In 1830, the country lay nominally under a loose suzerainty of Turkish military rule. Successive generations of French historians have, for fairly obvious reasons, claimed that a state approximating tribal anarchy prevailed. This view is now contested by “neutral” as well as Arab historians. In 1847 de Tocqueville declared to the French National Assembly that “The Muslim society in North Africa was not uncivilised; it only had a backward and imperfect civilisation.” He went on to claim “we have rendered Muslim society much more miserable and much more barbaric than it was before it became acquainted with us”. Even some of the early French conquerors paid tribute to signs of Algeria’s civilisation, however rudimentary, with one general noting in 1834, “nearly all the Arabs can read and write; in each village, there are two schools”.

QUESTION: The Turkish suzerainty and tribal structure is described as misjudged by French historians. What was the actual political organisation of pre-1830 Algeria?

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 83