Mokrani Revolt

Boumezrag el Mokrani

Cheikh Mokrani (Mohamed Amokrane) and his brother Boumezrag were sons of a family of high rank - the Ait Abbas dynasty (a branch of the Hafsids of Béjaïa), the Amokrane, masters, since the sixteenth century of the Kalâa of Ait Abbas in the Bibans and of the Medjana region.[5] In the 1830s, their father Ahmed El Mokrani (d. 1853), had chosen to ally himself with the French; it was he who had allowed the Iron Gates expedition in 1839 and he had become khalifa of the Medjana under the tutelage of the French authorities.[6] This alliance had soon revealed itself to be subordination - a decree of 1845 abolished the khalifalik of Medjana so that when Mohamed succeeded his father, as the choice of the Bureaux arabes, his title was no more than “Bachagha” (Turkish: başağa=chief commander).[7]^:35 During the hardships of 1867, he gave his personal guarantee, at the request of the authorities, for important loans. In 1870, the creditors demanded to be repaid and the French authorities reneged on the loan on the pretext of the Franco-Prussian War, leaving Mohamed obliged to pawn his own possessions. The late 1860s were hard for the people of Algeria: between 1866 and 1868 they lived through drought, exceptionally cold winters, an epidemic of cholera and an earthquake. More than 10% of the kabyle population died during this period.[1] On 12 June 1869, Marshall MacMahon, the Governor General, advised the French government that “the Kabyles will stay peaceful as long as they see no possibility of driving us out of their country.”[8]

Under the French Second Republic, the country was governed by a Governor General and a large proportion was "military territory".[9][10] There were tensions between the French colonists and the army; the former favouring the abolition of the military territory as being too protective of the native Algerians.[11] Eventually, on 9 March 1870, the Corps législatif passed a law which would end the military regime in Algeria.[12] When Napoleon III fell and the Third French Republic was proclaimed, the Algerian question fell under the remit of the new Justice Minister, Adolphe Crémieux, and not, as previously, under the Minister of War. At the same time, Algeria was experiencing a period of anarchy. The settlers, hostile to Napoleon III and strongly Republican, took advantage of the fall of the Second Empire to push forward their anti-military agenda. Real authority devolved to town councils and local defence committees, and their pressure resulted in the Crémieux Decrees.

A number of causes have been suggested for the Mokrani revolt. There was a general dissatisfaction among Kabyle notables because of the steady erosion of their authority by the colonial authorities. At the same time, ordinary people were concerned about the imposition of civilian rule on 9 March, which they interpreted as imposing domination by the settlers, with encroachments on their land and loss of autonomy.[13] The Cremieux Decree of 24 October 1870, which gave French nationality to Algerian Jews was possibly another cause of the unrest.[7]^:119[14] However some historians view this as doubtful, pointing out that this story only started to spread after the revolt was over.[15] Indeed, this explanation of the revolt was particularly widespread among French antisemites.[16] News of the insurrectionary Paris commune also played a part.[17]

Several months before the start of the insurrections, Kabyle village communities began electing village assemblies ("tijmaa'in") despite the colonial authorities having banned them from doing so. The first signs of actual revolt appeared in the mutiny of a squadron of the 3rd Regiment of Spahis in January 1871. The spahis (Muslim cavalry troopers in the French Army of Africa) refused to be sent to fight in metropolitan France,[18] claiming that they were only required to serve in Algeria. This mutiny began in Moudjebeur, near Ksar Boukhari on 20 January, spread to Aïn Guettar (in the region of modern Khemissa, near Souk Ahras) on 23 January, and soon reached El Tarf and Bouhadjar.[19]

The mutiny at Aïn Guettar involved the mass desertion of several hundred men and the killing of several officers. It took on a particular significance for the Rezgui family, whose members maintained that France, recently defeated by the Prussians, was a spent force and that now was the time for a general uprising. The Hanenchas responded to this call, killing fourteen colonists in their territory; Souk Ahras was besieged from 26 to 28 January, before being relieved by a French column, who then put down the insurgency and condemned five men to death.[19]

Mokrani submitted his resignation as bachagha in March 1871, but the army replied that only the civil government could now accept it. In reply, Mokrani wrote to General Augeraud, subdivisional commander at Sétif:[20]

"You know the matter which puts me at odds with you; I can only repeat to you what you already know - I do not wish to be the agent of the civil government..... I am preparing myself to fight you; today let each of us take up his rifle."[14]

Attack on Bordj Bou Arreridj by Cheikh Mokrani — Engraving by Léon Morel-Fatio, L'Illustration, 1871.

The spahi mutiny was reignited after 16 March 1871, when Mokrani took charge of it.[14] On 16 March, Mokrani led six thousand men in an assault on Bordj Bou Arreridj.[21] On 8 April, French troops regained control of the Medjana plain. The same day, Si Aziz, son of Cheikh Ahaddad, head of the Rahmaniyya order, proclaimed a holy war in the market of Seddouk.[14] Soon 150,000 Kabyles rose,[22] as the revolt spread along the coast first, then into the mountains to the east of the Mitidja and as far as Constantine. It then spread to the Belezma mountains and linked with local insurrections all the way down to the Sahara desert.[23] As they spread towards Algiers itself, the insurgents took Lakhdaria (Palestro), 60 km east of the capital, on 14 April. By April, 250 tribes had risen, or nearly a third of Algeria's population. One hundred thousand “mujahidin”, poorly armed and disorganised, were launching random raids and attacks.[13]

Repression

Administrative notice (1871). Cheikh Mokrani's goods sequestered

During the fighting, around 100 European civilians died, along with an unknown number of Algerian civilians.[1] After fighting ceased, more than 200 Kabyles were interned[27] and others deported to Cayenne[27] and New Caledonia, where they were known as Algerians of the Pacific.[28] Boumezrag Mokrani was condemned to death by a court in Constantine on 27 March 1873.

