Historical background: French colonial Algeria. The French colonial presence in Algeria dates from 1830, when France invaded the northern coastal part of the African land, which up to then had been part of the Ottoman Empire. First wresting Algiers, the largest city, from the Ottoman dey, or regent, the French then stamped out other Algerian resistance in a war of conquest that lasted until 1847. Over the next half century, the French extended their rule southward, and in 1902 French surveyors drew up the borders that still define the nation’s territory today. Amidst vigorous nineteenth-century imperial expansion by European nations in continents around the globe, Algeria took a leading role as the heart of French West Africa. In fact, after 1848 Algeria was legally and politically regarded as not a colony at all, but an integral part of France.
This unusual arrangement arose from the large numbers of Europeans who began settling in Algeria almost immediately after the occupation of Algiers in 1830. These land-hungry working-class farmers and laborers came from poverty-stricken areas along the southern coasts not just of France, but of Italy and Spain as well.
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