The Merchants of Oran: A Jewish Port at the Dawn of Empire 9781503602168

Citation preview

THE MERCHANTS OF OR AN

STANFORD STUDIES IN JEW ISH HISTORY AND CULTURE Edited by David Biale and Sarah Abrevaya Stein

THE MERCHANTS OF OR AN A Jewish Port at the Dawn of Empire

J O SH UA S C H R E I E R

S TA N F O R D U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S S TA N F O R D, C A L I F O R N I A

Stanford University Press Stanford, California ©2017 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Schreier, Joshua, 1969- author. Title: The merchants of Oran : a Jewish port at the dawn of empire / Joshua Schreier. Other titles: Stanford studies in Jewish history and culture. Description: Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 2017. | Series: Stanford studies in Jewish history and culture | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016040093 (print) | LCCN 2016041831 (ebook) | ISBN 9780804799140 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781503602168 (ebook) | Subjects: LCSH: Lasry, Jacob, 1793-1869. | Jewish merchants—Algeria—Oran—Biography. | Jews—Algeria—Oran—History— 19th century. | Oran (Algeria)—Commerce—History—19th century. | Algeria—Ethnic relations—History—19th century. | France—Colonies—Administration—History—19th century. Classification: LCC DS135.A3 A3576 2017 (print) | LCC DS135.A3 (ebook) | DDC 965/.1004924—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016040093 Typeset by Bruce Lundquist in 10/14 Minion Pro

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments Notes on Language and Terminology Introduction

vii xi 1

1 Mediterranean Oran

25

2 Rebuilding Oran: Jews, Beys, and Commerce, 1792–1830

47

3 Making Money in a Time of Conquest

71

4 Struggles For and Between the Merchants of Oran

95

5 Jacob Lasry and the Business of Conquest

113

6 From Juifs de Gibraltar and “Algerine Jews” to Israélites Indigènes

131

Conclusion: Moralities and Mythologies

149

Notes

157

Bibliography

181

Index

193

This page intentionally left blank

AC K NOW L E D GM E N T S

This book was such a collaborative effort that it feels odd putting only one name on the cover. It also could not have been done without significant material assistance. My research was made possible by Vassar College’s Research Committee, and through the Elinor Nims Brink fund, the Tatlock Endowed Fund for Strategic Faculty Support, and the Suzanne Schrier Heimerdinger endowment. The Jewish Studies Program at Vassar College, as well as the Berman Center for Jewish Studies at Lehigh University both helped significantly. Jonathan Chenette and the Office of the Dean of Faculty at Vassar College consistently provided support when it was necessary. As for critical insights over the course of writing, my debts are great. Sarah Abrevaya Stein has not only been a great friend, but a keen and tireless reader. Aomar Boum, Benjamin Brower, Susan Hiner, Daniel Lee, Jessica Marglin, Jeff Schneider, Daniel Schroeter, and Eva Woods have all read various incarnations of this research as it appeared over the years. They provided invaluable encouragement, constructive criticism, and thoughtful advice. Joshua Marrache sat with me for hours in Gibraltar explaining the territory’s Jewish history and culture. Mesod Belilo, the registrar of Gibraltar’s Jewish community, was similarly generous with his time and kindly guided me through the registries of Jewish marriages. Anthony Pitaluga of Gibraltar’s National Archives helped me find valuable documents, even coming into work on a vacation day to do it. A sincere word of thanks to Dave Liston and Nicky Guerrero for their help, warmth, and good cheer before and during my stay in Gibraltar. In Oran, Robert Parks and Karim Oaras at the Centre d’Études Maghrebines en Algérie were of incommensurable help during our stay. Great and sincere thanks are due as well to Jacques Maroni, Jacob Lasry’s great grandson, who graciously shared knowledge of his family’s history with me. His advice significantly strengthened this project. Michal Birnbaum was an excellent tutor who patiently helped me with a difficult text to which Isaac Levy was kind enough to introduce me. Mr. Levy

viii Acknowledgments

merits additional thanks for his insights and explanations. Luciana Corti graciously helped with the Italian-language sources. Marc Michael Epstein has been a tremendously consistent friend, adviser, and teacher, and this work is stronger for his hand in it. My colleagues in Vassar College’s Department of History have provided an excellent and supportive environment in which to write, teach, and speak my mind. Tremendous thanks to Nancy Bisaha, Bob Brigham, Mita Choudhury, Miriam Cohen, Rebecca Edwards, Maria Höhn, Julie Hughes, James Merrell, Quincy Mills, Lydia Murdoch, Leslie Offutt, Miki Pohl, Ismail Rashid, and Nianshen Song. Particular thanks are owed to Michelle Whalen for her effective and consistent help, support, encouragement, warmth, and remarkable good humor. Stanford University Press has been an absolute pleasure to work with. Thank you to David Biale, Sarah Stein, and Kate Wahl for taking an interest early on and for asking key questions about framing this book. Thanks also to Margo Irvin, whose recent arrival at the press did nothing to delay her advice and support. Thanks so much also to Nora Spiegel for all her help as editorial assistant, and Mimi Braverman for tremendous copyediting of a manuscript that desperately needed it. Great thanks are due Anne Fuzellier Jain for her invaluable guidance (and patience) as production editor. A brilliant cast of friends and colleagues has provided company, laughter, ideas, and stimulating conversation on research trips, at workshops, conferences, dinners, and concerts, and in cafés and pubs. Many of the ideas that inform this book can be traced to my fortunate interactions with these all-stars. Thanks to Cécile Balavoine, Naor ben Yehoyada, Lia Brozgal, Oliver Burkeman, Heather Chaplin, Joshua Cole, Jessica Cooperman, Catharine Crawford, Naomi Davidson, David Deutsch, Nathaniel Deutsch, Sammi Everett, Johnny Farraj, John Fellas, Michael Gasper, Maria Hantzopoulos, Daniel Hershenzon, Susan Hiner, Jonathon Kahn, Carey Kasden, Julie Kleinman, Hartley Lachter, ­Daniel Lee, Jared Manasek, Liz Marcus, Maria Matthiessen, James McDougall, Mac Montandon, Joe Nevins, Emanuelle Saada, Rachel Schley, Tyrone Simpson, Susan Slyomovics, Mira Sucharov, Agi Vetò, Michael Walsh, and Fred Zimmerman. I owe tremendous and heartfelt gratitude to my family. My daughter Malka is brilliant, driven, accomplished, loving, and fierce. She became a bat mitzvah over the course of this book’s writing and reminded me to keep my eyes on the prize. My son Noam’s intelligence, kindness, talent, and outlandish sense of humor have been a source of music, sustenance, joy, and inspiration, even if

Acknowledgments ix

he does get me in trouble for laughing at inappropriate jokes. Limitless thanks to my parents, Arlene Richman and Ethan Schreier, for their love, support, understanding, and contrarian perspectives. Janet Levine and Geoff Taylor have taken excellent care of them (I know, it ain’t easy). My parents-in-law, Monique Nathan and Paul Merle, have been warm, welcoming, helpful, patient, and supportive during the long process of writing this book. Love and gratitude are due to my inspirational, hilarious, and brilliant sister-in-law, Sarah Koenig; my excellent niece, Ava (whose recent bat mitzvah was a source of enormous encouragement and joy); and my dear, turbo-charged nephew, Reuben. Benjamin Schreier, the original impossible Jew, my faithful, merciless, and side-splittingly funny brother, is a great scholar of Jewish studies and my best friend. A part of me still believes we could have been one of the more popular recording acts of the mid- to late 1990s. But it is clear to me now that things happened the way they did for a reason. Most of all, thanks are due to my wife, Lise Schreier, ­ayshes hayil intergalactique, who has provided love, support, humor, patience, and one or two well-merited talking-tos, all of which were essential to this project.

This page intentionally left blank

N O T E S O N L A N G UAG E AND TER MINOLOGY

Arabic and Hebrew words are transliterated according to the systems of the Library of Congress, but with most diacritical marks removed. For clarity and simplicity, Moroccan and Algerian cities and place names are generally rendered in their common English forms rather than in French or Arabic (i.e., Annaba rather than Ānābah or Bône). When accents frequently appear in ­cities’ English names, they are maintained (e.g., Tétouan, Médéa). Names of people have proven particularly tricky. Biblically derived French Jewish names common in English have generally been rendered in their most common English versions (Salomon is rendered as Solomon, Mardochée as Mordecai). Names that appear as French transliterations from the Hebrew, however, are generally rendered in their English equivalents (e.g., Shimon rather than Chimoun or Simon). If the version appears to reflect a particular, local pronunciation, I have kept it as it appears in the original sources. The name Ben Ichou, therefore, is rendered as such and not transformed to Ben Yehoshua. Similarly, Sarfati remains as such rather than Tsarfati, and Semha is not transformed to the more familiar Simcha. When names that have different forms in different languages or formats appear, I use the most frequently appearing version with the assumption that it was the form most commonly used locally. Thus Estelle rather than Esther, Rica rather than Rivka, and Lasry rather than Asri, Azry, or al-‘Asry.

This page intentionally left blank

THE MERCHANTS OF OR AN

N

Alicante

Cordoba Seville

MEDITERRANEAN SEA Cartagena

Grenada Almeria

Malaga

Algiers Algeciras Tangiers

Gibraltar Ceuta Tétouan

ALBORAN SEA Oran

Melilla

Nedroma

Casablanca

Mascara

Tlemcen

Oujda Rabat

Mostaganem Arzew

Fes Meknes

Debdou

0 0

Figuig

M A P.  

Oran and the western Mediterranean.

100 100

200 mi 200

300 km

Ghardaia



INTRODUCTION

O N O C T O B E R 2 2 , 18 55 , the minister of public instruction in Paris, in approving the proposal of the prefect of the Province of Oran, named Jacob Lasry, a wealthy businessman, president of the consistoire israélite de la province d’Oran (Jewish Consistory for the Province of Oran). Lasry’s selection for the post, which he assumed on November 23, was a statement of great confidence in both his moral character and his patriotism. The first Jewish consistories, which Napoleon had established in France several decades earlier, in 1808, were intended to supervise the moral, social, and cultural “regeneration” of France’s Jews, a group in which the emperor had little trust.1 As president, Lasry was now at the helm of the first colonial consistories, agencies charged with organizing the Jewish religion, uplifting its practitioners, and assimilating the supposedly uncivilized Jews of France’s new North African territories to France’s Jewish community. French Jewish journalists who took interest in the affair lauded the choice of Lasry. One writer extolled Lasry’s “gentle but firm” character, which was distinguished by a “spirit of charity” and great “knowledge.”2 The same report noted that “the friends of progress” particularly celebrated his ascent to the presidency of the consistory. Another journal, lamenting the sorry moral state of most of Oran’s Jews, offered hope that under Lasry their “errors of civilization” would not go unchecked and that the new president’s efforts to “attach” them to France and its putatively superior “civilization” would be rewarded with success.3 The fact that Jacob Lasry was chosen to lead the consistory, a moralizing institution specifically intended to attach Oran’s putatively uncivilized Jews

2 Introduction

to France, could be seen as a paradox. When the French began the conquest in 1830, the Moroccan-born Lasry was already installed in the Ottoman-­ controlled port of Oran, in the west of what is now Algeria. He might be described as a Mediterranean merchant, a speaker of Arabic and Spanish (and perhaps French and English as well), or as a British protégé and a close associate of the United Kingdom’s vice-consulate in Oran. French generals used a range of terms to describe Lasry, including “English subject,” “Moroccan,” and “Juif de Gibraltar,” but they never called him “French” or even “European.” Lasry’s religious and commercial networks were no more French than his background. They tied him closest to Gibraltar but extended to Morocco and Spain and possibly to Livorno, Genoa, and Tunis. Furthermore, military officers often held Lasry in decidedly lower esteem than the journalists cited earlier. In a number of letters to Paris, they spoke contemptuously of “the Jew Lasry,” whom they described as “immoral” and duplicitous. One officer accused him of “unlimited avarice.”4 His patriotism was also suspect; his usurious loans plunged a celebrated (and vilified) Tunisian commander who had become a French officer into debt, and for two and a half decades into the conquest Lasry made no visible effort to obtain French nationality. In fact, he took French citizenship only in 1854, barely one year before becoming president of the consistory. All in all, Lasry was a seemingly odd choice for a position putatively bound to the mission to spread French civilization across North Africa. Yet the fact that a “Moroccan Jew” of “unlimited avarice” with a history of incensing the French military was chosen to represent French civilization is only a paradox when one takes France’s civilizing ideology at its word. When we do, Lasry’s appointment to the consistory sheds doubt on it and many of the consistory’s other lofty moralizing claims. Clearly, other concerns were more important. Perhaps the occupying forces, still in a rather precarious position, actually depended on the knowledge, skills, and financial resources of North African notables such as Lasry and hoped to bring them into the administration. Their familiarity with or ability to promote abstractions such as French civilization, then, was actually secondary to their material and militaristic goals. In such a framing, Lasry’s appointment to the consistory adds to the many existing stories that expose the cracks and contradictions in French colonial policy and ideology.5 It also suggests that local Jews, whom many French observers reduced to an oppressed unity, may have been more diverse, influential, and worldly than previously imagined.

Introduction 3

But something just as valuable is learned when we put aside the moralizing ideology that adorned the colonial consistories’ installation. Removing Lasry’s story, at least for a moment, from the French imperial context brings equally compelling but less frequently told stories into view. Western Algeria, long linked into western Mediterranean networks of commerce, was hardly static when the French showed up in 1831. Lasry and other Maghrebi Jewish merchants, searching for opportunities, were by then already on their way to remaking a town that had been more or less devastated several decades before. They did so by extending the town’s trade with Italian, English, and Spanish ports, shaping local institutions, making profitable deals with Christian and Muslim agents, and competing fiercely with each other. By the time the French entered the scene (and the archival record expanded considerably), Jews were, unsurprisingly, some of the town’s most important landlords and merchants. Lasry’s dynamic history therefore offers a glimpse into a Muslim and Jewish city before France’s conquest began transforming the societies of the Mediterranean. Beyond illustrating colonial paradoxes, Lasry’s example illuminates how precolonial Oran was growing and increasingly linked with other Mediterranean locales. Lasry’s history, seen within the context of regional and transregional affairs, tells a story of Algerian Jews that is decidedly not a purely French imperial story.6 In this book I use the experiences of Lasry and those of several others in his milieu of the city of Oran to gain a new perspective on a number of larger processes. These people and their city are relatively unknown figures. Although Oran was a small town at the time of Lasry’s arrival, by the time of his death Oran was well on its way to becoming Algeria’s second largest city. Focusing on Oran helps shed light on underexplored sides of late Ottoman Algeria, its commercial life, its robust and influential Jewish presence, and the idiosyncrasies of early French colonial rule. The fact that one of my primary subjects is a Jew—an aspect of his identity that shaped his public persona—is also central to this discussion. Following Lasry and the circle of Jewish merchants and property owners among whom he traveled focuses attention on the deeply rooted and dynamic Jewish current in modern North African history, a current that can easily be forgotten in the wake of the upheavals, including the mass Jewish departure, that have intervened during and since the Algerian War of Independence. Jews as wealthy and prominent as Lasry were not typical denizens of earlynineteenth-century North African ports, but they constituted an important

4 Introduction

fixture in the social and economic landscape. As such, these men did not simply form part of a minority community tolerated or accepted amid a national majority, which the state ostensibly represented. After all, such national majorities had yet to be conceived. Rather, Lasry came of age in an Arab-Islamic and Mediterranean world that would not have asked or required him to shed or subsume his religious identity to participate in high echelons of local society. Nor is there evidence that this precolonial Islamic world would have seen as odd a port where Jews such as Lasry conducted most commercial activities. Moreover, when the French arrived in the 1830s, they saw little contradiction in recognizing and officially sanctioning such a man’s already-prominent public position, even as they did so through an organization that assumed Jews’ need to be moralized. Granting Lasry a title that bestowed on him the responsibility to represent French civilization was as much a recognition of the preexisting status of Jews in North Africa as a strategy for changing it. By revisiting the life of Lasry and his colleagues, this book offers fresh perspectives on North Africa, the place of Jews in it, and the early French conquest of Algeria. First, by placing Lasry in his wider context, I illustrate that some of the more powerful, dynamic, and indeed worldly figures in the urban society of late Ottoman/early colonial Oran were North African Jews. This contrasts with the common French narrative that described Jews in Algeria collectively as “indigenous.” This extremely problematic popular and social-scientific term was a creation of colonialism. It reduced a diverse array of people, some of whom had long family histories in western Algeria and others who were recent arrivals, to a single social group rooted in Algeria’s putatively static precolonial history. It also defined them as a group apart from and in opposition to Muslims, which was another category radically remade under colonial rule. As in other parts of the Middle East and North Africa, colonial Algeria’s population of indigenous Jews must be seen as the result of a process of minoritization, to which French colonial rule and its social and legal categories were crucial.7 This is ironic, because French laws generally privileged Jews with respect to their Muslim neighbors. The concept of indigenous Jews also functioned to cast Algeria’s Jewish inhabitants as the social parallel to the unemancipated and putatively isolated Jews of prerevolutionary France.8 This parallel served an important political function in the creation of the colonial order. French intellectuals of the revolutionary era cast French Jews as living examples of corruption and immorality, the epitome of the anti-­ citizen that rhetorically served their purposes by exemplifying the power of

Introduction 5

the ­republic to transform and uplift the debased.9 Several decades later, with the conquest of Algeria, colonial reformers, many of whom were Jews themselves, painted Algerian Jews similarly: as oppressed, ignorant, impoverished, and, as a result, isolated and superstitious.10 Liberal colonial reformers took these ills to be remediable, just as the faults of prerevolutionary French Jews had been argued to be. But the disease demanded a cure. The newly conceived pathologies of North African Jews justified an official effort to bring to Algeria a policy of Jewish “regeneration,” which had originally been conceived to uplift metropolitan France’s supposedly degenerate Jews. This official effort, inspired by the metropolitan regeneration movement but eventually understood as civilizing in the colonial context, began with the establishment of Jewish consistories in Algeria in the late 1840s. It reached an apex of sorts with the 1870 Crémieux Decree that naturalized the vast majority of Algeria’s Jews en masse. For years, French historical memory reflected this triumphalist framing, by which the conquest set the gears in motion for Algerian Jews’ regeneration, assimilation, and naturalization as French citizens.11 Jacob Lasry and other wealthy and sophisticated North African Jews who had reached their lofty positions well before the conquest present a starkly different picture of the French conquest of Algeria. In fact, Lasry also complicates the traditional assumption, even among critics of colonial ideologies, that France was the motor that brought change to an otherwise traditional Jewish society in North Africa.12 In Oran this class did not (as many continue to assume) trace its wealth exclusively to Livorno, the origin of North Africa’s better-known Jewish commercial elite.13 Nor can these wealthy people, who established synagogues and schools, underwrote civic improvements, and backed certain rabbinic authorities against others, be seen as isolated from lower ­echelons of Jewish society. Instead, the dynamism and influence of the merchants of Oran before and during the early colonial period defy the inherited teleological tales in which North African Jewish change or progress always came from Europe. Hardly marginal or isolated, Jews such as Lasry served as agents to the beys or in other official positions; they made high-stakes deals with leaders, invested in property, and drew on British consular support to back their export ventures. They functioned within commercial networks—in which France did not always feature prominently—that existed before and endured beyond the onset of colonialism.14 Far from awaiting European deliverance from a circumscribed existence, Jacob Lasry actually helped to underwrite what the French under-

6 Introduction

stood as the civilizing mission by contributing financially to the underfunded civic institutions ostensibly established to uplift Oran’s Jews. In all this, Lasry’s story is a window into the process by which a Jewish elite, very much a product of their North African Islamic milieu and of their embeddedness in wider Mediterranean networks that included European powers, confronted and coopted new and evolving colonial circumstances. Lasry’s international contacts and British protection paradoxically allowed him to take advantage of France’s civilizing mission and use it to solidify his stature in Oran’s increasingly French colonial society. The second central argument of this book is that the limits of the term community emerge when one considers the case of Jews in early-nineteenth-­ century Oran. For scholars of Jewish history, community is an almost inevitable term. It constitutes a justification for undertaking Jewish history by offering a rationale for generalization and simultaneously opens up a line of questioning that interests us. Were Jews saddled with restrictions or subject to persecution? Or, conversely, were they free to pursue commerce, practice their faith, or exercise a measure of communal autonomy? Regardless of the answers to these questions, reified notions of Jewish community also suggest collective power or powerlessness, which is a schema into which Oran’s complicated precolonial and early colonial historical reality does not exactly fit. So, to what extent did this remarkable class of North African merchants serve as notables of a well-defined Jewish community? As in neighboring Morocco, Jews in Algeria were a diverse group of people.15 They lived under different circumstances, had different origins, and even more important, had different narratives of their origins. Also, as in Morocco, the notion of a collectivity of “Algerian Jews” would crystalize only over the course of the colonial period. Even on a local level, such as in the city of Oran, the recent arrival of immigrant Jews to that port, their diverse provenance, their high proportion relative to Oran’s overall population, and the fierce dissonance between different individuals and groups within that community all shed light on the limited utility of the term.16 Interrogating the value of community as a descriptor of Oran’s Jews is all the more important given that French colonial administrators adopted a blanket use of the term indigenous to describe the city’s Jews as a group. In the interest of avoiding the crude conceptual errors of early colonialism, a more nuanced understanding is necessary. Oran’s Jews were a diverse lot. They included Moroccan and Gibraltarian merchants of Lasry’s stature but also midlevel purveyors of goods imported

Introduction 7

or brought in from the interior and intermediaries with nomadic traders who brought their goods to the port. Other Jews purchased goods off the boats to sell in the city’s shops. Among Oran’s artisans, Jews served as tailors, embroiderers, tinsmiths, coppersmiths, watchmakers, and shoemakers. Rabbis may have earned a living by working at an elite Jew’s private synagogue or, if circumstances demanded, giving lessons to local children.17 As for Oran’s Jewish elite, they may have lived better than other denizens of the city, but they did not live in isolation from them. For example, feuding members of the elite often saw their private synagogues become centers of social life, further dividing the Jewish population. Well into the colonial period, French officials complained of the intra-Jewish schisms manifest in part through Jews’ gravitation toward different places of worship.18 Well into the colonial period, distinctions also endured between people of different origins. According to one historian, descendants of the early arrivals from Tlemcen, Mascara, Mostaganem, and Nedroma were conscious of being “native” to Oran, in contrast to Jews who arrived in subsequent years. These included people from Algiers, the villages of the Moroccan Rif such as Oujda or Debdou, and Saharan oases such as Figuig and Tafilalet.19 The Jews in Oran enjoyed different economic circumstances, claimed different origins, were protected by different local and foreign powers, and were divided by fierce, even lethal, commercial rivalries. By exploring how Lasry and other Jews struggled with each other and with local authorities, it becomes clear that it was the French who created the singular community they later boasted of (or alternatively, regretted) having emancipated. This creation was a process. Colonization strove to reduce a diverse array of Jewish people into an easily identifiable actor in a very French drama, at once eternal victims of religious intolerance and eternally indebted to their colonial saviors. The community of Israélites indigènes did not form a preexisting and unified social group; rather, it was a product of the dynamics of French imperial expansion. Jews in Oran may have been a discordant lot, but their presence was deeply rooted and significant to the economic and social fabric of Oran. As such, it speaks against an official and popular tendency to avoid talking about, or simply to forget, Algeria’s Jewish past.20 Transformations leading up to, during, and following the Algerian War of Independence, of course, were central to this forgetting, as was the emergence of the Israel-Palestine conflict.21 As hard as it is to imagine today, given the ethnopolitical topography of the region and given

8 Introduction

that attitudes toward Jews (and about Muslim-Jewish relations) have, over the past century, been mediated by nationalist narratives which have painted Jews as separate, “inauthentic,” untrustworthy, or unwelcome compatriots, they were once an indelible component of the Islamic Arabo-Berber social fabric of North Africa.22 In an era of religiously informed nationalism in North Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, it is not immaterial to recall that Lasry dealt closely with Muslims and Christians, sought rulings from Muslim courts when it suited him, owned significant tracts of land, and possessed strength and influence. This is all the more important to remember today, half a century or so after the departure of most of Algeria’s Jews; many younger Algerians have only a vague recollection of Judaism’s deep roots there. Lasry’s life also complicates a narrative of Jewish weakness in North Africa that first became polemicized and mobilized as a political issue in France during his lifetime. This development arguably did not gather steam until a great deal of ink was spilled regarding the Jewish victims of the Damascus blood libel of 1840 (when Lasry was in his mid-40s); an incident which began when Capuchin monks in Damascus accused Jews of killing two members of their order to use their blood for Passover rituals. This new interest among French liberals in protecting Jews of the Mediterranean basin reached milestones with the founding of the Franco-Jewish philanthropy known as the Alliance Israélite Universelle in 1860 and shared republican themes with the Crémieux Decree in 1870, which granted French citizenship to Algeria’s Jews.23 In the following decades this particularly French narrative dovetailed with a broader, international discourse of Jewish powerlessness. In the face of this, it has been argued, both critics and supporters of Zionism accepted a view of Jewish outsiderness (and political impotence) before the rise of the State of Israel.24 The problem is that in North Africa, as in Europe, Jewish history “cannot be divided into distinct periods of power and powerlessness.”25 Even before the massive dislocations of the twentieth century, Lasry’s wealth and political savvy present a stark counterpoint to both colonial-era discourses and a good deal of subsequent scholarship that hardly allowed for Jews to have power, thrive, or even truly belong in an Arab or Islamic environment in the postmedieval period.26 Lasry helps us imagine other potential North African modernities in an Islamic world that is frequently, if unhelpfully, cast as eternally hostile to religious difference.27 The third contribution of this study is that it illuminates the underexplored dynamism of North Africa on the eve of conquest. Even as it redefines the place

Introduction 9

of Jews in precolonial and early colonial Algeria, the story of Jacob Lasry’s Oran also sheds new light on the new commercial energy of a small North African city in the 1820s. European interest in the societies of North Africa, or “Barbary,” as they often referred to it disparagingly, evolved over time, but decadence, corsair activity, and slavery remained powerful concepts shaping European thought about these places.28 In this study of Lasry’s Oran I offer a different perspective. The city hosted ships from around the western Mediterranean, and access to the city was considered vital to the British colonial office, which kept a vice-consulate there.29 Oran was conveniently close to the resource-poor British colony of Gibraltar and, under loose Ottoman rule, was friendly to its commercial development. Jews and Muslims settled in Oran, which was still a frontier of sorts, to take part in the business of exporting Algerian grain and cattle to the British garrison. At the dawn of colonialism, Oran was not a world apart from the currents of Mediterranean and European commerce but was rather a small, lively port situated within these flows of people and goods. The story of men such as Lasry also shows that despite France’s obvious military superiority, its forces still relied on local talent to make their way in Algeria. In other words, they did not have a monopoly on modern forms of knowledge during the conquest.30 Lasry’s previous work in commerce and real estate investment prepared him well to cater to the needs of Algeria’s new masters, by offering translation, negotiating, and financing services. In addition to the lack of discipline, poor planning, weak supply chains, flagging morale, and unimaginable sadism that have been recognized as prominent characteristics of France’s Army of Africa, we must also add the desperate need of local experts for guidance and financial help.31 Men such as Lasry, Joseph ­Cabessa, Judah Sebbah, and Mordecai Amar continued to do business during the conquest, and archival trails of their activities remain: disputed payments to governors, defaulted loans, real estate investments, and forays into consulting for the military. Others, including Solomon Sarfati and Abraham Kanoui, appear as figures in the early colonial administration. All this serves to illuminate the idiosyncrasies of the French invasion. Sorting through the messiness of the conquest, France and its local proxies relied on local people to advise and fund their rule. Through these men’s eyes, we witness French generals seeking North African assistance in their attempts to manage and further the conquest. Thus well before Lasry represented France as president of the consistory of Oran, he had a hand in the shaping of colonialism. Rather than seeing this

10 Introduction

as loyalty to the French or disloyalty to the (quickly toppled) bey of Oran, it is more properly seen as evidence of Lasry having and maintaining a form of power that others lacked. These stories, therefore, expose some fluidity between precolonial and colonial periods and the multipolarity of the actual conquest.32 With the arrival of the French, Jewish merchants continued to export cattle and grain from Oran to Gibraltar, and their expertise and British connections in this trade allowed them to put together deals that financed the French campaign on the eastern Algerian city of Constantine. The British, concerned about French intentions in Algeria, advocated for the Jewish merchants with whom they had worked, hoping to maintain British access to local markets. Given British power in the Mediterranean in general and in the Algerian arena more specifically, French officers had to respond to these men. Because Jews worked, actively, to grease the wheels of commercial relations in precolonial, early colonial, and colonial North Africa, these merchants’ experiences disrupt the notion that colonial rule augured a quick and comprehensive end to the interlinked, multipolar Mediterranean world that preceded it. Instead, Lasry’s history blurs slightly the periodization of the precolonial and colonial eras and fragments the unipolar view of France’s entrance into the North African arena that occludes other Mediterranean and European actors. My fourth objective is to uncover the dynamically individualized experience of colonial occupation. This argument has two components—one concerning race and the other class. Lasry and his contemporaries offer a view that complicates the early colony’s nascent racial hierarchy. Over the first decades of the conquest, French law generally used a subject’s religion to assign him or her a “personal status.”33 This status helped determine the subject’s family and inheritance laws, access to citizenship, and several other marks of privilege. Even though Algerian Jews eventually received French citizenship in 1870 and even though the “Jewish” personal status was (besides some important exceptions in the Sahara) abandoned in Algeria, the category of “Jew,” like “Muslim,” remained racialized.34 In both cases the status category generally rendered someone “­indigenous” in the French understanding. Lasry’s ability to transform himself from a Moroccan Jewish merchant into a French colonial notable several decades before the Crémieux Decree is therefore worthy of note. It demonstrates how social class sometimes prevailed over religious or racial status in the assignment of indigenousness. This is important to recall in the ideological wake of some classic works that, though revolutionary in their insights into the

Introduction 11

nature of colonialism, have left us with an occasionally schematic binary view in which the only visible categories are colonized and colonizer.35 If Algerian Jews already presented a liminal category, people such as Jacob Lasry and, as we shall see, Solomon Sarfati created more wrinkles in the colonizer/colonized divide. Notably, their wealth and position allowed them—well before the ­Crémieux ­Decree—to transcend the emergent taxonomy of races devised by French human scientists and the legally codified colonial hierarchy.36 Though native to North Africa, these men remained towering figures as Oran transitioned from the rule of the Regency of Algiers to that of France. Lasry’s successful evolution from a North African merchant into a colonial “civilizer” on the one hand and the ghastly fate of so many Algerians at the hands of the French on the other put into relief the importance of economic status in considering how North Africans experienced the conquest. As noted, the French conquest of Algeria was unfathomably violent.37 In addition to the number of those killed was the evolution, in one historian’s terms, of a particular French language of violence whereby gruesome killings were easily explained as a necessary adaptation to “African” behaviors. Indeed, the new language helped demarcate the “essential barbarism and difference” of this theater of war.38 Jacob Lasry, though bearing the brunt of dehumanizing anti-Semitic diatribes spewed by officers and ministers, avoided serious harm. His ability to adapt and thrive amid the violent campaigns in the first decades of conquest is in itself a testament to privilege. Despite scholars’ justifiable focus on religious or racial categories in colonial processes, Lasry’s fate probably points less to French indulgence toward Jews (many of whom suffered greatly during the conquest) than to the influence of social class in determining people’s fate. Fifth and last, by presenting some of the disputed deals and sordid ­dramas in which Lasry was involved, I elaborate on the paradoxes of France’s colonial civilizing mission mentioned at the beginning of this Introduction. Certainly, there was no universally accepted doctrine of the civilizing mission, and various parties offered their own perspectives on the underlying purpose and meaning of France’s empire—including whether other races could be successfully civilized in the first place—until its demise.39 Yet, in the spectrum of opinions as to whether France’s civilization was fundamentally Enlightened, Republican, Catholic, or otherwise, few questioned that the “civilization” as it existed in Algeria under the French was imported. Certainly, it was based on principles rooted in Enlightenment-era discussions that took place in E ­ urope, but like so many ideas, they traveled and evolved such that a­ ssigning an

12 Introduction

e­ ssential geographic or, worse, national, identity to their subsequent incarnations is misleading. Furthermore, civilization was far more a claim to authority than a consistently defined or cultivated set of beliefs and behaviors. A clear expression of this is the fact that in 1854 the French administration chose to entrust the project of French civilization in Algeria to the wealthy, Moroccanborn, Arabic- and Spanish-speaking Jacob Lasry, a British protected subject whose first visits to France were probably undertaken when he was already a middle-aged adult.

.

.

.

Reconstructing a brief biography of Hayyim Yisra’el Rafa’el Ya’akov al-‘Asri (1793– 1869), or Jacob Lasry as he came to be known in French Algeria, is destabilizing, for it challenges core inherited narratives about the somber and immobile lives of Jews living in Algeria on the eve of France’s 1830 landing at Sidi Ferruch. Lasry was born into a Jewish family in Morocco at the end of the eighteenth century.40 As a young man, he traveled north to join the small but dynamic community of Moroccan Jewish merchants installed in Britain’s garrison of ­Gibraltar.41 The population of Gibraltar, barely 6 square kilometers of British territory perched on a southern outcrop of the Iberian Peninsula, was small when he arrived, probably 15,000 civilians and soldiers. The garrison’s Jews, mainly Moroccan-born merchants and their offspring who helped provision the colony with goods from Morocco and the Ottoman Regency of Algiers, was proportionately important and would increase to more than 1,500 in coming decades.42 Gibraltar’s location at the mouth of the Mediterranean and its close proximity to rival powers’ naval ports rendered it strategically vital to the growing British Empire, a fact that would lead it to be declared a crown colony in 1830. Through connections in Gibraltar, 14 kilometers across the eponymous strait from his native Morocco, Jacob Lasry gained British protection. Although it would be difficult to confirm, this may well have been facilitated by the family of his first wife, Rica (Rivka) Bergel (1809–1847), whom Lasry married in 1823.43 Rica was a Gibraltar native and the daughter of a wealthy local shipbuilder. Soon after the wedding, Lasry and his then-small family sailed eastward over the ­Alboran Sea, the westernmost section of the Mediterranean, to pursue expanding business opportunities in Oran, which had recently been captured from the Spanish by the Ottoman Regency of Algiers. The city, which had been in decline for much of the eighteenth century, became a small but growing port in the dey of Algiers’ western territory.

Introduction 13

Even when Lasry made the trip in the 1820s, the journey between Gibraltar and Oran was not very long. Assuming that he sailed on one of the brigs that frequented western Mediterranean ports in the 1820s (steamships were still rare), the trip could have been completed in a day or two. The distance between the two ports is 428 kilometers (266 miles), primarily to the east. As I explore in Chapter 1, the tight links between Oran, its interior, and the Iberian Peninsula were hardly new in the early nineteenth century; we cannot properly imagine Oran’s existence outside its placement and role in the evolving web of western Mediterranean commerce. During most of the year, currents and common winds along the north coast of Africa help to push east-bound ships from Gibraltar.44 In the 1820s Oran’s built environment was still rough around the edges, but overall it was probably a pleasant town. Its architecture was shaped by its previous Spanish inhabitants, whose king had only surrendered their presidio in 1792. Oran possessed a number of broad, straight streets and was built on several levels: an upper section built on the surrounding hills and a lower part near the port. A stream, the Ras al-‘Ayin, bounded by a ravine divided the upper town into two sections, which were joined by an older, Spanish-built bridge.

F I G URE 1 .   The bay of Oran in the 1840s. From the collection “Vues d’Oran prises au daguerréotype.” Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (image 94.R.3).

14 Introduction

The stream not only irrigated the surrounding land and provided fresh water to the inhabitants but also was strong enough to power several grain mills. The ravine, meanwhile, was rendered all the more inviting by its gardens, extending beyond the town’s walls, beautifying the site, and enriching the inhabitants’ diets. Oran’s hinterland was semi-arid, but enough rain fell in the winter months to support cattle and sheep husbandry and the cultivation of cereals. The town was unquestionably provincial, and the landscape still bore testimony to the devastating earthquake of 1790. But by most accounts, Lasry’s new home had a certain charm. It was, however, on the eve of a cataclysm. Lasry had been settled for only a few years when French troops occupied Oran at the beginning of 1831, about six months into their decades-long and obscenely violent conquest of Algeria. Unsurprisingly, the conquest had important consequences for a merchant like Lasry: It disrupted the trade networks, which stretched from the western Algerian interior to other Mediterranean ports such as Tétouan, Genoa, and especially Gibraltar, on which he depended for his livelihood. It also opened the city to a flood of European immigrants, who helped inaugurate a new, ­racialized social hierarchy. Lasry did, however, adapt, and his peculiar biography illuminates how the precolonial power of the Jewish merchants of Oran profoundly influenced the early colonial order. Yet his biography also suggests how this wider Mediterranean history of Oran’s Jewish merchants was occluded in subsequent historical narratives centered on the French Empire and its claims to have emancipated Algerian Jews. Born a subject of Morocco, Lasry lived much of his life under British protection. His wealth, connections, and language skills led him to work and make deals with conquering French generals in the 1830s. His investments in real estate, which predated the conquest, expanded under the French, and he continued exporting under the new government. Lasry married a much younger, probably Moroccan-Gibraltarian, second wife, Semha Cabessa (1821– ?), in the French city of Aix-en-Provence but spent most of his adult life in Oran, where he joined the Chamber of Commerce and became a French citizen and eventually the president of the consistoire israélite de la province d’Oran. Barely a year before the newborn French Third Republic emancipated Algeria’s Jews en masse—a politically symbolic nod to the first French Republic’s emancipation of Jews in 1790 and 1791—Lasry died a Frenchman and an emissary of French civilization.

.

.

.

Introduction 15

The obscuring of Oran’s pre- (or extra-) colonial history in the shadow of the French Empire is understandable given the archival record. When looking at Jacob Lasry, for example, through the lens of the French civil government, the picture that emerges is one of a wealthy and well-connected French colonial notable. Lasry became one of the largest property owners in Oran, was called on to help finance major urban improvements, was a member of the city’s municipal council and its Chamber of Commerce, and donated land to the consistory of Oran. Furthermore, about a decade after the French occupation, he traveled to France, was married there, and founded a synagogue in Oran, through which he underwrote Torah study and charitable works. He spent a considerable amount of time in France, and his official correspondence expresses a desire to help spread reason and progress. Even early military records, such as the ones in which generals lambasted the morality of his business practices, point clearly to Lasry’s French affiliations. At some level, Lasry personified the French civilizing mission: a Gallicized Algerian Jew who would dedicate his later years to the spread of French culture among the putatively decadent Jewish communities of Islamic North Africa. Yet, as we broaden and deepen our examination, from French état civil records, registers of Gibraltar’s Jewish community, and Gibraltar’s government archives to the records of the British Foreign Office, family records held in Jerusalem, and even rabbinic literature, we see that Lasry’s story is not just a story about the French Empire. He may have become French in a land that, during his lifetime, became French, but as we will see, he was a product of a corner of the Mediterranean world. And he was not alone; networks connected Oran to other cities, shaping the life stories and intellectual orientations of other Jewish notables and rabbis in western Algeria over the course of the nineteenth century.45 Maintaining this Mediterranean perspective as we consider Lasry’s story is important, because it shows how Jews in Oran and elsewhere were part of a vibrant economy and intellectual world before and apart from the French colonial state. This differs from an all too common paradigm that explores the history of North African Jews (and their Muslim neighbors) largely in the context of French imperial laws and practices. Seeing Lasry in his wider Mediterranean world helpfully widens the frame of our story beyond France. Jacob Lasry was born in 1793 to Eliahu Lasry and Preciada Zaken in either Rabat or Tétouan, Morocco—the état civil records are not consistent.46 There is some evidence that he was born in Rabat but as a young person moved to the northern, Spanish-influenced Moroccan town of Tétouan, which sits on the

16 Introduction

Mediterranean coast. Commercial and migratory links between Rabat and Oran were far weaker than those between Oran and the Moroccan north, and Lasry’s Arabic-derived last name (from al-‘Asry) cannot be easily localized.47 Furthermore, not only did Rabat (and the adjacent city of Salé) have a significant Jewish community and a port, but also several migrations from there had fed the Jewish community of Gibraltar in the past.48 Regardless of Lasry’s actual place of birth, Tétouan clearly had an important influence on his life. Possessing one of the more important ports on Morocco’s Mediterranean coast, Tétouan lies just over 40 kilometers from the Strait of Gibraltar. It had a large Western Judeo-Spanish- (Haketia-) speaking Jewish community that fed the communities of Gibraltar and the towns of western Algeria, such as Tlemcen and Oran, well into the middle of the nineteenth century.49 Isaac Lasry (1808–1851), Jacob’s brother and sometime business partner, is also mentioned in at least one record as being born in Tétouan.50 Furthermore, certain aspects of Lasry’s life suggest involvement in the communities of the north, including the facts that he founded a Moroccan Sephardic-rite synagogue in Oran in 1843 and later established a charitable fund to help Jewish refugees from Tétouan. Meanwhile, though French papers frequently refer to Lasry as a “Gibraltar Jew,” his links to and status in the territory are not entirely clear. As noted, in 1823 Lasry married his first wife, Rica Bergel, a member of a wealthy local merchant family, in Gibraltar, where their names appear on the Jewish community register.51 By 1829, two years before the French occupied Oran, Lasry applied for a Gibraltar passport to travel to Oran.52 Confusingly, however, when he applied for a Gibraltar passport, the clerk wrote down his nationality as “inhabitant of Oran,” a phrase that simultaneously avoids actually mentioning his nationality and raises other questions. What was his status at the time, and if not simply Moroccan, how long had he possessed his current status? Even a­ llowing for the fact that possessing a given country’s passport in the 1820s was not as tightly linked to citizenship as it is now, why was Lasry deemed worthy of the passport in the first place?53 Given that others who applied for Gibraltar passports at the same time were nearly all listed as “natives of Gibraltar” or “British subjects,” Lasry’s record is unusual if not unique. Further complicating the case, the official register of the government of Gibraltar currently has no record of him ever being a resident of the garrison.54 Of course, Jews and others could have passed years in Gibraltar without official permission to do so. A ­ lthough it is not farfetched to assume that his wealth and value to the garrison brought him official

Introduction 17

British protection and a passport, we are left wondering how long Lasry stayed in Gibraltar, exactly why he was granted the passport, and whether he ever officially became a British subject. The timing of Lasry’s passport is auspicious—or more likely, the result of a specific need. In October 1828, shortly before he applied for the Gibraltar passport, Lasry sought British consular help in response to the bey’s seizure of a shipment of cattle hides from Oran headed for Morocco.55 In the record of this event the vice-consul lists Lasry unambiguously as a “British Subject.” Lasry’s British protection also served him when the French military authorities were obstructing his business several years later, in 1831. It would be fair to guess that by the end of the 1820s, Jacob Lasry was more or less permanently settled in Oran as a British protected subject and, as we will see, probably enjoyed a profitable relationship with Nathaniel Welsford, the British vice-consul in that city. Mapping Lasry’s path from Moroccan merchant to British subject to (eventually) French colonial notable onto larger political and demographic trends highlights the importance of viewing his story, those of his fellow North African Jewish merchants, and that of Oran through a wider optic than that contained within the French imperial sphere. Since the late eighteenth century, Morocco had been pushing against increasing Spanish influence by encouraging maritime trade with Britain through Gibraltar.56 Meanwhile, the British had come to rely on Morocco and western Algeria to supply the garrison, partly because of the paucity of resources in Gibraltar and Spain’s refusal to accept British claims to it (a state of affairs that persists to the present day). This hostility led to a number of notable sieges, including those of 1704 and 1727 and the Great Siege of 1779–1783. Jews, as notable players in Morocco’s own merchant economy, were key to the networks that supplied Gibraltar in the face of Spain’s efforts to remove the British garrison.57 In Lasry’s time 27 percent of Gibraltar’s wholesale dealers—those most likely to be involved in international commerce—were Moroccan or Moroccan-descended Jews, and as early as 1814 most of these traders were native-born Gibraltarians.58 Because Lasry was someone who exported agricultural products from Oran to Gibraltar, we can imagine how the authorities in Gibraltar might find it advantageous to offer him protection. He was not born in Gibraltar, nor is there conclusive evidence that Lasry spent a substantial amount of time there. Yet it would be impossible to imagine his life unfolding the way it did without the influence that Gibraltar had in the movement of goods and people around the western Mediterranean at the time.

