From the antiquity to Ottoman period
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The antique Algeria or Numidia, has been dominated by the Getule people direct descendant of Capsiens having emigrated to the North of Africa and established the famous city of “Icosium”. Land of Syphax, Massinissa, of Jugurtha, of Takfarinas, of Kosseîla and Kahina, it has been occupied in turn by the Phoenicians, the Moors, the Romans, the Vandals, the Byzantines, the Arabs and the Ottomans, who left their mark in its rich history, revealing all the confluence of these civilizations, since the Roman age which has seen the birth and the development of cities such as Timgad, Tebessa and Cirta, until its Islamization by Okba Ibnu Nafi’.
Since, it was governed alternately by the Caliphates of the omeyyades (Damascus) and the Abbasids (Baghdad), under a succession of arabo-muslim dynasties such as the Fatimides, the Hamadites, the Rostomides, the Zirides, the Almoravides, the Almohades and the Hilalians. This succession, characterized by internal fights to reach the throne, joint to the pressure of the Spanish and Portuguese power rapid development, has led to successive retreat of these dynasties power and to the breaking up of their empire in a multitude of principalities, federations or autonomous harbors, among which the one of Algiers besieged in 1516 by Spain, and liberated by the Barberousse brothers – Turkish corsairs – in 1518. This success brought to Kheir-eddine the approval of the Ottoman Sultan, Suleiman the great, to put Algiers under the Ottoman protectorate and to establish it as regency, until 1830, the start of the French conquest.
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From the French conquest to the independence
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The conquest of Algeria by France finds its origin in the degradation of the relationship between both countries from 1800, because of the refusal of France to pay back its dept to Algeria. In 1827, the Dey of Algiers discovers that France has strengthened, without authorization, the warehouse of the regency of El Kala, which it has received in concession to make trade. He calls then the Consul of France, who ignores his demand. The Dey loses his temper and gives a knock with his fan to the Consul. The French government considers then this fact as an insult, and decides to invade Algeria. The French troops land on June 14th in Sidi Fredj, take the fortress of Algiers on July 5th,1830, to announce the beginning of the conquest of Algeria.
Despite the fierce resistance led by men and women such as Emir Abdelkader, lala Fatma Nsoumer, or El Mokrani, this conquest continoues and ends in 1871. It has made more than one million of dead among the Algerians, the majority of them were civil. The colonization of Algeria starts. The Algerians are despoiled from their lands, from their wealth, from their identity, their conditions deteriorate to the profit of the colonists, their legitimate claims are constantly and severely repressed, as during the manifestations of May 8th, 1945 which claimed 45 thousand dead, so much so that the nationalist movement toughened and the liberation war starts in 1954, under the aegis of the National Liberation Front. One million and half of Algerians die during this war, Algeria drags its freedom trough the Evian agreements, after one hundred and thirty years of occupation, fifty years of resistance and seven years of war. |
