Rome and France in Africa: Recovering colonial Algeria's Latin past

French Historical Studies

Volumn 25, Issue 2, 2002, Pages 295-329

  Lorcin, Patricia M E ^a  

^a TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 62849101405     PISSN: 00161071     EISSN: 15275493     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1215/00161071-25-2-295     Document Type: Article

References (126)

1. Adolphe Dureau de la Malle, Histoire des guerres des Romains, des Byzantins et des Vandales accompagnée d'examens sur les moyens employés anciennement pour la conquête et la soumission de la portion de l'Afrique septentrionale nommée aujourd'hui l'Algérie (Paris, 1852), x (my translation)
2. See, for example, Edward Said, Orientalism (New York, 1979)
3. idem, Culture and Imperialism (New York, 1994)
4. Daniel R. Headricks, The Tools of Empire (Oxford, 1981)
5. John M. Mackenzie, ed., Imperialism and the Natural World (Manchester, 1990)
6. Lewis Pyenson, Civilizing Mission: Exact Sciences and French Overseas Expansion (Baltimore, Md., 1993)
7. Michael Osborne, Nature, the Exotic, and the Science of French Colonialism (Bloomington, Ind., 1994)
8. and Paul Rabinow, French Modern (Cambridge, Mass., 1989). All these works are in some way informed by the theoretical works of Foucault and Gramsci, as is this article
9. On the formation of identity, see Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London, 1991)
10. Terence Ranger and Eric Hobsbawm, The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, 1983)
11. and Steven Ungar and Tom Conley, Identity Papers: Contested Nationhood in Twentieth- Century France (Minneapolis, Minn., 1996)
12. The literature on the role of memory in the construction of national identity is large and steadily increasing. Works that have informed this essay include: Maurice Halbwachs, The Collective Memory (New York, 1980)
13. Pierre Nora, ed., Les lieux de mémoire, 3 vols. (Paris, 1984-92)
14. Henry Rousso, The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France since 1945 (Cambridge, Mass., 1991)
15. and Nancy Wood, Vectors of Memory (Oxford, 1999)
16. Works on aspects of colonial identity formation in Algeria include David Prochaska, Making Algeria French: Colonialism in Bône, 1870-1920 (Cambridge, 1990)
17. Patricia M. E. Lorcin, Imperial Identities (London, 1995)
18. Zeynep Çelik, Urban Forms and Cultural Confrontations (Berkeley, Calif., 1997)
19. and Peter Dunwoodie, Writing French Algeria (Oxford, 1998)
20. Jean-François Guilhaume, Les mythes fondateurs de l'Algérie française (Paris, 1992), esp. chap. 5
21. E. Jomard, "Description d'Antimoë," in Description de l'Egypte, 23 vols. (Paris, 1809-28), 2:15:1
22. Lorcin, Imperial Identities, 35-75, 97-166
23. Le Baron de Slane, Histoire des Berbères (Paris, 1852)
24. Emile Gautier, "Le cadre géographique de l'histoire en Algérie," in Histoire et historiens de l'Algérie, ed. J. Alazard et al. (Paris, 1931), 19. (Emile Gautier was professor at the University of Algiers at the time.)
25. C. F. Volney, Voyage en Syrie et en Egypte, 2 vols. (Paris, 1786)
26. Savary, Lettres sur l'Egypte (Paris, 1787)
27. William Shaler, Sketches of Algiers (Boston, 1826)
28. Thomas Shaw, Voyages dans la régence d'Alger, trans. from the English by J. W. MacCarthy (Paris, 1830)
29. Abbé Guillaume Thomas François Raynal, Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements et du commerce des Européens dans l'Afrique septentrionale (Paris, 1826)
30. See Norman Daniel, Islam, Europe and Empire (Edinburgh, 1962), 96, for officers' reading material prior to the Napoleonic expedition to Egypt
31. Gaston Boissier, Roman Africa, trans. Arabella Ward (London, 1898), v-vii
32. For further comparisons between Roman and French conquest and colonization, see Spécimen colonial de l'Algérie: Résumé, réfutation ou complément des systèmes de MM. Leblanc de Prébois, L'abbé Landmann, de Lamoricière, Bedeau et Bugeaud (Paris, 1847), 40-42
33. For a description of his methods, see Bugeaud, "De la stratégie, de la tactique, des retraites et du passage des défilés dans les montagnes des kabyles," in Par l'épée et par la charrue: Ecrits et discours, ed. P. Azan (Paris, 1948)
34. and Comte Henri Amédée d'Ideville, Le maréchal Bugeaud, d'après sa correspondance intime et des documents inédits, 1784-1849, 3 vols. (Paris, 1882), 2:263-65
35. See Azan, Par l'épée