18 Introduction

The French occupation of Algeria in 1830 disrupted local trade networks and caused widespread chaos, but it did not erase the need for goods in Gibraltar. Accordingly, Lasry managed to adapt to and prosper in the new environment despite significant initial setbacks. In the early 1830s he was actually at the center of a trade dispute that pitted him and his English protectors against the country’s new occupiers. The outcome was not in his favor; Lasry maintained for years that he had lost significant sums because of disruptive French measures. Nevertheless, within a couple of years, Lasry became a confidante to the French general Bertrand Clauzel, a man who would serve at least for a short time as the highest ranking French military officer in A ­ frica. Perhaps hoping for compensation for previous losses, Lasry helped General Clauzel make arrangements to secure “contributions” from the people of Tlemcen, in Algeria’s far west, and even loaned money to General Yusuf, France’s much celebrated (and also much maligned) “indigenous” military commander (and Tunisian renegade). As Oran began its growth from a small town into a significant city, Lasry, as a significant property owner, threw in his lot with the city and its new masters. But his ability to adapt to the French conquest and, by extension, his utility to the French officers who employed him were the direct result of his background in regional circuits of commerce. In the years that followed, Lasry’s family grew, and as it did, it naturally became interwoven in the story of France. Lasry had eight children with two women over the next several decades.59 Rachel and Fadmossa were born to his first wife Rica; the first in Gibraltar and the second, about whom we know very little, probably in Oran. Lasry married Semha Cabessa, his second wife, in a purely religious ceremony in France in 1843. His daughter Estelle (Esther) ­Louise was born in the eighth arrondissement of Paris in 1846, and the twins Sarah and Elie were born in Aix-en-Provence the following year. Semha, perhaps accompanied by Lasry, was back in Oran for the births of their remaining children, Faduena, Meriem, and Dona, all of whom arrived relatively late in Jacob’s life, during the late 1850s and early 1860s. At about the same time, the facts that Rica, Lasry’s first wife, died in 1847 and that his marriage to Semha occurred (if a correction in Aix-en-Provence’s état civil records is to be believed) several years before, in 1843, during a period when France did not permit divorce, point to a certain relativism regarding Lasry’s professed devotion to France’s civilization, especially as expressed in its family laws.60 Although it is possible that Lasry had been divorced according to Jewish law, his second marriage was almost certainly polygamous, reflecting family practices far more

Introduction 19

socially and legally acceptable in North Africa than in Europe. I return to the implications of Lasry’s marital practices in the conclusion to this volume. By the mid-1840s Jacob Lasry was an established figure in French colonial Oran. In 1843 he established a private synagogue in Oran that was intended to cater to what he called the European Sephardim in Oran.61 Given the near absence of European-born Jews in Oran at the time, it is safe to assume that the synagogue was actually meant for fellow Jews of northern Morocco—the ­Spanish- or Haketia-speaking Jews from Tétouan, who were perhaps also involved in the Gibraltar trade. The city’s municipal and property records and data from the Chamber of Commerce attest to Lasry’s acquisition of property and continued work in the export business. He was elected to the Municipal Council in 1848 and served there until 1853.62 For a man who had been raised in Morocco, probably spoke a variant of Spanish, carried a British ­Gibraltarian passport, and tussled with French generals with the backing of the British viceconsul, Lasry was also becoming French. Not only was he married in Aix-enProvence, but in 1853 he also chose to become a French citizen.63 As recalled in the opening lines of this Introduction, he was lauded in the metropolitan press for his charity and support for progress. His family, meanwhile, became part of what one might be tempted to call Oran’s Jewish royalty. In 1863 Lasry’s his daughter Estelle Louise married Shimon al-Kanoui (shortened to Kanoui), the son of the wealthy Jewish merchant and notable Abraham al-Kanoui. Both Abraham and his son Shimon served at various times as presidents of the consistory of Oran. When Lasry died, according to a death notice in 1869, his funeral was attended not only by many Jews but also by a great number of the city’s non-Jewish elite.64 At the same time, Lasry’s efforts in favor of his Beit ha-Knesset Européen Lasry, the official name of his synagogue (more commonly referred to as the Synagogue Lasry), serve as an optic into the enduring rivalries in colonial Oran’s diverse Jewish population. The synagogue, whose name is an interesting mélange of Hebrew and French (though its charter was submitted to authorities in French and Spanish), was established several years before “civilizing” the Jews of Algeria became an official policy of the French administration. But Lasry and his supporters quickly redefined the synagogue as his patriotic contribution to the colonial administration’s new effort to attach a motley local collection of people, newly baptized as indigenous Jews, to France. This was despite the fact that the consistory was charged with regulating or closing Oran’s privately owned synagogues, which, some argued, included Lasry’s.65 Because

20 Introduction

Lasry was at the same time an insider to the consistory, acrimonious discussions erupted over how many Jewish rites existed, exposing the fissures in the French colonial policy that defined Jews and other diverse collections of people with different histories and perspectives as simply indigenous. Lasry’s synagogue, then, could be seen as one side of his wider Mediterranean identity, despite his place in French colonial notability and outward ­allegiance to France’s “civilization.” For example, more than a decade after he founded his synagogue, Lasry continued to publicly advocate the particularities of his Moroccan rites and his social commitment to Tétouan’s Jews. Lasry was making donations to London’s Sephardic Sha’ar HaShamayim (Bevis Marks) synagogue in 1859, well after he began officially working for the French colonial administration as president of Oran’s Jewish consistory.66 In the 1860s Lasry advocated for Abraham Ankawa, an embattled Moroccan rabbi installed in Oran, by publishing endorsements from rabbis in Tunis and Jerusalem.67 Regardless of the consistories’ official French rabbis, Lasry insisted that the decisions from Tunis and Jerusalem remained authoritative for Oran’s Jews.68 A relative of his, Samuel Lasry, served as the chief rabbi of Gibraltar from 1870 to 1887.69 Lasry, despite a trajectory that brought him to the heart of French Oran’s civic life and economy, his eventual French citizenship, and his close work with French generals, despite even his emergence as a public face of the French civilizing mission, could be said to be the product of Mediterranean currents of migration and trade more than of France’s colonial project. And if we pan out to look at his adoptive city with a long-term view, one that emphasizes its consistent reliance over the centuries on its mercantile links with a revolving cast of Mediterranean ports, Lasry could be said to fit right in.

.

.

.

The six chapters of this book are organized chronologically and hew roughly to the nested arguments laid out in this Introduction. Beginning with Oran’s history well before Lasry’s birth, in Chapter 1 I set the stage for the discussion of the episodes in Lasry’s life. I emphasize the city’s reliance on its sea links over a longue durée, showing how Oran was not just North African but a product of the western Mediterranean. In other words, Oran was always an expression of its integration into larger networks and the fluctuating ability of its merchants to export and import goods. As such, I demonstrate how, if Gibraltar’s particular importance to Lasry’s Oran was a modern development, the city had long been intimately linked to the Iberian Peninsula. At the same

Introduction 21

time, in the centuries leading up to Oran’s second Ottoman conquest in 1792, the city had become increasingly isolated, a fact showing all the more clearly how important Oran’s integration into commercial networks had always been. In contrast, for those who inhabited the region in the late medieval period, the distance between Europe and Africa was short. Chapter 2 focuses on the city that attracted Lasry and his merchant milieu in the decade leading up to the French occupation of Oran in 1831. I show that after the Ottoman conquest of the city from the Spanish in 1792, Jews and Muslims were invited back into Oran with important consequences. No longer a presidio burdened by hostile relations with the interior, the city opened to its North African hinterland and, in so doing, opened the Iberian Peninsula to products shipped from Oran. The city’s commercial importance grew because of efforts by the Regency of Algiers to expand the commercial importance of both Algiers and Oran. Not only did inhabitants of nearby Tlemcen, Mascara, Milianah, and Médéa settle in the town, but also Jews from further afield—Morocco and Gibraltar—came to take advantage of an increasingly active port. It is here that we briefly encounter Jacob Lasry once again, as an exporter of hides from Oran, drawing on the help of the local British vice-­consul. I illustrate the commercial and social currents that attracted a ­Moroccan-Gibraltarian Jew such as Lasry, with roots in far larger cities, to what was still a small but remarkably Jewish city. In Chapter 3 I bring Lasry to center stage. During the first several years of the French conquest, Jacob Lasry attempted, with mixed results, to pursue his export business. I use these efforts to emphasize how Oran had clearly already become the site of lively trade but also to show how France’s early rule in the Maghreb interrupted commerce and spread confusion and violence to Oran. By following Lasry’s prolonged efforts to recuperate a lost investment in ­tiskeras (export permits), I show how North African Jewish merchants like Lasry were hardly hapless observers of the French conquest. Rather, the wealth, acumen, and consular backing of Jewish businessmen such as Lasry allowed them not only to continue operating in the upper echelons of Oran’s commercial life but also to evade an inferior ethnoreligious category in the taxonomy that would structure French colonial rule and later scholarship on it.70 Meanwhile, merchants like Lasry were part of a dynamic western Mediterranean economy in which Britain was deeply involved. I demonstrate that despite colonialism’s frequent association with economic modernity, the North Africa that France encountered in 1830–1831 was already part of an interconnected Mediterranean

22 Introduction

world, and its merchants often had information and skills that the new French arrivals lacked. As much as colonialism transformed North Africa, the generals in charge also had to bend to local figures and institutions. Building on the previous chapter, in Chapter 4 I look at several contemporaries of Jacob Lasry. The stories of these other merchants complicate previous narrations of the conquest as the beginning of a total and immediate transformation of Algeria’s preconquest reality into the unmitigated benefit of the putatively oppressed Jews of Algeria. In contrast, in this chapter I provide a personal view of the first years of conquest through the stories of local merchants, revealing not only how the conquest caused problems for Jewish merchants but also how their commercial importance and adaptive strategies forced the French to adjust their policies. Furthermore, I show how these merchants maintained serious, even lethal, rivalries with each other. Rather than seeing these feuds as an example of the cultural immaturity of Algerian Jews, as French colonial observers did, I see them as a product of the longer and geographically far-reaching history of Oran’s commercial life, or in other words, as a nasty side effect of Oran’s recent growth and dynamism. Chapter 5 moves ahead several years, when the French occupation was still young, to track the process by which Lasry assumed a decidedly more French personality. In this chapter I do not examine psychological or political process so much as events that brought Lasry into partnership with the French military and by extension rendered him a participant in the construction of French ­Algeria. The first episode I examine is the expedition to Tlemcen, in which Lasry played a role as an intermediary for General Bertrand Clauzel. The second episode involves the first French campaign to take Ahmed Bey’s Constantine, during which Lasry lent a great deal of money to the commanding officer Yusuf, a Tunisian Muslim who became commander of the irregular French cavalry forces known as the sipahis. These two episodes are important because they show how military campaigns relied on local merchants of the former Regency of Algiers, a fact that complicates the narrative of a modern French army taking over a country populated primarily by a traditional, and ultimately primitive, native population. Instead, it illuminates how France’s underfunded and ill-supplied conquest of Algeria depended on local experts possessed of local knowledge. The French relied on these North Africans, whether a businessman like Lasry or a renegade commander like Yusuf, to organize, underwrite, and carry out their exploits. The last chapter pans out again from Jacob Lasry’s individual experience to a wider shot of the city of Oran—specifically, Jewish Oran—in the 1840s.

Introduction 23

Drawing on local property records, official correspondence of the consistory, minutes of Municipal Council meetings, rabbinic literature, and published sources of the period, I show that France’s civilizing mission was in significant ways dependent on, if not outright sponsored by, established and wealthy North African Jewish merchants and property holders. This contrasts with the unquestioned assumption in popular and academic renderings that the French brought in resources to enlighten and ultimately emancipate an isolated, poor, and oppressed Jewish community. Also, building on the discussion of rivalries in Chapter 4, I look at how the French civilizing mission itself helped fashion the community that was its supposed beneficiary. Indeed, the dynamics of French imperial expansion helped to create the Israélite indigène out of a diverse and newly arrived Jewish population. Despite Oran’s rich Jewish legacy, the city lost almost its entire Jewish population in the span of several years, starting in 1961. In the Conclusion I leave the reader with some thoughts about what Lasry’s experience tells us about the undoing of Jewish life in North Africa in the recent past. Currently, in the shadow of North Africa’s undemocratic regimes and hostility between so many Jews and Muslims, the departure of Jews from the Arab world appears almost inevitable: If Jews were in North Africa in the first place, it was only because something more acceptable was not available. Recently, this sort of narrative has been extended to France and Europe more broadly, with significant attention devoted to speculations that Jews’ departure from the continent, with its growing Muslim population (frequently associated with contemporary anti-Semitism), may be inevitable.71 The story I tell in this book, of powerful Jews who made their homes across significant swaths of the Mediterranean and who were simultaneously central to the history of modern North African cities, challenges these perceptions and effectively reopens a discussion about what profound social cleavages emerged during colonization and decolonization that erased, in so many of our imaginations, the very possibility of Jacob Lasry’s world. Paradoxically, Lasry’s oft-criticized pursuit of wealth, his flexible loyalty and morality, and his efforts to secure status might convey a message of possibility: even ­regions that are dismissed in our historical moment for their hostility to cosmopolitan societies have in the past and might again host a dynamic diversity.

This page intentionally left blank

1

MEDITERRANEAN ORAN

AT T H E B E G I N N I N G of his 1947 novel The Plague, Albert Camus remarks that Oran’s inhabitants “above all, are interested in commerce, and their chief occupation, as they would put it, is doing business [ faire des affaires].”1 Camus was not the first to make this observation. About 900 years before the publication of Camus’s landmark novel, the eleventh-century Andalusian traveler, geographer, and historian Al-Bakri noted, “The inhabitants of this city [Oran] are distinguished by their [commercial] activity.”2 Indeed, according to medieval accounts, merchants founded the city in the first place; in AH 290 (903 CE), Muhammad ben Abu-‘Aoun and Muhammad ben ‘Abdun led a group from Umayyad Spain to North Africa to establish a settlement intended to facilitate commerce with the city of Tlemcen, in the far west of contemporary Algeria.3 To the north and east of Tlemcen, they founded a small port protected by a bay 28.5 kilometers across and 11 kilometers deep. The Azdaja Berber chiefs who controlled the area agreed to the settlement, and it is thought that the name it eventually took, Arabicized as Wahran, comes from the Berber root for lion, ’hr.4 To the merchants who spoke the Romance precursors to today’s Spanish and Portuguese, the city assumed names such as Horan and, eventually, Oran.5 For the next millennium, Oran’s fortunes were correlated with its access to merchants and goods coming from North Africa, France, Italy, and, like Camus’s mother, Spain. Oran’s close ties to Iberia outlived the peninsula’s Muslim rule, and given its Spanish character, French generals and writers in the early colonial period

26

Mediterranean Oran

tended to see Oran as the remains of an older Spanish town rather than as a ville musulmane. This is notable, because the Islamic, or Arab, city emerged as a unit of analysis in early-twentieth-century French Orientalism.6 For this reason among others, French writers and statesmen tended to be less interested in Oran or other “culturally promiscuous” port cities.7 They were more drawn to the larger (and perhaps more “oriental,” according to their expectations) capital of the former Regency of Algiers, which they nonetheless compared unfavorably to larger cities such as Istanbul and Cairo. (Ismayl Urbain, the Saint-Simonian convert to Islam and future adviser to Napoleon III, recalled despairing on his first approach to Algiers, “Where are the minarets and domes that arise everywhere over Cairo? Where are the palm trees and columns of Alexandria?”8) However, scholars who took a historical interest in Oran generally sought to uncover the flows of people and commodities that affected its changing fortunes and to emphasize its place in Mediterranean and African commercial ­circuits.9 If colonial-era French historians often emphasized imperial Rome’s past in Africa at the expense of its Islamic present (a tendency shared by some early histories of Oran, which often noted its classical-era settlements), in Oran’s case they also focused attention on the later Spanish and Arab periods.10 From this scholarship, which tended to draw on travelers’ accounts and on consular reports and treaties signed with Italian principalities, we see a succession of settlements whose importance was less as political centers and more as points of interregional trade. In the interest of situating Oran in its long history and outside the EastWest binary that took hold in Lasry’s time, in the following paragraphs I evoke an Oran that sits not just on the northern coast of Africa but on the southern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Oran, as we will see, was a creation of Spain and southern Europe as well as of Tlemcen, the Sahara, and the African sources of goods that lay beyond it. Indeed, in the first century or two after its founding, Oran owed its existence to its proximity to the Iberian Peninsula. The narrow western section of the Mediterranean, stretching from Cape Ténès in the east to the Strait of Gibraltar in the west, has been described as a medieval “IberoAfrican English Channel,” linking North Africa and Spain with a constant flow of commercial ships.11 Conversely, the historical connectedness of the Iberian Peninsula to western North Africa cannot be overstated; in discussing the medieval period, the historian Fernand Braudel repeated the geographer Jean Brunhes’s observation that, thanks to the difficulties of traversing the Pyrenees, “Spain is less separated from Africa than from Europe, and it is also less inde-



Mediterranean Oran

27

pendent of it.”12 In other words, the mountains separating Spain and France offered a more formidable barrier to commercial movement than the body of water on which Oran sits. It follows that for those who inhabited the region, the division between Europe and Africa had less cultural or civilizational implications than it does today; it is probable that Oran’s tenth- and eleventh-century maritime relations were primarily with Spain.13 Without developing into a major city, Oran boasted advantages beyond its proximity to Spain. In addition to the bay protecting ships from strong winds, the presence of fresh water that flowed into Oran’s confines added to the location’s appeal to medieval Spanish merchants. The source of this water, the stream known as Ras al-‘Ayin, provided for gardens that helped feed the city and served as a respite from the average summer daytime high temperature of 89 degrees. The stream made a distinct impression on early Muslim writers and travelers. For example, the medieval chronicler Muḥammad Abū’l-Qāsim ibn Hawqal (died c. 978) wrote that “the city is surrounded by a wall and watered by a stream that comes from outside. The borders of the valley from which the stream flows are crowned with gardens that produce all sorts of fruits.”14 Al-Bakri (1014–1094), another medieval chronicler, described Oran as “a fortified place, possessing running water, water mills, [and] gardens.”15 Similarly, Muhammad al-Idrisi (1099–1165 or 1166) noted that Oran’s “inhabitants drink water from a stream that comes there from the interior of the country, and whose banks are covered with gardens and orchards.”16 In the 1830s, more than seven centuries later, the earliest French municipal archives in Oran demonstrated the continued importance of this stream. These record books concern themselves with the regulation of the water from Ras al-‘Ayin and with the ownership of gardens on the banks of the river, within and beyond the walls of the city.17 Over the course of the Middle Ages, Oran grew more prosperous as a Mediterranean port, even as it served often as a tributary of the more substantial inland city of Tlemcen. As Ibn Hawqal noted of Tlemcen, “It is at the port of Oran where the commerce with Spain is conducted; the ships bring merchandise and leave loaded with wheat.”18 Soon, Oran boasted a castle overlooking the port, several mosques, fortifications, and numerous markets. Al-Bakri was the first to note that serving as Tlemcen’s port brought prosperity. In Oran one found “large bazaars, many workshops,” and “fruits in abundance, honey, butter, cream, cattle, all at good prices.”19 Oran was probably at its largest at the beginning of the sixteenth century, with 25,000 inhabitants, before antagonisms

28

Mediterranean Oran

between the Spanish who occupied the city, the Ottoman Empire, and other local powers led to an isolation that reduced the city’s size and importance. 20 Oran would have to wait until the nineteenth-century French occupation, which triggered significant migrations from southern Europe and especially from Spain, to surpass that figure. Oran prospered despite passing among different dynasties over the course of the Middle Ages. It came under the rule of the Almoravid Dynasty in 1082 (as would much of Spain), and in the 1130s the city and its territory were the theater of a protracted battle between Ibrahim ibn Tashfin of Granada and the Almohad general Abd al-Mu’amin al-Kumi, who took the city in 1146. The ­Almohads then used Oran as a launching site for expeditions that would bring them considerably more territory to the east. In a departure from its use as Tlemcen’s port, the third Almohad caliph, Abu Yusuf Yakub al-Mansur, used Oran as a capital. The Marinids of Fez took Oran in 1269, followed in 1437 by the Zayyanids (‘abd al-Wadids), whose capital had been at Tlemcen ever since they captured it in 1236. Muslim rule would come to an end in 1509, when the Reconquista brought Spanish rule to the city. During Oran’s first half-millennium of dynastic rule, it was part of a wider Mediterranean world that included both Christians and Muslims. Even as certain dynasties and kingdoms expelled or excluded members of other faiths and religious borders moved according to changing political fortunes, various forms of interaction continued. Under the Almoravids and Almohads, Oran and other cities of the Maghreb made commercial treaties with powers controlling the southern coast of contemporary France and Spain and with the Italian maritime republics. Beginning in the twelfth century, but especially during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Genoa and Pisa enjoyed a rich commerce with North Africa, to be joined (if not surpassed) by the Venetians. Later, in the sixteenth century, the Florentine free port of Livorno would enjoy close ties to North African cities. These interactions were not only for trade. Bands of Christian mercenaries, often from Spain, also found their way to North Africa to lend their services to warring powers of the Maghreb, notably in Morocco, Tlemcen, and Tunis.21 The Zayyanid sultanate in the thirteenth century hosted a significant volume of international trade, and Tlemcen became an important center, joining trans-Saharan caravans coming from Ghana with North African and European markets. Oran featured prominently in this trade. A shipping register from Palma (Majorca) from the first months of 1284 indicates that fifteen of the forty-



Mediterranean Oran

29

five ships leaving Majorca sailed to Tlemcen-controlled ports. Nine of these ships went to Oran, compared with three to Algiers, two to Breshk, and one to Ténès.22 Another record from 1328 notes that ships from Majorca, Valencia, and Barcelona sailed monthly to Oran and to other North African ports.23 If ­Tlemcen was the major city of the sultanate, Oran served as one of its vital ports. Commercial and political treaties reflected Tlemcen’s and Oran’s integration into a rich Mediterranean system that was far from limited to other Muslim powers; it was part of the same system that helped enrich medieval Iberian, Italian, and other southern European states. Pisa concluded treaties with the Muslim dynasties that ruled Oran in 1133, 1166, and 1186, and Genoa did the same in 1138, 1153–1154, and 1160–1161. In 1250 Venice signed a forty-year treaty with Oran’s rulers. When Jaime I of Barcelona extended his rule to Aragon and Majorca in the thirteenth century, trade to the Maghreb most certainly benefited. In 1319 Jaime II of Barcelona signed a treaty with the Zayyanids, who ruled Tlemcen (with some brief Marinid-led interruptions) from 1236 to 1554, when Tlemcen finally fell to Ottoman forces. In 1339 Jaime II, King of Majorca, Count of R ­ oussillon and Sardinia, and Lord of Montpellier, signed a treaty with the Marinid sultan Abu alHassan Ali, who then held Tlemcen. By this point, Oran was hosting merchants not only from Catalonia, Castile, and the Italian states but also from Languedoc, Montpellier, Narbonne, and Marseilles. What did the late medieval Mediterranean merchants, men who arrived and traded in Oran several centuries before Jacob Lasry, want from such treaties? By the fourteenth century the treaties tended to rest on principles laid out by the 1339 treaty between Jaime II and Abu al-Hassan Ali and could be summed up in one word: protection. Notably, the contracting states would not support piracy against each other’s ships, nor were they allowed to pillage shipwrecks. In general, merchants protected by such treaties had the right to export most goods, except certain cargoes (such as wheat), which were subject to special permits (this was still the case when Jacob Lasry purchased permits to export wheat in 1830). In addition, contracting states were guaranteed security for people and goods, the right to have consuls, and the right to establish fanādiq (sing. funduq), or walled areas for the storage and sale of merchandise, housing for consuls and their chancellery, and sometimes housing for the “nation” of traders protected by the consuls. These areas, which treaties protected, might also include public baths, a church, and perhaps a cemetery. In the thirteenth century the Genovese established fanaadiq in both Oran and Tlemcen, a pattern followed by the Venetians in the fifteenth century. Even if we assume that these

30

Mediterranean Oran

treaties were not consistently respected (mostly regarding piracy or the protection of shipwrecked goods and men), they reflect the place of Oran and ­Tlemcen (not to mention other northern African ports) in Mediterranean commerce. Even though all this is early, given the nineteenth-century focus of our story, it was during these distant centuries that Oran adopted a commercial role reflecting its geography, a role that it retained as late as Lasry’s epoch. Oran served as a port of entry for finished goods, above all textiles, and was a site for the export of luxury or agricultural products, notably grain but also livestock. Merchants brought in various textiles made of cotton, linen, hemp, and occasionally silk—sheets, scarves, and other dyed or raw material—from ­Perpignan, Montpelier, Paris, and elsewhere. Merchants also brought in worked iron and copper products, dyes, beans, chestnuts, and wine. Throughout the fifteenth century, a large group of four-sailed ships, with crews of up to 200 men each, would leave from Venice’s Lido in the second half of July. Named the Barbary Convoy, the ships would make a tour of the western Mediterranean, stopping in Béjaïa (Bougie), Algiers, and Oran. In addition to a wide variety of textiles, Venice’s merchants were known for bringing luxury products to Oran, such as finished coral, pearls, precious stones, glass, spices, and perfumes. As for exports from North Africa, Genovese and Venetian merchants were particularly interested in plants for making dyes, hides for leather, dried fruits, and olive oil from Tlemcen’s well-regarded groves for use in Italy’s soap factories.24 Given that Tlemcen was situated on east-west trade routes across northern Africa and the north-south trans-Saharan trade, Venetians and Genovese merchants could also find products brought by African merchants from subSaharan territories, such as ivory, gold dust, ostrich feathers, and occasionally slaves. The same caravans that brought sub-Saharan and Tlemcenian products to Oran took European textiles and other goods into the interior. Oran’s role as a leg in the Sahara commerce route would dry up in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but when exports resumed in the early nineteenth century, some of the same goods were on the ships. It is worth mentioning that the first archival mention we find of Jacob Lasry at the end of the 1820s reveals him involved in the export of hides, a product that had been loaded onto boats leaving Oran in the Middle Ages. If Oran distinguished itself by its active and prominent Jewish population in Jacob Lasry’s time, it was not the first time. Jews came to Oran toward the end of the fourteenth century, when Christian persecutions of Muslims and Jews in Spain forced many to seek more tolerant Islamic shores. Oran and Tlemcen, so



Mediterranean Oran

31

near to the Iberian Peninsula, were among the North African and Middle Eastern cities to profit from these migrations. In 1391 the arrival of Jews from the Spanish island of Majorca brought Rabbi Simeon ben Zemah Duran to North Africa where he, in concert with other rabbis, famously attempted to raise the level of learning of his new neighbors.25 Oran’s leaders were pleased to welcome these new arrivals, who often brought new commercial links with Majorca, Granada, and other parts of the Iberian Peninsula, but local Jews were sometimes less impressed. Some went so far as to complain about the competition brought by these new arrivals from Spain.26 ORAN’S DECLINE I N T H E E A R LY M O D E R N P E R I O D The fall of Granada in 1492 set the stage for Oran’s decline in the early modern period. Francisco Ximénès de Cisneros, elevated to cardinal in 1507, had long hoped to extend a holy war against the “nests of pirates” on the coast of North Africa. In 1509, under the orders of Pedro de Navarro, the Reconquista was extended to North Africa when a fleet of more than eighty ships left Cartagena to take Oran for the cross.27 According to Christian sources, the victory was accompanied by a massacre of 4,000 people, the imprisonment of 8,000 more, the plundering of 500,000 écus of gold, the liberation of 300 Christian slaves, and the transformation of the city’s mosques into churches.28 The first Spanish governor, Don Diego, who was later given the title Marqués de Comares (the Marquis of Comares), built a fort on the site of several storehouses of a wealthy local Jewish merchant, Ben Zuawawa, who reputedly conspired with him. The Spanish gave the building the name Castillo de la Mona, but the locals baptized it, according to the alleged act of treason, Bourg al-Yahudi, “The Jew’s Fort.”29 Apart from the period of Ottoman rule between 1708 and 1732, Oran would remain in Spanish hands from 1509 until 1792. Even in the midst of the Reconquista, Oran was part of a larger interconnected Mediterranean world in which an individual governor’s interests often held sway over larger religious loyalties. So when Abu Hammu of Tlemcen was threatened by the Ottoman-supported efforts of Ibn ‘Aruj (c. 1474–1518, the famous corsair Barbarossa)30 to take the central Maghreb, he allied with Oran’s (Catholic) Marqués de Comares, who was afraid his city would be entirely isolated in the event of a Turkish victory. The result was not just an Ottoman defeat; the (Muslim) kingdom of Tlemcen became, in recognition of the aid it provided, a tributary of the king of Spain.

32

Mediterranean Oran

The Count d’Alcaudète, captain-general in Oran from 1534 to 1558, struggled incessantly against the advancing Ottomans. This struggle, however, was also waged on behalf of Tlemcen, which, though remaining a Muslim state, was a vassal of Spain. The nominal independence of Tlemcen maintained Oran’s longtime role as its port. Oran’s relationship with Tlemcen was also complicated by a number of Spanish interventions in the internal affairs of the ­Zayyanid governors there, especially the reinstallation of Abu ‘Abdullah as ruler (and Spanish ally) in Tlemcen in 1543. Nevertheless, the ongoing trade between Oran and the interior of North Africa maintained Oran’s regional importance and its draw for merchants—largely those from Venice—during the first half of the sixteenth century. Merchants and their patrons were not necessarily happy to see states representing their own faith triumph over those they saw as infidels. In 1518 the Venetian senate addressed a complaint to the Spanish ambassador, François Cornaro. The complaint stated that “when the city of Oran belonged to the Moors, the Venetians there only paid 10 percent; today they pay much more to His Catholic Majesty, given that they are liable to two duties, 10 percent at the entrance and 10 percent upon leaving.”31 In other words, Venice implored Spain to recreate the more merchant-friendly practices of Oran’s previous Muslim rulers. Even though the Venetians would remain more interested in Oran than in the nearby ports of Algiers or Bougie for the first half of the sixteenth century, the effect of Spanish rule was already showing signs of diminishing Oran’s commercial advantages. Regardless of the expulsion order and the Inquisition, a Jewish community lived in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Oran and played an important role in the garrison’s political and economic life. According to an estimate made at the time, 476 Spanish- and Arabic-speaking Jews lived in Oran when the governor, the Marqués de los Vélez, expelled them in 1669.32 These Jews tended to engage in a number of indispensable functions, including the role of royal translator of Arabic, a salaried post often in the hands of a member of the Cansino family.33 In 1558 the Ottomans, already installed in the nearby city of Mostaganem, took Tlemcen from the last of its Zayyanid rulers in a battle that led to the decline of Spanish Oran. Tunis and its adjoining port of La Goulette, also in the hands of a local dynasty, fell to the Turks in 1574. The Ottomans, however, were not compelled to work with the declining Spanish, as the rulers of Tlemcen had been. Oran endured no fewer than seven serious assaults before the Ottomans finally took it in 1708. By then, Oran had become an isolated Spanish garrison



Mediterranean Oran

33

used as a launching point for small expeditions; it had lost its previous mercantile importance. The 1669 expulsion of the Jews, predictably, had done nothing to advance Oran’s commerce. It is telling that in 1734, shortly after having retaken Oran, the Spanish general and commander Don Joseph Vallejo advised his king to abandon the recently acquired city, which contained fewer than 400 homes, “better described as thatched-roofed huts.” He argued that past Spanish policy had so poisoned relations with the surrounding tribes as to render the situation hopeless and that from the surrounding hills attackers had open shots on inhabitants, regardless of where in the city they stood. Vallejo described the situation concisely: “This city will forever be, regardless of what is said, a deadweight for our kingdom.”34 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ORAN Although Oran passed between Spanish and Ottoman hands several times in the eighteenth century, it prospered under neither. Much of the city was destroyed when the Ottomans took Oran in 1708, and, according to Spanish reports, only a little was rebuilt during their period of rule until 1732. A Spanish report from 1738 describes all of 330 houses (interestingly, less than the 400 that Vallejo had estimated several years before), providing lodging for 1,000 civilians, 757 “submitted Moors,” 5,555 soldiers, and 1,635 desterados—exiles or deportees from Spain, some imprisoned—coming to just under 9,000 people. As the century wore on, the number of Oran’s population that consisted of these desterados grew as the city took on the role of a colony of exiles. For example, a report from 1770 counted 2,317 civilians, 4,383 soldiers, and 2,821 nonimprisoned desterados.35 To this number we must add an unspecified number of Muslim deserters who manned an auxiliary corps in the service of the king. As for the civil population, it was limited in the last decades of the Spanish occupation. Matters were not helped by recurrences of the plague throughout the eighteenth century, notably in 1738, 1752, and several times between 1784 and 1800. The eighteenth century clearly did not smile on Oran. However, the Spanish did make some improvements in their last sixty years in Oran, and French generals would comment on the Spanish appearance of the city they occupied in 1831. For instance, the route leading from the city’s elevated perch down to La Marine, the neighborhood by the sea, was widened, which allowed La Marine (outside the walls of the city) to be built up. The Spanish also built barracks, storehouses for ice, barley, and coal, a chapel, and a workshop for making roof tiles. They paved a number of the streets, rebuilt

F IG U R E 2 .   The Presidio of Oran in the 1740s, shortly after the Spanish recaptured it in 1732. Oran’s days as an active port had passed, and it was a small and isolated fort in the eighteenth century. Oran would experience a rebirth in the nineteenth century, but Don Joseph Vallejo was technically correct when he predicted that Oran would “forever be . . . a deadweight for [the Spanish] kingdom.” Gallica.bnf.fr (Bibliothèque Nationale de France).



