By 1841 the numbers of such colons, or pieds noirs as they came to be called, already totalled 37,374 — in comparison with approximately three million indigènes. There were a number of sources from which French administrations furnished the necessary land; the state domains which the French government had inherited from its Turkish predecessor (some one million hectares — nearly 4,000 square miles), forestry domains (much of which was in a condition of neglect), and agricultural land simply expropriated because it lay uncultivated, or for punitive measures. One such example of the last was 500,000 hectares seized from the Kabyles in 1871 in reprisal for their revolt against the pressures of French colonisation (about a quarter of this was later handed back as being inutilisable).

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 86