Mokrani Revolt

The Mokrani Revolt (Arabic: مقاومة الشيخ المقراني, lit. 'Resistance of Cheikh El-Mokrani'; Berber languages: Unfaq urrumi, lit. 'Roman insurrection') was the most important local uprising against France in Algeria since the conquest in 1830.

The revolt broke out on March 16, 1871, with the uprising of more than 250 tribes, around a third of the population of the country. It was led by the Kabyles of the Biban mountains commanded by Cheikh Mokrani and his brother Bou-Mezrag el-Mokrani [ar] and El hadj Bouzid who was the cousin of Mokrani as well as Cheikh El Haddad, head of the Rahmaniyya Sufi order.

Cheikh Mokrani (full name el-Hadj-Mohamed el-Mokrani) and his brother Boumezrag (full name Ahmed Bou-Mezrag) came from a noble family – the Ait Abbas dynasty (a branch of the Hafsids of Béjaïa), the Amokrane, rulers, since the sixteenth century of the Kalâa of Ait Abbas in the Bibans and of the Medjana region. In the 1830s, their father el-Hadj-Ahmed el-Mokrani (d. 1853), formed an alliance with the French: he allowed the Iron Gates expedition in 1839, becoming khalifa of the Medjana under the supervision of French authorities. This alliance quickly proved to be a subordination – a decree of 1845 abolished the khalifalik of Medjana so that when Mohamed succeeded his father, his title was no more than "Bachagha [fr]" (Turkish: başağa = chief commander), and was part of the administration of the Bureaux arabes. During the hardships of 1867, he gave his personal guarantee, at the request of the authorities, for important loans.

The background of the revolt is as important as the revolt itself. In 1830, French army took over Algiers. After that, France colonized the country, setting up its own administration all over Algeria. Shortly after 1830, a resistance rose up, led by Abd al-Kader, which lasted till 1847. French administrations and the France government decided to repress this movement which impacted both people and agriculture. 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. Thus, at the end of the 1860s, Algeria was exhausted and the demography at its worst. To sum up all those events, on March 9, 1870, the French government decided to put a civilian regime in Algeria, which gave more advantages to French colonizers. 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 forced to pawn his own possessions. On June 12, 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."

Under the French Second Republic, the country was governed by a Governor General and a large proportion was "military territory". 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. Eventually, on March 9, 1870, the Corps législatif passed a law which would end the military regime in Algeria. 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 Decree.

Meanwhile, on September 1, 1870, the French army was defeated by the Prussian army in Sedan, and lost the French part of Alsace-Lorraine. The fact that France was at this time defeated by another country brought hope to Algerians. Indeed, the news of the French defeat on its border was spread thanks to the paper news. Then, Algerian protests began in public places, and in the South of Algeria, people committees were established to organize the revolt.

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 March 9, 1870, which they interpreted as imposing domination by the settlers, with encroachments on their land and loss of autonomy.

The Cremieux Decree of October 24, 1870, which gave French nationality to Algerian Jews, was possibly another cause of the unrest. However some historians view this as doubtful, pointing out that this story only started to spread after the revolt was over. This explanation of the revolt was particularly widespread among French antisemites. News of the insurrectionary Paris Commune also played a part. Indeed, from March 18 until May 28, 1871, Paris was under the Commune, which was an autonomous commune administered under direct democracy principles. This Commune was also the hope to found a social and democratic Republic. Thus, the episode of the Paris Commune resonated in Algeria as a new possibility to take over the French administration established in Algeria.