Mediterranean Oran

35

the viaduct bringing in the waters of Ras al-‘Ayin, and constructed a new public fountain for the city. Nevertheless, the town remained small, and ruins continued to blight the main part of the city. Even more important, poor relations with neighboring tribes led to chronic problems with provisioning Spanish Oran’s population with food. Although the gardens provided fruits and vegetables, raids conducted early in Spain’s second occupation alienated local tribes and rendered life difficult for the city’s inhabitants. The practice of capturing people from local tribes and enslaving them or forcibly converting them and their children to Christianity did not help ­matters.36 The complaints from Oran’s leaders were continual; the population consistently lacked meat, dried vegetables, soap, and coal. Perhaps the greatest irony (considering Oran’s historic role as an exporter of cereals) was that by the late eighteenth century Oran’s Spanish masters had so soured relations with their neighbors that their mills were grinding grains imported from Spain. In 1767, under King Charles III, Oran created the Junta des Abastos, or Special Council for Provisions, to provide for basic goods. In contrast to earlier days when it exported various goods to Spain and the rest of the Mediterranean, an isolated and much diminished Oran had become dependent on Spain for supplies. Lack of French interest in Oran in the century before its conquest underlines the extent to which Lasry and his city represented new commercial territory for Algeria’s conquerors. In the 1730s Vallejo mourned the days before the first Turkish conquest in 1708, when “Oran brought Spanish and foreign merchants large quantities of grains, hides, wax, and fruits from Africa,” 37 as opposed to the time of his writing, when, he said, very little was leaving Oran. French interest in Oran was minimal; in 1723 the Chamber of Commerce of Marseilles described Oran’s commerce as “always appear[ing] so unimportant that none of the African companies has ever seen it necessary to bring wheat out of there, because their other concessions have always supplied enough.”38 However, in a departure, a French treaty with the dey of Algiers allowing French commerce out of Oran was concluded in 1719, a French vice-consul was installed in 1723, and soon after a small nation française of traders was established, representing branches of five French commercial houses.39 Never­ theless, annual exports from Oran hardly exceeded what could be carried in a couple of ships, and there were merely eleven or so French traders in Oran in the 1750s, generally originating in the southern French areas of Languedoc and Provence.40 In 1772 the Spaniard Don Harnaldo Hantabat reported that Spain had a “passive” commerce, carried out by Spanish merchants and by a

36

Mediterranean Oran

couple of foreigners from Marseilles, Gibraltar, and Port Mahon. Oran, isolated, was indeed deadweight. The fall of Oran to the governor of Algiers in 1792 was one indication that, though the Ottomans had recently lost considerable territory in its wars with Russia, its North African vassal of Algiers was still powerful enough to defeat a European power. Oran fell in the wake of a series of battles between Spain and the Regency of Algiers. In 1775 Captain Alejandro O’Reilly, the Irish commander in the service of King Charles III of Spain, failed in his bid to take Algiers despite the 300 ships and army of 22,000 men at his disposal.41 This was followed by two more failures under the leadership of Don Angelo Barcelo to take Algiers in 1783 and 1784. Meanwhile, the beys in Mascara (the title of governors in Ottoman North Africa, generally subservient to the dey in Algiers) made efforts to take Oran from the Spanish, including a siege that began in 1775 and was reinforced in 1777. The Ottomans finally forced the Spanish into a treaty in 1786, though it was not fully completed for another five years. Spain agreed to abandon Oran and to provide a number of gifts and pay for an annual tribute for the privilege to trade there.42 The Spanish tarried for several years but were finally inspired to leave by the earthquake on the night of October 8–9, 1790. The catastrophe destroyed much of the city above La Marine as well as the casbah, leaving nearly 2,000 casualties, according to reports. The dey of Algiers used the opportunity to lay siege to Oran, with peace reestablished by a treaty signed on September 12, 1791. Finally, in 1792 the Spanish abandoned their presidio, leaving the city partly destroyed and largely depopulated. Only seventy to eighty Christian families remained in Oran after its handover, and they gradually left in subsequent years; Spain’s trade with Oran resumed with the help of a new settlement of merchants in this once significant, now dilapidated port in the western Regency of Algiers. By the time the Spanish definitively left Oran in 1792, little remained of its once substantial wealth and mercantile importance. As we will see, it was the Ottoman reconquest, resettlement, and re-integration with western Mediterranean trade and the rising star of British commerce that led to the changes that attracted Lasry to the city in the early nineteenth century. B R I TA I N A N D G I B R A LTA R As relevant as the Spanish loss of Oran is to our story, Jacob Lasry’s arrival in Oran also directly involves Great Britain, its recent acquisition of Gibraltar, and the Empire of Morocco, whose eastern borders lay barely 200 kilometers to the



Mediterranean Oran

37

west of Oran. In the following discussion, I explore how the increasing commercial and political strength of Britain dovetailed with the recent if ­limited ascendency of Algiers and with the Spanish loss to create circumstances that would help establish a small but vital Jewish commercial community in western Algeria. By the 1820s this community would count a young, well-­connected, and prosperous Jacob Lasry among its residents. When Oran fell to the Regency of Algiers in 1792, it was not only Bey Muhammad al-Kabir and the Ottomans who celebrated. Great Britain most likely also saw the Spanish defeat in North Africa as a positive development. After all, the Regency’s strength, expressed in part by corsair activity, paradoxically aided British shipping. This is not to deny the long history, dating from the seventeenth century, of British ships and even coastal inhabitants being seized by the corsairs of North Africa’s ports. In fact, before Britain rose to its position of global domination in the nineteenth century, enough British and Irish seamen and coastal inhabitants had suffered captivity to have a powerful influence on early modern British attitudes toward (and fear of) North Africa.43 Spanish and French seamen and inhabitants of coastal villages were affected even more so, and North African slavery had a remarkable effect on French political discourse—and eventually its rationale for the occupation of Algiers—well into the nineteenth century.44 At the same time, the barter of slaves and guns between the British and Morocco and Algiers was a key component of a wider system of cross-cultural negotiation and exchange. For example, the acting ruler and future sultan Sidi Muhammad of Morocco (r. 1757–1790) renewed the practice of British captive taking between 1756 and 1758—not to provoke a war but to encourage the British to appoint a consul and thus encourage trade.45 Beginning in the late seventeenth century, the British were generally effective at establishing treaties (through negotiation, payment, and force) with North African regencies to free hostages and secure shipping passes that would prevent further harassment.46 Furthermore, by the late eighteenth century British ships were generally too big and powerful to be seriously compromised by piracy based at North African shores.47 Oran’s fall to the Regency of Algiers could well have appeared to the British as a strike against a rival. Such was not necessarily the case for Danish, Hamburger, Dutch, Swedish, and Italian vessels. This dynamic, whereby the British favorably looked on corsair activity against weaker European rivals, has been described by some historians as a British beggar-my-neighbor policy, a means of reducing their competition in the western Mediterranean.48 When the Danish attacked

38

Mediterranean Oran

­Algiers in 1770, for example, the British consul was the only representative of a Christian power to send his janissary to help the city’s defense.49 In the early eighteenth century the French philosophe Marquis d’Argens complained about British coziness with the Algerian corsairs: “An Englishman is hardly disturbed by 100 Spanish being taken as slaves, as long as his commerce prospers and his vessel arrives at the right port.”50 Thomas Paine, in Rights of Man, a work published around the time Algiers took Oran, also complained about how the interest of commerce had overshadowed Britain’s concern for individual ­liberty: “The Algerine piracy may thus be commanded to cease, for it is only by the malicious policy of old governments, against each other, that it exists.”51 Although the British would occasionally change their tune regarding Mediterranean slavery after the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars (Britain, in league with the Netherlands, bombarded Algiers in 1816, an event that did not have long-term consequences for Oran’s trade with British Gibraltar), Britain was aided by Algeria’s sea-based strength and very much appreciated the ability of Algiers to trouble its rivals in the eighteenth century. Furthermore, British commercial interests in the Maghreb, and in the Mediterranean more generally, were long established and still robust by the time Oran fell back into Ottoman hands. Mediterranean trade has often been overshadowed by the rise of Atlantic shipping after the sixteenth century, but it hardly lost its centrality for the British. In their brief and all but forgotten occupation of Tangiers, an episode that endured only from the Portuguese evacuation in 1661 to its reclamation by Moroccan forces in 1684, the British invested more resources in that city than they had in any other overseas colony.52 Although the British were situated on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, their goal was to secure access to the Strait of Gibraltar and the Mediterranean beyond (to say nothing of being able to monitor the Spanish fleet at Cádiz and Cartagena as well as the French at Toulon). Still, in 1700, southern Europe and the Mediterranean accounted for more British trade than India and the North American colonies combined, and by the end of the eighteenth century there were probably as many British ships and crews in the Mediterranean as there were in the Atlantic.53 If the Tangiers garrison did not endure, it served as the prototype for Gibraltar and for Malta, Minorca, Cyprus, and the Ionian Islands. Such outposts were essential to Britain’s empire within Europe, or what Linda Colley has described as the “territorially modest, often forgotten, but strategically indispensable element of its global enterprise,” a network that grew only more important with the expansion of British power in India and Egypt in the nineteenth century.54 In other



Mediterranean Oran

39

words, Lasry’s eventual arrival in Gibraltar and Oran must be seen as one ripple in a persisting British tide of commercial interest in the Mediterranean bridging the early modern and modern periods. Moroccan leadership, meanwhile, despite being traditionally cast as isolationist or blind to global changes toward the end of the eighteenth century, was, like Algiers, actively encouraging trade with Britain, in part to push back against Spanish power.55 As noted, Britain was protective of its commercial relationship with North African powers and appreciated hostility between them and other European powers. Conversely, the British governor of Gibraltar predicted ruin for British shipping if the Netherlands was allowed to sign a peace agreement with Morocco in 1751.56 The fact that both Britain and Algiers frequently maintained hostile relations with Spain in the eighteenth century also encouraged them to work in concert. Gibraltar-based merchants quickly seized on the capture of Oran from the Spanish by the Algerians as another nearby North African source for trade. This was not immaterial to Bey Muhammad al-Kabir, who, newly installed in Oran’s Châteauneuf, was left with the task of valorizing and repopulating the shell of a once-significant port with merchants, a group that would end up being largely Jewish. To this story, Britain and its garrison at Gibraltar (conquered in 1704) were increasingly important. When the British first took Gibraltar during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), that success essentially represented another, more successful attempt at a long-term Tangiers-like garrison. The British initially held Gibraltar in the name of Archduke Charles, the pretender to the Spanish throne. The first governors of the outpost were appointed in the name of the pretender, but John Methuen, the English minister in Portugal who was in charge of financing Allied operations in the peninsula during the war, insisted that an English officer be appointed to the post. Soon Colonel Roger Elliott, a British officer who had served in Tangiers when it was a British-held city (from Portugal’s departure in 1661 to its capture by Morocco in 1684), was put in charge of the outpost. Because the surrounding areas of Spain maintained their allegiance to the Bourbon pretender to the Spanish monarchy, Philip V, maintaining Gibraltar quickly became a challenge. Gibraltar began serving as a principal port for Britain’s trade with Morocco and other North African powers. In 1716 the British secured treaties with ­Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli for ships sailing from recently captured Gibraltar and Minorca and from Malta.57 Indeed, these treaties can be cast as the origin of a new traffic in British protection; local officials in these new colonies

40

Mediterranean Oran

were sometimes accused of giving too freely (or selling) British protection to those with only a vague connection to Britain or its possessions. These treaties give possible clues as to Jacob Lasry’s trajectory. Historians have noted that merchants were sometimes able to settle temporarily in Gibraltar or Minorca, “establish some vague claim to be a British subject,” and thus obtain the desired documents.58 There is little evidence that Jacob Lasry actually spent a significant amount of time in Gibraltar, but he wisely obtained his British status before establishing himself in Oran or perhaps even afterward. At the same time, the British did need a civilian population of traders and craftsmen to help supply and maintain Gibraltar, and not many were coming from Britain itself. The garrison’s geographic location next to Spain and its close proximity to Morocco made these two countries obvious candidates to provide its denizens, but the governors also exhibited the contradictory concern of establishing and maintaining a population with a “British” character. In 1720 Gibraltar’s governors made the first order intended to control the population, indicating that all “strangers” wishing to enter Gibraltar had to state their names and “nation” to officers at the gates and produce papers that testified to their business. Furthermore, residents were forbidden from accommodating visitors without reporting their presence. Nevertheless, the need for supplies and services combined with geographic, economic, and political realities led to the growth of a population that was not predominantly British. Rather, it was substantially Genoese, Portuguese, Spanish, and Moroccan Jewish.59 A significant number of Moroccan Jews came from the city of Tétouan, only 56 kilometers away. Given Jacob Lasry’s marital and commercial ties to Gibraltar, the origins and development of the garrison’s Jewish community are of interest to our story. Over the course of the eighteenth century, the Jewish population of Gibraltar expanded, was increasingly native-born, and in some cases grew wealthy. By consequence, a growing percentage of Gibraltarians of Moroccan Jewish descent were considered (and considered themselves) British. A 1712 survey by army inspectors showed that Jews paid rents for more than one-third of the properties in Gibraltar. In 1714 the number of Jews in the garrison was given as 150, with 100 from Morocco and 50 from England, Holland, and Italy.60 A study of population figures shows that the period from 1729, when the new articles with Morocco were signed, to about 1739 saw the most intense Jewish immigration into the town; by the middle of the eighteenth century, fully onethird of the population of Gibraltar was Jewish. After the siege of 1779–1783, the Jewish community’s value to Britain had become so clear that the British



Mediterranean Oran

41

officially permitted them. By this time, their numbers had reached 900, with two-thirds of them native-born.61 By the end of the eighteenth century, many Jews in Gibraltar not only were native-born British subjects but also involved in the upper echelons of trade, including wholesale dealers and international traders. By 1814, 41 percent of all adult British and native Jews in Gibraltar were wholesale dealers in international commerce, and Jews accounted for 22 percent of all wholesale dealers.62 Jews looking to establish a life in the early days of British Gibraltar did face occasional stumbling blocks. For example, when Colonel Roger Elliott allowed Moroccan Jews and Muslims to settle in 1707, he demanded that they pay steep fees for the privilege. Furthermore, when the Treaty of Utrecht was approved in 1713, giving Britain control of Gibraltar (which it retains to this day), the Spanish included a proviso that no Jews could settle there. In the renegotiations of the treaty between 1713 and 1760, Spain and Great Britain consistently maintained the provision that banned Jews from permanent settlement. Even if it was rarely enforced, it did render life more precarious. In 1717 Jews were expelled from the garrison in compliance with the treaty, though the outbreak of war between Britain and Spain the following year contributed to their readmission in 1718. But why were Moroccan Jews drawn to settle in the tiny enclave when it was not only politically and economically severed from the rest of Spain but also technically off-limits to them? How did this affect (newly Muslim) Oran’s history? As it happens, Spain’s efforts to isolate the British ended up drawing Jews back into the Iberian Peninsula. After Britain’s 1704 seizure of Gibraltar, the British needed to supply the garrison. Morocco was geographically and economically well situated to help and, as explained earlier, frequently happy to push against Spanish power in the western Mediterranean by increasing trade with Britain. Moroccan Jews came to Gibraltar in part to take advantage of business opportunities involved in supplying the garrison. Once Moroccan Jews were settled in Gibraltar, they developed or took advantage of previously established contacts in western Algeria to import more goods into Gibraltar. British needs in Gibraltar led to tighter relations with Morocco and, combined with Muhammad al-Kabir’s efforts to resuscitate Oran’s economy after 1792, a (frequently Jewish) North African trade network that would eventually bring the Lasry family to Oran. Troubled British-Spanish relations lent importance to the Moroccan Jewish network based in Gibraltar. When Spain laid siege to the garrison in 1727, Isaac

42

Mediterranean Oran

Netto, a Jewish merchant, translator, and founder of the first permanent synagogue in Gibraltar (Sha’ar HaShamayim), was given the monopoly of importing food from Morocco. After 1728 he went to London and four years later was himself appointed rabbi at London’s Sephardic Bevis Marks Synagogue. Abraham ben Attar was the treasurer to Mulay Ismael, emperor of Morocco, and used his position to smooth commercial relations with England. For example, in 1711, after Colonel Elliott’s exactions had become excessive, Ben Attar prevailed on the emperor to restrict exports to Gibraltar and inform the governor that he was expected to give better treatment to Moroccan subjects in Gibraltar, both Muslims and Jews. Ben Attar not only maintained links with merchants in London but also had an agent in Gibraltar, Samuel Alevy ben Zephat.63 British gains in the War of the Spanish Succession also affected Jewish economic activity in the Regency of Algiers. Naftali Busnach of Minorca (also ceded to Britain by the Treaty of Utrecht) was an exporter of wool to Livorno. In 1723 he moved to Algiers and founded a trading company. His grandson (also named Naftali) was a partner in the Algiers firm of Bacri and Busnach, which at the end of the eighteenth century had the monopoly on the export of wheat. Near the end of the century, when Oran came under Ottoman control, members of this Algiers-based family, including the powerful Mordecai (also referred to as Angelo or Ange) Amar, settled there. By the 1820s Amar would be the chief of the Jewish nation in Oran, a powerful merchant, an interlocutor between the French vice-consulate and the bey of Oran, and a formidable business rival to Jacob Lasry. The rise of commerce in Oran, however, had much to do with the increasing power of the Regency of Algiers. ALGIERS The story of Oran and Lasry’s arrival there at the beginning of the nineteenth century overlaps with the concurrent political and economic ascendance of ­Algiers. Despite an older scholarly tradition of representing North Africa as static or in decline before European colonization, the Regency of Algiers was actually enjoying increasing naval power.64 Already by 1748 British residents in Algiers were remarking on the formidable power of the Regency and its relative superiority with respect to its enemies. Thomas Bolton, chaplain of a British company in Algiers, alleged that Algiers was more dangerous to its enemies than France and Spain together were to Great Britain.65 In 1754 British consul Stanhope Aspinwall wrote that Algiers could eventually represent a bigger threat to British shipping than France. Algiers managed to take twelve Portu-



Mediterranean Oran

43

guese ships in a few months in 1785, and in 1802 the city was said to possess sixty-six ships mounting 420 guns.66 This energy was also manifest in several (unsuccessful) attempts at industrialization and in an increase in commerce. The relative weakness of the Regency in its 1830 confrontation with France notwithstanding, its recapture of Oran is one of several examples suggesting that it was far from stagnant or isolated in the last decades before the French conquest. Although popular and scholarly attention has tended to focus on piracy’s role in the preconquest economy of Algiers, the Regency’s capital also hosted a number of Muslim merchants whose families formed much of the social and intellectual elite of the city. In contrast to the most powerful Jewish merchant families, such as the Busnachs and the Bacris, who often dealt in large quantities of cattle and grain, the Muslim merchants of Algiers frequently dealt in smaller quantities of a wider selection of products. Ahmad Budarba, for example, working out of Algiers and Marseilles in the 1820s, laded (for the account of his father, Hajj Mustapha Budarba) twenty-one products aboard the Aurore in 1822. These products included a small container of sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride, similar to sodium carbonate, which is used for jewelry making and for refining precious metals), four barrels of alum (used for fixing colors in dyed fabrics), five bags of coffee, fifty-seven dozen wooden planks, two rolls of sheets, two small containers containing steel wire, and a crate of mirrors.67 Some of these merchants, such as Hajj Ahmed and ‘Abd al-Rahman Sabiyyar, followed the same commercial currents of Jewish merchants, working between Algiers and Gibraltar. Others, such as Bin Wali and Muhammad Mulud, participated in Oran’s commercial life with Jewish merchants but conducted business in Algiers as well.68 Similarly manifest in the trajectories of both Jewish and Muslim commercial families, there was little space between cultural and material capital. Muslim merchant families often counted well-educated Ottoman administrators and Islamic scholars in their midst.69 For example, a certain H. Huja was described as “the great merchant here” by the English consul Robert William St. John but also acquired the title of ‘alim and taught at the Mosque of Algiers. His father, ‘Utman Huja was of Turkish origin and occupied a high position in the Ottoman state, that of daftardar, or head of secretaries charged with keeping account registers of the state and of certain military units.70 He too was an ‘alim and a professor. Muslim families were also known to attract state interest. Ottoman authorities in Istanbul maintained ties with elite Algerian Muslim commercial families, reflecting and reinforcing their high social and intellec-

44

Mediterranean Oran

tual rank. After 1830 French authorities would also make them privileged interlocutors with the wider population. In addition to commerce, Muhammad al-Kabir tried to develop local industry to offset European manufactured imports. The 1786 treaty between the Regency of Algiers and Spain was followed by an agreement in 1792 that led to the Spanish Cabana group creating a soap factory in Algiers; a similar agreement was reached with a Catalan concern.71 Cabana also reached an agreement with the Kingdom of Morocco to create another factory in Casablanca. These agreements were tied to others that would allow the Spanish to continue to export cereals and cattle from the Regency of Algiers, including Oran. Of course, soap had long been created in the Regency, but on a smaller scale for household and local use. In Oran, Muhammad al-Kabir made an effort toward the end of the eighteenth century to grow barilla, a type of tree used to produce soda ash, as a source of sodium carbonate for soap and thus as a replacement for an ingredient that had in the past been imported from Spain. These attempts failed to produce long-term benefits because of their dependence on Spanish expertise and the facility of imports. Bey Muhammad al-Kabir also attempted to manufacture arms locally. The need for arms frequently emerged in diplomatic correspondence between the Regency of Algiers and France during the eighteenth century.72 Like soap, arms production has a history in the Regency. Tribal and urban arms workshops had made guns in Tlemcen, Mascara, and Mostaganem. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, there was even a cannon factory in Algiers and several small forges for the creation of projectiles. Oran, however, had historically received its arms from Spain, and its defensive cannons were removed when the Spanish relinquished the city. Between the dey’s fear of granting local governors of Oran too many arms that might end up opposing his power in the west and Spain’s decision to ban Spanish experts from helping local manufacturers, efforts at serious development of a local arms industry ended up failing. Such efforts to develop manufacturing nevertheless point to an often overlooked dynamism in the late-eighteenth-century economy and military profile of Algiers. CONCLUSION Commerce was crucial to Oran’s early-nineteenth-century fortunes, echoing the late medieval history outlined in the first part of this chapter. If isolation and war led to an early modern decline, after 1792 Oran gained a new lease on life. Renewed access to its agricultural interior and to trans-Saharan caravan



Mediterranean Oran

45

traffic and a robust market for these goods drove a new, if modest, success. The Oran of the first decades of the nineteenth century, when Jacob Lasry first established himself there, was in some ways a new town, having been largely isolated for years, damaged in an earthquake, and only recently reintegrated into Mediterranean commercial networks. As we have seen, Oran owed its new life to the expanding and dynamic Regency of Algiers and the nearby markets for agricultural products. This trajectory also suggests the persistence of an interlinked Mediterranean world into the modern period. Oran’s rise had everything to do with its neighborhood. The situation of Gibraltar, for example, is relevant to our story. The British needed to supply Gibraltar, and the Algerians hoped to develop trade in its western province. Jewish merchants from nearby Morocco, such as Jacob Lasry, were on hand and were often drawn to take advantage of these new opportunities. As in earlier epochs, Oran in the early nineteenth century was attracting merchants, developing a trade in grain and hides, and looking north and westward to Spain for its markets. It is to Oran’s experience in these decades immediately preceding the French conquest that we now turn.

This page intentionally left blank

2

REBUILDING ORAN Jews, Beys, and Commerce, 1792–1830

I N A C E R TA I N R E S P E C T , the 1792 Ottoman conquest of Oran vindicated Don Joseph Vallejo’s 1734 prediction that Oran would remain deadweight so long as Spain held it. After 1792 the Regency of Algiers invited merchants to settle in Oran, opened Oran to the interior, and, in so doing, opened the Iberian Peninsula to products shipped from Oran. The city grew with efforts to expand the commercial importance of the Regency and with thanks to local resources and talent. Indeed, in the years following Oran’s reconquest, many of the late medieval commercial links discussed in Chapter 1 were renewed, with Oran increasingly seeing ships arrive from Iberian, European, and North African ports. Reflecting, perhaps, his conviction that Oran could be revived, Muhammad al-Kabir moved the capital of the western beylik of Algiers from Mascara to Oran. He also encouraged its repopulation by inviting inhabitants of the cities and tribes of the Regency to settle in the city. His appeal worked. Denizens of Tlemcen, Mascara, Milianah, and Médea settled in the town. Some of al-Kabir’s protégés from Algiers joined them, as did several notables he wished to distance from the capital. The newly Ottoman city was also peopled with members of neighboring tribal groups, such as the Doua’ir, the Z’māla, the Gharaba, and the Beni Ahmar. Immigrants were also drawn from Morocco, notably from Fez and the northeastern Rif town of Oujda. ­Al-Kabir’s push to consolidate power in the western part of the Regency produced new opportunities that attracted new life to Oran.

48

Rebuilding Oran: Jews, Beys, and Commerce, 1792–1830

Drawing on commercial records and consular notes from the years before the conquest, in this chapter I argue that late Ottoman Oran was well integrated into the economic life of the western Mediterranean and showed signs of growth. This runs counter to the colonial historiography that emphasizes Oran’s precolonial marginality and insignificance. As one historian put it, Oran was “nothing but a heap of ruins” on which “France would place the cradle of the proud and valiant Oran of today.”1 In the interest of decentering the role of A ­ lgeria’s future colonial dominators in the rise of merchants such as Jacob Lasry, I further emphasize the role of Moroccan Jewish merchants at this moment. Their presence demonstrates that the city’s commercial life was oriented toward the Iberian Peninsula and Italy and was conducted on Sardinian, British, and even Swedish ships. Finally, I explore a small port city’s life through the merchants and consuls who were stationed there in the last decades before the French conquest. This approach offers a sense of the commercial and social currents that attracted Lasry, a Moroccan-Gibraltarian Jew who had roots in the far more significant cities of Rabat and Tétouan, to what might be considered a frontier town. What emerges from this approach in a particularly striking manner, given the creeping amnesia about Jews’ long presence in Algeria, is the important role Jews played in Oran’s early-nineteenth-century development.2 In the decades following the Ottoman conquest of Oran, Jews from the nearby cities of ­Mostaganem, Mascara, Nedroma, and Tlemcen heeded the Regency’s invitation to settle in the new capital of the western province, initiating the modern Jewish population of Oran.3 Indeed, the Jews of Oran have a specific origin story. According to the official charter between the bey of Algiers and three Jewish notables (Ould Jacob, Yonah ben Daoud, and Amram ben Merwas), the bey sold a sizable piece of land on which new arrivals would be permitted to build what would soon be Oran’s Jewish quarter. Located on the outskirts of the old casbah, the area was known locally as Reha al-Rih.4 The nineteenth-century rabbi and historian Isaac Bloch, who had access to a written version of this agreement (it was drawn up several years later, in 1801) and to Spanish consular records left in Algiers, noted that the agreement also provided for a Jewish cemetery in Sidi Sha’aban, a village outside Oran. Additional Jewish migrants from Algiers, Morocco, and Gibraltar followed this initial Jewish settlement in Oran. In keeping with the bey’s plans for his new conquest, many of the new Muslim and Jewish settlers in Oran were businessmen drawn to new opportunities in the trade of goods between various ports of the western Mediterranean.5



Rebuilding Oran: Jews, Beys, and Commerce, 1792–1830

49

F IG U R E 3 .   Oran in 1838, just after the conquest. Note the new neighborhood opposite the Ras al-‘Ayin ravine from the casbah, which was largely Jewish. From Auguste-Henri Dufour, “Algérie: dédiée au roi,” 1838. Gallica.bnf.fr (Bibliothèque Nationale de France).

The commercial and migratory flows traced in this chapter illustrate the pitfalls of identifying a singular, autonomous, or unified “Jewish nation” in Oran. This is despite the fact that the archives regularly refer to the town’s Jewish nation and clearly refer to an official chief of this nation. Later colonial authorities would link the end of this traditional office with France’s dissolution of the Jewish nation’s legal autonomy (a policy executed in the first years of colonial rule) and its replacement, in the 1840s, by modern consistories intended to guide Jews toward assimilation. Yet the variety of origins, legal regimes, and social classes that defined the Jews of Oran in this early period belie any intimations of unity or autonomy conveyed by the term nation. Even

50

Rebuilding Oran: Jews, Beys, and Commerce, 1792–1830

though the archives deny us a nuanced picture of what the “nation” actually meant in the quotidian lives of Oran’s inhabitants in the late regency period, evidence does suggest that it did not encompass a unified, legally distinct, or autonomous population about which one could make easy generalizations. Rather, we see Jews of various provenances soldering interconfessional business ties and mobilizing the legal clout of multiple authorities. This is noteworthy, given that the commercial dynamics of early-nineteenth-century Oran were intertwined with both the establishment of a Jewish population and with its legal and social diversity. These dynamics were what brought Jacob Lasry, a successful merchant with connections to a wealthy shipbuilding family in Gibraltar and a taste for new opportunities, to Oran. The date of his arrival in the port is unknown, but he was at least working out of Oran in 1828, and by the time he applied for a passport in Gibraltar in 1829, he ambiguously listed his nationality as “inhabitant of Oran.”6 It was not simply the availability of land or the invitation of rulers that would bring the likes of Lasry to Oran. To understand the lure of Oran, we must reconstruct the larger commercial context in which it was situated. This is the fundamental ambition of this chapter. ORAN AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD I N T H E E A R LY N I N E T E E N T H C E N T U RY Oran’s situation on the eve of the occupation, both its strengths and weaknesses, was tied to developments in its wider Mediterranean neighborhood. The importance of Morocco to this nascent port was paramount. The makhzen (government, a term used for the ruling authorities in Morocco and in western Algeria; the term makhzen denotes “storehouse,” as the government possessed stores of grain) in Morocco had been pushing against increasing Spanish influence by encouraging its own maritime trade with Britain through Gibraltar, a development that drew western Algeria into their sphere.7 What’s more, European actions against corsair activity, most strikingly manifest in the 1816 Anglo-Dutch bombardment of Algiers, forced the Ottoman leadership to go to the interior for revenues. This unsettled relationships with rural tribes and led some in Oran and Tlemcen to look toward the ‘Alawi Sultanate of Morocco for help.8 Later, as the French occupation began, Morocco’s makhzen used its commercial agents in Gibraltar, who were already involved in trade with Algeria, to monitor the situation in the west of this territory. This Moroccan influence almost certainly shaped the networks within which Lasry, along with a small



Rebuilding Oran: Jews, Beys, and Commerce, 1792–1830

51

class of other Moroccan-Gibraltarian Jewish merchants in western Algeria, worked. To a Jewish merchant of Moroccan background, early-nineteenthcentury Oran was a city of untapped possibility. In addition to being in Morocco’s orbit, Oran was a vassal of Algiers. The city owed an annual tribute to the dey, and its own governor (the bey) ruled over the cities of Mostaganem, Mascara, and Tlemcen. The bey of Oran had to balance his authority against local tribal confederations, whose loyalty to the Ottoman authority (whether in Algiers or Oran) was inconsistent. On the bey’s side, the tribal confederations of the Doua’ir and the Z’māla were the most important in the beylik, and together they formed the beylik’s makhzen, supplying soldiers to Ottoman officials when needed. Before al-Kabir took Oran, he and the makhzen were based in Mascara, and they were charged with blocking Spanish raids and advances. When the capital was moved to Oran, they continued to own many of the buildings of Mascara, and the ruling body continued to store grain there, guarded by Ottoman janissaries.9 The British, using Moroccan Jewish traders, largely eclipsed the French commercial presence in western Algeria.10 The French were dominant in the eastern port of El Kala (La Calle), slightly east of Annaba (Bône), where they held a monopoly on coral fishing.11 But the British were more likely to provide protection for merchants who linked Oran with other ports in the western Mediterranean and Spain, such as Cartagena, Málaga, Almería, and A ­ lgeciras. Furthermore, the 1492 Alhambra expulsion order notwithstanding, local Spanish authorities sometimes turned a blind eye to Jewish or crypto-Jewish merchants established in cities on the littoral or the Balearic Islands to take advantage of their commercial links with Jews operating out of North African ports such as Oran. One of the most important features of Oran’s neighborhood that contributed to its coming back to life after the Ottoman conquest, however, was the Sephardic diaspora. The records of the Spanish consulate of Oran in the first years of the nineteenth century, for example, indicate that many of the most prominent merchants in Oran were from Jewish families with members in Spanish ports, including the Cohen-Salmon, Levy Bram, Abulker, and Temim families.12 Furthermore, Jews were also key in weaving Oran back into commercial exchange with Oran’s interior; one of the early French mentions of Oran’s muqaddem (chief of the Jewish nation, or sheikh al-yahud) involved his ability to effectively negotiate commerce between tribesmen who brought goods into town and the Jewish shop owners who purchased them.13 Oran’s Jewish

52

Rebuilding Oran: Jews, Beys, and Commerce, 1792–1830

mercantile class linked the city with the North African interior and with other western Mediterranean ports in the early decades of the nineteenth century. Their important role would endure well into the colonial period, even as French observers celebrated their own responsibility in reviving Oran and uplifting its so-called indigenous Jews. Some Jewish families were particularly prominent in the early days of Oran’s reestablishment of and reintegration with such Iberian ports as ­Gibraltar, M ­ álaga, Cartagena, or Almería. The Cabessas, for example, a wealthy Moroccan-Gibraltarian Jewish family to which I return in Chapter 3, offers an example of this network. Israel Cabessa, born in Tétouan, established himself and his family in Gibraltar before eventually moving to Oran. He maintained frequent contacts with the dey, either directly, through other Jewish intermediaries in Algeria, or through the dey’s representative in Gibraltar.14 In 1809 Israel’s son Joseph was established at the Spanish port of Almería. By August Joseph was back in Oran and engaged in large-volume trades, exporting cattle and wool to the Balearic Islands and Spain. It is likely that he was related to Jacob Lasry’s second wife, whose father was also named Israel and who carried the Cabessa family name.15 The power of the higher echelons of Oran’s Jewish merchants to link their city and its leadership with other states meant that Jews’ influence extended into the political realm. A series of examples illustrates this point. Mordechai Darmon, muqaddem of the Jews in Mascara, served as an adviser to several beys there, including Muhammad al-Kabir. When the latter invited Jews from other parts of western Algeria to settle in Oran, Darmon was among those who responded, establishing a synagogue that bore his family name on what became Rue de Ratisbone.16 A relative of his, Amram Darmon, was born in Oran in 1815 and became a military interpreter in 1834. In 1836 he would participate in the Tlemcen expedition with Jacob Lasry.17 Another influential Jewish family went by the name Busnach. Members of the Busnach family, with roots in Oran and Livorno, were often influential in the court of the deys and were also merchants and ship owners.18 Joseph Cohen Bacri was yet another significant merchant of early Oran. He worked as a merchant-banker and served as the muqaddem of the Jewish community of Algiers from 1811 to 1816.19 Along with three of his brothers, Jacob, Mordecai, and Solomon, he founded a trading company in 1782. Jacob, who had a close relationship with Dey Hassan and frequently acted as his agent, traveled under the dey’s protection when doing business. Indeed, Jacob was given spe-



Rebuilding Oran: Jews, Beys, and Commerce, 1792–1830

53

cial privileges to trade in Marseilles in 1795 as the representative of the dey.20 He also held considerable French debts (which, left unpaid, contributed to the souring relations between the Regency of Algiers and France in the 1820s). ­Finally, David Durand held the post of muqaddem of the Oran Jewish community in the early nineteenth century while also serving as consul-­general for the Republic of Ragusa (Sicily), as an active merchant in the trade with Spain, and as a frequent trading partner with Israel Cabessa.21 The political roles such wealthy Jewish merchants played in the Regency of Algiers may have changed with the onset of French rule, but they did not necessarily disappear. The important services that Jewish families provided to the governors in the days of the Regency explain why such merchants could be problematic for the new French authority after 1830. Consider the case of Aron Cordoso. A Jew of Spanish origin, Cordoso was the head of the Jewish community in Gibraltar and the chargé d’affaires to the dey of Algiers there. In 1805 the government of Gibraltar sent Cordoso to Oran in a British military ship loaded with gun­ powder, which was to be exchanged for cattle to help supply the newly conquered garrison. Landing in Oran, Cordoso learned that the bey was absent in the midst of combat against local tribes that were resisting his efforts to extract tribute. Accompanied by the British captain, several other British officers, and an Arab escort, Cordoso traveled to the bey’s camp. Clearly, the situation was advantageous for a merchant offering gunpowder; Cordoso’s ship left Oran for Gibraltar on December 5, 1805, loaded with 200 head of cattle and 100 sheep.22 In 1833, however, this type of transaction was seen differently; French generals complained about the “illicit” trade between Arzew (near Oran) and Gibraltar. This trading route was, they fretted, largely in the hands of Jews who did not hesitate to bring British arms and gunpowder into the hands of tribes hostile to the French.23 Interestingly, some of the Jewish families who participated in the trade between Morocco, Gibraltar, and the Regency of Algiers had histories in Oran predating the seventeenth-century Spanish expulsion. Among the highly placed Jews who helped negotiate between the emperor of Morocco and the British to readmit the Jews to Gibraltar after the 1717 expulsion order was Jacob de Salvador Cansino. His family had often held the important position of royal Arabic interpreter in Spanish Oran before the previous expulsion in 1669.24 In the decades between the expulsion and the British conquest of Gibraltar in 1704, the family had reestablished itself in Livorno and Morocco. With the expansion of British power in the western Mediterranean at the beginning of

54

Rebuilding Oran: Jews, Beys, and Commerce, 1792–1830

the eighteenth century, members of the family settled in Gibraltar and Minorca (the latter was ceded to Britain by the Treaty of Utrecht). When Oran fell to Algiers in the late eighteenth century, these families and others like them were well poised to quickly revive mercantile circuits that already linked British Gibraltar to Muslim North Africa. COMMERCE IN ORAN Gibraltar’s needs for provisions may have initially piqued mercantile interest in Oran, for the ensuing trade also brought goods, including coffee, into Oran’s port. Coffee, regardless of its African origins, was not a local product by the first half of the nineteenth century. (French colonies in the Caribbean were  the origin of fully two-thirds of the world’s coffee in the late eighteenth century, whereas South and Southeast Asia provided much of the rest.25) Coffee was a frequently mentioned import in early-nineteenth-century Oran. Manufactured textiles, arms, and other goods from Britain are also referred to in the archival record, and at least one deal went terribly awry when payment was delayed in Oran for a shipment of “100 barrels of American flour,” which had since “increased in price 5 francs at Gibraltar, and decreased 8 at Algiers.”26 By 1830 Oran, whether as a producer, a market, or an intermediary port between Algiers and Gibraltar, witnessed a variety of global produce passing through its harbor. If merchants were savvy enough to know the prices of American flour at various western Mediterranean ports, other indications also point to a nascent cosmopolitanism among Oran’s commercial class. Ships registered in Tuscany, Algiers, and Sweden shared Oran’s maritime traffic, ferrying goods between Livorno, Genoa, Algiers, and occasionally, Marseilles. Ships often flew the flag of Sardinia, which, since the 1815 Congress of Vienna, had been united with Piedmont (under the House of Savoy) and held the important port of Genoa. According to the records, lighter loads of processed goods often came in, whereas heavier, often more costly, loads of grains shipped out. For example, the Algiers-based ship Massouda arrived from its home port on November 22, 1821, carrying the bey of Oran’s “baggage” (presumably goods he acquired in ­Algiers) and left on December 6 carrying barley to Gibraltar. The Sardinian ship Concezione arrived from Algiers on November 21 in ballast (empty, at least officially), leaving three days later loaded with wheat bound for Genoa. ­Another Sardinian ship, Clementino, sailed from Algiers to Oran on November 26 laden with iron, fabric, and tobacco and left for Genoa with wheat, wool, gold, and silver on December 18. According to French estimates, the value of exports



Rebuilding Oran: Jews, Beys, and Commerce, 1792–1830

55

(149,664 francs) was more than twice that of imports (63,750 francs) during this period. Being an effective merchant in Oran probably required a certain savvy regarding commodity prices in other ports of the western Mediterranean. Oran’s tight relationship with British Gibraltar was of particular consequence, however. For example, shipping reports from the last two months of 1821 note that the English ship Macdonnel had regular service between the two ports. On November 1 the Macdonnel sailed to Oran from Gibraltar carrying seven sacks of coffee and five balles (rolls, large measures) of cotton fabric.27 Six days later, on November 7, the same ship left for Gibraltar carrying 3,400 measures of barley, valued at 4,800 francs. By November 27, the same ship returned once again to Oran carrying wooden planks and cotton material, this time labeled “English fabric.” After another nine days, on December 6, the ship sailed back to Gibraltar, this time carrying a lighter load of 2,460 measures of barley. Other English ships also made a similar practice of weekly trips back and forth between Oran and Gibraltar, or triangular trips linking Oran and Gibraltar with Algiers or an Italian port, such as Livorno. Although I will discuss how Lasry and other merchants dealt with conquest in Chapter 3, here I note that Oran’s integration with western Mediterranean commerce, which continued into the colonial period, both frustrated French efforts to control it and belied later French claims about Oran’s state of absolute ruin when they arrived. When the French attempted to impose controls on this commerce in the first years of the occupation, enterprising local merchants, including Lasry, used the nearby port of Arzew to escape new restrictions. This inspired a number of complaints from local military authorities. “From the beginning of the occupation,” wrote one French officer in 1833, “ships of all the Italian nations, Sardinians, Tuscans, Austrians, Napolitan, and even several Spanish [vessels] sail under British colors, charged with cereals, hides, and other products fraudulently carried, sail to Gibraltar where they sell their cargoes, and bring back arms and powder.”28 Far from corroborating later historians’ claim that Oran was but a pile of ruins, records suggest that the French actually found themselves unequipped to control the lively trade that had developed in western Algeria before they arrived. European commerce in North Africa has been called the Trojan horse of colonialism, but the example of Oran reminds us that one country’s colonialism sometimes followed another country’s trade.29 Oran would grow into the second largest port and the most demographically “European” of Algeria’s cities, but French commerce in Oran did not dominate during the last decades of

56

Rebuilding Oran: Jews, Beys, and Commerce, 1792–1830

Ottoman rule. A French consulate in Oran was opened in 1719 (after the 1708 Ottoman conquest of the city), and the eighteenth century saw trade between Oran and French ports. Despite this, French consuls recorded few French vessels coming through Oran in the early nineteenth century. For example, for the entire year of 1822, only three of the fifty-one ships docked at Oran were French. The merchants of Marseilles, however, were responsible for 61,000 francs worth of goods imported into Oran during the same period (compared to 139,000 francs worth of goods imported by local Jewish merchants). In March 1823 the French vice-consul in Oran lamented that no French ships had passed through Oran over the past three months and that the Marseilles merchants who had passed through on other nations’ ships in past years to buy wool and leather and who had assured the consulate of their return had never reappeared.30 Even in Algiers, where the French were well represented, they still shared the port with British, Sardinian, Russian, Spanish, and Danish merchants. If commerce served to expand European influence in the larger sense, French colonialism in Oran did not follow a strong commercial presence. This is not to say that the French were not active in other Algerian ports in the period leading up to the conquest. In Annaba the Marseilles-based Compagnie d’Afrique purchased the rights to maintain a monopoly on coral fishing and export (often in nearby El Kala), though fisherman from southern Italy often did the actual diving.31 In the mid-1820s French ships operating in the Regency might have imported goods into Algiers, passed along the coast eastward to Annaba, and loaded up with hides, wool, coral, or wax for export. Of course, French merchants may have operated under the radar in Oran too, selling goods shipped on various accounts on different ships or selling their goods to local, Oran-based shops for local resale. Nevertheless, French trade was far more visible in the east of the Regency. COMMERCE JUIF IN ORAN The modern emergence of Oran from the remains of an abandoned Spanish presidio is the story of a newly Muslim city and its recently acquired merchants, many if not most of whom were Jewish. Early-nineteenth-century vice-consular logs contain organized records of Oran’s commerce according to several categories, with commerce juif counted alongside those labeled Sardinian, British, or French.32 The slice of trade categorized as Jewish was frequently the largest in Oran. For example, in the first three months of 1823, 56,000 francs worth of goods were brought into Oran. This included 50,000 francs worth of



Rebuilding Oran: Jews, Beys, and Commerce, 1792–1830

57

sugar, coffee, and cotton fabrics brought from Gibraltar on the English ship Benpardo and 6,000 francs worth of cotton brought on the earlier-mentioned Algerian ship Massouda, presumably originating in a European workshop. According to the French consul, the entirety of this merchandise was attributed to the account of commerce juif in Oran.33 In addition to these two ships, six other ships came into Oran during this period in ballast, three of which were hired by Oran Jews, presumably for exporting goods to Gibraltar or elsewhere. During the same season of 1825, Oran’s Jewish merchants were responsible for even more commerce. Oran’s Jews purchased 80,000 francs worth of the merchandise imported into Oran, constituting 75 percent of the total of 106,000 francs.34 This figure may well underestimate Jewish involvement; the remaining shipments were bought on the account of the English vice-consul, and Jewish Gibraltarian merchants sometimes partnered with these agents. (As we will see, many shipments through the 1820s were attributed to both an English agent and Jewish commerce in Oran.) The entirety of these goods were imported from Gibraltar.35 During later years and during other times of the year, these proportions were not radically different. For example, in the summer months of 1825 all of Oran’s imports were on Jewish accounts. It would not be an exaggeration to say that imports were a Jewish business in Oran on the eve of the conquest. As for exports, the level of commerce varied considerably according to the season, as did the Jewish merchants’ participation in it. Spring and summer months were busier for exports than the winter months, and tribute to the dey of Algiers was figured into the export figures irregularly. In any case, Jewish participation in exports was significant. In the same first three months of 1823 discussed earlier, the Jewish nation in Oran was responsible for 22,000 francs worth of exports, out of a total of 48,000 francs (all of it being barley bound for Gibraltar), with the remainder counted as tribute for the dey of Algiers.36 Two other ships that left Oran had been hired by Jews but were sent out in ballast (in this case, to Barcelona), presumably after having sold their goods locally. During the summer of 1823, when more than 211,000 francs worth of goods was reportedly shipped out of Oran, 118,000 francs was attributed directly to Jewish commerce or to the English agent in conjunction with the Jewish traders of Oran.37 In the winter of 1825 all the exports out of Oran were attributed to the English agent or to Jewish commerce.38 By the 1820s Oran had developed from the Spanish presidio described in Chapter 1 into a growing, largely Jewish trading post under the aegis of the Ottoman Regency of Algiers.