The Kabylie region was subjected to a collective fine of 36 million francs, and 450,000 hectares of land were confiscated and given to new settlers, many of whom were refugees from Alsace-Lorraine.[27][1] especially in the region of Constantine. The repression and confiscations forced a number of Kabyles to leave the country.[1]

After the end of the hostilities of the insurrection of Cheikh Mokrani, the Algerian rebel leaders who were captured alive appeared before the Assize Court of Algiers from 27 December 1872 on a count of indictment and an act of accusation linked to the sacking of the French colonies, the assassinations, fires and looting which sparked heated debates on this extremely important affair.[29]

Several criminal charges weighed on each of the accused who all, without exception, had taken part in the insurrection. The prosecution of the court made charges which weighed on each of the accused for the crimes alleged against these main leaders and leaders of the 1871 insurrection.

The list of these incarcerated rebel leaders is as follows:

A long list was then enumerated of the names of other subordinate rebel Algerian leaders and natives who participated in the Alma and Palestro massacres.

After reading the indictment, including the whole so-called Palestro affair, which lasted about an hour and a half, the president of the assize court urged the jurors to follow on the notebook that was given to them. given to each, and where the name of each accused was written at the top of a page, the individual examination which will be carried out and to take notes due to the length of the debates.

1/75th-scale model of Prince Jérôme alias La Loire, on display at the Swiss Museum of Transport.

Adolphe Lucien Mottez (1822-1892)

Prison on the L'Île-des-Pins

The leaders of the Mokrani Revolt after their capture and trial in 1873 were either executed, or subjected to forced labor, or deported and exiled to the Pacific and New Caledonia.[31][32]

It is a convoy of forty (40) Kabyle insurrectional leaders which was undertaken on the ship La Loire on 5 June 1874 towards the L'Île-des-Pins for forever deported these symbols of Algerian resistance against the French occupation.[33]

The specialist in history Malika Ouennoughi drew up a list of these 40 deportees, whose names follow:[34]

1. Cheikh Boumerdassi, born in 1818 at Ouled Boumerdès, was a marabout, with the matricule: 1301.
2. Ahmed ben Ali Seghir ben Mohamed Ouallal, born in 1854 at Baghlia, was a farmer, with the matricule: 852.
3. Ahmed Kerbouchene, born in 1829 at Larbaâ Nath Irathen, was a farmer, with the matricule: 883.
4. Ahmed ben Mohamed ben Barah, born in 1829 at Dar El Beïda, was a farmer, with the matricule: 859.
5. Ahmed ben Belkacem ben Abdallah, born in 1822 at Oued Djer, was an indigene, with the matricule: 1306.
6. Ahmed ben Ahmed Bokrari, born in 1838 at Bou Saâda, was an farmer, with the matricule: 857.
7. Abdallah ben Ali ben Djebel, born in 1844 at Guelma, was a spahi, with the matricule: 803.
8. Ahmed ben Salah ben Amar ben Belkacem, born in 1809 at Souk Ahras, was an caïd, with the matricule: 854.

On 18 May 1874, the leaders of the Mokrani Revolt were embarked at the Port of Brest in the 9th convoy of deportees from the ship La Loire placed under the orders of captain Adolphe Lucien Mottez (1822-1892).[35]

They numbered 50 Algerian deportees, and were reinforced with 280 other French convicts from the jails of Fort Quélern, and at their head the marabout Cheikh Boumerdassi.[36]

This ship arrived on 7 June at the anchorage of the port of Île-d'Aix, where it embarked 700 passengers, including 40 women, and 320 other French deportees.[37]

On 9 June, he left for Nouméa, and it was therefore the 9th convoy of deportees that left France to then stop on 23 June in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, to arrive in Nouméa on 16 October 1874.

It is thus after a last stopover in Santa Catarina, that La Loire arrives in Nouméa on 16 October 1874 after a journey of 133 days.[38]

There will be around 5 deaths at sea and on 10 November of the same year, the ship "La Loire" left Noumea to return to France after having disembarked the convicts from Kabylia.[39]

Of the 40 or 50 Algerians mentioned, 39 were destined for simple deportation to the L'Île-des-Pins, and only one of them for deportation to a fortified enclosure.

Of the 300 convoys in the convoy, 250 suffered from scurvy, and will die in the weeks following their arrival in New Caledonia according to Roger Pérennès.[40][41]

In Mémoires d'un Communard, Jean Allemane evokes a deadly epidemic of dysentery which decimated the transported people that La Loire had just landed, and who were buried in large numbers.[42][43]

Begun at dawn, the burial of the corpses was a task which often did not end until nightfall, and the men who had died of dysentery presented a morbid spectacle.[44][45]

More than two hundred convicts who had come by the Loire died almost immediately after their disembarkation.[46]

However Louis-José Barbançon reports that on the civil status registers of the Bagne of L'Île-des-Pins, which were very well kept, only 28 deaths of convicts who came by "La Loire" appear in the 6 months after arrival of the ship.[47][48]

• Zawiyas in Algeria
• Rahmaniyya
• Zawiyet Sidi Boumerdassi
• Cheikh Boumerdassi
• Fort Quélern
• French ship Prince Jérôme