Narratives of Colonial Algeria: A Microhistory of Dissidence and Incarceration, 1956–58

This thesis examines an approximately two-year timeframe during the Algerian War wherein mass arrests of dissident French colonists known as pieds-noirs became commonplace. The legal proceedings that followed became a global spectacle reifying the colonial administration’s intolerance for insubordination from their own ethnic brethren. Tracing a number of cases tried in the Algerian armed forces tribunals, I explore the import of this epoch on the trajectory of pied-noir identity. As citizenship in French Algeria had always been determined by one’s ethnicity and religion, the conflict brought to light the pied-noir community’s pluralistic and multifaceted loyalties. Only a small fraction of their population supported the Algerian nationalists’ independence campaign, yet their collusion was enough to catalyze a severe reaction from a colonial legal body that had been relatively stable for decades. Against the backdrop of a shaky Fourth Republic and uncertain post-independence realities, pieds-noirs were finally made to re-evaluate the position of their community within Africa, Europe, and the broader postcolonial world. The trials and defendants discussed herein offer an insightful perspective on the motivations guiding dissident pieds-noirs and the implications for re-writings of this community’s contested history