58

Rebuilding Oran: Jews, Beys, and Commerce, 1792–1830

Furthermore, a number of these Jewish merchants were aware of the growing value and importance of Oran’s real estate, and a number of them invested their earnings in buildings and land in and around the city of Oran. The two professional titles négociant (merchant, usually well-off) and propriétaire (owner, landlord) are regularly coupled in early French colonial état civil records when describing Jewish births, deaths, and marriages. As we will see in the following chapters, some of Jacob Lasry’s earliest tangles with French ­authorities—not to mention local Jewish rabbinic authorities—had to do with his purchases of buildings, some from the outgoing bey of Oran. By the time the colonial authorities attempted to regularize property records in the 1840s, Jewish merchants held a great deal of the property in and around Oran, with Jacob Lasry possibly holding the honor of being the largest single landowner. The registers suggest that the 1792 Ottoman conquest of Oran from the Spanish was not only a boon for Jewish businessmen but also an opportunity for Muslim merchants. For example, in the summer of 1823 Algiers-based Muslim traders booked a Swedish ship to bring wool, rendered fat, hides, and wax to Marseilles.39 By spring 1825, if not earlier, local Muslim merchants in Oran were, like their Jewish neighbors, involved in exporting commodities to British Gibraltar. Specifically, ships categorized by the local French consul as commerce maure, or Muslim commerce, of Oran brought 5,000 francs worth of cattle to the British garrison on a Sardinian (Genovese) ship between April and June of that year.40 Muslims may very well have been responsible for carrying out the local beylik’s obligation to ship barley and other grains to the dey in Algiers.41 Furthermore, Jewish traders sometimes partnered with Muslim merchants, a fact that raises the question of how much of the business labeled “Jewish commerce” was simultaneously the work of Muslim colleagues. Although some transactions are listed as Jewish commerce in one place, they are listed elsewhere as Jewish and Muslim.42 This suggests that officials may have labeled commerce Jewish or Muslim depending on various factors, such as their own connection to the merchants involved. As we will see in Chapter 3, the British vice-consulate sometimes had a particular stake in a given partner, even if ­others were involved. Some Jewish-Muslim partnerships took unlikely forms. In March 1825, for example, the Algiers merchant Sid Ahmet bin Haat Saat (or, according to his Arabic signature, Abd Rabbah Ahmad bin Ihmaad bin Sa’id Ifzaaz) and Judah Benseria, listed in a contract as “Jewish merchant established at Oran,” made a business agreement. According to the records of the French vice-consul, who apparently served as witness, Benseria had contracted



Rebuilding Oran: Jews, Beys, and Commerce, 1792–1830

59

a boat to bring cattle from Oran to Gibraltar but did not have the funds to fill the boat with merchandise. Fortunately, Ahmet was on hand with sufficient merchandise to complete the cargo. Furthermore, he (or an agent of his) was going to be in Gibraltar at the time of the planned delivery. They agreed that Ahmet would advance the cattle necessary to complete Benseria’s cargo and that this would put Benseria into debt to Ahmet to the tune of 500 “strong Spanish piasters” (presumably Spanish dollars, or pieces of eight). Furthermore, the debt would be repaid in Gibraltar upon delivery of the cattle. Once the cattle were sold in Gibraltar and the captain of the boat paid, stated the agreement, a certain Gibraltar-based merchant by the name of Haim Balenzi would repay Ahmet or his agent.43

F IG U R E 4 .   Loading cattle for export from a North African port. Photograph from the author’s collection.

60

Rebuilding Oran: Jews, Beys, and Commerce, 1792–1830

The agreement is interesting beyond the fact that it testifies to Jewish-­ Muslim partnerships in precolonial Oran. It is effectively a Muslim loan to a Jewish merchant—a reversal of the more expected role of Jews as lenders in North Africa and elsewhere. Furthermore, it illustrates how interconfessional business partnerships relied on European vice-consuls as authorities, a dynamic illuminating how religious boundaries were bypassed in drawing up contracts in late Ottoman Oran. Why the French vice-consul was chosen as a witness and adjudicator, as opposed to a Muslim or English official, is unclear. Perhaps the British vice-consul was not seen as an impartial party, especially given the likelihood that Benseria was Gibraltarian and had status as a British protected person.44 In any case, the deal provides evidence that the Jewish merchants who linked Oran with Gibraltar and other western Mediterranean ports relied on Muslim partners. If Jews were strikingly prominent in Oran’s commerce, they did not function without Muslim help—and presumably competition.45 This example is also a reminder that the existence of an institution known as a Jewish nation should not blind us to the fact that business ties and systems of authority did not necessarily follow confessional boundaries in precolonial Oran. If anything, Benseria and Ahmet’s turn to a vice-consul for assistance in their deal suggests that social position or class rather than religion was key in determining where one might seek legal authority. Another example, albeit drawn from Tétouan, can provide some hints as to how the existence of Jewish communal officers was seen as representative of coherent or autonomous Jewish “communities” in the precolonial Maghreb. In 1831 the English vice-consul in Tétouan reported the following case: Efraim . . . , a native of Gibraltar, about 90 years old, brought a complaint against several Jew Boys (names unknown) for throwing stones at him, by which he was prevented going to his prayers at the synagogue or walking out of his house. The Sheik of the Jews was called to the vice consulate and warned to guard against such insults to British subjects for the future under pain of complaint to be made of himself to the Kaid.46

In the resolution of this dispute, the fact that Efraim was a British subject— and probably of a higher social class than his attackers—was clearly of greater importance than his religious identity. This is despite the fact that all parties in the conflict were Jewish. Indeed, Efraim’s power lay in his ability to mobilize the British consul to threaten the nominal Jewish authority with punishment that the qa’id (commander) would ultimately dole out. As we will explore



Rebuilding Oran: Jews, Beys, and Commerce, 1792–1830

61

in Chapter 3, Jacob Lasry’s ties with the British vice-consul similarly appear far more consequential than his association with any local Jewish “nation” or community. Such cases suggest that it would be unwise to overestimate the meaning, power, or coherence of institutions such as the muqaddem or the Jewish nation that later colonial officials took to reflect traditional, backward, and autonomous communal structures. JEWS, POWER, AND THE PERILS OF PRIVILEGE According to received narratives, the French conquest led to a radical break in the situation of Algeria’s Jews; upon their arrival, the French dismantled the preexisting communal structures, released Jews from Islamic restrictions, and created the consistory; Jewish assimilation and emancipation quickly followed. But the position of Oran’s Jewish merchants actually enjoyed some continuity between the precolonial and the early colonial periods. Notably, they continued to work closely with the authorities in positions that encompassed both political and commercial roles. Shortly after Jacob Lasry enters the archival record, for example, he was making deals with the last bey of Oran and working closely with the French occupying general, Bertrand Clauzel. These lofty connections served as precursors to Lasry’s becoming a member of the Chamber of Commerce and one of the most important property owners in the city and assuming a position of some visibility in the civil administration. In the precolonial period Jews in Oran also played important roles at high echelons in a society where commerce and politics were closely interlinked. Several vignettes serve to shed some light on how Jews, to their advantage or disadvantage, fit into the structure of authority in Lasry’s Oran.47 One figure who played an outsized role in the commercial and political life of precolonial Oran was the merchant Mordecai Amar, who was alternatively described as a French agent, a broker, or the bey’s “Jewish minister.”48 Having contacts with local tribes also helped govern relationships among (Jewish) shopkeepers in town and the Arab merchants who brought goods into the ­market.49 Amar, as a member of what would later be known as the emir’s Jewish court, would serve as an intermediary between Abd al-Kader, the chief of the most powerful coalition fighting the French in the early 1830s, and the French generals based in Oran.50 Before the conquest, however, it was an established custom for new consuls or high officers of European states arriving in North African ports to be received by the other consuls and high-ranking officials residing in

62

Rebuilding Oran: Jews, Beys, and Commerce, 1792–1830

the town.51 So when the new French vice-consul arrived in Oran in 1821, he was received by a Mr. Sgitovitch, the captain of the port and vice-consul of England at the time, and by Amar, identified as “the French agent.” When the same viceconsul was first introduced to the bey of Oran, Amar was again the go-between; his proximity to the bey of Oran allowed French vice-consuls access to the local governor.52 British consuls similarly worked with well-established Jews who provided access to the bey. Jewish merchants in Oran also attained positions of influence by purchasing export rights, referred to as tiskeras (from the Arabic tazkira, pl. tazaakr), which were sold through the offices of the bey, thus helping to finance the government. Jews also probably gained some authority in the beylik of Oran by becoming censales. It is unclear exactly what this meant in early-nineteenth-century Oran, but in late medieval Spain, the institution of the censal was a system of public or institutional finance whereby individuals purchased bonds that granted them the right to receive a fixed income in perpetuity. In Spain ­censales structured the relationship of local lords with the Jewish community and “gave the former a vested interest in the growth and prosperity of the latter.” 53 In some cases censales could be bought back by the issuing institution. In Oran certain figures were referred to as “the bey’s censal ” and were responsible for a particular population or area.54 Whether or not there was overlap in how the institution functioned in Spain and in their former presidio, the fact that Jews held these official positions at least suggests a role in the political life of precolonial Oran. As expressions of a bey’s authority, such Jews also faced threats. Governors had only limited authority over the Ottoman troops stationed in Oran and faced challenges from local tribes or other governors.55 Isaac Bloch told the story of David Cabessa, a son of Israel Cabessa, whose experience illustrates the dangers Jews faced while serving as merchants to the bey.56 In 1813 David Cabessa accepted the mission of Bey Muhammad al-Rakid of Oran to buy gunpowder in Cartagena. Leaving with a number of Spanish traders from Oran, he was perhaps unaware of what the bey was planning to do with the gunpowder. After suppressing a tribal revolt that had crystallized around a Moroccan ­murabit (charismatic religious leader) by the name of Bou Terfas, Bey Muhammad rose against the newly installed dey Haji Ali ben Khrelil, who had declared war on the Regency of Tunis. When Agha Omar, fighting on behalf of the dey, captured Bey Muhammad, he tortured and killed him. David Cabessa ended up being arrested as an accomplice to the revolt. His brother Joseph meanwhile,



Rebuilding Oran: Jews, Beys, and Commerce, 1792–1830

63

implicated in a related theft of royal jewels, managed to escape to Alicante (where his brother Solomon owned a house), but he too was arrested in 1815. David managed to prove his innocence, but Joseph was sentenced to forced labor. The incident was eventually resolved through significant payments on the part of the Spanish government to avoid a larger conflict with the Regency of Algiers, but it demonstrates the perils of this sort of commerce. In January 1822 the French vice-consul in Oran related an event to his superiors in Algiers that also suggests both the power and precariousness of Jews in the city of Oran in the decades leading up to the conquest. A censal to the bey of Oran, referred to as Aron, reportedly exchanged some hostile words with a janissary (Ottoman soldier) who had “mistreated” another Jew. According to the soldier, in the course of the exchange, Aron blasphemed Islam in public.57 The testimony recalls an almost circuslike atmosphere: Twenty-two bystanders claimed to have witnessed it, all calling for the qadi (Muslim judge), who arrived to hear the facts, to punish the Jewish censal. In the absence of the bey, whom the consul described as the final arbiter of such a case, Aron was imprisoned. Events that transpired afterward say as much about the limits of beylical authority in Oran as they do about Jews’ security or lack thereof. According to the report, local authorities (apart from the military) saw a case involving the censal as ultimately the bey’s privilege to deal with as he saw fit. In this case he took the case lightly, ordering Aron freed pending more facts about the accusations. The accused appeared in public, was promptly accosted by the same Ottoman soldier he had had words with earlier, and only narrowly escaped the soldier’s attempt on his life. The janissary, perhaps reasoning that there would be consequences for attacking an agent of the bey, sought safety in the café at the Ottoman barracks, which had traditionally been regarded as an asylum. An agent of the bey brought in an official known simple as the qa’id, who arrested him regardless of the custom of treating the café as an asylum and imprisoned the soldier in the bey’s castle. This perceived violation of the janissaries’ space by agents of the bey of Oran was not taken well. According to the vice-consul, the entire Ottoman garrison then presented itself in front of the castle and demanded that their colleague be released. Furthermore, they threatened to attack the castle and to free him by force if they were not obeyed. The qa’id apparently felt he had no choice but to release the soldier. In the midst of the drama, many of the Ottoman soldiers called for revenge on the Jews of Oran for the insult provoked by the actions of the censal.

64

Rebuilding Oran: Jews, Beys, and Commerce, 1792–1830

A lieutenant to the bey with the title of caliph (an office responsible for, among other things, going to Algiers twice a year and delivering Oran’s tribute to the dey) apparently calmed the soldiers, but the Jews of Oran were on alert; they purportedly stayed indoors for several days to avoid being attacked.58 When the bey returned, he attempted to satisfy the various factions; the two officers who removed the soldier from the café were dismissed, and the protesting soldiers were asked to be satisfied with this consolation. Meanwhile, the Jewish nation was fined 1,200 Spanish dollars. Who exactly the Jewish nation consisted of remains unclear, but the story does suggest that in the newly established capital of the western beylik, Jews both reinforced and were dependent on the governor’s authority. Of course, the episode also evokes the limits of a governor’s authority in Oran. He may have been the highest ranking official in the province, but he was not necessarily in full command of the Ottoman garrison there, nor could he assume the obedience of local tribes, who clearly hoped to avoid paying tribute. According to reports dating from around the same time, by the mid-1820s the bey depended on these levies on local tribes. As one consular official put it, “The government is supported exclusively by plunder taken from the Arabs.”59 In late May 1825, for example, the bey was planning to take “about 2,000 horse and foot troops on a tour [through] his territory for the express purpose of levying contributions on the Arabs.”60 Even if the term exclusively was an exaggeration, the annual tribute of 100,000 Spanish dollars that Oran’s leadership owed to the dey of Algiers could certainly encourage such efforts to collect money from surrounding populations.61 The dissatisfaction of local confederations with the bey’s regime and their willingness and ability to resist it would continue to be a serious consideration in urban politics as the French began their occupation of Oran and the western Regency in coming years. At the same time, the story of Aron and the janissaries also illustrates how certain Jews were integral to the growing city’s administration. Meanwhile, the rural tribes were frequently in opposition to this urban authority. Obviously, the report casts only a narrow beam of light on the political realities of precolonial Oran, but it would appear that both the Jewish censal and the qa’id who was called to arrest the janissary were regarded as expressions of the bey’s authority. The caliph was also able to exercise an influence on the troops. Of course, the fact that these figures acted to protect Aron suggests that he too functioned as an expression of the bey’s authority in Oran. Although one must take the reality of such threats to Jews seriously, as well as the possibility of col-



Rebuilding Oran: Jews, Beys, and Commerce, 1792–1830

65

lective punishment, one must also see Jewish figures like Aron as established fixtures of a city-based political structure that was frequently in tension with rural tribes. This story, even though relating a moment of distinct precariousness and dependence, also suggests how Jews were an integral part of Oran’s economic and even political fabric. I will have more to say about the early colonial period in the following chapters, but the story of Aron also shows how the French, rather than creating the conditions for the emergence of Oran’s Jewish elite, responded to their preexisting public and economic roles in Oran by establishing new colonial practices and institutions. Indeed, the relatively modest French commercial presence in Oran combined with Jewish demographic, commercial, and political prominence continued to echo into the early colonial period. I have already noted, for example, the prominence of Jewish property ownership in the period leading up to the French occupation of Oran. Directly following the arrival of the French, General Pierre Boyer lamented that not a single French businessmen could operate in Oran because its commerce was “dominated” by a group of Jews.62 Early French efforts at counting and categorizing Oran’s inhabitants suggest that Jews were the largest religiously defined group in the city. A decade after the initial occupation, General Thomas Robert Bugeaud, who was soon to rise to the rank of governor-general, noted that Oran was a “pretty little city, cool and picturesque,” but he complained that “the major part of its population is made up of rapacious Jews.”63 When the civil administration was founded, Jewish contributions were sought to fund major civic improvements. In other words, the events recorded in this chapter suggest that the robust and powerful Jewish mercantile class that helped define Oran in the (better-documented) early colonial period represents some continuity with Oran’s precolonial past. The social and commercial patterns that shaped Ottoman Oran’s history and that produced Oran’s Jewish population with an influential upper echelon of wealthy merchants continued to reverberate in the early years of the French occupation. French observers would later generalize about the miserable and oppressed state of Jews living under Islamic law in Algeria, and there is no reason to doubt that many Jews were far from wealthy. But Oran was also a strikingly Jewish city, and it was to its Jewish commercial class that the city owed much of its early development. By building on existing scholarship, these events also provide some clues as to what sort of society emerged in Oran in the decades between the fall of the Spanish presidio in 1792 and French occupation in early 1831. We have

66

Rebuilding Oran: Jews, Beys, and Commerce, 1792–1830

seen how Moroccan and Gibraltarian Jews, as well as some Muslims, perhaps originating in Algiers, dominated the upper echelons of Oran’s commerce. They fueled the city’s commercial rebirth and occupied certain positions in the bey’s administration. Oran clearly housed a garrison of jannisaries and other soldiers aligned with the bey. These soldiers were probably drawn from members of local tribes.64 According to records from the first years of the conquest, many of Oran’s more modest shop owners who would have purchased goods coming in by caravan or ship were also Jewish.65 Taverns or “cafés” where gambling took place would certainly not be out of place in a port city, and records suggest that Moroccan Jews sometimes served as keepers of these probably modest establishments.66 At any given time, Arabic- and Tamazight-speaking traders might also have been lodged in Oran while they sold their wares. 67 ­Although records are thin, renegades, freed captives, and other Europeans might well have contributed to the social makeup of this small but growing North African port city in the decades before the French occupation. CONCLUSION Jews played an outsized, if underexplored, role in Oran’s rebirth and reintegration into Mediterranean commerce. These developments are particularly significant, given an enduring European vision of the North African states as static or in decline and of the Jews living within them as corrupt, oppressed, and isolated. As we have seen, Jews were very much part of a larger and dynamic matrix of commerce and politics. In addition to uncovering this forgotten story of North African commercial dynamism, this history also raises a number of questions about the meanings and coherence of the terms that French colonial officials—and subsequent generations of historians—used to describe the ensemble of Jews in Oran and Algeria more generally. As we have seen, consular officials regularly referred to the “Jewish nation” of Oran, and there existed an official who ostensibly stood at the head of it. The bey could impose fees on the nation (although how this played out is unclear), and French consular trade registers reflected the existence of the nation in records of Oran’s trade. However, the limits of this nation’s authority or autonomy, not to mention the proportion of Oran’s Jews who fell within it, remain open to question. We do know, however, that the Jews of Oran themselves were of diverse origins and that they had recently come in pursuit of a livelihood. We also know that the merchant Mordecai Amar served as the nation’s chief and that Jacob Lasry, another merchant, would soon contest



Rebuilding Oran: Jews, Beys, and Commerce, 1792–1830

67

that authority. In other words, the “nation” must not be understood as a purely local product without reference to the role of foreign trade, European consuls, and economic change in Oran. Both in its composition and in the pathways to its leadership, the Jewish nation of Oran was to a large extent the product of its precolonial interconnectedness in wider commercial networks. The installation of the consistory, discussed in the Introduction, is better understood as an effort to create a unified, “indigenous” Jewish community rather than as an effort to organize a preexisting one. Oran’s Jewish merchants were essential to the city’s early-nineteenth-­ century reemergence, and they navigated within several spheres of beylical or consular association. Clearly, different Jews in Oran identified, and mobilized, power differently. Merchants who had arrived in Oran by way of northern Morocco and Gibraltar frequently traveled under British protection, or at least attempted to. They did not regard themselves as akin to the section of Oran Jewry that traced their heritage to Mascara, Mostaganem, or smaller cities and towns of western Algeria or the Moroccan Rif. Nor would they have necessarily identified strongly with the Livornese-descended commercial elite of Algiers or Tunis. Regardless of the length of his tenure in Oran, Jacob Lasry is referred to in British letters as a Gibraltar or British merchant.68 Solomon Cabessa, who maintained a shop in Arzew (near Oran) and worked between Gibraltar, Spain, and Oran but was not a British subject, was nevertheless referred to as a Gibraltar merchant. As we will see, his family sought British help when it ran into trouble with the muqaddem in the early 1830s. In other words, the British vice-consul took an interest in protecting the Cabessa family’s interests against local Jewish authorities. All this illustrates the problem of understanding the Jewish nation as a meaningful legal institution or expression of a unified Jewish population in Oran. In contrast to those who operated in the British orbit such as Cabessa or Lasry, men like Mordecai Amar, his sometime partner Joseph Cohen Bacri, and the bey’s censal Aron were probably more closely implicated in the bey’s court.69 As such, French consuls referred to their share of Oran’s trade as Jewish commerce as opposed to British commerce. Even though many British merchants were Gibraltar Jews, the same British archives appear to use the term Jews to refer to different people. So when W. H. Thomas, who served as a British agent and vice-consul in Oran in 1825, mentioned the appearance of small amounts of gum sandarac (the resin of Tetraclinus articulata, a kind of cypress tree native to northwest Africa, used to make wood-preserving varnishes) on

68

Rebuilding Oran: Jews, Beys, and Commerce, 1792–1830

the local market, he predicted that because “the Jews have made purchases with much avidity . . . its value is likely to enhance.”70 British consuls in North Africa tended to distinguish between the Jews of Algeria (often referred to as an unsavory lot) and Moroccan-born Jews, who, even if they had been in Algeria for decades and did not enjoy official British protection, were still more involved in British commerce with Gibraltar. This distinction is more than academic, given that Jews’ group identity, their distinctiveness, and their supposed oppression by the Ottoman authority fed French colonial narratives that justified different policies for Algeria’s Jews and Muslims. Even though we know little about how individual Jews related to the muqaddem or how much authority he actually enjoyed at any given period, later colonial observers focused on the office. They often criticized the ­muqqadem’s despotic rule and the putative judicial regime under which the Jews, as a unit, languished. Such a framing, of course, is at odds with our examples of Jews making legal contracts with Muslims, seeking support from foreign consuls, and as we shall see in Chapter 3, finding legal support in Muslim courts. It is also at odds with evidence from elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa demonstrating that Jews could and did seek redress in Muslim courts.71 Yet this framing dovetailed with French understandings of the Jews in Algeria as a people apart, defined most significantly by their religion and status as “indigenous.” As has been demonstrated elsewhere, French colonial officers, lawmakers, reformers, settlers, and academics assumed and reproduced this perceived unity of Israélites indigènes by simultaneously papering over differences between Jews and by reifying Jews’ differences from Muslims.72 Of course, this did not preclude pointing out and lamenting the community’s internal divisions—but such complaints never threatened the ­hierarchy of the French colonial order. Based on the invented unity and distinctiveness of Algeria’s Jews, the colonizers would later create new institutions, such as the consistoires israélites, and specific rights regimes (notably, the statuts personnels and eventually the 1870 Crémieux Decree). But these institutions and laws that helped create this new Jewish minority should not overshadow the fact that in the precolonial period there was no such thing. Perhaps even more important, the new category of indigenous Jews implied that this group was, in the eyes of French interlopers, like the “Orient” to which it belonged: decadent, traditional, and obsolete. Such Jews existed in a state of degradation, stasis, and ignorance (again, much like the imagined Orient itself) that found its polar opposite in the new, modern,



Rebuilding Oran: Jews, Beys, and Commerce, 1792–1830

69

and dynamic French order that replaced the rule of the deys. As I have illustrated in this chapter, the Jews that the French found in Oran were not unitary, traditional, or static. Rather, the very existence of Jews in Oran represented a dynamism—it was barely two generations old—and they had been drawn to Oran specifically because of new opportunities. This dynamism, as it turns out, can be credited to Mediterranean commerce and the Muslim rulers of Algiers who opened Oran to it. The appearance of the indigenous Jew would have to wait, not simply for the French, whose vice-consuls were already there, but for a new structure of power that emerged with the colonial order.

This page intentionally left blank

3

MAKING MONEY IN A TIME OF CONQUEST

J AC O B L A S RY may not have moved to a teeming metropolis when he set up shop in Oran in the 1820s, but he did not go there for the waters either. As discussed in Chapter 2, Oran boasted of an active port and was already integrated into western Mediterranean commercial networks.1 Algiers had moved the capital of the western beylik of the Regency of Algiers from Mascara to Oran and encouraged the repopulation of the city by Muslim and Jewish craftsmen, shopkeepers, and merchants from surrounding areas. For its small size (probably less than 5,000 inhabitants), Oran hosted a population hailing from various parts of the western Mediterranean and vice-consuls of the United Kingdom, France, and Spain, and its harbor welcomed ships from Algiers, Genoa, Gibraltar, Livorno, London, and Tunis. Oran was still recovering from the 1790 earthquake and the ensuing 1792 Ottoman takeover from the Spanish, but Lasry saw opportunity. There was clearly potential return in the export of grain, cattle, and hides from Bey Hassan’s Oran to British Gibraltar. If we place Lasry’s a­ rrival in Oran in a larger historical context, it would not be that of the decline of the Regency or the provincial capital but rather a manifestation of Oran’s emergence as an export point on the margins of the British and Ottoman imperial orbits, a site that could supply Gibraltar in the face of Spain’s enduring hostility to Britain’s Iberian presence. In this chapter I outline the disorder into which the French conquest plunged the western stretch of the Regency of Algiers. Building on the previous chapter, which illustrated Jews’ role in the growth and integration of late

72

Making Money in a Time of Conquest

Ottoman Oran into the Mediterranean economy of the 1820s, I offer a fresh perspective on the onset of French colonialism. Rather than seeing the French conquest of Algeria as ending a static order and initiating an integrated and dynamic (though oppressive and racist) new one, I argue that the French military presence in the Maghreb interrupted commerce and spread confusion and violence to Oran.2 Even before a French general actually seized control of the city in late 1831, the occupation disrupted commercial networks, exposed the city to attacks by rural tribes, and led to the looting of the treasury, the abandonment of homes, and the killing of many inhabitants. Far from being a rational force arriving from Europe as “apostles of modernity,” as intellectuals and officers later imagined themselves to be, the French at the outset stumbled, worked at cross purposes with themselves, and struggled to find a purpose for their presence in North Africa.3 This perspective becomes particularly evident when we look at the unplanned, chaotic component of the conquest well before ideologies such as civilization or assimilation colored French debates, policies, and after-the-fact justifications. This vantage illuminates how North Africa–based Mediterranean figures, networks, and institutions themselves exerted power and shaped history. Not passive witnesses to the French conquest of Algeria, they were important players in the political and economic shifts that remapped the Mediterranean.4 A business deal that Jacob Lasry attempted to carry out in this chaotic early period brings this point to the fore. By exploring a prolonged legal and diplomatic affair involving both Tunisian bey al-Husayn II ibn Mahmud (r. 1824– 1835), also known as Husayn Basha Bey or simply Bey Husayn of Tunis, and Khayr al-Din, a scion of the Tunisian royal house, I begin to people the conquest with personal perspectives of it. I show how North African Jewish merchants, and western Algerian traders more generally, were not simply victims or hapless observers of the French conquest. The wealth, acumen, and consular backing of businessmen such as Lasry allowed them to continue operating in the upper echelons of Oran’s commercial life, push back on policies that harmed their interests, and skirt the ethnoreligious categories that were so central to structuring French colonial society.5 European powers had to respond to the fact that merchants of the western Algerian port of Oran were part of a dynamic, wider western Mediterranean economy and were far from naïve about wider political and economic patterns. Notably, France occasionally had to step lightly around these powerful merchants to profit from their expertise and to avoid too sharp a conflict with



Making Money in a Time of Conquest

73

Great Britain. At the same time, British officers took pains to preserve the protected status of merchants they claimed as their own. Indeed, the prerogative to claim legal jurisdiction over Oran’s Jewish merchants became a sort of shifting terrain on which France and Britain attempted to exercise power. As a result, North African merchants such as Lasry could take active roles in influencing their rank in the nascent colonial regime, and as much as colonialism transformed North Africa, the engines of its imposition occasionally had to bow to the local social landscape. Without challenging the notion that the French conquest radically changed North Africa, in this chapter I decenter France in the story of the conquest; I show that a web of links and networks already existed in the western Mediterranean, not to mention the Sahara, and also fed Oran’s commerce. These links and networks were, in the words of one scholar, “dynamic spaces” endowed with their own “deep histor[ies].”6 In fact, negotiating Algeria’s place in pre­ existing networks, as well as the powers involved in them (including Britain and Tunis), became one of France’s challenges in the first years of the occupation. This episode illuminates how France sought, with uneven success, to carve out Algeria and harness its commerce for its own benefit, tentatively redrawing lines of trade, allegiance, and identity that historically bound together the Mediterranean and the Sahara as regions.7 It also sheds light on the individuals, networks, and institutions that bound together the late Ottoman beylik and early colonial Oran. ORAN IN CHAOS, 1830 Bey Hassan of Oran had been under pressure since 1817, when he took over from Ali Kora Bargli. He owed an annual tribute to the dey in Algiers, under whom he served. The dey in Algiers had his own concerns about letting Hassan grow too powerful and placed limits on the military forces at his disposal. The officers of the makhzen (the government or ruling authority) came from the two most powerful local tribal confederations and were based in the cities of Mascara, Mostaganem, and Tlemcen.8 But central power was limited, and officers did not consistently manifest loyalty to the bey. When the Spanish last ruled Oran (from 1732 to 1790), the local beylical authority was based in Mascara, and its members continued to own many of the buildings of Mascara even after Oran had replaced it as capital of the western province in 1792. One of the authority’s chief charges had been to block Spanish advances on Oran. Even ­after the fall of Oran to the Ottomans, the makhzen’s grain continued

74

Making Money in a Time of Conquest

to be stored in Mascara, guarded by Ottoman soldiers whose control of food reserves was intended to encourage the loyalty of the local tribes that made up the ruling body. While many of Abd al-Kader’s officers had come from these groups, the French general Camille Alphonse Trézel would later sign a treaty with them, and in 1835 they aligned definitively against the emir.9 Local challenges to urban authority were not new in Algeria when the French took Algiers in 1830. As discussed in earlier chapters, this was partly due to the decline of the corsair economy, a process that had taken more than a century. By the eighteenth century the French and British hardly feared A ­ lgiers-based corsairs, who in previous centuries had been backed by the still fearsome Ottomans and were a formidable presence in the Mediterranean and along Europe’s Atlantic coasts. Although the suppression of white slavery helped color French arguments for intervention in Algeria between 1827 and 1830 (arguments otherwise based on national glory or religious zeal), the threat to French shipping had diminished.10 And even though Algiers-based corsairs continued to prey on smaller vessels (and the usually friendly British attacked Algiers as late as 1817 and other North African ports, such as Tangiers, in 1828, when corsairs harmed British interests), the practice was undeniably in decline. By the 1820s British consular officials in the Regency of Algiers tended to be on friendly terms with their host governments. Consequently, the dey of Algiers came to rely increasingly on tributes from the interior for revenues, and this pressure to extract revenue was probably passed on to beylical authorities.11 It follows that in the years leading up to the French occupation, there were numerous hostile encounters between the urban-based authorities in Algiers and Oran and rural groups referred to in consular papers simply as tribes, Arabs, or Kabyles.12 For example, in the first months of 1823 Bey Hassan left Oran for several months on the orders of the dey of Algiers to force into submission an unnamed group of rebellious “kabyles” who inhabited the northern edge of the Sahara. Apparently, this was not the first time such an effort was required. This group had consistently managed to find refuge in the desert after their raids. This time the bey was more determined to bring them under his control; several months later, at the end of March, he and his troops were still camped out in an area that was a two-day ride from Oran.13 Indeed, the bey did not declare victory over these rebels until late June.14 The same dynamic was at play in the central part of the Regency, where the dey’s forces, sent to stop the plunder of Blida after a devastating earthquake in March 1825, were met on the route out of Algiers with military opposition by “a vast number” of “kabyles.”15 Given these struggles,



Making Money in a Time of Conquest

75

perhaps the French captain and historian Edmond Pellissier de Reynaud was not entirely hyperbolic when he reported that the elderly Bey Hassan was ready to retire to a more tranquil life by 1830, after the French occupation began.16 Irrespective of French speculations on Bey Hassan’s long-term career plans, it bears repeating that these challenges to his authority do not offer support to the decline narrative that European observers applied to the nineteenth-­ century Islamic world. Although the bey’s hold on the rural interior was shaky, we must remember that Oran represented a recent expansion of the Regency, and as we have seen, signs of economic development were plentiful in the city. In the two years before the occupation, ships were moving in and out of Oran’s small port almost daily, bringing in tens of thousands of Spanish dollars in manufactured goods (mostly cotton textiles from Britain) and in commodities (such as sugar, coffee, and wax) and shipping grain and cattle to Gibraltar.17 Indeed, in July 1828 Algiers grew concerned that the robust sales of British textiles, sugar, and other goods in Oran were leading to capital flight, and it issued instructions to the British vice-consul (through Bey Hassan) that all goods had to be paid for in the “produce of the country.”18 The vice-consul negotiated with the bey to allow exceptions to this rule, but trade in Oran on the eve of the conquest was dynamic enough to merit efforts to regulate it. Another sign of commercial activity—acrimonious disputes about deals— are also in evidence. For example, in the middle of 1828 the British vice-consul in Oran reported having to force Joseph Cabessa (mentioned in Chapter 2 and whom I discuss further in Chapter 5) to pay a Mr. Solal, another Jewish merchant based in Gibraltar, 200 Spanish dollars, which he owed Solal in the wake of a failed deal.19 In the same month, Moise Moatti and Isaac Cohen Solomon, identified as “Algerine Jews,” complained to the consul Robert William St. John in Algiers that a certain W. H. Thomas, an English merchant in Oran, owed them money. St. John promptly instructed his then vice-consul in Oran, Nathaniel Welsford, who had been serving since 1827, to “see justice done” and collect the money from the Englishman.20 Later that year, such efforts led to the seizure of Thomas’s property. Efforts to regulate the disputes of merchants, whether British subjects or other protected individuals associated with the Gibraltar trade, continued to be a primary concern of the vice-consulate in Oran as the late Ottoman period gave way to the early years of the French Empire in Algeria. In the first year of the conquest, the Duc de Rovigo, commanding the French forces in ­Algeria, acknowledged this situation and explained to his officers that the Brit-

76

Making Money in a Time of Conquest

ish depended on Oran for provisioning Gibraltar, so French officers must avoid actions that might appear to obstruct British (which often meant Moroccan Jewish) merchants’ business activities there.21 Given Oran’s status as a mere presidio less than forty years earlier, its economic life was clearly ascendant; neither its small size nor its political instability was indicative of regional decline. Notwithstanding Oran’s robust commercial life, the onset of the French conquest encouraged local tribal confederations to rid themselves of the yoke (and presumably taxes) of Oran’s governor. Already in July 1830 (the French bombardment of Algiers began on July 5), the city suffered raids by nearby rural groups, which divided local authorities in Oran and threatened the town’s merchants. The young Abd al-Kader had his tribe, the Hashem, reject Bey Hassan’s request for asylum, labeling him a “tyrant” and a “traitor.”22 Some of the bey’s advisers urged him to seek refuge in Mascara, but remaining Ottoman soldiers forced him to stay in the city. Hassan’s effective power crumbled. Midmonth, looters pillaged Hassan’s treasury, and he had to send his troops to forcibly recover 260 stolen camels.23 As for the merchants then resident in Oran and other associates of the bey, they used whatever contacts they possessed at European consulates to secure protection. Efforts to protect merchants in the chaos following the assault on Algiers illuminate the importance to Gibraltar’s trade of men like Jacob Lasry and the collection of Jewish merchants to which he belonged. By extension, these responses suggest how France was not unseating a weak and despotic order but disrupting a link in a dynamic British, Iberian, and North African commercial circuit. The British vice-consul in Oran was particularly attentive to real or perceived threats to the Jews who constituted the majority of traders in the city. Comparable to its nineteenth-century policies toward the Ottoman Empire’s central territories and its provinces in the Arab east (mashreq), Britain hoped to preserve its influence by maintaining the beylical authority without taking it over or allowing it to fall to another European power. Exerting influence and supporting the well-being of the local merchant community often meant ties with the bey, and these ties did not emerge suddenly in 1830. For example, on July 5, 1828, the British vice-consul in Oran accompanied the Bey Hassan when he left the city on “a collecting tour” around the region, joined by 800 soldiers.24 The British consul-general in Algiers similarly acted as confidant and adviser to the local Ottoman authority. With the chaos that accompanied the French overthrow of Dey Husayn of Algiers in (r. 1818–1830), the British vice-consul in Oran turned his attention to



Making Money in a Time of Conquest

77

traders at risk. Judah Sebbah, for example, about whom I will have more to say in Chapter 4, sought British help when the French wanted to punish him for intrigues. Even his rival, Mordecai Amar, the agent to the French consulate introduced earlier, sought refuge in the British consulate when Ottoman soldiers sought to retaliate against him in the wake of accusations that he sympathized with the French.25 The events apparently spread fear in Oran of “a general insurrection of Moors and Cabyles” against the “Turks” in power and the inevitable “danger to Christians and Jews.”26 On July 10, 1830, it was reported that 3 Jewish families with British protection and 150 local Jews without it sought asylum at the consulate for a full 18 days.27 Not unconcerned with this group, London instructed the British vice-consulate to continue stocking provisions for a large number of people, presumably those seeking asylum from the chaos unleashed by the occupation. When Bey Hassan did submit to the French, the terms the French offered him demonstrate Oran’s importance in a wider network involving Gibraltar and the United Kingdom, as well as France’s concern with the town. On July 24, two days after a French warship arrived in Oran with an ambassador from the military commander in Algiers, the Maréchal Comte de Bourmont (who headed French forces in Algeria from June until September 1830) sent his son to negotiate the terms of the city’s surrender to the French authority.28 Onboard the French ship, it was explained to Hassan’s negotiators that Oran’s government would acknowledge the king of France and maintain the current relationship between Oran and Algiers by paying tribute to French authorities in Algiers every six months. Furthermore, the city’s forts and other “public property” would have to be accessible to the occupying troops in no more than fifteen days. The bey was invited to leave Oran whenever he pleased, taking whomever he wished and bringing with him his transportable property. Furthermore, France was willing to conduct him safely to what the British vice-consul described as “Asia,” most probably meaning the Ottoman east.29 The French were less lenient, however, as to where the bey could go afterward; he was permitted any place of refuge he liked except Gibraltar. Given French anger at the British consulate for supporting Hassan, perhaps French generals worried that their British rivals might support his eventual efforts to regain his position. If the British did not wish to occupy Algeria or go to war with her most formidable continental rival, opposition to French actions was expressed in various ways in London and the Regency of Algiers. Britain had advocated for Ottoman mediation, at times objecting to the occupation of an “independent

78

Making Money in a Time of Conquest

country” and at other times reminding France of the Ottomans’ ultimate rights over Algiers.30 In 1834 the bey of Constantine and a number of notable residents turned (unsuccessfully) to the British for help.31 George Hamilton-Gordon, Lord Aberdeen (1784–1860), also sought assurances from Jules de Polignac, président du conseil des ministres in the last days of Charles X, that France’s ambitions did not extend beyond a temporary occupation.32 Even if the British ambassador, Stuart de Rothesay, admitted in Paris that it was better that France chase national glory in Africa than on the European continent, London opposed the intervention that it simultaneously accepted as a fait accompli.33 Among the consuls and merchants on the ground in Algiers and Oran, however, there was less resignation to Algeria’s apparent fate. One of Jacob Lasry’s chief advocates in his trade dispute with the French, the consul-general Robert William St. John, sent his superiors thinly veiled offers to prepare the ground for an intervention. “If it should be your wish that the French should not remain here,” he wrote to London, “the whole country could be stirred up in a moment” to the benefit of Britain.34 He specifically mentioned Oran in his note and how valuable it was for Gibraltar and for access to the interior. He went so far as to suggest, “The Arabs say they could live under our government.” St. John was also close enough to the dey to act as his intermediary with the French army.35 In Oran, too, Bey Hassan saw the vice-consul as a source of personnel in a time of crisis. On July 27, 1830, St. John wrote, “The Bey told me he had but two servants left, and desired me to assist him by sending one of my servants to help him.”36 A year and half later, the Duc de Rovigo, who was then the commander of the French military in Africa, angrily complained that the Kabyles who attacked French forces in the region of Médéa (south of Algiers) had been called on by British consular services to do so. The Jewish merchants who enjoyed the support of British consular personnel similarly endured French wrath for their opposition to French intervention; men like Moatti and Sebbah were subjects of French complaints as well. Opposition to the French earned the British consul (and his vice-consul) a reputation among Ottoman governors as an ally and among Frenchmen as an enemy. Well into the second year of the occupation, consuls and merchants held out hope that the French would tire of their occupation and depart. Lower ­officers in the French army accused the British diplomatic presence as amplifying local resistance to the occupation. Indeed, casual accusations spread among the French that St. John was aiding Arab attacks on French positions and that French casualties could at least partly be blamed on him.37 For his part, St. John



Making Money in a Time of Conquest

79

was not above sending mail back to London emphasizing French casualties, such as in late July 1831 when he noted that “the hospitals contained 600 sick, now they contain 2,000.” Some of these notes were less thinly veiled allusions to British military opportunities: “The town is almost defenseless by sea, as I believe one 74-gun ship would take the sea batteries.”38 Meanwhile, the consul and the colonial office speculated about the limits of French abilities to colonize and the advantages of increased British involvement. “Algiers can only be retained by the French as a military or naval s­ tation,” St. John wrote in October 1831, but colonization would be too difficult, as “they will find the antipathy of the Arabs and Cabails insurmountable, except by their utter extermination, which would be a work of time and difficulty.”39 On the other hand, wrote St. John, “If [the French] were to be content with an occupation of this nature and cede Oran and Bône to us or any other European power capable of retaining them, colonization might be gradually established.” St. John, writing from his post in Algiers, made it clear where British interests were greatest: “I consider Oran as the most valuable of the three divisions, and would be most peculiarly so to us, from its vicinity to Gibraltar.”40 The French were not blind to British hopes, interests, or plans. In 1832 an irate Duc de Rovigo, at the time the highest ranking officer in Algeria, complained about the “ideas of independence” that the English had “cast among the Arabs” and wondered aloud to the minister of war whether the British consul “had flattered his government with the hope that he alone would destroy our power in Africa.”41 Even if the consul’s suggestions were not seriously entertained in London, it gives us a picture of the kind of alliances taking shape on the ground in Oran (and possibly in Algiers). The same set of letters discusses the violent and arbitrary nature of the French general Pierre Boyer’s administration in Oran and reflects on how the courts had become mere tools in the hands of the French for locals to prosecute or kill “Turks,” that is, the Ottoman soldiers or administrators with whom the British and MoroccanGibraltarian Jewish merchants had a working relationship. Given that France was not only invading North Africa but also, in the case of western Algeria, occupying ports vital to British commerce, it follows that British and British-protected North African merchants were anxious about the repercussions of Bey Hassan’s fall. In Oran British fears of French designs were even more immediate. In October 1830, many established merchants in Oran begged the bey not to send gunpowder and lead to Bey Mustapha Bou Mezrag of Titteri, in the Regency of Algiers. At the time, the bey of Titteri

80

Making Money in a Time of Conquest

was resisting the French and did so until November 1830. The merchants were concerned that if Bey Hassan sent supplies to Titteri, it would “give the French a right to return and take possession of the place,” which would subsequently “injure the British trade.”42 The vice-consul’s intervention led to the abandonment of the plan to send supplies. British-connected Jewish merchants like Lasry saw their troubles compounded in November 1830 when General ­Clauzel banned wheat exports from Oran to Gibraltar. Clauzel allowed shipments bound for Algiers or France if French subjects or their agents were in charge, but his directive excluded Jewish merchants. The French demonstrated a solid competence at unseating leaders, disrupting Mediterranean trade, plundering cities, and upsetting their rivals, but they were less effective at governing. Chaos continued to reign in Oran through the year. On July 24, 1830, it was announced that twelve men had lost their lives in violence in Oran, and by July 26 observers noted that the city was “nearly deserted by the inhabitants” and that “a great number of shops and houses have been broken into and looted.”43 Things were even worse in nearby Mascara, the pre-1792 seat of the western province, where local forces took the city and massacred the Ottoman garrison there. Although Bey Hassan held on to a steadily diminishing position after formally submitting to the French, he would not last through January. French concern about their ability to hold their new possession led to their August 18 decision to have their warships bombard the forts facing the sea.44 In addition to Oran, the early days of the French occupation also brought disaster to Algiers, Algerians, and French soldiers. Many of the latter spent weeks camped on the outskirts of the city and, as a result, eventually destroyed homes and orchards for firewood, dug channels to water the horses, and destroyed statues and marble work for sport. Meanwhile, sanitation was terrible, dysentery was rampant, and thousands of sick soldiers packed the military hospitals. Then the decision came to house soldiers in the city, for which occupants of many buildings had to be forcibly removed. The French also desecrated mosques in order to transform them into soldiers’ barracks. This was all carried out with a tremendous lack of morale, as both soldiers and officers wondered whether the revolution taking place in France had led the government to forget about its forces in Africa.45 Indeed, the confusion that the occupation set off in Algeria was not helped by events in Europe. Although Charles X’s attack on Algiers was largely seen as a way to improve his standing and shore up his reign, the July Revolution



Making Money in a Time of Conquest

81

occurred barely a month later and did little to aid the establishment of a clear objective for the French occupation. Years of debate ensued in France as to what should be done with Algeria, discussions that became central in struggles over France’s political identity.46 The new, liberal regime of Louis-Philippe (r. 1830–1848) thus inherited an occupation begun under the Restoration, but Louis-Philippe chose to maintain it as the French debated the possibilities and pitfalls of various colonization schemes well into the late 1840s. For example, some called for a “restrained occupation” limited to the cities of the littoral area. Others, such as General Thomas Robert Bugeaud, who would rise to the command of the Army of Africa in 1846, advanced a vision of military colonization.47 More than a few French parliamentarians publicly objected to the entire enterprise, calling it wasteful and dangerous, and urged their colleagues to reserve resources for France’s continental challenges.48 The revolution also split the military itself. When French ships arrived in Oran on August 6, 1830, ostensibly to secure and pacify France’s new vassal, news of the July Revolution that brought Louis-Philippe to the French throne led General Louis-Auguste-Victor de Ghaisnes de Bourmont, a legitimist, to recall the troops in Oran and Annaba back to Algiers. Still loyal to Charles X and the house of Bourbon, Bourmont wanted the troops nearby as he contemplated a campaign to oust the usurper from the house of Orléans and install the Bourbon pretender, the Duc de Bordeaux.49 Ideas were floated to sail to Toulon or possibly up to the Normandy coast to rejoin legitimist armies against the Orléanist forces. However, understanding shortly thereafter that the change of regime would endure, Bourmont allowed the revolutionary tricolor that had disappeared under France’s Restoration government to replace the (Bourbon) white flags on French warships under his command in Algeria. His refusal to accept the legitimacy of the new king, however, led to his resignation shortly thereafter. Bertrand Clauzel, a general who had fought under Napoleon in Spain, would take his place as governor-general of Algeria on August 12, 1830. Soon after Clauzel began his short tenure as head of the Army of Africa, he made efforts to bring order and purpose to the occupation, including outsourcing elements of the conquest. This involved both creating auxiliary forces among inhabitants of the Djurdjura (in Kabilia, a mountainous area stretching east from Algiers) and enlisting governors from the royal house of Tunis, governed at the time by Bey Husayn, who had from the outset been happy to see the French topple Dey Husayn of Algiers. Hoping to both appease the occupiers and possibly expand his authority, the Tunisian ruler agreed to ­Clauzel’s

82

Making Money in a Time of Conquest

request for a prince to serve as a local proxy in Oran (another proxy was requested to govern Constantine).50 Given that Oran’s governor traditionally had the authority to sell permits to export goods from Oran, Clauzel’s decisions implicated members of Oran’s Jewish merchant elite, including Jacob Lasry. The treaty between Clauzel and Bey Husayn, signed in Algiers on February 6, 1831 (though never ratified in Paris), reflected the uncertainty of France’s designs in Africa. Bey Husayn’s nephew Ahmed, in exchange for promised treasure and supplies, would rule the supposedly conquered province of Oran, continuing Oran’s preconquest relationship with Algiers by paying tribute to the French command there. It remains questionable whether Clauzel really expected the arrangement to succeed; the treasury had been looted and the province was insurgent. His successor, General Pierre Berthezène, accused Clauzel of making a short-sighted gamble based on false promises.51 Ahmed, for his part, never arrived in Oran, seeing it as his uncle’s ruse to eliminate him as a candidate for his throne.52 In any case, on January 4, 1831, a French column entered Oran and subdued the local resistance. On January 7, Bey Hassan “retired”; first he left for Algiers and then traveled on to Alexandria, Egypt, and from there to Mecca. On January 26 Ahmed’s deputy, Khayr al-Din, arrived in Algiers and went on to Oran, along with 300 of his troops.53 Several hundred more Tunisians and 200–300 Ottoman soldiers followed this force to establish the authority of the new Tunisian “bey” in Oran.54 Khayr al-Din’s reign in Oran, if one could call it a reign, would prove dis­ orderly, violent, and unsuccessful. Khayr al-Din was immediately disenchanted by the deal, a fact he made known to his superiors. During his tenure as bey, he did not manage to bring order to the province, nor did he obtain much support from France. Given that the French did not fund the administration and that he did not have the resources to subdue and tax the local population, he also found himself strapped for cash. He resorted to making arrangements he would not be able to maintain in order to obtain funds from local businessmen, including Jacob Lasry. Several months later, in August 1831, Khayr al-Din left Oran and returned to Tunis. When he left Oran, the era of direct French control in Oran began, with General Boyer taking control of Oran in mid-­ September 1831 and holding the position until he was replaced in 1833. One might say that Lasry was there when the French “blundered into” Oran in 1831, to paraphrase an old film.55 Neither he nor the city’s other inhabitants saw a well-planned operation carried out by a disciplined, well-equipped force motivated by a clear mission. It was more like a series of poorly planned, vio-



Making Money in a Time of Conquest

83

lent confrontations between various groups, triggered by an invasion by an illprovisioned army under the leadership of a government lacking a consistent vision. Lasry saw a new political and economic landscape emerge, to which he was forced to adjust, but he also saw opportunities. To exploit them, he mobilized resources, garnered support for his deals, and found ways to push back against the new occupiers. I now turn to a dispute over one of Lasry’s deals that escalated into an international diplomatic incident, revealing not only the presence of at least three foreign powers in a port the French would later describe as a ruin, but also the importance they placed on determining who was responsible for regulating business there. In so doing, in the next section I illuminate the significant resources, savvy, connections, and influence of local North African merchants in western Algeria at the moment French forces arrived in 1830. JAC OB L ASRY AND THE TISKER AS: EXPORT IN A TIME OF CHAOS Sometime near the middle of 1830, Jacob Lasry purchased several buildings in Oran as well as four tiskeras from Bey Hassan.56 (A tiskera was an export permit purchased from a local sovereign; it was used for grain or cattle.) The price of these goods came to 7,500 boudjous; the boudjou was an Ottoman currency in wide circulation and was valued at about one-seventeenth of a pound sterling in Algiers in 1830.57 Lasry bought two additional tiskeras from Amar, his sometime rival. Amar was himself an exporter who had bought the permits from Bey Hassan, but for unclear reasons—perhaps he doubted he would be able to use them, given the questionable durability of the bey’s authority—he passed them on to Lasry. Near the end of the year, Lasry and his partner, James Welsford, who was the son of Nathaniel Welsford, the British vice-consul in Oran, complained to French authorities that he had been deprived of the opportunity to use the tiskeras. Although accounts differ as to precisely who or what deprived Lasry of the ability to take advantage of his tiskeras (or if he had been deprived), his misfortunes apparently did not end there. In January 1831, when Clauzel installed Khayr al-Din as bey of Oran, the new Tunisian governor was not inclined to honor the former bey’s sale of tiskeras. Rather, he wanted to be paid for them, given his current status as bey. He also needed supplies for his Tunisian troops and needed funds to shore up his reign in Oran, which was turning out to be a financial disaster. According to both French and British officials, Lasry agreed to buy tiskeras again, this time directly from Khayr al-Din.58 Further-

84

Making Money in a Time of Conquest

more, Lasry agreed to loan Khayr al-Din the money he needed, in exchange for selling the tiskeras at “the rate of half a boudjou per fanega [Spanish bushel] lower than the established price.”59 According to Lasry, before he managed to ship what he was entitled to ship, the new French commandant en chef, General Pierre Berthezène (who served from February to December 1831) removed Khayr al-Din from power and installed Pierre Boyer in late August 1831, sending the Tunisian prince back to Tunis. Boyer was no more interested in seeing Khayr al-Din’s tiskeras honored than Khayr al-Din had been in welcoming those sold by Bey Hassan. “On the arrival of General Boyer,” it was noted in British correspondence, “some impediment was thrown in the way of the exportation.”60 The process of seeking restitution was not helped by the French government’s refusal to ratify Clauzel’s earlier agreement with Ahmed Bey, which effectively nullified the deals Khayr al-Din had made during his brief tenure as bey. It was decided that no one was obligated to honor whatever Khayr al-Din had sold or resold to Jacob Lasry and other merchants. A capricious French administration thus disowned the proxy governor they had previously installed. Whether or not France honored the international agreements their own generals had made, British consular officials were not interested in letting the case drop. In August 1831 vice-consul Welsford accompanied Jacob Lasry, ­Joseph Zermaty (another Jewish merchant), and several other Muslim and Christian merchants who had purchased tiskeras under Bey Hassan (before he was deposed) to meet the French intendant civil in the palace of the bey to discuss the case.61 Representatives of the French, Tunisian, and British governments were there, and they all agreed that the permits were still valid, regardless of Clauzel’s treaty with Tunis. According to the British vice-consul’s notes, the French intendant civil even sent subsequent assurance to British officials that the rights would be honored as soon as Boyer issued his formal permission.62 This permission, however, never came. In a sharply worded letter to British vice-consul Nathaniel Welsford, a man he described elsewhere as belonging to the “lowest class of man,” Boyer retorted, “The Tunisian agent had no right to dispose of the future, which did not belong to him.”63 Boyer gratuitously added that this was not the only agreement made under the command of a “previous general” (probably referring to Clauzel) that he had annulled. Before he had been removed from command, General Clauzel had apparently made an arrangement with Bey Mustapha of Titteri to export 15,000 fanegas of wheat to Europe, a deal, Boyer boasted, that he had similarly disregarded.64



Making Money in a Time of Conquest

85

Nevertheless, Lasry and his partner continued their efforts to both pin down a responsible party and recover damages for their invalid tiskeras—taking the case, eventually, to the Tunisian royal court—until the end of 1832. Although the precise outcome of the deal and the subsequent negotiations cannot be determined, the question of who owed damages to “the Jew Lasry,” or whether he was owed damages at all, was the subject of a two-year diplomatic conflict. Furthermore, the matter did not remain local; it ascended through the ranks of consul-generals, up through the general-in-chief of France’s armed forces in Algeria, the bey of Tunis, and the foreign ministries in Paris and London. The details of the affair reveal the actions and responses of North Africans who lived through the conquest. Exploration of the case also adds texture and nuance to a drama that is not effectively summarized in the binary of colonizer and colonized. A fluid cast of actors continued to navigate the North African arena as the drama of the conquest unfolded. This, in turn, offers a number of fascinating insights into the position of Jews, power, and the economic role of Oran during this period, several of which run counter to common perceptions of Jews in late Ottoman and early colonial North Africa. For one, it becomes clear that men like Lasry, who were born, bred, and spent most of their lives in North Africa, were far from isolated, oppressed, or hapless. Rather, Lasry was a politically connected and well-informed businessman who could mobilize various consular and legal resources to advance his own interests. Second, the end of the Regency of Algiers in 1830 was not necessarily welcomed as an emancipation by Jews in the west of the country, as it has been so often portrayed.65 Not only did the Jews of Oran owe their existence to the previous regime, but Lasry and other merchants were also doing quite well under it. In Lasry’s case the French disrupted a profitable business arrangement, and Lasry subsequently mobilized British consular authorities against the French to preserve a deal whose form and substance was far more Ottoman North African than French. At the outset, Lasry’s business plan was hardly extraordinary. By buying real estate and tiskeras, he was following the example of other wealthy Jews in ­eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century North Africa who made a living through exports and who frequently parked their earnings in investments in urban real estate, offsetting at least some of the costs of doing so by establishing a synagogue in one of the buildings. This practice had become increasingly common in eighteenth-century Morocco, and evidence suggests that it was also being done in Algeria.66 Furthermore, there was nothing necessarily unusual

86

Making Money in a Time of Conquest

about a Moroccan subject, who also obtained British papers, making use of the British vice-consulate to help advance his case. Indeed, Lasry had already made use of consular services at least once before, when he sought aid as British subject in 1828. At this time, the British vice-consulate of Oran heard from Lasry when he needed help protecting one of his shipments of hides to Gibraltar, which Bey Hassan threatened to block.67 Perhaps not coincidentally, the following year he applied for a British passport in the colony of Gibraltar, giving his place of residence as Oran.68 What was perhaps a bit unusual in the case of the tiskeras was that Lasry had entered into a partnership with James Welsford. The son of the British vice-consul, James was, according to British consular regulations, not permitted to conduct commerce. He certainly did not have his superiors’ permission to enter into partnerships with local merchants. Furthermore, the partnership was more like a bribe; according to later revelations, Lasry paid Welsford 16,000 Spanish dollars, had the tiskeras put in James’s name, and promised to share equally the proceeds of the sale of grain in Gibraltar.69 If this is true, Lasry was paying for the security and influence that Welsford’s family connections could provide. Be that as it may, the combination of James’s family associations and Lasry’s contacts in Gibraltar probably appeared to give Lasry’s partnership a good chance to be profitable. Alas, affairs did not prove to be so simple to engineer. The stories are contradictory as to who or what created the impediments to Lasry’s intended exportation. At times the problems were blamed on the state of war in the country; at other times they were pinned specifically on the French command. Suffice it to say that troubles were first reported in late 1830, several months after the tiskeras were first purchased. On November 27, Nathaniel Welsford visited Bey Hassan in the interest of dealing with these impediments. At this point, Hassan was still technically the bey of Oran, albeit subject to French authority. Hassan informed Welsford that by virtue of an order from General Clauzel, who was then in charge of French forces in North Africa, “No wheat could be shipped but for France, and that all the grain to be shipped must be in future shipped by subjects of France, or their agents residing in Oran.”70 The order had originally been given about a week earlier, on November 20. This move was probably intended to stop merchants from exporting grain and cattle to British Gibraltar when it was so badly needed by the poorly provisioned French occupying forces. ­Clauzel would lift the prohibition at the beginning of February 1831, but Lasry was still prevented from exporting the grain.71



Making Money in a Time of Conquest

87

The angry responses of merchants and consuls operating out of Algeria illustrate the importance of western Algeria to British and Mediterranean commercial networks in the precolonial years. The letters also illuminate the general sense among merchants and consuls that the French landing in Algiers was a temporary inconvenience rather than a permanent fixture, and they sought redress through the bey. In his meeting with Bey Hassan, the British vice-consul, acting on behalf of his son and his son’s partner, insisted that as governor of Oran, Hassan had to make provisions for the “four British Merchants” who had purchased both wheat and the tiskeras for export. Not only that, but “said Merchants had chartered Vessels, and must ship the same for Gibraltar.”72 The bey, more clued in to his declining influence than the petitioners, insisted that regrettably, he “could not fight against France.” On December 30, 1830, the viceconsul threatened to make the nearly powerless bey liable for the lost money spent on chartered vessels. In a foreshadowing of things to come (the British still predicted a speedy French departure from northern Africa), Hassan once again advised Welsford to “take it up with the French.”73 The conquest was still young enough that it was hard for Jewish merchants and their consular partners in Oran to imagine the extent to which the French imperiled the power of the Ottoman bey and, as a result, their relationships with him. When news of Welsford’s complaints spread, some wondered whether every­thing about Lasry’s tiskera deal was entirely above board. Vice-consuls such as Welsford, as mentioned above, were banned by their superiors from engaging in commerce. They were certainly not supposed to partner with local merchants. Although James was the vice-consul’s son, the fact that they lived under the same roof was cause for concern. Robert William St. John, the British ­consul-general in Algiers, upon hearing of Welsford’s son’s deal with Lasry, grew concerned enough to send information to London. “Mr. Welsford,” he wrote in January 1831, “has a son, who has established himself as a merchant, in his father’s home, and from circumstances I much fear that the father will not be able to avoid taking an interest” in his affairs.74 “Of particular concern,” he wrote, was the fact that “Mr. W. has shown such an unnecessary interest in the affairs of a Jew who is his son’s partner, I believe, that I have thought it best to write him a very strong warning letter,” encouraging him to dial back his personal involvement. At the same time, St. John maintained an element of realism to his analysis; he suggested that London simply allow these consuls to “trade in the open,” thus avoiding the subterfuge that Welsford and perhaps other consular officials engaged in so that they could benefit from the Oran-Gibraltar trade.

88

Making Money in a Time of Conquest

What was St. John so worried about? Perhaps it was more than simply thinking that it was untoward to have British officials doing business with local merchants. Serious rivalries had developed among precolonial Oran’s merchants, and St. John feared being stuck between them. Nathaniel Welsford and his son had not restricted their dealings to Lasry but had also dealt with the powerful merchant Amar, and those interactions had resulted in several mis­understandings. To add to the potential for conflict, Amar did not get on well with Lasry, and the vice-consul’s association with Lasry might easily have drawn the British into trouble with powerful local figures. In a note to London, St. John expressed serious concern that Amar or one of his associates might go so far as to kill Welsford or even St. John himself as a result of his involvements.75 Men like Lasry and Amar drew their strength from a number of sources and could pose a threat not only to rival merchants but also to the representative of the British crown in Oran. When the story is seen through the eyes of local merchants, it sheds new light on the common historiographic portrayal of Jews and other non-Muslim minorities in the Middle East and North Africa as drawing strength from the system of berats (protection, or extraterritorial status) offered by European consulates. European protection, it is true, allowed its beneficiaries, often nonMuslims, some relief from tariffs and local laws. But the anxieties unleashed by James Welsford’s dealings with local Jews sheds a different light on this dynamic; Jewish merchants in Oran were not merely protected by powerful foreign consuls. Rather, these merchants had access to a number of sources of support and power, including the consuls, whom they could also threaten at times. Merchants like Lasry and Amar were men whom Europeans had to respect, understand, and occasionally fear. Lasry’s turn to Muslim religious authorities in his effort to get the full value of his tiskeras illustrates how Jews in Oran did not operate in an autonomous Jewish legal environment. Rather, men like Lasry could seek out and mobilize European consular protection when it was available and appeared beneficial, but they could also turn to local Muslim officials to protect their investments— in Lasry’s case, against European powers. This presents a somewhat different take on the legal pluralism that would expand in the colonial period.76 In March 1831, when Clauzel’s ban on exporting to Gibraltar had been lifted but the new (Tunisian) bey was not accepting the tiskeras either, Lasry accompanied St. John to the local Muslim qadi, or judge, “who examined the tiskeras, said that the bey was liable to refund the price, and wrote an order to the French



Making Money in a Time of Conquest

89

Police to prevent his departure.”77 The French, however, were not inclined to keep the former bey in Oran unless they received payment of a substantial fee, which Lasry was unable to pay. The spectacle of a Jew going to a Muslim court for justice was not uncommon in nineteenth-century North Africa.78 This case is interesting because Lasry sought an order against the French for shielding a former (Muslim) bey who owed him money, and it serves as a counterexample to the earlier examples whereby Jews sought European officials to mete out justice. Not only could the French occupation disrupt institutions that benefited certain Jews, but also Lasry mobilized Islamic juridical offices to defend previously established arrangements against French disruptions. Furthermore, Jacob Lasry maintained a healthy contempt for Frenchimposed legal obstacles to running his business. His turn to the qadi shows a willingness to use judicial institutions, but this should not lead us to believe that Lasry was overly beholden to laws. For example, when Lasry was negotiating with Bey Hassan leading up to his purchase of the tiskeras, the governor warned Lasry that Clauzel was at the time preventing shipments of grain to ­Gibraltar. Lasry, to hear the consul tell it, was undeterred, optimistically replying, “Never mind. . . . The French can be bribed.”79 It is possible that Lasry did not even need to bribe French officials (he simply avoided their gaze by shipping out of another port); Lasry was powerful enough in the chaotic early colonial milieu that he could conduct his business despite French obstructions. The British interest in Oran’s commerce did not fade, so it is not surprising that the British continued to support Lasry’s claim until the end of 1832, well after the British consul had become convinced that Lasry and Welsford were lying about their losses. In March 1831 the newly appointed General Berthezène (who, we recall, replaced Clauzel and served until December 1831, when he was replaced by the Duc de Rovigo) responded to British complaints that Lasry had not been able to export under Bey Hassan (first because of the war and then because of Clauzel’s ban on exports to Gibraltar) and then under General Boyer. Berthezène convinced Lasry’s British backers that he had already shipped grain amounting to more than the full value of the tiskeras out of the port of Arzew, apparently with the help of a certain Gibraltarian Jewish merchant by the name of Joseph ­Cabessa.80 In fact, Lasry had intentionally bought the tiskeras, first from Bey Hassan and then from Khayr al-Din, when they were powerless and in need of funds. In other words, by early 1832 most relevant authorities were convinced that Welsford and Lasry had not only managed to export grain and cattle despite the French blockade of Oran but that they had also deceived their own consul-general.

90

Making Money in a Time of Conquest

The fact that these revelations did little to diminish Lasry’s consular backing underlines the effectiveness with which Lasry had secured British support against the French. Conversely, it also suggests that Oran held importance for Britain’s European empire. In fact, Thomas Reade, the British consul in Tunis at the time, continued to press the case with the sovereign, Bey Husayn of Tunis, until the final months of 1832.81 Still doing the bidding for Lasry and Welsford, St. John explained his strategy with the French authorities in an October letter to London, saying that he “showed [Berthezène] this document signed by every authority in Oran,” and he emphasized that he “ventured to add that British merchants residing there would be ruined if no dependence could be placed on the official acts of the head of the Government at that place.”82 The French hoped to control Oran and Algiers, but Lasry and Welsford knew that France would want to avoid antagonizing its more powerful European rival. The fact that Lasry and his partners were affected by the confusion unleashed by the French occupation also offers a challenge to the self-­congratulatory colonial literature that would contrast the seemingly arbitrary rule of the beys and deys with the blessings of progress that the French boasted of having brought to Algeria.83 Indeed, Lasry’s chief complaint was that the French had unleashed such chaos that it was impossible to hold on to stocks of goods, much less to trade. In an early 1832 note to Sir Thomas Reade, James Welsford admitted that, even though he and Lasry managed to export some goods under Khayr al-Din, “it was not in the power of the said Her Edin [Khayr al-Din] to tranquilize nor to induce the inhabitants to become friendly”;84 therefore they could not take full advantage of the permits they had purchased. Furthermore, Welsford claimed that he and Lasry “experienced a great hindrance in our commerce from the circumstance of the troops of the said Her Edin being frequently supplied with grain from our magazine.”85 In other words, Welsford and Lasry lost money as a result of the dislocations caused by the French war of occupation and from subsequent resistance to it and suffered exactions on goods by France’s proxies in Oran.86 But it was not just a question of the inhabitants not being friendly. When “Pedro the Cruel,” as Pierre Boyer had been nicknamed in reference to the fourteenth-century king of Castile and León, took over Oran after the departure of Khayr al-Din, things hardly improved.87 Boyer’s arbitrary ruthlessness became legend. During the “Boyer affair” he famously aroused the anger of his own superiors for summarily executing thirteen tribal leaders in late 1831 and early 1832, when the French were hoping to maintain a degree of calm.88



Making Money in a Time of Conquest

91

Even local fisherman caught at the wrong time and place found themselves on Boyer’s scaffolds.89 Described by British officials as a “barbarian” who “seems to delight in murder,” Boyer dealt with any perceived threat from local Muslims with on-the-spot and public beheadings and hangings.90 Boyer’s ruthlessness in establishing his own dominance ended up affecting foreigners and the merchant community. By late 1831 between 400 and 500 British subjects, or “the refuse of Malta and Gibraltar” in the words of the British consul St. John, had landed in Algerian cities. This was part of a larger southern European migration, including Frenchmen, Spaniards, and Italians, to North African cities in the wake of the occupation. Without being overly empathetic with the poor migrants from Britain’s European colonies, St. John nonetheless insisted that they were owed representation. Even in Algiers “there is some form of Justice,” he noted. “At Oran [under Boyer] everything is desperately bad.”91 When the vice-consul attempted to defend a wealthy Moroccan merchant established in Oran, Muhammad Valenciano, and his accomplice (or slave), Abd al-Salām ben Kairan—they were accused of advising neighboring tribes and the Moroccan authorities about the low numbers of French troops stationed in Oran— Boyer did not bother with an investigation. He simply had them decapitated the day after their arrest.92 The violence and chaos that the French unleashed on Oran was hardly a boon for business. At times, the French did realize the danger of provoking the British. Oran’s importance to Britain’s Mediterranean empire was well known to the French leadership, and they played a certain balancing act, given their government’s incursion into British commercial territory in western Algeria. The Duc de Rovigo, when he was appointed to the head of the French forces in Algeria, saw a serious danger in the Lasry case, one that could provoke a much greater conflict with Great Britain. “You know that since England possesses Gibraltar,” wrote the Duc to General Boyer in January 1832, “it is provisioned by grain and cattle by the province of Oran.” He noted that British agents were accusing Boyer of preventing their deliveries, and this could be perceived as “contrary to . . . freedom of commerce.” Even worse, it could “force the government [of Britain] to intervene in this discussion,” as it touched on the supply of one of “its most important places.”93 In a different note the Duc de Rovigo warned Boyer that, even though Welsford may be “contemptible,” he was owed respect as an agent of Great Britain.94 The Duc de Rovigo was concerned enough to write to the minister of war in Paris, noting that Boyer could be seen as “opposing ­Gibraltar’s being supplied by meat and wheat from Oran.”95 Even though the

92

Making Money in a Time of Conquest

Duc de Rovigo believed that Boyer was only acting to preserve supplies needed by French troops in Algiers and by then was probably convinced that Lasry had managed to export what he wished nonetheless, he thought it was an important enough affair to merit warning Paris; and the former French ambassador to the United States, Baron Louis-André Pichon, who as intendant civil was briefly in charge of civil affairs in Algiers, similarly warned Paris that Boyer risked bringing France into “serious affairs with England” because of his dealings with Lasry and Welsford.96 In a later note, Baron Pichon ordered the minister of the interior to “above all, give positive instructions to the functionaries under your orders regarding all relations with the vice consul of England at Oran.” He insisted that France “must avoid, with the greatest care, any hostile act against a friendly power whose rights we absolutely must respect.”97 Under these circumstances the right to protect or punish Jewish merchants became the moving terrain on which France and Britain tussled in western ­Algeria. According to French officials, the consulate of Britain used various issues to encourage his government to interfere with France’s plans for Algeria. In a letter to the wealthy banker and businessman Casimir Perrier, then serving as president of Louis-Philippe’s conseil des ministres in Paris, Baron Pichon noted that the British had been actively pursuing an “arrangement” with the deposed Dey Husayn of Algiers since his rendition in July 1830.98 Furthermore, the British consul thought that a number of his concerns “could and should” bring formal complaints from his government. These concerns included Lasry’s export permits. Almost all these areas of dispute involved Jews in some way: “export permits . . . refused by General Boyer, difficulties experienced by British ships from Gibraltar, a place that has necessary relations with Oran,” and “malevolence in the maintenance of these relations.”99 Jews were central to almost all the issues that British representatives in Algeria were using to encourage their government to resist French entrenchment in Algeria. Even though the French denied any responsibility for the actions of Bey Hassan or Khayr ­al-Din, some generals, such as the Duc de Rovigo, were concerned enough about British sensibilities to instruct the French consulate in Tunis to actively support the claims of Lasry and Welsford against the Tunisian bey.100 It was here, nonetheless, that the affair was probably put to rest. The British consul in Tunis, Lieutenant Colonel Sir Thomas Reade, in the hope of recovering the cost of the tiskeras sold by Khayr al-Din, managed to secure an audience with Bey Husayn of Tunis at the Bardo (the Tunisian royal palace). Furthermore, he managed to include the diplomatic representative of the Kingdom of



Making Money in a Time of Conquest

93

the Two Sicilies, who also pushed Lasry and Welsford’s requests.101 Unsurprisingly, the bey refused the charge that he was liable. Referring to “the general’s” letter (probably referring to Boyer), he explained that the tiskeras were valid and that Khayr al-Din had done all that was required of him. “Your words must be with the general, who has said that Lasry exported the quantities mentioned in the tiskeras, thus Lasry no longer has any claim with us regarding this affair.”102 Lasry and Welsford were unsuccessful in getting reimbursement for their tiskeras, whether or not they had already exported the permitted goods. CONCLUSION Lasry was dissatisfied with the arrangements that resulted from the tiskeras affair, but he survived the early conquest and emerged as one of the most influential businessmen in Oran. Indeed, he would go on to become an aide and intermediary of General Bertrand Clauzel and would even serve in the French civil administration. Between the support of the British and his access to both goods and a powerful role in precolonial trade networks, he actively navigated the chaotic environment of the early conquest. At the same time, Lasry’s unsuccessful efforts to be reimbursed for his “lost” investment in export permits demonstrate how local Jewish merchants mobilized British concerns about preserving their sphere of influence during the French conquest. Finally, the story of the tiskeras demonstrates that Oran’s Jews cannot be reduced to either unfortunate denizens of a corrupt, static, or intolerant society or passive observers of a conquest that would liberate them. Rather, the drama of Jacob Lasry’s export permits, purchased in a time of chaos, demonstrates that North African Jewish merchants like Lasry could be active, astute, and effective shapers of their own destiny.

This page intentionally left blank

4

STRUGGLES FOR AND BET WEEN THE MERCHANTS OF ORAN

B Y A P R I L 18 31 Oran was in chaos. Mercantile relations had soured, a notable merchant had been murdered, and the arbitrary violence of Algeria’s new French overlords filled the inhabitants with terror. The former bey Hassan had left Oran and the new Tunisian bey, Khayr al-Din, was chafing against the limits that the French had put on his authority. The British consul-general in Algiers, Robert William St. John, was anxious about who did possess real authority: Mordecai Amar, General Boyer’s confidante and chief of the Jewish nation. The problem had little to do with Amar being Jewish; rather, the issue was that the British were tied to different notables—other Jews, as we have seen. Furthermore, the British vice-consul in Oran, Nathaniel Welsford, had recently shown evidence of dishonesty (or at least a lack of prudence) that worried his superiors. For instance, when an Algiers-based French businessman by the name of Mr. Joly initiated a suit in a French tribunal in Algiers against his former partner, Welsford was indirectly implicated. Mr. Joly had apparently delivered a sealed bag of sequins (Venetian gold coins) to this former partner as payment for goods he had ordered from Gibraltar. The partner then sent it off to Nathaniel Welsford in Oran, who was supposed to forward it to Gibraltar. Somehow, the bag never made it past Welsford. Welsford, according to some, faced an opportunity too attractive to pass up. And he needed cash. On the advice of his associate Jacob Lasry, Welsford broke the bag’s seal and used its valuable contents to purchase several houses from the departing Bey Hassan.1 This was not the only trouble Welsford had

96

Struggles For and Between the Merchants of Oran

gotten himself into. Amar was blaming him for having traded away several of his borrowed jewels, which Amar had expected back. Although the accusations may well have been trumped up, the trouble that Nathaniel Welsford and his son James found themselves in was very real. The British consul in Algiers, St. John, worried that “the Jews . . . might proceed to hire Kabyles to assassinate Mr. Welsford, or myself, or anyone.” As for the possibility of his vice-consul getting justice in Oran, it was hopeless. Such were the circumstances when St. John explained to his superiors that “the state of affairs there is very bad . . . in fact it is governed by the Jew Amar.”2 The ways in which the vice-consul had become involved in these affairs were complicated, but St. John’s anxiety is simple enough to understand: He was worried that Amar would order his assassination. As we will see, it would not have been the first time that Amar used violence to remove his rivals. This story illustrates the remarkable power of certain Jewish merchants in Oran and highlights the serious conflicts that erupted between them. It also underlines how rivalries could prove threatening for certain traders, including European consuls generally regarded as the source of security for Jewish merchants. Among merchants, business interests (and the disputes they engendered) could be more meaningful than boundaries of religious affiliation, especially in a town that was so Jewish. Furthermore, these interests could confuse, scare, and anger Europeans. As St. John brazenly shared with the French general Berthezène, a man whose underlings in Algeria relied on local Jewish agents, “Of one thing I am certain, that every man who puts confidence in, and acts on the suggestion of an Algerine Jew, must eventually involve himself in some discreditable transaction.”3 In this chapter I explore a series of rivalries between Jewish merchants whom Lasry knew (if not necessarily liked) in order to illuminate the intricacies of Jewish power and identity in Lasry’s Oran. I focus first on the dispute between the merchants Joseph Cabessa and Mordecai Amar. Then I turn to Amar’s dispute with Judah Sebbah, a scuffle that triggered some revealing hand-wringing among the French. All these men worked in Lasry’s environment, either in parallel with him or as his rivals. These stories are not simply interesting in and of themselves. They allow us to consider the French conquest of Algeria through the history of local merchants, and they reveal how the conquest caused problems for Jewish merchants and how their commercial importance and adaptive strategies forced the French to adjust their policies. As we will see, as French officers and British consuls stumbled through Algeria’s



Struggles For and Between the Merchants of Oran

97

unfamiliar economic, social, and institutional terrain, they sometimes had to bend to these wealthy and knowledgeable North African merchants. If local Jewish merchants caused trouble for the French and British, they did so in part by maintaining serious, even deadly, rivalries with each other. My second goal in this chapter, then, is to show how Jews in late Ottoman and early colonial Oran were integral, powerful, and yet divided and fractious components of late colonial society. If they drew strength from foreign consuls, they could also threaten them. The existence of a “Jewish nation” headed by a muqaddem did not mean that there was a powerful legal structure unifying the city’s Jews, a sense of allegiance among them, or a even a single foreign sponsor. Religion, in other words, was not always the most salient social boundary marker. These rivalries reflect the dynamism, diversity, and mobility that characterized Oran’s commercial life on the eve of conquest. They also offer an angle from which to explore a more intimate history of the conquest than is usually available. THE MURDER OF JOSEPH CABESSA Joseph Cabessa, a Mediterranean merchant and one of Jacob Lasry’s partners, was born to a Sephardic family in Tétouan, Morocco, but as a young man he installed himself in British Gibraltar. He may have belonged to a family into which Lasry would later marry, sharing as he did the family name of Lasry’s second wife, Semha Cabessa, whom Lasry married in 1843.4 Although Joseph did not hold a British passport, he probably spent a good deal of time in Gibraltar, traveling to Oran on business. Over a 45-year career in exports, Cabessa had earned the respect of the British diplomatic corps, notably for supplying North African cattle to British forces in Spain during the Peninsular War against Napoleon’s France (1808–1814).5 Despite Cabessa’s long-standing association with British Gibraltar, his presence in Oran was clearly long-lived; within a decade or two of the 1792 Ottoman conquest of Oran, he was working out of western Algeria, under Bey Ali Kora Bargli (r. 1812–1817). To that end, Cabessa owned a storehouse in Arzew, a port town 38 kilometers northeast of Oran. Like Lasry, however, Cabessa probably did most of his exporting from Oran to Gibraltar. According to many officials, when the French blocked Lasry from exporting his grain and cattle out of Oran, Cabessa helped him by shipping the grain and cattle out of Arzew.6 Cabessa’s career came to an abrupt end on February 4, 1831. While he was in his storehouse in Arzew overseeing the transport of Lasry’s grain to a Gibraltar-bound ship, several Kabyles came into his store and, in front of several witnesses, killed him.7

98

Struggles For and Between the Merchants of Oran

Much like the case of Jacob Lasry’s tiskeras, Cabessa’s 1831 murder in Arzew became a diplomatic incident that illustrates the power certain Jewish merchants in Oran could muster. In fact, the affairs were related: Cabessa was killed, French officials insisted, while helping Lasry load grain onto ships, subverting the French ban on exporting grain and cattle to Gibraltar. Almost immediately after Cabessa’s murder, both the acting bey, Khayr al-Din, and the British vice-consul, Nathaniel Welsford, took an interest in the affair. This was not surprising, given Cabessa’s reasonably high profile, his ties to Lasry, his work in exports, and his association with Gibraltar and the British military. Welsford was particularly concerned about identifying and punishing the person who killed Cabessa. So a legal case involving a Jewish merchant in Oran at the dawn of the French conquest quickly became an international affair. According to a note Welsford sent his superiors in Algiers, there was evidence “almost amounting to proof ” that Amar, the chief of the Jewish community, along with Muhammad Valenciano, the Moroccan merchant Boyer later executed, had hired Cabessa’s killers. Depending on the particular business, Amar could be a powerful and dangerous man. In the 1820s French vice-consuls in Oran frequently referred in correspondence to Amar as a key contact. Amar’s wealth was probably more closely tied to trade to both Gibraltar and the Algerian interior.8 Records from the early colonial period state that Amar’s dealings with those regions had been key to Oran’s provisioning from before the French occupation.9 Like a number of other Algerian and T ­ unisian Jews who were living in Livorno in the early nineteenth century, Amar may have acquired French nationality in 1811, when Napoleon issued a decree granting French citizenship rights to Jews in Italy, regardless of their current nationality. Amar’s long relationship with the French vice-consul (and perhaps other officials) did not preclude his involvement with British interests or the Gibraltar trade; he was in Oran after all, and there was money to be made in that business. Amar purchased tiskeras from Bey Hassan and sold them to Jacob Lasry.10 In the aftermath of the breakdown of authority in Oran in July 1830, Amar found himself threatened with death by several Ottoman soldiers, probably because of a rival’s accusation that he had colluded with the French. His response, according to the consul’s journal, was to seek shelter in the British consulate.11 Serving as an agent to the French vice-consul clearly did not impede him from seeking the protection of the British in the chaotic situation following the French occupation of Algiers.



Struggles For and Between the Merchants of Oran

99

Why Amar ordered Cabessa’s killing, if he did, remains mysterious. It could have been a question of Amar’s debts to Cabessa, or perhaps an opportunistic effort by Amar to reduce competition. As for Welsford, he worried that the murder might be linked to the unresolved case of the stolen sequins. In any case, Cabessa’s death set Amar and Welsford, once friendly, on a collision course that put the power of certain Jewish merchants in Oran—as well as their rivalries—into relief. The fact that no one denied that Amar was involved in the crime (including his French sponsors) did not lead to a quick resolution of the case. Khayr al-Din arrested Amar in February 1831 for what the vice-consul described obliquely as “embroiling the inhabitants.”12 Yet the French challenged this arrest. Whatever the former commander Clauzel had arranged with Khayr al-Din, the new commander Berthezène visibly did not care to grant the new bey more power than was convenient. In fact, the French military under Berthezène placed the interests of their Jewish agent Amar above the wishes of the man General Clauzel had installed only months before, immediately demanding that Khayr al-Din set Amar free. More enduring than Khayr al-Din’s authority was Amar’s singular position, one that did not rely exclusively on the berat (letters of protection from a foreign power), which he did not possess.13 When French officers threatened to forcefully free Amar, the Tunisian bey unleashed a tirade—the substance of which demonstrates how the legal status of wealthy Jewish merchants quickly became a battleground in the BritishFrench-Tunisian struggle for Oran. Khayr al-Din accused the French (with some justification) of misleading him on a number of counts regarding his authority in Oran. He railed against being constrained to the point that he “could do no act, not even punish one of his own Jews.”14 Khayr al-Din’s rage was fed by the knowledge that Amar was not even a protégé of the French. In fact, the bey demanded to see the berat that would have established Amar’s French status and thus immunity from justice. Given that no such papers existed, Khayr al-Din insisted that Amar was an “Algerine” Jew, not under French or British protection, and thus his subject, to punish or pardon as he pleased. Undaunted, the French freed Amar, but not without Khayr al-Din threatening to complain to Algiers and Tunis about French disregard for the terms of his service. Although Khayr al-Din had been installed by a French general, he had limited power. Amar, on the other hand, managed to use his established position to navigate an advantageous position regardless of his lack of official protégé status.

100

Struggles For and Between the Merchants of Oran

But which government could protect which Jew remained a matter of dispute. For Welsford, arresting Amar was crucial. Welsford had broken the rules by getting tangled up in business deals with such local Jewish merchants as Lasry and Amar, and Amar was claiming that Welsford owed him money. Indeed, Welsford was quite afraid of him. Consul-General St. John supported Welsford’s request begrudgingly, assuming (incorrectly) that the bey was the acting authority. He demanded that Khayr al-Din pursue justice for Cabessa’s murder. “You must be aware,” St. John wrote to the bey in April, “that the British Government is not to be insulted with impunity, and that as long as you have the authority at Oran, it will look to you for protection and justice for its subjects.”15 Khayr al-Din insisted glumly that he was powerless. According to the British consul’s complaints to the French general, the acting bey “pleads inability” to hold Amar, “in consequence of Amar being protected by the French commandant.”16 The French, meanwhile, were unwilling to cooperate. “In talking with the general [Berthezène] on Cabessa’s murder,” St. John wrote to London, “he treated it lightly.” Berthezène apparently went so far as to say that in an occupied territory such as Oran, “Such things must happen.”17 Amar’s power, with his ties to the French, superseded that of the British consular offices. Amar’s lofty position in Oran cannot be reduced to the protection he received from the French before the conquest. Rather, his power—and presumably that of other Jews in western Algeria at the time—was a consequence of circumstances at once local and regional. Amar had enjoyed close ties with the former bey Hassan, whom the French had ejected in favor of Khayr al-Din. Frequently referred to as “Hassan’s Jew” or “Hassan’s Jew minister” by the British vice-consul, Amar had been the exclusive supplier of cattle to the beylical palace, and his access to the local governor made him a frequent interlocutor with vice-consuls in the 1820s. From earlier correspondence, Amar appears as a necessary interlocutor when foreign diplomats sought an audience with the bey.18 For example, in 1821 the vice-consul’s correspondence to his superior cataloged the gifts he was to present to Amar, including two silver vases, presumably to secure his goodwill.19 When the French protected Amar after his arrest in February 1831, they were supporting a figure who had established his influence (and utility) well before the conquest; they were not merely extending legally obligatory assistance to an otherwise helpless protégé. Indeed, Amar was still not a French protégé in 1831. Khayr al-Din’s refusal to free Amar was legally based on his claim that Amar was one of his own subjects. Amar’s ulti-



Struggles For and Between the Merchants of Oran

101

mate liberation exemplifies, among other things, how the French depended on well-established local interlocutors in the first years of conquest. In addition to putting into relief French reliance on such merchants, the story of Cabessa’s life and death illuminates once again the problems with the colonial, and later popular, emphasis on religion as a boundary marker of social groupings in North Africa. Participants in the world of Western ­Algerian commerce also derived their status, identity, and power from contacts, networks, and sources of protection. From the letters of Solomon Cabessa, Joseph’s brother, business partner, and, following his murder, guardian of his estate, we learn that Cabessa thought that the beylical house owed him money. The debt was contracted by a previous bey, Ali Kora Bargli (r. 1812–1817) with whom Cabessa had done business. Joseph Cabessa had purchased the right to export 3,000 fanegas (a Spanish unit of measure equivalent to about 55.5 liters, or 1.96 cubic feet) of wheat valued at 21,000 boudjous each.20 Unfortunately for the Cabessa family, Bey Ali “borrowed” the wheat Cabessa wanted to export and sent it to the dey in Algiers as tribute. When the bey went to Algiers to negotiate the amount of tribute in 1817, he was assassinated, bringing Bey Hassan to power. The matter languished, bringing financial strain to the Cabessa family. The Cabessas did not give up with the death of the bey. Instead, they attempted to link the debt they were owed to the beylical house itself, thus rendering its current possessor liable. On at least one occasion in 1829, Solomon Cabessa went to Oran to help recoup the funds. Later, Bey Hassan (perhaps with the help of his minister Amar) called Cabessa to Oran, nominally to settle the affair begun while his predecessor was in power. According to Solomon ­Cabessa, it was a ruse; Hassan’s men took Cabessa’s British-issued passport when he arrived in Oran and forced him to settle Bey Ali’s debt to him on unfavorable terms without the protection of the British consulate. To make matters worse, the French, who were the real power in Oran, were obliging Solomon Cabessa to repurchase the tiskeras to export wheat to Gibraltar. Did the Cabessa family’s efforts to collect on this debt inspire Amar to have Joseph Cabessa killed? Perhaps Amar, a merchant and the former bey’s minister, had something to lose if Cabessa succeeded in marshaling British support. Or perhaps the affair was less complicated: Cabessa’s business interests simply competed with Amar’s. Maybe Amar’s loyalties to the French led him to act when Cabessa and Lasry made money smuggling grain out of Arzew. Either way, Cabessa’s and Lasry’s businesses depended on exports to Gibraltar, and although Cabessa was a Moroccan subject, both he and Lasry depended on British backing.

102

Struggles For and Between the Merchants of Oran

Feuds such as the one between Amar and Cabessa cannot be traced purely to opposing efforts of rival consulates to secure protégés. At least occasionally it was the other way around; local commercial rivalries could threaten those consuls or vice-consuls who had the misfortune of being associated with one of the two parties. I noted earlier how the British consul in Algiers grew anxious about Nathaniel Welsford’s dealings. As it turns out, Welsford had not restricted his dealings (directly or through his son) to Lasry but had also dealt with Amar. Welsford’s deal with Amar resulted in some misunderstandings. Not only were a number of sequins missing from an earlier deal, but when Welsford agreed to shelter Amar from Ottoman soldiers back in July 1830, Amar had apparently stored some jewels with Welsford, jewels that he now wished to have returned. All of this aroused great concern for St. John, who sent a number of distressed messages about the trouble his vice-consul in Oran was causing him. To add to the potential for conflict, Amar and Jacob Lasry were far from friends, and the vice-consul’s association with Lasry had the potential of drawing the British into trouble with Amar’s French patrons. As Oran’s merchants battled for control, they brought naïve or simply understaffed European agents into the arena of their contest. It follows that Welsford triggered St. John’s wrath for allowing his office to become involved in these formidable, and even lethal, local rivalries. St. John wrote to Welsford, “Your son’s commerce [as partner with Lasry] has involved you in such a manner as almost to account for the enmity of Amar and others to you as their rival in trade” (emphasis in original).21 Avoiding such a rivalry was “the principal reason for the V. Consul’s being prohibited from trading.” Welsford was chastised for getting Britain too involved with these rivalries by behaving as though Cabessa and other Jews were British subjects and by not keeping his distance from those asking for help but without British papers.22 It was at this time that St. John expressed serious concern that Amar or one of his associates might go so far as to kill Welsford or even himself as a result of those involvements.23 These rivalries had ramifications in local Oran politics, and foreign consuls and generals became involved. Amar’s business competition with Lasry was echoed in Lasry’s campaign, with the help of a number of local rabbis, to wrestle the position of muqaddem from Amar.24 For all its limits, the position of m ­ uqaddem provided certain privileges and responsibilities—among others, the regulation of Oran’s Jewish shopkeepers’ interactions with Arab tribes who brought goods to the town’s market.25 As expected, the new French administration quickly had a stake in having the position filled by an effective, loyal figure



Struggles For and Between the Merchants of Oran

103

able to guarantee Oran’s provisioning. In January 1831 the Comte de D ­ amrémont, a French general who would several years later become governor-general and who was well aware of these rivalries, saw his government relying on Amar’s continued mandate. Consequently, Damrémont complained of the “conduct of Mr. Jacob Lasry, a British Jew, for insulting Amar.”26 The same consular official reported that “Lasry had been getting up a petition in order to remove Amar from acting as . . . chief of the Jews and that he the general [Damrément] would imprison him for it.” Although the threat to imprison Lasry never materialized, the possibility that the French would take such actions to maintain “their” Jew as muqaddem suggests the position’s enduring importance—at least to Europeans. The British also clearly had a stake in who became or remained muqaddem of the Jewish nation. As a January 1831 note to the consul-general explained, it was “Amar who had been the aggressor [when Lasry supposedly insulted Amar].” Furthermore, Welsford wrote that “the Jews had been horribly oppressed by Amar, that the petition was signed by each of the Jew Priests, and by nearly every Jew in Oran, and that I should most strongly protest against Lasry or any other British subject being imprisoned on such grounds.”27 With official sanction or not, the British vice-consul backed certain Jews against ­others in their contests for official positions under the bey. Almost certainly, this endorsement was rooted in their aligned interests. The rivalry between Britain and France was, on one level, played out through support of the rival candidates for the position of muqaddem of Oran. Various political interests recognized the social importance of certain Jewish merchants in Oran and wished to promote them by helping them secure local political positions. From the perspective of these Jewish merchants, however, the rivalry between Britain and France was a real but peripheral circumstance in the pursuit of their own dramas. Perhaps Lasry, in buying tiskeras from two fading leaders, was not simply taking part in a time-tested form of commodities export in North Africa and the western Mediterranean but knowledgably seeking to leverage British commercial and diplomatic support, French disorganization and ignorance of the terrain, and the declining power of the bey in the pursuit of his own business. It is also conceivable that Lasry’s increasing wealth (tied as it was to Oran’s new importance in supplying Gibraltar) led him to the rational conclusion that he could challenge Amar for the profitable and influential office of muqaddem of Oran’s Jews. Amar, for his part, was not a British subject and jealously guarded his own power. In so doing, he too sought to take advantage of what he had available—in his case, established connections with French

104

Struggles For and Between the Merchants of Oran

diplomats, their new military power in Algeria, and the desperate need of the colonizers for local contacts, information, and informants. These rivalries and dramas also offer an additional illustration of how the status of Jews in late Ottoman Oran hinged less on religious identity than on their roles in commerce. As noted earlier, Lasry was frequently described as a British or Gibraltar merchant despite his permanent residence in Oran. Cabessa, despite his lack of British protection, was understood similarly. Yet St. John, when discussing Welsford’s unfortunate decision to hire and protect a translator named Judah Sebbah (who is discussed in more depth in the next section), complained that Welsford had failed to obey earlier orders “never to employ Jews officially.”28 Similarly, when describing Welsford’s mix-up with Amar, St. John sanctimoniously claimed, “I make it a point . . . never to have any transaction whatever with the Jews.”29 By “Jews,” it would appear, St. John did not mean the overwhelmingly Jewish community of merchants with Moroccan roots on whom Gibraltar depended. “Jews” here meant those with presumably less savory Algerian roots and close ties to the beys, such as Amar. Perhaps it goes without saying but neither Jews’ social prominence nor the utility of Jews such as Amar prevented French generals from speaking of them with the utmost contempt. For example, when discussing Lasry and Welsford’s scheme to his superiors, General Boyer explained their ruse to have the tiskeras valued a second time: “The method is Jewish and will be appreciated.” If his ironic use of appreciated is a bit odd, Boyer’s tone of contempt for “Jewish” methods is clear.30 In other correspondence Boyer also lashed out against Jews, noting that he refused to have them insult his “dignity” or that they “dominated” commerce. As we will soon find out, Lasry himself was the subject of vitriolic anti-Jewish rants when he sought to profit by lending money to France’s hired warlords. “Jewish” did not carry implications of social rank. A Jew from Tétouan involved in the Gibraltar trade (whether or not he was a British subject) was a different animal from a Jew linked with Amar or the bey’s palace or, for that matter, a small shopkeeper from Oujda. In a city of Jews, religious identity on its own was of limited value in measuring an individual’s rank or allegiances. JUDAH SEBBAH AND THE RIGHT TO PROTECT The story of Judah Sebbah and his disputes with Amar provides another example of how vicious intra-Jewish rivalries in Oran could be, how dedicated



Struggles For and Between the Merchants of Oran

105

certain Algerian Jews were to the maintenance of an independent but Britishinfluenced Oran, and how French generals and British consuls wrestled over the legal status of Jews. Sebbah was a Jewish merchant in Oran before the arrival of the French; he was active in the cattle trade and at least sometimes served as an interpreter for Nathaniel Welsford. He was not a British subject, but he does appear to have been close to the British in North Africa. His rise to diplomatic infamy lies in both his connections to local tribes and his efforts to unseat Amar as the sole supplier of meat to the bey’s palace. Sebbah’s complicated role in the history of the conquest illuminates additional ways that North African Jews, through their contacts with local tribal groups and foreign powers, could threaten the French occupiers. According to French reports, Sebbah served the British in part by acting as a spy for local tribes. For example, in late October and early November 1831 Sebbah went to representatives of “the Arabs” and told them not only of French troops’ lack of provisions but also of their intentions to “seek hostages from among them.”31 Furthermore, when notables of the Gharaba came to the gates of Oran to seek peace with the French, Sebbah “went into the midst of them, and after five minutes of discussion, they left. Since that day they have yet to stop their thefts and killings.” Boyer went on to complain that the same group had only recently killed “a Jew who was looking for stones for a lime kiln for the military engineers.” Given Sebbah’s influence with local Arab tribes and his investment in keeping the French from succeeding in Oran, General Boyer’s conclusion was that Sebbah was “totally devoted to the English”32 and that he could no longer allow him to stay in Oran. However, Sebbah also intended to adapt to western Algeria’s changing environment. This sometimes meant profiting from the French occupation, even if it also meant subverting their local proxies, such as Amar. Notably, Sebbah saw his opportunity to win himself Amar’s meat concession when French troops were approaching Oran: He informed Bey Hassan that Amar was favorable to the invaders. Given Amar’s history of serving as France’s agent in Oran (and his close association with them after their arrival), the report was convincing. According to a witness, in August 1830 Bey Hassan flew “into a rage of passion” in the presence of Amar, charging him “with having betrayed him to the French in Algiers,” and he subsequently “threatened to kill him.”33 Welsford, according to his own testimony, managed to save Amar at that moment (he later recalled having bravely told the bey that “his sword should go through my body before it touched Amar”);34 Amar then fled to Algiers, hiding his wife—for ­reasons

106

Struggles For and Between the Merchants of Oran

that remain unclear—with England’s vice-consul. Amar’s wife also left a considerable amount of jewels with the vice-consul. Sebbah took advantage of Amar’s sudden, if temporary, weakness to take over the concession furnishing the palace with meat. Amar was down but not out. He managed to secure access to General Boyer when Boyer arrived in Algiers and explained his situation to him. Perhaps it was at this time that Amar began to work his way into Boyer’s good graces; Boyer would still be talking about the “high regard” he had for Amar several years later in correspondence with local tribesmen.35 Amar accompanied Boyer to Oran in 1831, where, with French assistance, he retook possession of the disputed cattle concession. Boyer, hoping to rid himself of Sebbah, given his meddling with local tribes and his support for British interests, expelled him from Oran and had him exiled to Toulon.36 Although Sebbah found his way back to Oran soon after, it was clear that Jewish merchants used the French need for local experts to advance their own interests, sometimes at each others’ expense. Such stories illustrate how Oran Jews’ allegiances were not reliably with their co-religionists or with the French. To the great frustration of Boyer, ­Sebbah clearly circulated in a Muslim North African milieu at the expense of the French. In fact, Boyer’s complaints about Sebbah included the accusation that he was an associate of the two Moroccan Muslims Muhammad Valenciano and his companion, Abd al Salaam ben Quiran, whom he had decapitated the previous September for relaying the information about the paucity of French troops and their resources to Morocco and to the Doua’ir and the Z’māla.37 Furthermore, by March 1832, according to General Boyer, Sebbah had returned to Algeria and again “exchanged words and correspondences” with certain Jews and (hostile) Arab chiefs, who “ha[ve] all conspired to put us in the same state of hostility [with the tribes] we were in last October.”38 Boyer was not alone among French officers who charged Sebbah’s British protectors with supporting “enemy” tribesmen. Indeed, according to his correspondence to Paris, the Duc de Rovigo insisted that St. John had been making arrangements with “Kabyles, whom you know to be our enemies.”39 The ongoing and high-level dispute over Sebbah shows how Jews enjoyed ties to not only tribal forces but also Moroccan officials and the British, to the great consternation of the French. The story of Sebbah also evokes Jewish merchants’ considerable power in Oran. Both France and Britain saw the prerogative to protect or punish him as crucially and strategically important. They therefore went to surprising



Struggles For and Between the Merchants of Oran

107

lengths, including consulting local religious authorities, to determine certain Jews’ “­nationality.” For example, Welsford was furious when Amar succeeded in having Boyer punish Sebbah, whom he regarded as his protégé (however un­ official). Welsford continued to insist that not only had he the “charge and commission” of his government to intervene on behalf of Moroccan subjects such as Valenciano but also that Sebbah himself was a protected subject, a claim Welsford’s own higher officer denied. The French “right” to punish Sebbah, conversely, became a matter of pride and principle for Boyer. When the general got word that Sebbah had been freed in France and not only was on his way back to Oran but also threatening to charge Boyer through a consular tribunal for having “abused authority,” he flew into a rage. Boyer insisted in official correspondence that Sebbah was not British but rather “a Jew native of Oran and, by consequence today, a French subject.”40 The fact that French authorities questioned Boyer as to whether he was within his power to punish Sebbah was particularly galling to him: “I must be given all the [freedom of] action and capacity of a commander,” he insisted in correspondence to his commander. “If a Jew and a vice consul of England, a man of the lowest class, can affront my dignity . . . the government [of France] is itself without dignity.”41 For Boyer, the ability to govern Oran’s Jewish merchants was a matter of significant French national interest. Tellingly, in the struggle between European authorities over the right to govern Sebbah, the French actually turned to local Jewish courts to make their case. Fearful of directly confronting British sovereignty by punishing a Jew whom British authorities claimed to be protected, the French authorities procured a signed testimonial from a bet din (rabbinic court) in Oran to establish the fact that Sebbah was born in Oran and was known to them for more than thirty years.42 Clearly, they saw the local rabbinic tribunals as an acceptable source of authority as to who was local and thus subject to French jurisdiction. Even though the French would soon subsume the authority of these rabbinic courts to their own civil code, at this early moment they actually deployed them against their rivals. The extension of French colonial power sometimes required harnessing the authority of local North African Jews. Sebbah’s possible protection under the berat system had far-reaching implications, and some saw it as threatening France’s ability to hold Algeria. A week or so after Boyer’s letter, the Duc de Rovigo received Welsford’s complaint that Boyer, acting on the suggestion of Amar, detained Sebbah (who had recently returned to Oran), as well as members of his family, and had him beaten

108

Struggles For and Between the Merchants of Oran

violently.43 Although the Duc de Rovigo was not convinced of the veracity of Welsford’s story, he was sincerely worried about the fate of “the Jew Sebbah” and about who had the right to govern him. By early 1832 fear of protected Jews had ascended to an exasperated Duc de Dalmatie, then the minister of war in Paris. Referring to the information he had received from Algeria, the Duc de Dalmatie fretted to the minister of foreign affairs that “none of Boyer’s reports positively makes known of which power this Israelite is the subject.”44 The Duc de Rovigo, for his part, noted that if the British had the right to protect Sebbah or anyone else they wished, “they [the British] will soon be more powerful than us.” Furthermore, “We already have quite enough difficulties . . . resulting from the ideas of independence [the British] have sown among the Arabs, without having to defend ourselves from accusations that they bring against us.”45 In the eyes of these generals, if France was truly going to control North Africa, they needed to establish unambiguously that they could govern the Jewish merchants of Oran. If not, the city would essentially remain independent and in the British orbit. For his part, to gain protection and avoid punishment, Judah Sebbah, like Lasry, was able to adapt to the flux of authority in Algeria by playing off the ignorance that the French generals had of each other’s plans and priorities. The story of Sebbah’s post-expulsion return to Oran is indicative of his admirable ­finesse. After Boyer removed him from his newly acquired cattle concession and shipped him off to Toulon, Sebbah not only managed to escape captivity but also made his way to Marseilles and made the friendly acquaintance of the general Duc de Rovigo. According to the general’s own account, ­Sebbah convinced him, the commander of the French forces in Algeria, that he could be useful as an intermediary with “the Arabs.” The Duc de Rovigo invited ­Sebbah to join him in Algiers and even provided him, the former translator and unofficial protégé of the British consul, with a French passport. Afterward, however, Sebbah avoided the Duc’s attention, at least long enough to return to Oran.46 Whether or not Boyer had Sebbah beaten remains unclear; some said that Welsford sent Sebbah off to Gibraltar, probably temporarily, to escape the wrath of Boyer and Amar. Later, he returned to Oran to become a municipal counselor; he died there in 1837.47 Before concluding, it is worth observing how the archival trail of the British and French rivalry over the right to protect or punish local Jews occasionally sheds a bit of light on more modest layers of Oran’s society. Rafael ben Haim, for example, came to Oran from Tangiers in the hopes of mak-



Struggles For and Between the Merchants of Oran

109

ing money from the rise in seafaring traffic, but not as a merchant. Carrying a British-issued passport, he established a café where sailors, merchants, or ­others could drink and gamble. Boyer, upon taking over in 1831, decided that Ben Haim’s business was contrary to the “good policing” of the city. Not content to simply fine him 10 boudjous, according to his ordinance, and close his café, Boyer ordered him deported to Morocco. On at least one occasion, French officials actually led Ben Haim to the port at Mers al-Kabir and told him to embark on a ship, but Ben Haim refused. According to General Boyer, after “ten occasions” Ben Haim was finally about to leave, but with the support of the British vice-consul Welsford, he insisted on remaining.48 In his efforts to get rid of Ben Haim, Boyer got into an ongoing tangle with Welsford about the validity of his passport. According to Boyer, this “irascible” British official was convinced that he had the same authority as he had under Bey Hassan, whom he could always threaten with a “British fleet.” Now he had the “impudence” to treat French generals to the same disrespect.49 In a furious letter to Paris, Boyer insisted that something had to be done to prevent the British from commanding the same power, through its Jews, as it had before they arrived.50 Although there may be another story lurking under that of the Moroccan café owner from Tangier, Oran’s Moroccan Jews were clearly not limited to the highest level of international commerce. Meanwhile, the conquest provided conditions under which even Jewish gamblers stood a chance to procure British consular help. CONCLUSION In an 1831 letter to London the British consul in Algiers worried that Amar was, “like most Algerine Jews, capable of any atrocity to revenge himself.” Later in the same note, he differentiated himself from the less-responsible vice-­consul in Oran by boasting, “I make it a point . . . never to have any transaction whatever with the Jews, and I attribute the position in which I stand with both French and Moors a great deal to this circumstance.”51 Such negative characterizations of Jews were not the sole province of British observers. Several years before the conquest, in order to emphasize the French consul Pierre Deval’s terrible reputation in Algiers and his inutility, the captain of the French ship ­Carran described Deval as “entirely discredited among the Europeans who reside in that country, to the point that he has been reduced to frequenting only Jews and Turks.”52 Disparaging remarks about local Jews by military officers would be an ongoing feature of the French occupation.

110

Struggles For and Between the Merchants of Oran

Such negative characterizations of Algerian Jewish merchants are an undeniable component of the archive, but anti-Semitic remarks can hide as much as they reveal. As important as it is to understand the breadth of official attitudes, at some level such remarks also serve as clues that French and British personnel had to work with or around Oran’s Jewish merchants and their conspicuous power. Oran’s commercial community was largely Jewish, and well-to-do Jewish merchants constituted much of the city’s elite. They were also very much part of the social texture of North Africa, with connections to local tribes and Moroccan officials, and often had overlapping interests with the British. The rivalries that worried European consuls and sent them searching for local and foreign records to determine what regime governed a given Jew is a sign of Jews’ importance in Oran. British and French statesmen and officers had to mold their policies to the local landscape, which was often shaped by Jews. Sebbah counted among a merchant class that was savvy, fractious, dynamic, and powerful. They were businessmen in a frontier environment. The intertwined stories of Algiers’ and Oran’s native Jews, such as Sebbah and Amar, and of Moroccan Jews in the British orbit, such as Cabessa and Lasry, all of which unfurled in Oran well before the articulation of an ideology of regeneration in Algeria, illustrate how rivalries—sometimes violent ones—between Jews were a natural consequence of Oran’s business environment and place in the earlynineteenth-century western Mediterranean world. There was no specifically Jewish “method,” as Boyer contemptuously claimed, nor were such rivalries an indication of cultural immaturity, as imagined by later reformers. Rather, in defiance of the push of both states and historians to assign Jews a neat social rank, Oran’s Jews were interwoven into their North African and Mediterranean world at different levels and sought and distributed support in various ways, and the conquest forced them to negotiate a dangerous and shifting political and commercial environment. In dramatic contrast to colonial-era representations of Jews as a reified caste cemented, at a low rung, into Algeria’s racial mosaic, here we have seen divisions from the other side: a diverse band of ambitious merchants and others possessed of their own stories, backgrounds, and (sometimes conflicting) interests. Their story perfectly illustrates the purely ideological nature of the “indigenous Jews,” a category introduced to Algeria by the French, as opposed to a useful social and historical optic. The story of Oran’s Jews also provides an enlightening new angle on the history of French and British wrangling over influence in Middle Eastern or North African markets through local protégés. Men such as Lasry and Sebbah were



Struggles For and Between the Merchants of Oran

111

savvy and cosmopolitan agents, not simply entry points for European influence in the Ottoman Mediterranean. If anything, such Europeans as Nathaniel and James Welsford and occasionally even generals such as Boyer were swept up in or stymied by the actions, visions, and divisions of local Jewish merchants. Although the immediate threat to Welsford was a result of Amar’s French backing, it is nonetheless impossible to imagine this scenario had Jewish merchants not enjoyed the prestige and influence they did before the French arrived. By extension, these episodes show the importance that the conquering French placed on the right to claim Jews in Algeria as their subjects, an importance that was directly related to Oran’s already important role in trade with the Iberian Peninsula, especially Gibraltar. When the Duc de Rovigo fretted that if the British had the right to protect Sebbah, “they will soon be more powerful than us,” it illustrated an easily forgotten French perspective from the early conquest: Oran was already integrated into Mediterranean commerce, and France’s foremost European rival wished to maintain access to its markets. Indeed, despite traditional historiography that pits French civilizing efforts of later years against the pull of indigenous Jewish traditionalism, these events suggest that for Jewish merchants France was in far more meaningful confrontation with local and British commercial interests. The French were wary of the British, insecure of their hold on Algeria, and saw the struggle for influence in Oran as dependent on their ability to claim its dynamic Jewish merchants as subjects.

This page intentionally left blank

5

JAC OB L ASRY AND THE BUSINESS OF CONQUEST

T O L D O N E WAY , Jacob Lasry’s national loyalties profoundly changed in the two decades following the French landing in Algeria. He was already in his mid-30s and a British-protected person entertaining close relations with his adopted country’s vice-consul when the French arrived in Oran, and his first encounter with French military rule was acrimonious (as the events recounted in Chapter 3 reveal). Yet Lasry appears to have cozied up to the new rulers quickly. By the middle of the 1830s Lasry was serving as General Clauzel’s personal translator and intermediary. He traveled to France in the 1840s, where he married his second wife, Semha Cabessa, in Aix-en-Provence. Indeed, his second daughter, Estelle (Esther) Louise, was born in the eighth arrondissement of Paris in 1846.1 During the same period, Lasry was becoming further invested in the social and civil life of French colonial Oran. He established a private synagogue in Oran in 1843, and in correspondence to the minister of war, he boasted of his encouragement of his co-religionists to “engage in useful professions” and be loyal to France and her king.2 By the beginning of the 1850s Lasry was a naturalized French subject, and in 1855 he became president of the consistoire israélite de la province d’Oran, thus becoming a representative of the mission to bring French civilization to Africa. According to this telling, by the second decade of the conquest, Jacob Lasry had largely forgotten his Moroccan origins and his erstwhile British loyalties. Told another way, Jacob Lasry had not changed much at all. He was doing what he had always done: engaging in a similar branch of commerce in the

114

Jacob Lasry and the Business of Conquest

same city as he had before the French arrived. He probably understood his process as adapting to a changing political landscape, neither a national betrayal nor a profound transformation. Even if he did eventually adopt a French patriotic narrative, during this early period Lasry’s consistency is more striking. He did not need to publicly jettison his Moroccan, Gibraltarian, or British affiliations when he cast his lot with France; he continued to move with the fluctuating tides of politics and commerce. With the spread of French dominance over much of northern Algeria, Lasry, like everyone else, did his best to survive, do business, and adapt to the times. In Lasry’s privileged case the late 1830s offered several ways for him to advance his career by working with the French generals at the dawn of the new colonial order. In this chapter I examine two episodes in which Lasry both cooperated with and frustrated French generals. They give us an idea of how Lasry and other North African Jewish merchants in Oran eventually became members of the French colonial elite. In Lasry’s case the process involved working more closely with French military authorities than he had earlier in the conquest. This aided the generals, but it also vexed them; officers frequently resorted to European anti-Semitic tropes in expressing their frustration with Lasry’s power. The first episode I look at is Lasry’s 1836 expedition to Tlemcen, where he was an intermediary and translator for General Bertrand Clauzel. The second episode involves the first French campaign to take the city of Constantine from the reigning Hajj Ahmed Bey (r. 1826–1837), during which Lasry loaned a great deal of money to the commanding officer Yusuf, an exiled Tunisian commander in the French military. These two episodes are linked in that they happened in the same time frame (1836–1837) and Lasry probably met Yusuf, his eventual debtor, for the first time during the Tlemcen expedition. The episodes also provide examples of how members of a certain class of North African merchants installed in North Africa before the conquest participated in business deals that military campaigns relied on; in addition, they show how these deals advanced and exemplified the merchants’ own transition from membership in a precolonial Mediterranean commercial elite to their place in a French colonial elite. Secondarily, in this chapter I illuminate how generals charged with executing France’s underfunded and ill-supplied conquest of Algeria depended on influential local experts, whether businessmen (like Lasry) or hired military commanders (like Yusuf), to organize, underwrite, and carry out their exploits.



Jacob Lasry and the Business of Conquest

115

This tale offers a startling counternarrative to the popular image of an allpowerful and modern French army occupying a country characterized by a stagnant traditional society. On the contrary, we see in Jacob Lasry a product of rapid changes in the precolonial western beylik, a sophisticated and established merchant and property holder in Oran from before the conquest profiting from the need of the generals to subcontract the conquest to better-informed local suppliers and experts. This is not to dispute France’s more integrated and developed capitalist economy or its superior military organization compared to that possessed by the Regency of Algiers. Nevertheless, in Algeria, French generals initially turned to preexisting economic practices and sources of revenue extraction. Lasry’s experience in the late 1830s shows not only how he adapted to a new French Algeria but also how the French relied on local knowledge like his and on experts like him to complete their tasks. TLEMCEN It is unclear how Jacob Lasry originally made the acquaintance of General Bertrand Clauzel. According to one telling, they only became acquainted in 1836 because Lasry approached Clauzel in his efforts to regain his losses from the tiskeras affair, discussed in Chapters 3 and 4.3 Clauzel, we recall, installed the Tunisian bey Khayr al-Din in Oran, where he exercised a restrained authority for several months in 1831. Having failed to win the approval of Paris for the treaty that would have formalized the arrangement, Clauzel was often blamed for the mess that ensued.4 Furthermore, Lasry may have imagined that Clauzel owed him some support because his loans had helped Khayr a­ l-Din supply the troops he had brought with him from Tunis.5 In 1836 Clauzel received orders to occupy Tlemcen, a city about 100 kilometers southwest of Oran. Like Oran, Tlemcen had had acrimonious relations with its surrounding tribes since the beginning of the occupation, with one local notable of the city complaining in 1837 that they had already suffered “six years of war with the Arabs, in the city and outside.”6 As he had done in Oran, Clauzel turned to local (or semi­ local) experts to help support the occupation. This gave Lasry a new economic role that would bridge his precolonial areas of business expertise and the economic and technical needs of the French conquest. The expedition to Tlemcen began in December 1835 when Clauzel, following orders, marched on the cities of Tlemcen and Mascara, both in the province of Oran. The goal of the expedition was nominally to defeat the emir Abd a­ l-Kader, who remained the most formidable opponent of the French occupation in the

116

Jacob Lasry and the Business of Conquest

west of Algeria until his surrender in 1847.7 However, before Clauzel reached Mascara, which was Abd al-Kader’s capital, the emir abandoned the city, allowing Clauzel to enter it without a fight. This did not, however, deter the general from burning the city to the ground as he left. His division then marched to Tlemcen on January 13, 1836. In addition to an estimated 500  ­Koulougli ­families—a local term applied to the offspring of Ottoman soldiers, officers, or administrators and local women—the city was home to about 300 Jewish ­families.8 The French entered without firing a shot.9 The bey of Tlemcen, Mustafa bin Ismā’īl, had previously submitted to France and declared himself an ally. He invited Clauzel to install a French garrison to protect the city from an expected attack by Abd al-Kader’s forces. Clauzel agreed, but instructed Bey Mustafa to collect 150,000 francs as a contribution to the war effort.10 This operation involved a fascinating character known as Yusuf, whose career would intersect with Lasry’s again in the coming years. Born Guiseppe Vantini on the Mediterranean island of Elba, Yusuf was taken captive by corsairs when he was still a young boy. He was converted to Islam, renamed Yusuf, and raised in the Tunisian court, where he was educated and inducted into the elite military caste of mamluks.11 He was a well-regarded soldier and a confidante of Bey Mahmud (r. 1814–1824) and his successor Bey Husayn (r. 1824–1835). Problems emerged in the wake of rumors about Yusuf ’s secret romance with ­Kaboura, a (married) daughter of the royal house.12 According to the story, Yusuf used his connections to secure an audience with the Count Mathieu de Lesseps, the French consul in Tunis (who would make the acquaintance of Jacob Lasry in 1831). Indeed, the consul reasoned that because Yusuf was born on Elba after 1802, when it became a French possession, he was owed French protection. De Lesseps secured Yusuf ’s passage to Algiers on the French ship appropriately called l’Adonis in 1830, and he had him introduced to General Louis-Auguste-Victor de Ghaisnes de Bourmont. Yusuf subsequently became an interpreter and eventually a soldier. Quickly, the French realized his impressive military ability and made him a leader of an irregular force of locally-recruited soldiers whom the French named after the Ottoman sipahi. Yusuf would later attain the rank of general in the French army.13 Although much of Yusuf ’s activity was in the east of the former Regency of Algiers, he had come to Oran to fight with Clauzel on the Tlemcen campaign.14 Discussions about the roles Yusuf, Clauzel, and Lasry played in the campaign provide some illuminating clues as to how the French depended on local experts to execute operations—or do their dirty work. The operation to extract



Jacob Lasry and the Business of Conquest

117

wealth from the inhabitants of Tlemcen was overseen by Yusuf in partnership with Jacob Lasry. As for Lasry, he may have attached himself to Clauzel specifically for help in getting back his lost investments; but in retrospect, the general described his relationship with Lasry as one similar to a subcontractor. Lasry, according to Clauzel, was “a well-known businessman in the country, who had served as my intermediary in my negotiations with the tribes; he was at once interpreter of my dispositions and the agent who executed them.”15 The problem facing Clauzel during the occupation of Tlemcen was not dissimilar to his problem during the early occupation of Oran: France’s campaign was underfunded, its local knowledge slim, and its supply chain weak. C ­ lauzel therefore had to find cheap ways to administer the territories and extract wealth from the inhabitants. Clauzel’s brutal exactions on an ostensibly allied population provoked severe criticism from the Ministry of War in Paris. This, combined with the failure of the first campaign to take the city of Constantine in 1836–1837, led to Clauzel’s removal as governor-general of Algeria. Although it is unclear how much responsibility for the brutality of the Tlemcen affair lay with Jacob Lasry, it does give us an idea of the ways in which generals used local businessmen to help extract wealth from locals. Put in charge of the collection, Yusuf went rather far to procure the levy. According to General Edmond Pellissier de Reynaud’s accusations, later published in his Annales Algériennes, Yusuf called on the same notables of the city to contribute several times, and if they did not produce goods, he beat them. 16 All sectors of the city’s population, described in French papers as Koulouglis, Jews, and Arabs, were imprisoned and tortured.17 According to a complaint addressed to the government, entire families, including children under the age of 6, were detained until they could produce valuables.18 Pellissier de Reynaud, as well as other historians who discuss the expedition of Tlemcen, emphasized that reports of women’s jewelry being liquidated were a bad sign. The sale of jewelry, a form of investment in North Africa, meant that the French had exhausted all their cash resources. Clauzel employed Lasry to both estimate the value of the jewelry and purchase it from desperate families to avoid triggering a traffic in these goods. In control of the market, however, Lasry purchased the jewelry at “prices asked of men under the baton” and later resold it in A ­ lgiers.19 One chronicler called the practice “rapacious” and “extortion,” and the fact that it was done “in the name of France,” argued Pellissier, against a population that had willingly surrendered, was “reprehensible” and brought “shame” on France.20 In response to the complaint addressed to the government, Paris sent Jean-Jacques

118

Jacob Lasry and the Business of Conquest

Baude to investigate the affair. Baude was a member of the Chamber of Deputies and, for the purposes of the investigation, acting as the commissioner of the king, thus helping to crystallize a negative view of Clauzel’s character among a cadre of French observers. Of course, in his published response Clauzel offered a different account. According to him, local standards held that relieving women of their valuable jewelry was a perfectly acceptable manner to settle debts in these sorts of situations.21 This was in response to official criticism that a poor but allied population was reduced to using women’s jewelry as currency. In justifying a heavy-handed practice, Clauzel’s explanation conformed to a widespread French colonial mythology—one that endured far longer than colonialism ­itself—that excess brutality was necessary in Algeria because France was obligated to adapt to “African” practices. Yet Clauzel also stated that even in France it was acceptable to solicit funds from populations protected by the military. Furthermore, he claimed to have intervened in the collection once it came to his attention that his proxies had abused several notables.22 Downplaying the violence, Clauzel argued that “­instead of bringing [the jewelry] to the assembly of Koulouglis, [the inhabitants of Tlemcen] sold it publicly in order to make money.”23 Then “the Jews bought it,” either by paying for the jewelry directly or by assuming the sellers’ preexisting debts. According to Clauzel, a number of Jews charged with the liquidation of the town’s jewelry had no funds to cover the price. Lasry therefore forwarded them the necessary money in exchange for a one-third stake in the subsequent sales. According to Clauzel, Lasry was “in absolutely the same position of a businessman [négociant] who acquires furniture from a French taxpayer whose goods have been seized for nonpayment . . . and then makes some profit from their purchase and resale.”24 In other words, Lasry helped complete an unseemly task, but it was not unethical or illegal. Clauzel insisted further that both Yusuf and Lasry acted correctly and did not “exercise the least influence on the division of this contribution, nor on the methods of collecting it.” Whether or not Clauzel’s assertions were credible, it is clear that the French command in Tlemcen employed Lasry to raise funds from the population. Interestingly, Clauzel defended Lasry’s strategy for making a profit by comparing it to what would be considered acceptable conduct in France. According to General Paul Marie Rapatel’s 1838 inquiry into the Tlemcen contribution, Lasry’s role in financing the campaign was enormous. Rapatel, who was serving as commander of the province of Oran, questioned Lasry



Jacob Lasry and the Business of Conquest

119

about the sums he had received following the campaign. Lasry responded with an indignant letter accompanied by detailed records of a meeting he had had with a military representative in Oran, François Melchior Poinchevalle, and with a Mr. Falcon, who was responsible for army accounts. According to these papers, on December 9, 1836, Lasry advanced 18,500 francs to the army’s treasury. Then he advanced Bey Mustafa of Tlemcen another 1,000 francs for his own expenses; another 247.50 francs to Mazary, known as the khālifah of ­Mostaganem; 160 francs to an unnamed ally or military officer for iron to build fortifications; and on January 12, 1837, another 20,140 francs to a French military officer.25 In other words, on Clauzel’s orders, Lasry provided more than 40,000 francs to French officers and their allies during the period of the T ­ lemcen campaign. On top of this, Clauzel asked Lasry to advance him 15,753 francs in December 1835, at the time of the expedition. Bey Mustafa was charged with repaying this last sum by taking it out of the 150,000 francs to be raised in contributions from the residents of Tlemcen.26 As for the money Lasry received from the army’s treasury, he later angrily pointed out to General Rapatel that he received only 55,800 francs as compensation for loans advanced to the army and not a franc more.27 Lasry clearly had a significant role providing on-the-ground financing for the conquest, serving as a local contractor whose tasks ranged from building fortifications to squeezing wealth out of conquered populations. Before the era of direct rule, the French used Muslim beys and aghas to exercise authority, and these proxies in turn relied on local intermediaries, who adapted their business practices to profit from the economy of the conquest. Yet the French use of contractors like Lasry exposed both the contractors and the commanding officers to charges from other elements of the French administration that they had abused their power. Lasry’s angry, exasperated responses to military inquiries about money contrast with the solemn and patriotic tone he needed to strike in later correspondence. At this point in the 1830s, Lasry was simply doing business. The Rapatel report also sheds light on how France justified violence in North Africa by pinning responsibility on its victims. Notably, brutality in the process of the conquest was cast as a necessary adaptation to native or “African” methods of war.28 This logic, to which Clauzel resorted when discussing the seizing of the jewelry in Tlemcen, also normalized France’s heavy reliance on local experts to fight or finance colonial battles. In the absence of clear goals or adequate resources, using local experts possessed of putatively African ­customs

120

Jacob Lasry and the Business of Conquest

and practices made brutality acceptable. The central historical paradox revealed by the Tlemcen expedition might be that Lasry’s successful adaptation of his precolonial expertise to a market defined by extreme violence justified as native would, more than a decade later, position him to rebrand himself as an agent of French civilization. T H E Y U S U F A F FA I R General Clauzel saw a strategic parallel between Tlemcen, in the far west of ­Algeria, and Constantine, in the east. Both cities lay on main routes into the territory that France hoped to control in North Africa, so possessing them both, he claimed, was crucial. In fact, Clauzel compared them to the cities of Calais and Bordeaux during medieval wars with the English crown: “As long as the English held these two cities,” noted Clauzel, “it was a war of extermination on our territory.”29 Another thing that Constantine had in common with Tlemcen was that Lasry played significant roles in the French campaigns to occupy the two cities. Once again, officials were at once dependent on and furious with Lasry for his activities, which consisted mainly of advancing large sums of money to Yusuf. Lasry again made himself an invaluable resource to the French, but he did so in ways that raised their hackles as well. Exploiting his expertise in cattle export and finance, Lasry cut a deal with Yusuf, who was short on cash but eager to expand his power under the umbrella of French authority. Yusuf ’s command of a locally enlisted Muslim fighting corps to conquer and eventually govern territory was, like Lasry’s loan, another example of French outsourcing. Reports on Yusuf ’s dealings reveal that little central authority was imposed on these local proxies, who were the real managers of the newly conquered Algerian territories and peoples. At the same time, efforts made by both Yusuf and the French command to reduce Yusuf ’s debt exposed how much power local financiers such as Lasry could acquire. This power, we will see, was simultaneously a testament to Lasry’s important role, a mark of continuity of older patterns in which Jewish merchants provided funds to Muslim leaders, and a thorn in the side of the French military administration. Clauzel, having decided that the expedition was essential, was unable to summon the resources to feed and pay troops or buy local allies. He decided that Yusuf was the right man for the job. Profiting from Yusuf ’s talent and royal-house-nurtured aspirations, Clauzel dubbed him “Yusuf Bey of Constantine,” governor of the yet-to-be conquered city and province of the same name.



Jacob Lasry and the Business of Conquest

121

The assumption was that Yusuf would be able to both help fund his mission on Constantine and extract enough tribute from nearby populations to make it worth his while. This is where Lasry saw opportunity. On March 10, 1836, Jacob Lasry, his brother and partner Isaac, and a third associate named Aaron Waknin made an agreement to loan Yusuf 20,000 francs.30 The agreement was signed, witnessed, and translated into Arabic in a French court in Annaba (called Bône by the French, who conquered it in 1832). According to the agreement, Yusuf would repay the debt within eighteen months of March 10. Lasry and Yusuf therefore gambled on the success of Clauzel’s military assault on a well-defended city that many regarded as impregnable.31 Affairs did not work out as they hoped. According to the agreement, Yusuf was to repay the sum Lasry loaned to him once the French had taken Constantine, by seizing or requisitioning herds of cattle there and forwarding them to Lasry in Oran. Lasry, in turn, would exploit his expertise by managing their sale and export. Specifically, Yusuf would send Lasry 2,000 head of cattle “as soon as he is able to procure them,” with each head “valued at 10 boudjoux each, and 1 boudjou valued at 18 and one half francs.”32 The contract specified that cows and bulls would be worth the same price, and calves would be worth 5 boudjous. The contract also specified that if, for some reason, Yusuf could not procure enough cattle once in Constantine, Lasry would accept sheep (valued at 2 boudjous), lambs (1 boudjou), and even locally made wax (1 franc per pound). Interest on the loan would be charged (presumably starting after the period of the loan) if Yusuf failed to procure enough goods to satisfy his debt and was obliged to make up the difference in cash—in which case the rather considerable rate of 2.5 percent monthly would be charged (30 percent annually).33 Lasry was speculating. Clauzel had yet to take Constantine, Yusuf ’s post there had yet to be assumed, and Hajj Ahmed Bey had yet to cede the city. Lasry’s contract reflected this risk, specifying that if “the installation of Bey Yusuf does not take place,” presumably meaning that he would be unable to acquire cattle, then “the said bey [Yusuf] promises to pay Mr. Jacob Lasry, after the expiration of 18 months, the totality of the sum of 20,550 francs.”34 Whether this statement meant that the amount was to be paid in addition to interest or that the interest would begin to accrue after the initial 18 months is unclear. Lasry thought it prudent to include language that would shield him from some of the risks inherent in betting on the reception of yet-to-be-seized goods from a yet-to-be-occupied city. He gambled on the ability of a proxy of a French-

122

Jacob Lasry and the Business of Conquest

invested but locally enlisted commander to effectively pillage local populations of their goods; a winning bet would allow him to deploy his expertise in cattle exportation to make a profit from the conquest. By May, before the Constantine expedition had taken place, Lasry acted to spread the risk. Perhaps he had new doubts about Yusuf ’s ability to repay him, or perhaps he simply hoped to sell off some of the debt for an immediate payoff. In either case Lasry traveled to Tunis to conclude a deal at the chancellery of the consulate of France with another Annaba businessman by the name of Mustafa bin Karīm. According to the deal, Lasry ceded one-quarter of the contract to Mustafa in exchange for 12,090 francs, delivered in cash up front. The terms specified that “it is understood that Mustafa bin Karīm will share in whatever profits or losses that result from the contract between commander Yusuf and the sir Jacob Lasry.”35 The agreement further stated that Mustafa would undertake to “execute or have executed all the clauses in the abovementioned contract,” suggesting that Lasry sought allies for help recouping his money. Later, French officials angered by Lasry’s practices and undue influence would cite this deal as evidence of bad faith. Taking Constantine, however, was an ambitious goal. Constantine is an inland city perched in the mountains, making sieges particularly difficult. Furthermore, Ahmed Bey, as the last representative of Ottoman authority in the former Regency of Algeria, had undertaken a reform effort. He had built up his armies significantly in the years after his installation as governor in 1826 and had more than 2,000 soldiers and 1,500 cavalrymen. In 1835 he completed an impressive new palace. Indeed, his significantly augmented military forces allowed him to be one of the few local governors who sent aid to Dey Husayn of Algiers following the French attack. Although the French took Constantine in 1837, Ahmed Bey escaped and did not surrender to the French until 1848. Judging by the records of items Yusuf purchased, some of which were considered extravagant or at least nonessential, one also gets a sense of a paradox of the conquest. France was at once responsible for the mayhem, but its ability to oversee and direct was limited. Yusuf may have been fighting for France, but he saw it as a way to obtain his own beylik. Parts of the conquest consisted of struggles between local (or semilocal) strongmen endeavoring to best their enemies or simply looking for the resources necessary to turn them into friends. The money that Lasry loaned to Yusuf to buy “equipment” went to pay for items such as musicians and carpets, not to mention handsome bournouses, or long, hooded cloaks, all of which he may have considered essential gear but



Jacob Lasry and the Business of Conquest

123

many French military observers probably would not have.36 With Lasry’s help, Yusuf was fashioning himself into a local lord—a vassal of France, perhaps— but not simply an officer. Accordingly, the money that Lasry provided went to acquiring allies and the accoutrements of state. Documents submitted to the Ministry of War in Paris state that Yusuf spent 49,900 francs to pacify the area of Annaba.37 Lasry was key to this: Between March 1836 and April 1837 Lasry loaned money to Yusuf to pay for “the investiture of 115 chiefs who all received red bournous[es] (13,800 fr.),” and the “costs of the installation of the camp of Dréan . . . [and] in order to rally to our side [puissance] the largest possible number of tribes—tents, carpets, music, flags, arms, etc., etc.”38 Furthermore, the costs of conquest included “gifts to several principal tribal chiefs in the area around la Calle . . . (4,000 fr.),” and even, if Yusuf ’s claim is to be believed, “expenses for the Turks coming from Tunis to be incorporated in the battalion of Turkish infantry . . . and supplied with uniforms almost entirely at [Yusuf ’s] expense (4,800 fr.).”39 In these years before the emergence of more grandiose colonial ideologies, the French occupation was a heavily outsourced affair that subsequently displayed local trappings. These purchases, however, are also the root of the dispute that left such a dense archival trail. Lasry loaned more than Yusuf could possibly repay, and he needed to recoup his losses through French courts. On April 24, 1837, Lasry was back in court. He was there to lodge a complaint concerning Yusuf ’s considerably augmented debt—peaking at 36,000 francs—which was related to his failure to provide Lasry with more than 2,000 head of cattle for export. This was despite the fact that somewhere during the failed expedition Yusuf had managed to take 800 head “from the Arabs.”40 The problem was that Yusuf had, according to Lasry, sent a portion of them to a Mr. Villards, a supplier for the army to whom Yusuf was evidently also in debt. (Other documents claim that Lasry actually did profit from the sale of all 800 head of cattle.41) In any case, the huissier 42 of the court in Annaba concluded that Yusuf must pay Lasry at least 26,900 francs immediately. Yusuf, unable to pay debts incurred in the interest of the French, sought relief from the authorities who had invested him with authority in the first place. Efforts to resolve what became known as the Yusuf affair illuminate how Lasry, and possibly other such North African intermediaries, possessed a surprising degree of power and autonomy. These efforts also hint at the way preexisting forms of authority and business continued from the Ottoman into the French epochs of Algerian history. Lasry was both wealthy enough and secure

124

Jacob Lasry and the Business of Conquest

enough in his position in relation to the colonial power to exert significant financial pressure on Yusuf, who, though appointed by the French, possessed authority thanks to his training and experience in the Tunisian court. When Clauzel invested him with the title Yusuf Bey of Constantine, it was not simply a nod to local titles; it was probably rooted in the assumption that Yusuf would exercise power as a bey would, governing with a significant degree of autonomy from a central authority in exchange for tribute to (French-held) Algiers. This being said, Lasry’s power over Yusuf was such that by mid-July 1837 the indebted commander felt compelled to travel to Paris to appeal to the Ministry of War for help resolving his untenable state of indebtedness, which he described as amounting to 49,000 francs (36,000 of which was apparently owed to Lasry). According to a letter and a list of expenses Yusuf prepared in Paris, Lasry and his associates had put a lien on Yusuf ’s wife’s home in Annaba and had moved to force its sale to satisfy outstanding debts. According to Yusuf, “It is far from being worth the sum of the lien, and so, Sir, if I do not benefit from your most lofty protection, I shall soon find my family driven from their home.”43 Tragically, he explained, even the exchange value of his wife’s house would be insufficient to free him from debt. The ad hoc nature of the early conquest period and, above all, the tangle of outsourced operations relying upon institutionalized violence permitted influential local merchants such as Lasry not only to profit from the woes of colonial proxies but also to threaten them with bankruptcy. As much as Yusuf and Lasry owed their involvement in the affair to status attained well before the conquest and as much as their preconquest formations shaped how the affair played out, new circumstances demanded a new language of devotion to France. For Lasry, this only emerged several years later, but Yusuf mobilized this language more quickly. During negotiations over the debt, he presented himself as a dedicated but poor patriot struggling to fulfill his duties toward France while coming up against a powerful and predatory Jewish usurer. Yusuf underlined his service to France, such as the fact that he had contributed significantly to the taking of Annaba and since then had made the “great sacrifices that my exceptional position requires” in order to “attach a Muslim corps to the Christian [forces from France], as well as [enlist] the chiefs of the enemy tribes.”44 Part of his patriotic service was recruiting local Muslim troops. It was his fierce patriotism that landed him in debt, according to Yusuf. As such, he argued, it ought to be forgiven by the beneficiaries of his services. He went on to describe how both his soldiers and the allied tribesmen “received several tokens of my generosity.”45 Because his salary was not sufficient to pay



Jacob Lasry and the Business of Conquest

125

for the services he performed out of “patriotic zeal,” he had “soon exhausted the paltry means” he possessed. He thus asked for the means to be freed of the lender who put the lien on his wife’s house and for an understanding that the various gifts and payoffs, although admittedly not included in standard French military budgets, were a strategic necessity in what he called the ­African context that he presumably knew better than any other French officer. His local roots, then, served to both justify his methods and emphasize his devotion to France. It was not just Yusuf himself who invoked local practices and customs for the purposes of identification and vindication during the affair; his French supporters also underlined it. When Governor-General Charles-Marie Denys de Damrémont turned to General Camille Alphonse Trézel to investigate the affair, Trézel supported Yusuf ’s request for financial help. Trézel noted that Yusuf had lost many horses, mules, and other “precious items” in the Constantine expedition and that it was “incontestable that commander Yusuf rendered France honorable and eminent services since the possession of Annaba.”46 Furthermore, Trézel said, it would be both “an injustice and poor politics” to abandon Yusuf in misery “after having elevated to our employ the most eminent of indigenous people.” Yusuf ’s conduct and administration had been beyond reproach since his arrival in Annaba, and his mistakes “belong far more to the laws and customs of the country than to [his] personal character.” Trézel argued that Yusuf was essentially a product of Africa “who one must judge not as a French officer, but as a mamluke, full of courage, competence, and devotion to France.” Damrémont, in his own letter to the minister of war, declared that he was “far from sharing Trézel’s opinion regarding [Yusuf ’s] irreproachable administration,” but he agreed that because Yusuf had been appointed bey, “the dignity of France” demanded that he be compensated.47 For Trézel, Yusuf cast as an indigenous “mamluke” fighting for France excused his excesses. France not only found local experts to fight their battles in Algeria, but they also ­locally sourced excuses in the form of essentialist justifications about local customs to mask the horrors of the French occupation of Algeria. At the same time, it is a testament to Lasry’s power that the affair dragged on. Over the course of late 1837 and 1838, the Ministry of War made funds available to various administrators to satisfy a number of Yusuf ’s smaller debts. The archives bear witness to various administrators suggesting reduced payments to lenders if they agreed to drop further claims. These creditors included both French officers and local businessmen, Lasry among them. For example,

126

Jacob Lasry and the Business of Conquest

­ usuf ’s friend and fellow squadron chief Armandy, who served with him in the Y failed Constantine campaign, noted that he too had loaned Yusuf money and that he could affirm that Yusuf used it well. According to a note Armandy sent to Trézel in September 1837, Yusuf ’s gifts and negotiations with local tribes were so successful that their division “arrived practically below the walls of Constantine without firing a single rifle shot.”48 His loan of 1,000 francs was repaid by the government, as were several others of similar amounts. Yet by the first half of 1838 the accumulated interest on the Lasry loan had reached an enormous sum—59,817.21 francs, according to accounting sheets conserved at the Ministry of War—and could not be dealt with so easily. Much as Yusuf ’s methods were understood as a product of his African nature, Lasry’s financial strength in relation to the fledgling French military administration was also filtered through a colonial lens. Notably, officers used him to project European anti-Semitic tropes onto the North African social landscape. By the time the director of Algerian affairs in Paris secured 10,000 francs to settle the lien against Yusuf ’s wife’s home in 1837, the office of the conseiller d’état wrote to General Trézel, noting that the “the Minister knows that the Jew Lasry, whose name has acquired a certain infamy, is pursuing the former bey of Constantine for considerable amounts.”49 He had studied the terms of the loan and was “horrified by the enormous usury, the scandalous greed which is evident.” He noted that, although he did not yet know of a party who could “deliver Yusuf from this voracious lender [créancier dévorant],” such a person certainly existed, and in the meantime the civil judge in Annaba must put a stay on the judgment for the “public interest” while the matter was studied. Meanwhile, much of the correspondence between Yusuf, the procureur général, the conseiller d’état, and the Ministry of War at this time saw the term the Jew prefixed to the name Lasry. French generals hired local Jewish and Muslim talent to conduct an occupation they were incapable of conducting on their own, but they also used stereotypes to categorize, understand, and demean local North Africans’ supposedly brutal, spendthrift, or, conversely, avaricious behavior. Even as Lasry sought to be repaid for expenditures made in the interest of the French conquest, the procureur général of the court pointed to Lasry’s stature and recalcitrance to accuse him of “immoral”—Jewish—behavior. In March 1838 he noted to the Ministry of War that Lasry had objected strenuously to a three-month adjournment for settling the affair while also undertaking a questionable deal with Mustafa bin Karīm. The official urged the minister to be wary of “the morality of the transaction involving the Jew Lasry . . . and



Jacob Lasry and the Business of Conquest

127

his coreligionist Mustafa bin Karīm.”50 The implication was that Lasry knew both that his rates were usurious and that he had little chance of recouping the full sum. In a manner evoking contemporary strategies in the derivatives market, Lasry made some of the money back by dividing up the bad loan and selling it to a third party. Although French military officers and Paris held ultimate responsibility for the failures of their poorly paid warrior, the outsized debts inevitably produced by such a policy were blamed on a “usurious,” “immoral,” and “voracious” local Jew. Given that Lasry would, in a subsequent decade, assume an official French position that bore much responsibility for teaching morals to his Algerian coreligionists, the extent of the vituperative commentary about his own morality is striking. In 1840 the director of Algerian affairs insisted that, because “a part of these loans could and should be contested” and further investigation would “have consequences . . . [that are] very damaging for him,”51 Lasry was sure to accept a compromise. “With this in mind . . . the minister thinks that 20,000 francs should suffice to satisfy [désintéresser] this creditor.” The Ministry of War arrived at the sum by considering, among other things, the absence of certain paperwork, the market prices for cattle at the time Yusuf delivered them to Lasry (rather than the sum Lasry credited to Yusuf ’s account for each head), and the legal rates of interest (30 percent was considered illegally high).52 Furthermore, the office decided to recalculate the interest so that it was compounded annually, as opposed to monthly. “If the Jew Lasry accepts this new arrangement, the sum of 20,000 francs will be delivered under the following conditions,” including the renouncing of the remainder of the debt, the withdrawal of suits against Yusuf, and the cancellation of the lien against his income.53 However, the director’s reflections on the possibility that “this avaricious lender,” might not accept the compromise are revealing: In the case where, against all probability . . . Lasry listens only to the counsel of his own inconceivable cupidity, [and] refuses all settlements, you will allow things to follow their own course, [but] nevertheless letting him know the possible consequences that could result from the circumstances in which his obstinate maintenance of his unreasonable demands puts him.54

What the “possible consequences” were is not specified in the note. But the director included additional references to the “dishonest conventions that the Jew Lasry imposed on Yusuf ” and insisted that, because Lasry’s interest rate of 30 percent was twice the legal limit, “we should demand that the Jew Lasry

128

Jacob Lasry and the Business of Conquest

be satisfied with it.”55 The exasperated comments give clear insights into the story: anti-Semitic stereotypes “confirmed” by Lasry’s business practices, and the power that Lasry maintained despite his enemies in high places. Lasry’s rejection of the offer unsurprisingly triggered another round of venomous tirades from French officers. General Christophe Léon Louis Juchault de Lamoricière wrote to the Duc de Dalmatie (who now presided over the Ministry of War’s Directorate of Algerian Affairs) on March 6, 1841, to inform him that Lasry had refused the offer. The Duc de Dalmatie responded: Since this Jew has not taken into account your observations and since he persists in his inadmissible demands, we must . . . let the affair follow its course. He will have no one to blame but himself, his blindness, and the insatiable avidity that he ceaselessly demonstrates, if its results are contrary to his hopes.56

At the same time, the director of Algerian affairs made it clear to Lamoricière that if Lasry becomes “more enlightened as to his true interests,” the general would remain authorized to distribute the 20,000 francs to settle the affair. Hardly two weeks later, Lasry indeed had a change of heart and was willing to accept the offer.57 Whether he lost or made money on the transaction is hard to know, despite the fact that the conditions were clearly laid out in a letter he submitted to the French government on May 3, 1841. He agreed to accept the 20,000 francs from Lamoricière (18,564 francs in capital and 1,436 francs for costs) to relieve Yusuf “without reserve” of all debts and to lift the seizure order (saisie arrêt) on Yusuf ’s income (and perhaps property) that he requested in January 1840. Given what he had already received by way of cattle sales, payment for the lien against Yusuf ’s wife’s house, the Bin Karīm deal, and seized income (not to mention any interest payments not specified in the correspondence), Lasry was assumed to have made money on the loan, despite being reimbursed for less than half of what he claimed he was owed. Lasry, of course, insisted that he had been the one to have greatly sacrificed to help France’s campaign to take Constantine. CONCLUSION Lasry’s turbulent relationship with French authorities in these affairs both reveals and conceals. For all the acrimony, misunderstandings, deceptions, and anti-Semitic tirades, Lasry—the former Juif de Gibraltar—was in the process of becoming one of Oran’s wealthiest notables and a member of French colonial society. These stories illustrate the transition from a certain kind of old power



Jacob Lasry and the Business of Conquest

129

held by Mediterranean merchants with access to the beys, export rights, and various degrees of political privilege, into an increasingly French elite. During the transition, these merchants did what they had always been doing, but with adaptions to the economy of the conquest. They used their local expertise and business practices in a new economy of conquest that often helped the French, as well as themselves. The conquest was a chaotic affair, affording men like ­Jacob Lasry opportunities to adjust export and lending operations in order to profit from shifting colonial goals. Lasry’s deals and debacles demonstrate how the French conquest relied on local chiefs, beys, and businessmen to execute, manage, and extend their conquests. Lasry’s enterprises were the product of an economy in which the French were uncomfortably entangled with local merchants and their networks. The episodes recounted in this chapter reveal both financial and military elements of the conquest contracted out by the French to local experts and practices. This put men like Lasry in an unlikely position of power with regard to the French administration, which became dependent on them. It also allowed French officers to use Lasry, who both underwrote and undermined French colonial authorities, as a vehicle for bringing European anti-Semitism into the North African context, crystallizing a negative view of Algerian Jewish intermediaries on whom the French officers relied. Furthermore, the energetic denunciations of the avaricious and immoral character of “the Jew Lasry” put into relief the contradictions of France’s civilizing mission in Algeria. Only a couple of years after the events recounted in this chapter, Lasry insisted in official correspondence that his “devotion” to France had always inspired him to encourage “work” and “useful professions” among his co-religionists. In 1855 Lasry officially became part of the civil authority in Oran as the president of the city’s Jewish consistory. Just as elements of the conquest were “outsourced” to such men as Lasry and Yusuf, the government would later choose Lasry—a member of a precolonial elite and someone who had involved himself in activities that had drawn such vehement denunciations of his immorality—to spearhead France’s moralizing campaign to civilize Jews in Algeria.58 French civilization would also be sourced to those with local status and expertise. I have shown elsewhere that the Crémieux Decree that naturalized the supposedly civilizable Algerian Jews did not reflect a quantifiable adoption of French culture on the part of its beneficiaries but rather a savvy colonial ­strategy.59 The paradox of the opportunistic Lasry recast as a moralizer four-

130

Jacob Lasry and the Business of Conquest

teen years after the conclusion of the Yusuf affair echoes the paradox of a liberal decree that projected an enlightened pallor onto a racist colonial order. As we will see, in the late 1840s, when the ideology of civilization arose to justify new policies in the colony, the French once again sought local expertise to represent and spread it, and Lasry once again was well positioned to benefit.

6

F R O M J U I F S D E G I B R A LTA R A N D “A L G E R I N E J E W S ” T O ISRAÉLITES INDIGÈNES

I N 18 3 2 the position of commissaire du roi at Oran, a position that might be seen as anticipating that of a mayor, was held by a certain Captain Pujol. Pujol was a personal friend of commanding officer General Pierre Boyer, and he accomplished the first census of the city’s population. The count came to just over 3,800 souls. This included 730 Europeans, 250 Muslims, and a remarkable 2,876 Jews.1 Of course, many members of the Doua’ir and Z’māla fled the city in advance of the French, suggesting that Jews might not have actually constituted such an overwhelming majority in the years leading up to the French occupation. Nevertheless, the sizable proportion of Jews in Lasry’s Oran remained a feature in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. By the end of 1838, as the city repopulated, the official Jewish population reached 5,637, out of a total population of about 11,000. By the time the minister of war installed the Consistoire Israélite de la Province d’Oran in 1847, estimates put the number of Oran’s Europeans at 15,000, Muslims at 2,500, and Jews at 4,763; the Jewish population had declined but still constituted more than one-fifth of the city’s 22,458 people.2 The Jews were a well-established presence in Oran before the French occupied it, and they continued to shape the city in the decades after the conquest. Captain Pujol’s population figures, of course, prefigured an important current in later French policy by collapsing a diverse array of people into a simple confessional category. By privileging religion, the figures simultaneously emphasized whatever divides existed between religious groups. As we have seen,

132 From Juifs de Gibraltar and “Algerine Jews” to Israélites Indigènes

Jews in Oran were not only prominent and numerous but also recent arrivals from different circumstances. They hailed from different places, possessed different legal statuses, and certainly did not belong to a single social class. Their disputes, like that between Cabessa and Amar, could be lethal. Yet this religious category would take on additional meanings as the occupation wore on and as Jews increasingly lived among and interacted with newer settlers. By the end of the 1840s more than one-third of the population was ­Spanish. Migrant communities from France and Italy were also sizable, and smaller numbers came from the German states, Malta, and Portugal. Oran had always been a Mediterranean port, but this new southward movement of people to Oran created a new sort of Mediterranean space in the mid-nineteenth century.3 As we will see, these newly “indigenous” Jews were an established and influential feature of Oran’s new society. In this chapter I explore a series of interactions and struggles involving synagogues, religious rituals, and the meaning of indigenous to demonstrate how new lines of identification arose in the emerging colonial order. The French casting of a diverse, feuding, and recently established array of Oran’s inhabitants as a single community of “indigenous Jews,” defined as oppressed, isolated, and eager for France’s promise of emancipation, changed Oran’s social landscape. Notably, it helped create the conditions for the emergence of a social grouping that would, in the following century, be understood as a religious “­minority.”4 Institutions such as the consistory (and later, Jewish naturalization), which were tasked with remedying newly conceived pathologies such as “jealousies” or “problems of civilization,” formed a new Jewish s­ ubjectivity. French policies did not reflect existing racial or religious topographies in ­Algeria so much as reify or even create them. In the place of the collection of diverse, dynamic, and often powerful individuals explored in previous chapters, French imperialism posited an identifiable community of israélites indigènes.

.

.

.

From early in the conquest, French correspondence and records attest to Jewish prominence in the early colonial economy and society. Recall, for example, General Thomas Robert Bugeaud’s 1843 visit to Oran. Echoing earlier observations by Pierre Boyer, he complained that “the major part of [Oran’s] population is made up of rapacious Jews,”5 who “controlled the better part of commerce.”6 These “rapacious Jews,” it turned out, had also invested extensively in local real estate. This suggests that Lasry and others followed the established pre­colonial

From Juifs de Gibraltar and “Algerine Jews” to Israélites Indigènes

133

pattern among Moroccan Jewish merchants of investing earnings in urban real estate.7 Among the records attesting to this are those of the Commission des Fountaines. This commission, founded on June 5, 1836, was established to check and regularize titles of property that fell on natural springs or streams that provisioned Oran with water, in the interest of establishing a public concession that would guarantee the city’s supply. These valuable jardins, some within the walls of the city, had access to natural sources of fresh water, were used to produce locally consumed foods, and remained within the immediate purview of the city. The justification for such a concession, read the report, was to ensure that the “pleasures and conveniences of one do not harm the interests or the health of the rest of the inhabitants.”8 The Ras al-‘Ayin, which flowed from outside the town on its southwest side into the center of the city between its old section and the Jewish quarter to its east, was the city’s principal source of water. New regulations were intended to regularize the periods when property owners were permitted to divert water from natural streams into their own plots.9 Jacob Lasry counted as a principal owner of garden property extramuros, or outside the walls, making him one of a select few. In his company we find the Welsford family, a couple of French officers, and several other Jewish and Muslim notables. Lasry might have acquired some of this property through methods that were not entirely kosher, at least not according to members of Oran’s rabbinic establishment. Just as Lasry had tried to adapt to the economy of conquest by making loans and purchasing tiskeras, it appears that he also took advantage of the tumult to purchase property on the cheap. His name appears among the judgments of an Oran rabbi by the name of Faruz Karcenti. The rabbi’s decisions appeared in Gushpanka deMalka, a book published by the rabbi’s son Yomtov in Livorno several decades later.10 In a decision dated in the book to the Hebrew calendar year 5594 (1833–1834), Lasry purchased (or attempted to purchase) eight shops and a yard from Messaoud Teboul for a price (2,500 gruesos) different from what was originally agreed on. Whether the grueso (a currency in circulation in parts of Spain) was really used in Oran is hard to tell; perhaps Karcenti was using it as a synonym for the Spanish dollar. Apparently, Lasry had said that Teboul’s land was bound to be taken and destroyed by the French to make way for a public plaza and this justified a lower price. At this price, however, Teboul complained that it was “a sale to which I never would have agreed.”11 Presumably, Lasry was aware that the value of the land would not actually decline and withheld this information intentionally. Rabbi ­Karcenti compared what Lasry

134 From Juifs de Gibraltar and “Algerine Jews” to Israélites Indigènes

did to deception and warned him (and any others who might engage in similar practices) that to cheat or deceive people when negotiating prices was forbidden. Although the ultimate fallout is unclear, the rabbi clearly ruled against Lasry in the affair. Lasry was using the years following the fall of Bey Hassan to acquire more real estate, and he was doing so using methods that were not universally seen as honest. Despite falling out of favor with Teboul and certain rabbinic authorities, the first decade or so of French occupation was good for Lasry’s property holdings, as it was for several other prominent Jewish merchants in Oran. In an 1843 listing of the gardens of Oran, Lasry possessed four separate jardins extérieurs and one jardin intérieur in the central Ras al-‘Ayin ravine. The only other person listed as possessing more than one garden in this area was Abraham Senanes, another Moroccan Jew in Oran, who possessed two (the military administration is also listed as having two gardens). In addition, another prominent Jewish family, the Durands, is on the list of garden owners in this area. Beyond Ras al-‘Ayin, Lasry is listed as having two other gardens elsewhere in Oran, and the Durands had four others. Although the size of these gardens is not noted in the record, only twenty-six garden owners are listed, and they possess forty-eight properties. This means that Jews owned at least one-fourth of these properties, with Lasry heading the list, possessing more than any other single person. Perhaps even more interesting in light of traditional narratives is that Lasry, who was not yet French, advanced his business interests even when they collided with the interests of French settlers in Oran. For example, when Oran’s French-dominated Chamber of Commerce pushed to establish a central warehouse, its members had to navigate around the Lasry family’s impressive wealth and prominence. Shortly after the French civil administration initiated efforts to build an entrepôt réel (public warehouse) to improve Oran’s trading environment, dockside terrain held by the military emerged as a primary candidate for repurposing. At the end of the 1840s the growth in Oran’s volume of trade led local merchants to petition the civil administration for a warehouse to handle the goods coming through the port. The Chamber of Commerce hoped that the military administration would cede some of its terrain in an area known as San Benito to the municipality to build the warehouse. The terrain, according to the merchants, was perfect: It was right at the port, vast, and near the customs house, and numerous stores already built on the land could be reappropriated for the new purpose.12 The problem, however, was that delays risked putting the project on hold interminably. In response to ongoing delays, “the conseil

From Juifs de Gibraltar and “Algerine Jews” to Israélites Indigènes

135

­ unicipal proposed as a provisionary measure to lease from Mr. Lasry a secm tion of his home, [which is] situated on the port next to the customs house.”13 So in addition to being a significant importer, Lasry’s substantial real estate holdings allowed him to offer to lease his own property to the city as its main commercial warehouse. The proposal was considered during at least two meetings of the Chamber of Commerce, but it was rejected. The tone of the rejection suggests that even though Lasry occupied a singularly elevated position among the town’s commercial elite, it was a position that engendered jealousy and distrust. According to the minutes of the second meeting in which the matter was discussed, the “response [to Lasry] is still the same. Lasry’s building is not at all appropriate. . . . It would end up slowing . . . the useful creation of a warehouse” and thus a permanent solution.14 The chamber members did not hide their frustration with Lasry’s efforts and his evident self-interest. Foreseeing that the measure could become semipermanent, the group declared, “It is obviously in this hope that Mr. Lasry [acts], for he would not attach much importance to a rental of only several months; it is in the interest of both commerce and the city [itself]

F IG U R E 5 .   Oran’s increasing commerce required various civic improvements, including a new warehouse. This photograph of the docks of Oran dates from the mid- to late nineteenth century. From the collection “Algérie Illustrée” (LeRoux). Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (image 2007.R.5).

136 From Juifs de Gibraltar and “Algerine Jews” to Israélites Indigènes

that [Lasry’s] hope is not realized, and that the minister will . . . provide our province with an enormously useful establishment.”15 Several years later the warehouse was indeed established in San Benito. Lasry was in a position to offer to personally provide the city with a building that would serve as warehouse, but in the process he earned the anger and frustration of French merchants who had trouble carving out a commercial sector outside his shadow. Lasry was not the only member of the precolonial Jewish community who had invested in land in the city of Oran. In the late summer of 1847 the government of Louis-Philippe established the Conseil de Direction de la Province d’Oran, the purpose of which was to help govern the expanding city and to register and render the claims of official residents to own property in and around Oran. Over the next several years the council would meet to discuss, decide on, or, in cases where property holders and the local administration were at odds, pass on property disputes to higher authorities. In the first meeting of the council, on November 13, 1847, the members heard sixteen requests for the certification or approval (homologation) of deeds of property. The names of the applicants include David Amar, Joseph Gabisson, Messaoud ben Zaguen, Abraham Kanoui (whose son would, in under two decades, marry Lasry’s daughter), Ephraim (no surname given), Nessim ben Haim, and Jacob ben Allah.16 Six of the sixteen names are obviously Jewish; one, Ben Haim, is registered in partnership with a man we could presume to be Muslim (Ali Kodja). Two days later, a separate list of fifteen properties held by claimants labeled as “indigenous” included at least one landlord with the Jewish name Abraham Karoubi. Putting aside the questions raised by the fact that Moroccan and ­Algerian Jewish names that appear on the list are described as indigenous and that the first (unqualified) list includes French names, it bears noting that Jewish names such as Nessim, Ben Haim, and Lasry continued to show up on the property lists of the Conseil de Direction in these remarkable proportions over the next several years. Even more indicative of how Jews in late Ottoman Oran were transitioning into the city’s early colonial elite is that early records show that local Algerian Jews were sizable players in paying for urban improvements and running municipalities. For example, in 1845 Emmanuel Menahem Nahon, another Moroccan among Oran’s Jewish elite and an official interpreter for the French military, helped to organize the funding for a sewer system to serve the Jewish quarter.17 This was undertaken under pressure from the Municipal Council and the prefect of the city, who hoped to finance the project with the help of Jacob Lasry. Although Lasry initially refused to pay for the sewers, the prefect eventually

From Juifs de Gibraltar and “Algerine Jews” to Israélites Indigènes

137

managed to convince him to contribute to the project (begun in 1847). At the same time, the prefect also convinced Lasry to assume additional civic responsibilities by serving on the Municipal Council (as of 1848).18 A similar effort had to be made to involve Abraham Hassan, Lasry’s son-in-law and the husband of his eldest daughter, Rachel, to help govern Oran’s municipal affairs.19 Oran’s Jewish mercantile elite quickly moved into positions in the colonial civil administration. For example, in 1848 Solomon Sarfati, a Moroccan Jewish notable based in Mostaganem, was elected to the Municipal Council of his city, and in 1849 both Lasry and Emmanuel Nahon were confirmed in their election to serve on the Municipal Council of Oran.20 In August 1855 the prefect noted in a report to a minister in Paris that he had only recently managed to convince a reluctant Lasry, preoccupied with his own business affairs, to assume the role of president of the consistory.21 The precolonial Jewish commercial elite in Oran also helped shape Oran’s high society well into the colonial period, taking on some affectations of the French bourgeoisie in the process. In the mid-1850s an article in L’Illustration covered a high-society ball that was hosted by the wealthy Kanoui family. 22 Titled “Une soirée juive à Oran,” the author described how “among the descendants of Abraham and Jacob, a certain number of families remind us, thanks to their grand fortune, of the luxuries of the rich merchants that once inhabited the Italian littoral.” Remarking how the hosts were “indigenous” Algerians, the writer went on to describe the mansion’s “half-Arab and half-European” design, including European-decorated rooms surrounding an “Arab interior courtyard.” This mixing of styles, according to the writer, “perfectly suited the habits and situation of the Israelite people.” If we are to believe the report, this ball evoked the “world of fairies” and was attended by the city’s Muslim, Jewish, and French elite. For whatever the exaggerations of the article, stories such as these shed some light on a Jewish colonial elite who built their fortunes well before the conquest and yet remained a force in colonial society. Such evidence raises the possibility that traditional readings of the civilizing mission directed toward the Jews of Algeria get the situation backward. Instead of an enlightened French Jewish elite drawing the resources of the French state to bring education and, more abstractly, civilization to North African Jews, records suggest that local North African Jewish wealth and property (including Lasry’s) actually helped define and even subsidize French colonial institutions and practices. This extended to the consistory of Oran, the primary civilizing institution installed in the city. On November 15, 1847 (about five months

F IG U R E 6 .   “Despite being organized by an indigenous Jew . . . the party . . . presented all the sophistication of European taste.” The attendees of this elegant “soirée juive” in early colonial Oran are depicted as elite Jews, Muslims, and French, often intermingling in the picture. One of the two families sponsoring the ball was that of Shimon Kanoui, Jacob Lasry’s son-in-law. Kanoui dropped the Arabic article from the beginning of his name and later took on the presidency of the consistory. From L’Illustration: Journal universel (1855): 204.