36. Bugeaud's legendary military status was well on the way to being established by 1842. Its impact on the military, both in Algeria and elsewhere, was profound. See Antony Thrall Sullivan, Thomas-Robert Bugeaud, France and Algeria, 1784-1849: Politics, Power, and the Good Society (Hamden, Conn., 1983), 90, 164
37. For the similarities between the debates in the Roman Senate and those in the French Chamber of Deputies, see Boissier, Roman Africa, 95
38. Quoted by Edouard Lapène, Vingt-six mois à Bougie ou collections de mémoires sur sa conquête, son occupation, et son avenir: Notice historique, morale, politique, et militaire sur les Kabaïles (Paris, 1838), 197
39. "Ordonnance du Roi approvant le règlement pour l'Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, 16 mai 1830," in Institut de France: Lois, statuts, et règlements concernant les Anciennes Académies et l'Institut de 1635 à 1889: Tableau des fondations, ed. Léon Aucoc (Paris, 1889), 236. The Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres - originally called the Académie des Inscriptions et Médailles - was founded in 1663. Its original mandate, rules, and regulations were approved in 1701. They were subsequently updated at intervals during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
40. Mémoires de l'Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres (Paris, 1831-33), 12:98
41. quoted by Nabila Oulebsir, "Rome ou la Méditerranée? Les relevés d'architecture d'Amble Ravoisié en Algérie, 1840-1842," in L'invention scientifique de la Méditerranée: Egypte, Morée, Algérie, ed. Marie-Noëlle Bourguet (Paris, 1998), 241
42. See also Frédéric Lacroix, "Colonisation et administration romanes dans l'Afrique septentrionale," Revue africaine 41 (1863): 363-83, 415-32, esp. 364
43. Michael Greenhalgh, "The French Invasion of Algeria and the Roman Past" (paper presented at the twenty-eighth annual meeting of the Western Society for French History, University of California at Los Angeles, 8-11 November 2000). Greenhalgh, who is an art historian, argues that without this infrastructure the French conquest of Algeria would not have succeeded
44. Lacroix, "Colonisation et administration romanes," 365
45. For the different factions and issues involved, see Charles-André Julien, La conquête et les débuts de la colonisation (1827-1871), vol. 1 of Histoire de l'Algérie contemporaine (Paris, 1979), 106-37
46. Oulebsir, "Rome ou la Méditerranée?" 245
47. Léon Renier, Inscriptions romaines de l'Algérie (Paris, 1858). Renier, who edited the work, was the librarian at the Sorbonne and a member of the Committee of French Language, History, and Arts. The work was published under the aegis of Hippolyte Fortoul, minister of education and religious affairs (ministre de l'instruction publique et des cultes)
48. For example, Doctor Raymon sent inscriptions from the Constantine area, Doctor Leclerc, from the Sitifis area, and the Bureau arab officer, Azéma de Montravier, from around Tlemcen (Renier, Inscriptions romaines, 388, 390-92, 427)
49. Stéphane Gsell, Texte explicatif des planches de Ad. H.-Al. Delamare, exploration scientifique de l'Algérie pendant les années, 1840-1845, (Paris, 1912), vii (text and n. 3)
50. For the achievements of Captain Delamare, see Monique Dondin-Payre, "La production d'images sur l'espace méditerranéen dans la Commission d'exploration scientifique d'Algérie: Les dessins du Capitaine Delamare," in Bourguet, L'invention scientifique de la Méditerranée, 223-38
51. Quoted by Julien, La conquête et les débuts, 193
52. The antagonism aroused by archaeologists is evident from the observation of one unsympathetic contemporary: "In the interest of their great work which never gets published, these scholars create disorder everywhere with their demands." Marginal annotation in an official letter, attributed to Bugeaud by Gsell, Texte explicatif, iii
53. See "Introduction and Preamble," Revue africaine, 1 (1856): 3-11, esp. 7
54. See also Gabriel Esquer, "Histoire et souvenirs," in the centenary edition of the Revue africaine: Centenaire de la Société Historique Algérienne, 1856-1956 (Algiers, 1956), 193-226, esp. 194
55. Oulebsir, "Rome ou la Méditerranée?" 267
56. For the role of the Scientific Commission in creating a French space, see Lorcin, Imperial Identities, 41-52
57. Ouoted by Boissier, Roman Africa, vii
58. Saint-Marc Girardin, "De la domination des Carthiginois et des Romains en Afrique comparée avec la domination française," Revue des deux mondes, 26 (1841). 408-45, esp. 409
59. Dureau de la Malle, Histoire des guerres, 6
