews became associated with the European-Algerian community following the décret Crémieux of 1871, when they largely embraced French citizenship and identity and adopted French culture and language over the course of just one generation. Before 1962 (independence of Algeria), both the Europeans and the Jews of Algeria were listed under the name Européens (Europeans) for statistical or official purposes. They all considered themselves simply French, or Algerian, or African, each of these identities intertwined in their mind. The unofficial anthem of the pied-noir community is the Song of the Africans (Le chant des Africains).

In 1959, the pieds-noirs numbered 1,025,000, and accounted for 10.4% of the total population of Algeria, a percentage gradually diminishing since the peak of 15.2% in 1926. However, some areas of Algeria had high concentrations of pieds-noirs, such as the regions of Bône (now Annaba), Algiers, and above all the area from Oran to Sidi-Bel-Abbès. Oran had been under European rule since the 17th century, and the population in the Oran metropolitan area was 49.3% European and Jewish in 1959. In the Algiers metropolitan area, Europeans and Jewish people accounted for 35.7% of the population. In the metropolitan area of Bône they accounted for 40.5% of the population. The département of Oran, a rich European-developed agricultural land of 16,520 km² (6,378 sq. miles) stretching between the cities of Oran and Sidi-Bel-Abbès, and including them, was the largest area of pieds-noirs density outside of the cities, with the pieds-noirs accounting for 33.6% of the population of the département in 1959.

The pieds-noirs and their indigenous allies, the harkis, felt betrayed by the act of Charles de Gaulle sanctioning the independence of Algeria in 1962 and some of them fought a limited civil war. The terrorist organization OAS (Organisation de l'Armée Secrète) set up by a group of these who had served in the French army was active in the first half of the 1960s and is well known for its role in the plot of the fictional the Day of the Jackal.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki