Like in sub-saharan Africa, Algerian slavery died a "slow death". It did not end with French abolition in but maintained its importance in some regions through the nineteenth century.
At the same time, there are differences stemming from the special case of Algerian colonization. In particular, colonial planners faced the indigenous question, or how to create a settler colony in a country that was already settled. This essay examines how slavery, abolition, and the "indigenous question" came together in French plans of the s to import slaves to Algeria. These plans helped colonial authorities envision a final solution to the indigenous question, whereby sub-Saharan Africans purchased as slaves would replace Algerian populations.
The present article is based upon a paper read at a special joint panel organized by the Saharan Studies Association at the African Studies Association and Middle East Studies Association annual meetings, 19 November , Washington D. My thanks to Martin Klein for his perspicuous comments and Ismael Montana for organizing the panel. I would also like to thank Dennis Cordell and my colleague Larry Yarak. For example, in the northern territories of Ottoman Algeria, the Mediterranean lands known as the Tell, elites owned slaves of color whom they exploited for domestic help and as concubines.
In the arid lands of the Sahara to the south, slavery was an essential part of desert society. Indeed, slaves and the servile people of color known as Haratin were so important to Algero-Saharan societies—to dig and tend wells, excavate and maintain the underground channels of foggara, irrigate gardens, tend to flocks, and cultivate dates—that one might argue that it was forced labor, not distinctive indigenous technologies or specially adapted modes of production, that made settled society in the Sahara desert possible 2.
French colonialism altered these relations. But in Algeria slavery maintained its importance well into the nineteenth century Bader ; Cordell Although exact figures are lacking, French estimates in the s numbered some 10, slaves in the parts of Algeria under their control, and it is likely there were thousands more Emerit 38 3. Legally abolished in , slavery in Algeria was kept alive by a variety of forces, including the resilience of pre-colonial institutions, clandestine practices adopted by slave traders and owners especially their ability to exploit ambiguities in the personal status of slaves , and, finally, a singular lack of will on the part of the colonial administration to enforce the full letter of the law.