60. Edouard Lapène, Tableau historique, moral et politique sur les Kabyles (Metz, 1846). Lapène wrote historical works on France, Spain, and Algeria
61. As far as the latter was concerned, in addition to Vingt-six mois à Bougie and his work on the Kabyles he wrote "Tableau historique de l'Algérie depuis l'occupation romaine," Mémoires de l'académie de Metz 25 (1843-44): 158-244, and 26 (1844-45): 107-315
62. and "Tableau historique de la province d'Oran," Mémoires de l'académie de Metz 23 (1841-42): 43-92
63. See, for example, Lapène, "Tableau historique . . . ," in Vingt-six mois, 178-79, 186-92
64. Lapène, "Comparison des Kabaïles [sic] modernes avec les anciens peuples d'où ils sont présumés tirer leur origine," in ibid., 177-92
65. Emile Masqueray, Formation des cités chez les populations sédentaires de l'Algérie (Kabyles du Djurjura, Chaouia de l'Aurès. Beni M'zab) (Paris, 1886), 221-22, 226
66. For an exposé of Bugeaud's ideas on colonization, see Thomas Bugeaud de la Piconnerie, "De la colonisation européenne en Afrique," in Quelques réflexions sur trois questions fondamentales de notre établissement en Algérie (Algiers, 1846), 22-36
67. and in D'Ideville, Le maréchal Bugeaud, 158-77. It was in 1832 that Bugeaud first proposed his idea of the comices agricoles, whereby military units would be transformed into soldier-laborers in peacetime. He had in mind not only Algeria but also the marsh areas of Brittany and Bordeaux. The soldier as laborer and as executor of public works were ideas that were picked up by the Bureaux arabes in Algeria
68. Yacono, Les bureaux arabes et l'évolution des genres de vie indigènes dans l'ouest du Tell algérois (Paris, 1953). The phrase Delenda Carthago is a reference to Cato the Elder's insistence in the Senate that Rome undertake the third Punic War. Bugeaud is comparing his obsession with creating the comices agricoles to Cato's obsession with destroying Carthage
69. John Ruedy, Modern Algeria (Bloomington, Ind., 1992), 69
70. Lacroix, "Colonisation et administration romanes," 365-66
71. Cited by Jacques Frémeaux, "Souvenirs de Rome et présence française au Maghreb: Essai d'investigation," in Connaissances du Maghreb, ed. Jean-Claude Vatin (Paris, 1984), 35
72. Académie d'Hippone (1865)
73. Société de Géographie et d'Archéologie de la Province d'Oran (1878)
74. Berbrugger was a graduate of the Ecole de Chartes, a Fouriérist by philosophical inclination, and an Arabist. He was a high-profile figure in the colony, becoming a member of a wide range of academic and nonacademic societies and civic groups. He was editor of the Moniteur algérien, a paper that chronicled the major events in the colony. He was elected a member of the Royal Geographical Society. His prestige in Algeria was such that when he died, he lay in state at the national library he had founded and was given an official funeral presided over by then governor-general Field Marshal MacMahon
75. Robert Dournon, Autour du tombeau de la chrétienne: Documents pour servir à l'histoire de l'Afrique du nord (Paris, 1946), 14
76. Preamble, Revue africaine 1 (1856): 10
77. Ruedy, Modern Algeria, 76
78. Charles-Robert Ageron, Histoire de l'Algérie contemporaine: De l'insurrection de 1871 au déclenchement de la guerre de libération (Paris, 1979), 2:119, 121
79. Paul Monceaux, Les Africains: Etude sur la littérature latine d'Afrique (Paris, 1894), 3
80. Louis Faidherbe and Paul Topinard, "Instructions sur l'anthropologie de l'Algérie," Bulletin de la société d'anthropologie de Paris, 2d ser., 8 (1873): 603-65, esp. 654
81. For the details of the 1889 law, see Ageron, Histoire de l'Algérie contemporaine, 118-20; for anti-Semitism in the colony, see 60-67
82. For an understanding of the way in which the culture of these immigrants developed, see David Prochaska, "History As Literature, Literature As History: Cagayous of Algiers," American Historical Review 101 (1996): 671-711
83. Agnès Groslambert, ed., L'archéologie algérienne de 1895 à 1915: Les rapports d'Albert Ballu publiés au journal officiel de la République française de 1896 à 1916, Collection du Centre d'Etudes Romaines et Gallo-Romaines, l'Université Lyon III, n.s., 16 (Lyon, 1997). See, for example, 11
84. Jean Lassus, "L'antiquité," in Revue africaine, 81-119, esp. 81
85. Cardinal Lavigerie, "Lettre pastorale pour la prise de possession du diocèse d'Alger" (5 May 1867), in Oeuvres choisies (Paris, 1884), 1:1-22, esp. 3
86. (also in Recueil de lettres publiées par Mgr. L'archevêque sur les oeuvres et missions africaines [Paris, 1869], 8-9)
87. Lavigerie, Oeuvres choisies, 5-6
88. Cardinal Lavigerie, "Ancienne et nouvelle église d'Afrique: Discours pour l'ouverture du premier concile provincial d'Algérie," in ibid., 87-131, esp. 92
89. Lavigerie, "Lettre pastorale," 9
90. See, for example, Louis Bertrand, "Le centenaire du cardinal Lavigerie," in Devant l'Islam (Paris, 1926), 80-126
91. and "L'église d'Afrique," Revue des deux mondes 57 (1930): 402-15, esp. 402
92. Stéphane Gsell, L'Algérie dans l'antiquité (Algiers, 1903), 144
93. Louis Bertrand, Sur les routes du sud, 9th ed. (Paris, 1936), 217, 219
94. Bertrand, "L'église d'Afrique," 404
95. Martin Thom, "Tribes within Nations: The Ancient Germans and the History of Modern France," in Nation and Narration, ed. Homi Bhabha (London, 1990), 23-43, esp. 23
96. See, for example: Mme de Staël, "On Germany" (1813), in Major Writings of Germaine de Staël, trans. Vivian Folkenflik (New York, 1987), 292-324
97. Augustin Thierry, Histoire de la conquète de l'Angleterre par les Normands (Paris, 1825)
98. Amédée Thierry, Histoire des Gaulois (Paris, 1828)
99. Ernest Renan, "The Poetry of the Celtic Races" (1886), in Poetry of the Celtic Races and Other Essays, trans. William G. Hutchinson (London, 1896), 1-60
100. Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges, Histoire des institutions politiques de l'ancienne France: L'invasion germanique et la fin de l'empire (Paris, 1875)
101. Renan, "What Is a Nation?" in Poetry of the Celtic Races, 61-83, esp. 80
102. Fustel de Coulanges, The Ancient City: A Study of the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome (Baltimore, Md., 1980), xii-xiii
103. See especially Fustel's Histoire des institutions politiques
104. Louis Bertrand, "Discours à la nation africaine," Revue des deux mondes 6 (1921): 481-95, esp. 487
105. André Bellessort, "Portrait d'écrivains: Louis Bertrand," Revue bleue 12, no. 58 (1920): 364-68, esp. 364
106. Louis Bertrand, Les villes d'or: Algérie et Tunisie romaines (Paris, 1921), 8-9
107. Idem, "Préface," in Le cycle africain: Le jardin de la mort (Paris, 1921), vii-ix. Le jardin de la mort was first published in 1904. It was reissued under the title Africa in 1933
108. For a detailed account of Bertrand's theory of rebarbarization and its links to fin de siècle thought in France, see Patricia Lorcin, "Decadence and Renascence: Louis Bertrand and the Concept of Rebarbarisation in Algeria," in New Perspectives on the Fin de Siècle in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century France, ed. K. Chadwick and T. Unwin (London, 2000)
109. Bertrand, "Préface," i
110. Idem, Sur les routes du sud, 52
111. Idem, Les villes d'or, 243
112. Idem, Les villes d'or, 23
113. Idem, Sur les routes du sud, 60
114. Arthur de Gobineau, The Inequality of Human Races (New York, 1999), 178
115. Quoted by Odile Husson, Lorraine et Afrique dans l'œuvre de Louis Bertrand (Nancy, 1966), 161
116. Pierre Martino, "La littérature algérienne," in Alazard, Histoire et historiens, 331-48, esp. 341
117. There are a number of works on literature in colonial Algeria. Among the more recent are: Ahmed Lanasri, La littérature algérienne de l'entre-deux-guerres (Paris, 1995)
118. Prochaska, "History As Literature"; and Dunwoodie, Writing French Algeria
119. For a bibliography of colonial literature, see Jean Dejeux, Bibliographie de la littérature "algérienne" des Français (Paris, 1978). Dejeux has published over a dozen books on different aspects of North African francophone literature
120. Robert Randau, Les algérianistes: Roman de la patrie algérienne (Paris, 1911), 170
121. Albert Camus, "La culture indigène: La nouvelle culture méditerranéenne: Cadres de la conférence inaugurale faite à la 'Maison de la Culture' le 8 février 1937," in Essais, ed. Roger Quilliot (Paris, 1990), 1321-27, esp. 1322
122. Albert Camus, "Noces à Tipasa," in Noces (Paris, 1959), 11
123. Camus, "Retour à Tipasa" in Noces, 162-63
124. See, for example, Leynadier and Clausel, Histoire de l'Algérie française (Paris, 1846), 47-49
125. Masqueray, Formation des cités, 13-14
126. This argument was of course largely spurious. Although the Romans had possessed nearly all the cultivable lands north of the Sahara, modern historians have shown that the Roman Empire in Africa had no meaning or unity of its own, and the motivating force of much of its conquest in the area was defensive action against marauding nomadic and seminomadic tribes. See, for example, Roland Oliver and J. D. Fage, A Short History of Africa (London, 1995), 43