From Juifs de Gibraltar and “Algerine Jews” to Israélites Indigènes

139

after the consistory’s establishment in June), the Conseil de Direction noted that Jacob Lasry planned to donate “to the Israelite community a parcel of land equal to 12,598 square meters, for the expansion of the Israelite cemetery.”23 Furthermore, the council conferred upon the consistory the right to accept this gift and to use it for the donor’s intended purpose. Given that one of the charges of the new institutions would be to supervise the religious duties pertaining to death and burial among Oran’s Jews, the fact that Lasry donated the land necessary for a cemetery is significant. In 1859 Lasry was listed as the single largest donor to the Société de Bienfaisance Israélite d’Oran pour la Propagation du Travail et de l’Instruction.24 It would appear that local North African merchants such as Lasry, still the elite in newly French Oran, were called on to pay for the civilizing mission the French had so generously imported. The consistory also depended on the privately owned synagogues of wealthy North African Jews to minister to the religious needs of Oran’s Jewish population (notwithstanding the official French ambition of limiting their reach). Jews established synagogues for various purposes. As has been discussed elsewhere, privately owned synagogues, jarring as they were to European sensibilities, were a fixture of Jewish institutional life in North Africa.25 Dedicating a section of one’s house (or another property) as a place of worship was not only a pious act but also a way to establish or increase prestige. Providing places of worship also offset the cost of owning urban real estate. Given their centrality to Jewish life in Algeria, a great deal of ink was spilled over the control of these private synagogues, which French “reformers” who were associated with the consistory frequently described as commercial exploitations that debased religion.26 But once again, the French civilizing institutions actually depended on the local Jewish elite for both funding and personnel, which meant that the very people who owned private synagogues would soon help to run the consistory. This led to struggles over whose synagogues remained open and what the term private synagogue really meant. For example, Lasry’s private synagogue, despite local opposition, remained open and helped the consistory provide places of worship to Oran’s Jews throughout the period under discussion.27 When the event was discussed fifteen years later in the pages of the French Jewish journal L’Univers israélite, the editor lauded Lasry’s generous contribution to the Jews of Oran, noting that his synagogue was not just beautiful but ministered to underserved Jews.28 In either case, Lasry’s synagogue was appreciated as a gift to the consistory and the Jewish community and thus was not really a private

140 From Juifs de Gibraltar and “Algerine Jews” to Israélites Indigènes

s­ ynagogue. So despite numerous discussions over the control of private synagogues in the 1850s and 1860s and the simultaneous effort (unsuccessful until the 1910s) to build a central synagogue capable of catering to the entire community, the consistory accepted its dependence on the elite and their private synagogues. Perhaps another way of gauging the elite status of some Jews in the civic and commercial life of early colonial Oran is to look at their attitude toward French naturalization. That many of them did not feel compelled to obtain French naturalization is all the more remarkable in the face of the heated liberal rhetoric of the time that argued for preferential treatment of Algerian Jews in much the same way that French Revolution era thinkers justified Jewish emancipation: Formerly oppressed people would cleave to their emancipators and be the most patriotic of citizens.29 That does not seem to have been the case in Oran. For example, Lasry was listed in the Almanach du Commerce de Paris of 1837 among a small group of négocians israélites, who were listed separately from French businessmen.30 In addition to importing “articles from Gibraltar,” Lasry’s main line of business appears to have remained the same or expanded from his last dealings with the bey of Oran: fabrics, grand commerce with the interior of the department, and the exchange of currency. Lasry’s prominence in French Oran appears to have been consolidated during the years in which the Yusuf affair was as yet unsettled. This prominence, however, did not yet require his acquisition of French nationality. INVENTING THE INDIGÈNE Cases of elite Jews who resisted taking French nationality allow us to see how French colonial categories such as “israélite” or “indigène” were increasingly favored operative terms to describe what had been a different and divided assortment of Jews. For example, the Almanach also included Mordecai Amar, Joseph and Abraham Cohen, and Intob (Yomtov) Bergel in the category israélite, not Gibraltarian, Moroccan, or French. Lasry was specifically noted as not French more than a decade later, when he was being considered for the presidency of the consistory. The case of Solomon Sarfati of Mostaganem is even more ­revealing. He was another Moroccan-born Jew brought into the Municipal Council in Mostaganem as an “indigenous” member. When local opponents protested that he should not qualify as indigenous given his Moroccan birth, he actually hired legal help to set the record straight. I return to this fascinating case later, but here I should emphasize that Sarfati saw it in his interest to fight

From Juifs de Gibraltar and “Algerine Jews” to Israélites Indigènes

141

to maintain the colonial moniker of indigenous. Sarfati’s unusual predicament does not suggest that “indigenous” was frequently a beneficial categorization but rather how colonialism began transforming Jewish subjectivities in Algeria. New political realities were helping to create a community of “indigenous” Jews where there hadn’t been one before. Of course, Jews in Oran and its district continued to be divided by class, language, and place of origin in the early colonial period. The term Moroccan continued to be used to distinguish Jews from the oases and towns of the sultanate from Jews with roots in Tlemcen or other towns closer to Oran. This is despite the fact that many of these “Moroccans” were definitively settled in French ­Algeria and had been for some time. For example, Solomon Sarfati had lived in Mostaganem since the 1810s. This ethnic variety would be augmented with a much larger emigration of Jews from Tétouan during the Spanish-­Moroccan War of 1859–1860.31 Some of the immigrants from Morocco were wealthy, for example, Emmanuel Nahon. Nahon, like others, was at first employed as a translator for the French army and then helped administer French-held cities. Sarfati, another Moroccan Jewish immigrant, would become a deputy for the consistory in Mostaganem, much to the chagrin of “local” Jews.32 At the same time, low-level traders, poor rabbis, and even the café owner Rafael ben Haim, whom we met in Chapter 4, also figured among the diverse people understood to be Moroccans in Oran.33 Other members of Oran’s Jewish elite were not of Moroccan origin. Local notables such as Amar, Maklouf Calfon, and Abraham ben Haim, whom I will soon discuss, belonged to families that had been based in western Algeria for some time. As we saw in Chapter 3, Judah Sebbah was a merchant whom a local bet din certified had been born in Oran. Many others were shopkeepers, rabbis, metal workers, tailors, shoemakers, or other artisans and merchants of more modest means. The French policy of attempting to attach Jews to France simultaneously grouped local Jews into a single community and outsourced the civilizing project to the elite. As we have seen, when Jacob Lasry became president of the consistory of Oran in 1855, he was a Moroccan-born North African Jew who had enjoyed British protection and traveled in the elite company of French generals. Yet he became the nominal leader of a community of all Israélites indigènes, a collection of people who themselves had settled in the city only after the 1790s. It is a testament to the status Lasry and other wealthy North African Jewish merchants succeeded in maintaining after the conquest that the question of

142 From Juifs de Gibraltar and “Algerine Jews” to Israélites Indigènes

their Frenchness was not debated. Not only did prominent Jews have striking latitude in navigating the emerging colonial binary between French and indigenous in Algeria, but they were also drafted to spread French civilization. The latitude of the precolonial elite to adopt the mantle of French civilization is most clearly visible at the moments when Lasry’s non-French origins were noticed. When officials discussed Lasry’s aptitude to be president of the consistory, specific mention was made of the fact that he had been naturalized as a French citizen only two years before, in 1853.34 More important, according to the prefect’s notes, Lasry was “extremely rich” and would thus make an appropriate president.35 Also highlighted were the improvements Lasry had helped fund (such as the sewer), before his naturalization took place.36 Lasry’s adoption of French nationality was a late-occurring affair. He did not actively pursue this legal project as he developed his real estate portfolio in Oran over the first eighteen years of the conquest. For colonial officials Lasry’s value to the French civilizing project did not hinge overwhelmingly on his being French. The mobility and wealth of some Jewish merchants serve to illustrate how France’s category of “indigenous” increasingly assumed social meaning. When the Moroccan-born Solomon Sarfati was brought into the Municipal Council in Mostaganem as an “indigenous” representative, a number of fellow indigenous people protested (it is not mentioned whether they were Jewish, Muslim, or both). This protest occurred at a time when many Jews were also hoping to unseat Sarfati as the local deputy of Oran’s consistory, accusing him of not respecting local religious customs and of brutality toward local Jews.37 The lawyer representing those objecting to the election of Sarfati argued that, because he was born in Morocco, Sarfati could not be considered indigenous to Algeria and thus could not be elected as a representative of this group.38 Coming from Morocco, it would appear, rendered Sarfati either étranger (foreign) or français (French) but not indigène. Ironically, Sarfati’s enemies accused him of benefiting from a position reserved for an indigenous Jew and hoped to have him stripped of his position because he was Moroccan. Sarfati’s lawyer noted that his client had settled in Mostaganem twelve years before the conquest and that his family had lived in the province of Oran for years before that. According to the lawyer, “These circumstances are more determinant of nationality than his birth, which happened to be in Morocco.”39 Furthermore, the defense attorney argued that Sarfati had always been considered indigenous and that in such a case of an error, if there really had been an error, “It constitutes an error in his favor.” He went on to note that the question

From Juifs de Gibraltar and “Algerine Jews” to Israélites Indigènes

143

of Sarfati’s nationality had already been decided, because Sarfati had served on the Municipal Council before. When the Conseil de Direction reconvened several weeks later, it confirmed Sarfati’s position as an indigène and thus his eligibility to maintain his position on the council.40 The examples of Sarfati and Lasry show how the new social category of Israélites indigènes was hardly a clear and fixed category in early colonial Algeria. Indeed, wealthy Jews could navigate in and out of it according to their convenience. But it was developing a certain meaning, one that would eventually reflect a new, singular, colonial subjectivity for a still diverse group of people. THE L ASRY SYNAGO GUE The struggle over Jacob Lasry’s synagogue, intertwined as it was with the closing of Abraham ben Haim’s synagogue, provides another angle on how the precolonial Jewish elite of Oran, with its factions and its deep pockets, continued to shape institutions and communal boundaries in Oran, even the contours of the civilizing mission, well after the French arrived.41 Many prominent Jews in North Africa used synagogues to gain prestige and to defray the costs of real estate investments. The prefect of Oran found no fewer than seventeen privately owned synagogues ministering to the needs of the Jewish population in the mid-1850s. The consistory needed these synagogues because they could not afford to build a large communal structure until the early twentieth century. However, the consistorial mission, as it was formulated, demanded surveillance of public prayer and thus led to an ongoing effort to close the private synagogues owned by members of the elite. This conflict set the stage for a struggle between various groups over whose synagogues would be closed and whose would be seen as permissible (or even consistorial). The resolution of the matter, if one could call it a resolution, shows not only how the consistory provided a forum for preexisting rivalries to smolder under the guise of the civilizing mission but also how influential North African Jews could use official French policy to advance their own interests. It also offers another perspective on the emergence of a community of indigenous Jews out of a diverse and frequently fractious group of Oran’s inhabitants. According to a French- and Spanish-language declaration submitted to the French government, Lasry established the  Beit ha-Knesset Européen Lasry (the Lasry European Synagogue) in Oran on January 5, 1843.42 This synagogue supported various charitable and religious works. Relevant here is that Lasry explained, in a letter written directly to the minister of war in Paris, that there

144 From Juifs de Gibraltar and “Algerine Jews” to Israélites Indigènes

was a difference between the needs of what he called European Jews and those of Algerian Jews, because they observe different religious rites. The intention of Lasry’s synagogue, at 12 rue de Vienne, in the Jewish quarter of Oran, was to minister to the population of “European Sephardim” in Algeria.43 Jews from Europe, however, were a rarity in early colonial Oran. What Lasry meant were the Moroccan Jewish immigrants to Oran, generally from Tétouan, who followed what they called a Sephardic rite, as opposed to the customs of Oran’s local Jewish community. Lasry’s note was on one level contrary to the new centralizing ethos that the French brought to Algeria: the idea that the number of different rites should be limited. But the same letter also illustrates how Lasry—despite his foreign origins, heated tangles with French military authorities, and history of accusations of immorality—had adopted the stance of a French patriot and moralizer. By assuring the minister of his institution’s utility according to the civilizing ideology, he stressed that he was influential among the indigenous Jews and that he “never ceased to encourage the exercise of useful professions” among his coreligionists, including “industry and agriculture.” Furthermore, Lasry assured him, “in all circumstances” he taught his fellow Jews “obedience to laws, the loyalty they owe France Their Benefactor, and their duty to defend her.”44 The synagogue was justified by its ritual orientation and by its ability to aid France’s colonial civilizing mission. Much like Yusuf ’s pleading for debt forgiveness discussed in Chapter 5, Lasry adopted a patriotic stance to advance his interests and to suit the new French rulers. The issue of Jacob Lasry’s synagogue, however, reemerged with his ascension to the position of president of the consistory of Oran in 1855. As discussed in the Introduction, the choice of Lasry as president was a statement of great confidence in his moral character and devotion to French rule. Furthermore, metropolitan Jewish observers complimented not only the choice of Lasry to lead the consistory but also the ways in which his synagogue had contributed to Jewish life in Oran. It was far from a private synagogue, reported France’s L’Univers israélite; it was more like a generous and necessary contribution to Oran’s Jewish life, notably for those Moroccans whose rites differed from the locals’.45 “The friends of progress,” we recall, were putatively the happiest about Lasry’s nomination to the presidency.46 Lasry’s effort to close other notables’ privately owned synagogues set off a dispute that helpfully illustrates how the existence of the consistory, an overarching, supposedly moralizing communal structure whose jurisdiction in-

From Juifs de Gibraltar and “Algerine Jews” to Israélites Indigènes

145

cluded all of Oran’s Jews, helped to shape a particularly Jewish subjectivity within the emergent public sphere of colonial Oran.47 Lasry’s consistory, in partnership with Oran’s prefecture, spent a good deal of the 1850s demanding that wealthy locals close their synagogues or obtain special permission to stay open. This allowed Lasry to use power obtained through a civilizing institution to close synagogues owned by his rivals. It also created an atmosphere in which opponents could use a new, common vocabulary of morality to dispute others’ claims and advance their own interests. Abraham ben Haim, faced with consistorial efforts to close his synagogue, disputed Lasry’s claim of moral authority. By extension, Ben Haim also challenged Lasry’s new position as a subcontracted enlightener bringing French civilization to the Jews of Oran. Among a group of other wealthy Oran (i.e., non-Moroccan) Jews who also owned synagogues, the debate spilled into both official correspondence of the prefecture and the French Jewish press, as various observers debated the meaning of “public” prayers and how they might affect the consistory’s mission to police and lend dignity to local Jewish practice.48 The notions of dignity and reform were part of a new language that lent meaning to claims of authority. Ben Haim disputed Lasry’s self-presentation as both a moral civilizer and a representative of the local community in meetings of the consistory and in the press. Writing under the pseudonym of his brother Isaac to unclear effect, he produced a brochure in 1856 that attempted to embarrass Lasry by impugning his moral rectitude. Ben Haim referred his readers to Pellissier de Reynaud’s Annales Algériennes, where they would find an account of the French conquest that shed a negative light on Jacob Lasry’s history of questionable loans and business practices during the conquest, especially during the Tlemcen campaign, discussed in Chapter 5. Following the favorable L’Univers israélite article on how Lasry’s synagogue contributed to Jewish life in Oran, Ben Haim publicly disputed the morality of the man being lauded as a beacon of French civilization.49 Cleary, not everyone in Oran had forgotten Lasry’s recent history as a less than perfect supporter of the French establishment in Algeria. Furthermore, Ben Haim’s argument illustrates how the French colonial presence provided a new sphere in which an array of Jewish people were imagined to be a single community of indigenous Jews in Oran. Notably, Ben Haim pointed out that Lasry’s ascension to the head of the consistory must be seen as the victory of one party over another, as opposed to simply the rise of the most capable and deserving leader. He further pointed out that Lasry’s intention was

146 From Juifs de Gibraltar and “Algerine Jews” to Israélites Indigènes

not simply to bring peace, as had been publicly claimed, but rather to “make war against his predecessor, as well as this latter’s partisans.”50 This deployed a particularly French historical perspective. Notably, Ben Haim was criticizing Lasry’s unnecessary and unjustified division of the Jews into different rites. Echoing French Enlightenment and Revolution era debates, as well as official consistorial policy that assumed that all Jews belonged to one of two rites, Ben Haim insisted that “there are only two rites in Judaism, the German and the Portuguese. These two rites are followed everywhere, and are sufficient for Jews of all origins.”51 In other words, Ben Haim imported a European language for distinguishing different groups of Jews in North Africa: German, which the French used increasingly over the course of the eighteenth century to describe the ­Ashkenazim of Alsace and northeastern France, and Portuguese, which described the smaller group of Sephardim who had settled generally in Bayonne, Bordeaux, and other towns in the southwest. To advance his cause, Ben Haim ignored the differences in history, origin, and customs that still distinguished the different groups of Oran’s Jews. To drive home the point, he argued that “we do not know a Moroccan rite; [Jews] go, without distinction, to all the synagogues of Oran.”52 Denying the existence of a Moroccan rite did not just paper over the differences in language and religious rite among Jews in Oran; it also used a particularly French denial of Jewish difference to elide recent Jewish migrations and dynamism that had fed the diversity of Oran’s Jews. Ben Haim’s language also showed how the new French order encouraged Oran’s Jews to adopt new forms of identification. Ben Haim’s cause also illustrates how the French occupation created a new, interventionist authority (the consistory and its backers at the prefecture) that, in seeking to close private synagogues, simultaneously encouraged opposing groups to use a new language of progress to protect their interests. Under the beys the existence of multiple Jewish rites was of little interest to the governing authority. This was not true under the French, whose moralizing campaign insisted on more intervention in and surveillance of places of worship. Ben Haim adopted the language he did to defend his synagogue against Lasry: Ben Haim not only called his rival an immoral lender disliked by French generals but also painted him as undermining the presumed unity of indigenous Jews by catering to and emphasizing one subset’s particularistic rituals. Their struggle shows that the French colonial order gave a new urgency to the task of defining Jewish rites and identity. It also illustrates how men like Lasry and Ben Haim, in their struggles to maintain prestige

From Juifs de Gibraltar and “Algerine Jews” to Israélites Indigènes

147

in early colonial Oran, appropriated French arguments about identity in an emergent public sphere encouraged by the consistory itself. This atmosphere fashioned an identifiable indigenous Jewish community, even as profound divisions continued to characterize the community well into the late nineteenth century. Even though Lasry, who argued in favor of a specific Moroccan rite, and Ben Haim, who insisted that all Algerian Jews follow the Portuguese rite, were working at cross-purposes, they were both enmeshed in a new colonial public sphere that helped fashion a population whom the French referred to as Israélites indigènes. CONCLUSION Jacob Lasry, Abraham ben Haim, Solomon Sarfati, and other prominent Jews in the city and province of Oran during the first decades of conquest were not products of an emancipation delivered from the continent. Their status was established before the French occupation began and derived from the commerce that had connected Oran to the wider region in the beylical period. This precolonial elite became a colonial one; its members assumed positions of authority in municipal councils, chambers of commerce, and, eventually, the consistory of Oran, where they continued to express their differences and push for their own interests. Furthermore, the new French administrators needed this local notability. In addition to financing campaigns and serving as intermediaries, the French assigned them posts ostensibly devoted to imparting French culture to Algerian Jews. In this capacity Jewish merchants subsidized Oran’s civic improvements and underwrote moralizing institutions. Lasry provided land, money, and time to improving Oran’s infrastructure, running its consistory, and offering religious services for its Moroccan immigrants. Much as General Clauzel had outsourced elements of the conquest to men like Lasry and Yusuf in the 1830s, in the 1840s and 1850s the Ministry of War—overseers of the consistories in Algeria—outsourced French civilization to Lasry, Sarfati, and other members of the local Jewish elite. Yet the rivalries and competing interests that continued to shape life in Jewish Oran were increasingly expressed in new forums. Certainly these struggles reflected the history of competing economic interests, even as Lasry and his ­rivals claimed to seek unity. But they became struggles over synagogues and rites and the definitions of these rites. They were, at some level, products of a new understanding of governance, notably the colonial administration’s new

148 From Juifs de Gibraltar and “Algerine Jews” to Israélites Indigènes

interventionism in Oran, which sought to base its authority in part on a single, unified, and organized Jewish community attached to France. The French hoped to achieve this by, in part, appointing representatives and banning private synagogues. In response to this new context, local Jews themselves adopted new terms and new forms of self-identification. With the introduction of the social-scientific category “indigenous,” a term that carried legal weight, Oran’s Jews actively entered into a preexisting French debate about Algerian society, the standards of civilization, and the nature of political emancipation. With the help of these new concepts, colonial rule created the indigenous Jew out of a diverse array of Oran’s inhabitants. Notwithstanding claims of being the champions of assimilation, progress, and emancipation, French rule created conditions whereby the system under the beys gave way to newly ­reified social boundaries between Jews and other inhabitants. This was not accomplished solely through the use of reductive and ahistorical terms such as indigenous but through institutions and legislation. The consistory, unlike what came before, claimed to represent all Jews and endeavored to enlighten them through their monitoring of schools, synagogues, and family life. The diverse lot of Jews in Oran, divided by language, origin, rite, and social class, had to respond to or use colonial establishments that linked them in new ways. The result was a discursively formed indigenous community of sorts, ­albeit one profoundly divided and quite acrimonious. Eventually, this process would culminate with the Crémieux Decree, which endowed the term Jewish with unprecedented coherence and legal weight. “Jewish” became a subset of French citizens, whereas “Muslim” generally overlapped with the colonized. In the disputes discussed in this chapter, we see the beginnings of this process; French colonial policy was creating a radically new subjectivity, one that was nevertheless endowed with an old “Jewish” name.



CONCLUSION Moralities and Mythologies

I N E A R LY 18 6 3 Jacob Lasry’s daughter, Estelle Louise, 17 years old, was planning to marry the wealthy 21-year-old Shimon al-Kanoui. Whether Shimon was Estelle Louise’s own choice or that of her father, he appears to have been quite a catch. Shimon was wealthy, extremely charismatic and the son of the well-known landlord and Oran notable Abraham al-Kanoui, who had served as the first president of Oran’s Jewish consistory. Shimon’s mother, Nedjma, was the daughter of Djoard Durand and Mordecai Amar, one of Jacob Lasry’s old rivals. Shimon himself eventually became the president of Oran’s Jewish consistory, shepherding the Jewish community of Oran through the violent anti-Jewish crisis of the late nineteenth century.1 In this capacity he became known as the chief backer of “local” Jews’ traditional customs and rites against what became known locally as the Moroccans or progressistes.2 The marriage signaled the ongoing melding of high-level mercantile Jewish families into a community of sorts, albeit an acrimonious one. The marriage was probably one of many that led the Moroccan and Gibraltarian Jews of Oran (families such as the Lasrys and the Cabessas) to fuse with the elite of local families who had settled Oran from Tlemcen and Algiers (such as the Amars and the al-Kanouis). In another symbol of larger changes under way, Shimon, upon his marriage, chose to drop the definite article in his name (“al”), producing the somewhat less Arabic-sounding name Kanoui, which he may have seen as a more suitable name for a Gallicizing member of colonial Oran’s Jewish elite.

150

Moralities and Mythologies

By a number of measures, Jacob Lasry and his family already defined this colonial Jewish elite. At the time of his daughter’s wedding, Lasry had served on the consistory for about eight years. He had gained the position because of, among other things, the high favor he enjoyed with the French-appointed and French-trained Grand Rabbi of Oran, Lazare Cahen.3 Indeed, some wondered whether Lasry was not being too hastily pushed to the presidency of Oran’s Jews because of his friendly relations with the French rabbi. Lasry was also enormously wealthy, an attribute that was openly mentioned as one of his qualifications for the presidency. For example, Oran authorities noted that Lasry owned property that earned him 85,000 francs in annual revenue in 1855, a time when a worker in France earned less than 5 francs a day.4 He had also contributed substantially, albeit unenthusiastically, to the improvement of Oran’s infrastructure. In a note to Paris about potential consistorial presidents in the mid-1850s, Oran’s prefect insisted that among the candidates, Lasry had unparalleled influence among Oran’s Jews.5 Lasry was also regarded as a reliable backer of the French administration in Algeria. At the moment he ascended to the position, other members of the consistory lauded his obedience to French authority. In their discussions about Abraham ben Ichou, the man Lasry replaced at the helm of the consistory, consistory members complained that Ben Ichou “systematically opposed” everything the French rabbi tried to do. His replacement with a worthy alternative would “raise the moral position of the French pastor . . . at the same time it will teach [Oran’s Jews] that one cannot attack with impunity men selected as their leader to bring them toward civilization and moral and religious regeneration.”6 In other words, Ben Ichou was “indirectly attacking French authority.” Lasry, it was expected, would advance the “moral . . . regeneration” of the Jews of Oran and not hinder the project that the consistory and its rabbi had been charged with. As we saw in the Introduction, Lasry’s worthiness to fulfill these goals was echoed in France’s press. In radical contrast to the putatively avaricious and unscrupulous “Jew Lasry” described in correspondence of the 1830s, by the 1850s French authorities portrayed Lasry as a model of progress and enlightenment to be emulated by other Jews in Oran. His nomination, we recall, was received “with great joy by the entire population, but especially by friends of progress.” Given that the “great majority” of Oran’s Jews “refuse all progress,” noted reporters, it was especially important to have Lasry in the consistory, whose “holy mission” he was uniquely qualified to pursue.7 Lasry ended up serving as president of the consistory of Oran for a full nine years, from 1855 to 1864.



Moralities and Mythologies

151

When Jacob Lasry died, about six years after Estelle Louise and Shimon were married, he was interred in a tomb that reflected this holy mission. One can still find his impressive tomb in the neglected and severely damaged Jewish cemetery of Oran.8 The large neoclassical monument sits atop a raised stone base; six Doric columns run down each side, framing five arches, and two double columns frame additional arches on the tomb’s ends. The tomb is located on one of the cemetery’s main pathways; its French epitaph faces the path, and its Hebrew equivalent graces the back. Other large tombs can be found in the Oran cemetery, but most are more modest memorials: rectangular stones laying parallel to each other in tight rows, with one or several names carved into them in French and/or Hebrew. Lasry’s tomb, which resembles a miniature Greek temple, possesses a particular visibility. The grandeur of his final resting place attests to his wealth, but its classical theme alludes to his dedication to the French colonial ideology of spreading civilization, progress, and reason to Algeria.

F IG U R E 7 .   The city of Oran, viewed from the west in the 1880s, a decade or two after Jacob Lasry’s death. From the collection “Algérie Illustrée” (LeRoux). Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (image 2007.R.5).

152

Moralities and Mythologies

But if Jacob Lasry appeared to his metropolitan backers as a model of French morality, there is evidence that he himself lived far more in accordance with family practices and customs that would have been more typical of the North African Jewish merchant he grew up as. In the months before his daughter’s wedding, he undertook a brief flurry of activity related to managing his children’s personal status. He secured a judgment in an Oran court on June 2, 1863, that led to changes in how his marital history and, by extension, the status of his children were recorded in a number of état civil records. Recall that the état civil register is a French record of births, deaths, and marriages (and when it became legal, divorces) that affect one’s personal status. Encouraging Algerians to record their marriages in the état civil register and not just in communal registers or in ketubot (Jewish marriage contracts) became a defining cause for liberal French reformers concerned with the fate of Algerian Jews in the early decades of the conquest.9 These reformers (including the religiously conservative editors of L’Univers israélite) saw marriage registration as a precursor to the Jews’ full naturalization as Frenchmen. Central to the reformers’ efforts to have marriages recorded in the état civil registers was the hope that by subjecting Jews to French family law, colonial policy would encourage them to cease practicing divorce and polygamy, which were seen as immoral and “Oriental” practices. The archives attest not only to a vigorous effort to encourage Jews to use the état civil register and to cease practicing divorce and polygamy, but also to the neglect of these new highly politicized standards of morality and modernity by many Algerian Jews. As discussed elsewhere, personal status laws were the ultimate boundary markers between the European and indigenous communities in colonial Algeria.10 When the embryonic Third Republic issued the Crémieux Decree naturalizing the Jews of Algeria’s northern provinces in 1870, the law suppressed the separate personal status of all Algerian Jews living in the northern provinces (the vast majority), subjecting them instead to the French personal status. The judgment led to alterations in état civil entries for Lasry’s children in Aix-en-Provence, Paris, and Oran. The record for Estelle Louise is the most ambiguous. Her birth record, noted on February 27, 1846, in the eighth arrondissement of Paris, notes simply that the record was corrected by decision of the Oran tribunal on June 2, 1863, and transmitted to the mairie of the eighth arrondissement on July 23. No other information is given, but this does render the changes in her siblings’ records all the more curious.



Moralities and Mythologies

153

A year and half later, an entry from July 19, 1847, in the register of births in Aix-en-Provence notes that Semha Cabessa gave birth to twins, Elie and Sarah Cabessa, to an “unknown” father. However, on the eve of Estelle Louise’s wedding in July 1863, the entries for these twins were changed. Notably, the Aix-enProvence birth record received the following additions: “By judgment of the tribunal civil of Oran (Algeria) dated 2 June 1863, transmitted to the current registers . . . the newborn would be declared the legitimate child of the marriage between Jacob Lasry and Semha Cabessa.”11 Although Sarah and Elie were born to Semha Cabessa (not Lasry) and an unknown father, it was legally established sixteen years later that they were actually the product of a legitimate marriage between their mother and Lasry. In the case of both Elie and Sarah, at the time of their respective marriages in Oran, both of them had the name Lasry. Perhaps Lasry chose to adopt the illegitimate children resulting from one of Semha’s previous relationships. More likely, however, he was the “unknown” father of Elie and Sarah and was actually married to the mother. Yet Jacob Lasry had married Rica Bergel in Gibraltar in 1823. Rica passed away in Oran on October 20, 1847, at the age of 38. At the time of her death, she was the legitimate wife of Jacob Lasry and lived with him in the conjugal home, located at 69 rue Napoléon in Oran. The only record we have of Jacob and Rica’s wedding, however, comes from the Jewish community registers of Gibraltar; presumably the wedding was a purely religious marriage; there is no reason to think it was rendered official by any French authority. Furthermore, when Jacob Lasry died in Oran in 1869, barely six years after the marriage of his daughter Estelle Louise, his legitimate spouse was listed as Semha Cabessa. If the état civil registers and their corrections are accurate, then Semha gave birth to Elie and Sarah in Aix-en-Provence several months before Rica died in Oran. How long Semha and Jacob were married beforehand is anyone’s guess. It is all the more likely that Jacob Lasry was the twins’ father, given that the boy received the name Elie; Jacob Lasry’s father was named Eliahu, and western Mediterranean Sephardic customs strongly favored giving one’s first-born son the name of the paternal grandfather. As for the biological mother of Estelle Louise, it seems possible, given the geography, that she could have also been Semha Cabessa. Jacob Lasry was having children with Semha—and was probably married to her—while still married to Rica. There is also evidence in the Oran état civil records that Jacob Lasry had two wives. In the record of the marriage of Estelle Louise Lasry and Shimon ­Kanoui, a number of undated corrections clutter the margin notes.12 For e­ xample, the

154

Moralities and Mythologies

­ riginal listing declares that Estelle Louise was born in the eighth arrondissement o of Paris on February 26, 1846 (one day before the date listed on her birth record), to Jacob Lasry and Semha Cabessa, but the terms have been altered. The corrections insert the word legitimate before daughter, whereas previously there had been no qualifier. In addition, the same term legitimate is crossed out before the term marriage (of Jacob and Semha). In its place is written contract more Judaico (Jewish rite). In other words, Jacob Lasry had a second Jewish marriage, sanctified with a ketuba but not with an accompanying French civil marriage that would have been recorded in the état civil register. Also included in the margins is a more complete text from the ruling of June 2, which notes, among other things, that Estelle Louise was to be registered as the “legitimate daughter of the second marriage, contracted more judaico on May 13, 1843, by Jacob Lasry and Semha Cabessa.”13 It was the same year Lasry established his synagogue, with its accompanying charitable trust, in Oran. Lasry, while married to Rica Bergel, contracted his second (Jewish) marriage to Semha Cabessa, perhaps endowing a charitable foundation and a synagogue to celebrate it.14 These marriages were legal. French administrators, magistrates, and policy makers had made polygamy and divorce into privileged boundary markers of civilization. Legally, access to French citizenship in Algeria was structured around the personal status codes that either permitted or prohibited p ­ olygamy. But Jacob Lasry avoided becoming French until 1853, after both marriages had been contracted and after his first wife had died. As for Jewish law, Lasry was not a product of the European Ashkenazic world that had accepted Rabbi Gershom ben Yehudah’s 1000 CE ruling banning polygamy outside of several rare situations. North African Jews and Muslims permitted and practiced p ­ olygamy. In this highly politicized sphere of personal life, Lasry continued to live in a way that reflected practices far more typical of his North African, western Mediterranean background than the practices of the colonizing moral authorities he putatively represented. This story returns us to the paradox introduced in the first pages of this book. Jacob Lasry, France’s chosen agent of progress and civilization in Oran, actively maintained the very practices and moral stances that French colonial law singled out in a quest to define who was to be categorized as indigenous. Lasry’s own relativism regarding such standards would thus appear to mirror French authorities’ relativism when it came to outsourcing the conquest to local warlords, financiers, and civilizers. France’s conquest of Algeria was a sign of power perhaps, but it might not have succeeded without the aid of influential locals.



Moralities and Mythologies

155

But these stories also signal a far deeper, more significant history than the contradictions between French colonial rhetoric and its practices. Lasry and the other merchants of Oran were certainly influenced by French colonialism in Oran, but they also profoundly shaped French colonial Oran. After all, they and their immediate forebears had transformed Oran from an abandoned Spanish presidio into an active port in the westernmost reaches of Ottoman North Africa. They had established commercial contacts with Gibraltar, Spain, and ports of Italy. Although later French historians would congratulate France for bringing about Oran’s renaissance, it was the generation of merchants before Lasry that sutured Oran into the fabric of western Mediterranean commerce. When the French occupation began, these merchants were, in some ways, in charge. And even though the conquest was undoubtedly violent and cruel and posed a major disruption to merchants, it did not eradicate the Jewish commercial elite that had developed under the city’s Muslim rule. Nor did the migratory and commercial patterns that created Lasry’s world immediately vanish when Pierre Boyer arrived to complain about the “rapacious Jews” of Oran. It follows that during France’s poorly provisioned and reckless foray into Africa, France turned to local Jewish notables as experts, lenders, and intermediaries. France subcontracted the conquest to these powerful go-betweens because they had knowledge and resources that the French lacked. As the colonial civil administration was established, French officials also turned to Oran’s Jews to help serve local government and the Chamber of Commerce and eventually to champion the civilizing mission. Officials sought their guidance and aid in the development of sewers and warehouses. Although one could describe late Ottoman Oran as a Mediterranean and Arab Islamic city, the influence of power­ful Jewish merchants in the orbit of precolonial Oran, in terms of commerce, population, and property ownership, suggests that the city was simultaneously a Jewish one. It remained so into the colonial period. I have also illustrated in this book how the term Jewish began to acquire new meanings with colonial rule. New colonial institutions provided new ­forums for preexisting rivalries and competing interests. The diverse lot of Jewish inhabitants of Oran, divided by language, origin, rite, and social class, responded to and used colonial establishments that linked them in new ways. This invested the new colonial notion of a community of indigenous Jews with a certain reality. Whether they liked it or not, Jews had to respond to colonial authorities’ interventionist policies in Oran, which hoped to create a single, unified, and organized Jewish community. Looked at from the perspective of

156

Moralities and Mythologies

many Jews, this effort did not succeed. Yet with the introduction of the legal and social-scientific category “indigenous,” Oran’s Jews were nevertheless incorporated into preexisting French understandings and debates about the standards of civilization and the nature of political emancipation. This process led, after several decades, to a naturalization decree based entirely on religion. In other words, French policy actually broke from the Jewish nation of the beys by reifying social boundaries between Jews and Algeria’s Muslim inhabitants. The term Jew evolved into a subset of French citizen, whereas the term Muslim increasingly described the colonial subject. In radical contrast to the Oran of the beys, French policies initiated in the first years of colonization began the process of Jewish reification, minoritization, and isolation from their Muslim neighbors. Viewed in such a light, the paradoxes represented by Jacob Lasry’s transformation into a pillar of colonial society are far less striking than those of French “emancipation.”

NOTES

INTRODUCTION 1. On the ideology and practice of regeneration in France, see Berkowitz, Shaping of Jewish Identity); Birnbaum, L’aigle et la synagogue; Schwarzfuchs, Du Juif; and Sepinwall, Abbé Grégoire. 2. L’Univers israélite 11 (1856): 239. 3. Archives israélites 17 (1856): 51. 4. Service Historique de l’Armée de la Terre (SHAT), Vincennes, fol. 1 H 12. 5. Debates questioning the sincerity and impact of ideas such as assimilation, association, and civilizing in French imperial policy goes back a long way. Some important contributions to this literature are Betts, Assimilation; Conklin, A Mission to Civilize; Daughton, An Empire Divided; Martin D. Lewis, “One Hundred Million Frenchmen”; and Schreier, Arabs of the Jewish Faith. 6. I owe great thanks to the organizers and participants of two rich scholarly meetings that provided forums to develop the ideas I put forward in this Introduction. The first was the conference “Jews and the Mediterranean,” held at the University of Southern California and the University of California at Irvine, April 3 and 4, 2016; this conference was organized by Clémence Boulouque, Jessica Marglin, and Matthias Lehmann. The second was the summer symposium “The Intimate Sea: Jews, Families, and Networks in the Mediterranean,” held at the University of Salento in Lecce, Italy, May 30–31, 2016. Great thanks are due to my co-organizers, Tara Coyle, Hartley Lachter, Fabrizio Lelli, and Sarah Abrevaya Stein. The Berman Center for Jewish Studies at Lehigh University generously funded the event. 7. Laura Robson, Minorities, 1–16. 8. On this colonial narrative and the policies it justified, see Schreier, Arabs of the Jewish Faith. The French applied the term indigène to most Algerian Jews and Muslims, until the 1870 Crémieux Decree naturalized most Jews in Algeria, making them a religious minority among French citizens. The term did not parallel the post-1390 (or 1492) Jewish historiographic distinction between toshavim, or natives, and megorashim, those who had been expelled from Spain or Portugal and their descendants. On colonial policies that created indigenous Jews out of some Algerians while making Frenchmen of others, see Stein, Saharan Jews. For French views on North African Jewries, see Abitbol, “Encounter”; Birnbaum, “French Jews”; Leff, “Impact of the Napoleonic Sanhedrin”; and Leff, Sacred Bonds.

158

Notes to Introduction

9. Schechter, Obstinate Hebrews, 5–17. 10.  This trope concerning North African Jews emerged early in the conquest and was continued decades later by the teachers and administrators of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, which was not founded until 1860. On the first encounters, see Ayoun, “Les efforts d’assimilation”; and Stora and Dermenjian, “Les Juifs.” On the efforts of the Alliance Israélite Universelle to educate Jews of the Mediterranean basin and a discussion of the discourse that justified the project, see Benbassa, “L’éducation féminine en orient”; Laskier, Alliance Israélite Universelle; Laskier, North African Jewry; Rodrigue, French Jews, 1–24; and Rodrigue, Images. 11.  The Crémieux Decree, named for its chief sponsor, Adolphe Crémieux, naturalized Algerian Jews living in the northern provinces of Algeria. The decree was subsequently subject to challenges; the Vichy Regime abrogated it in 1940, only to abrogate it again in 1942 (Petainist general Henri Giraud used pressure to eliminate racial laws after the Allied landing as an excuse to condemn the decree as “racial law” that distinguished between Jews and Muslims). The Crémieux Decree was reinstated in 1943. On efforts to attach Algeria’s Jews to France and the contested rhetoric that accompanied this campaign, see Ayoun, “Les efforts d’assimilation”; Ayoun and Cohen, Les Juifs d’Algérie; Godley, Almost Finished Frenchmen; Schreier, Arabs of the Jewish Faith, 88–103; Schwarzfuchs, “Colonialisme français”; Shurkin, “French Liberal Governance”; Szajkowski, “Establishment of the Consistorial System”; and Szajkowski, “Struggle for Jewish Emancipation.” For work specifically on the Algerian consistoires israélites, see Assan, Les consistoires israélites. On Algerian Jews’ evolving memory of the conquest and colonization, see Katz, “Between Emancipation and Persecution.” 12.  Scholars who have criticized the colonial aspect of Jewish reform efforts in Algeria have been less focused on how French institutions such as the consistory depended on local resources to function. See Friedman, Colonialism and After; and Schwarzfuchs, “Colonialisme français.” 13.  Most work on the upper strata of North African Jewish commerce focuses on the Livornese Jews of Algiers and Tunis. See Filippini, “Les Juifs d’Afrique du nord”; Tsur, “Prélude”; and Tsur, “Two Jewish Societies.” See also Tsur, “Jewish Sectional Societies.” 14.  On Jewish commercial networks, see Stein, “Mediterranean Jewries.” Early modern Mediterranean Jewish mercantile networks are discussed in Israel, Diasporas Within a Diaspora; and Trivellato, Familiarity of Strangers. On global Jewish networks that included Algeria, see Stein, Plumes. 15.  Schroeter, “Shifting Boundaries.” 16.  The recent arrival of the Jews of Oran, not to mention the various levels of commerce at which they operated, offers a different image from that painted by earlier scholarship. In these renderings the Jewish populations were starkly bifurcated between the Livornese or Grana population and the “indigenous, Judeo-Arabic” groups found in other North African cities painted by the scholarship. See, for example, Tsur, “Two Jewish Communities”; and Tsur, “Jewish Sectional Societies.” 17. Schreier, Arabs of the Jewish Faith, 15, 23–55. 18. Schreier, Arabs of the Jewish Faith, 86–113.



Notes to Introduction

159

19.  Ayoun, “Problématique.” 20.  In a conversation at a conference several years ago, an Algerian scholar told me that few people in Oran actually know that one of the city’s large mosques previously served as a synagogue. The city’s Jewish past, she said, was forgotten among the young. On the difficulty of even talking about Jews in contemporary Algeria, see Farah Souames, “Home”; and Stein, “Algeria’s Jewish Past-Present.” See also JTA, “Algeria to Reopen Shuttered Synagogues.” 21.  Choi, “Complex Compatriots”; Eldridge, “Remembering the Other”; Katz, Burdens of Brotherhood, 201–41; Mandel, Muslims and Jews in France, 35–58; Schreier, “Jewish Riot”; Shepard, “Algerian Nationalism”; and Shepard, Invention of Decolonization. See also the essays in Robson, Minorities. 22.  This was felt by Jews and Muslims alike in Algeria. See Stora, Les trois exils. See also Eldridge, “Remembering the Other.” On Moroccans’ evolving sense of Jews as separate, see, for example, Boum, Memories of Absence; and Schroeter, “Shifting Boundaries.” The belief among North Africans that Jews are not (or could not be) a valuable part of their society extends to Egypt, generally seen as possessing a history apart from the Maghreb. See, for example, Beinin, “Egypt and Its Jews.” 23. Rodrigue, French Jews, 1. As mentioned earlier, there has been a larger polemic about the eternal precariousness of Jewish life under Islam. On the political significance of the founding of the Alliance as a part of the maturing of French republican culture, see Nord, Republican Moment. 24. Biale, Power and Powerlessness, 6. 25. Biale, Power and Powerlessness, 6. 26.  Recent work has helped correct this picture. See, for example, Bashkin, New Babylonians; Campos, Ottoman Brothers; and Cohen, Becoming Ottomans. 27.  Stein, “Field of In-Between.” The most well-known example of conservative, Zionist historiography in which the modern period is characterized primarily by the rise of anti-Semitism in the Muslim world is B. Lewis, Jews of Islam. A popular rendition of this view of Middle Eastern Jewish modernity is found in the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise’s online reference, the Jewish Virtual Library (www.jewishvirtuallibrary .org). My phrase here is adapted from Orit Bashkin’s term “potentialities of modernities.” See Bashkin, “Middle Eastern Shift.” Discussions about the history and identity of Jews from Arab countries are often charged. See Gottreich, “Historicizing”; and Levy, “Historicizing.” 28. Colley, Captives; Valensi, Eve of Colonialism; and Weiss, Captives and Corsairs. 29.  See Lespès, “Oran, ville et port.” Some scholarship has noted Muhammad alKabir’s efforts to bring Jews and others to Oran and the resulting trade with Gibraltar and other points on the Iberian Peninsula. See Benkada, “Moment in Sephardi History”; and Bloch, “Les Israélites d’Oran.” Other scholars have, of course, drawn attention to precolonial economic development in other parts of the Islamic Mediterranean; see, for example, Doumani, Rediscovering Palestine; Gran, Islamic Roots of Capitalism; Phillipp, Acre; and Scholch, Palestine in Transformation. 30.  In rightfully pointing out the extreme violence during the French conquest,

160

Notes to Introduction

critics of France’s ideological claims of modernity have on occasion lent the notion an undeserved coherence while unfairly implying that France possessed a monopoly on it. See Hannoum, Violent Modernity. 31. Brower, A Desert Named Peace, esp. 9–52. 32.  In this sense colonial Algeria could be compared to colonial Tunisia, where France similarly contended with the ongoing presence of other peoples and powers. See Mary D. Lewis, Divided Rule; and Smith, Mediterraneans. 33.  France allowed for three statuts personnels—Français, Israélite, and Musulman— until the second was eliminated (at least in territories outside the Sahara) in 1870. These status categories determined which laws of marriage and inheritance would apply to the subject in question. Given the permissibility of divorce and polygamy under Muslim and Jewish statuses, these personal statuses precluded their holders admission to citizenship. See Schreier, “Napoléon’s Long Shadow.” 34.  Jews of the Saharan oases retained their distinctive “Jewish” personal status. On the “racialization” of Muslim status, see Davidson, Only Muslim. 35.  Some early critiques of colonialism that cast a long shadow often relied on a stark binary, despite their importance and insights. See, for example, Fanon, Les damnés de la terre; and Memmi, Portrait du colonisé. Of course, Memmi was well aware of the complicated status of Jews in late colonial Tunisia. See Memmi, La statue de sel. The same binary is apparent in the masterful 1966 film by Gilo Pontecorvo, The Battle of Algiers. 36.  Algerian Jewish privilege was contingent on the fluctuating political and social environment in Algeria. This became particularly evident during the anti-Jewish crises of the late nineteenth century and in the 1930s and the Vichy period. See Abitbol, Juifs d’Afrique du Nord, esp. 21–50; Chemouilli, Une Diaspora méconnue; Dermenjian, La crise anti-juive oranaise; Kalman, Le combat par Tous les Moyens; Kalman, French Colonial Fascism; Younsi, “Caught in a Colonial Triangle”; and Zack, “French and Algerian Identity Formation.” Jacques Derrida discussed his deeply disrupting experience of being expelled from school under the Vichy Regime and its long-term effects on his thinking in, among other works, Monolingualism of the Other: Or the Prosthesis of Origin. Hélène Cixous has also discussed the contradictions of Jewish “belonging” in Algeria; see Cixous and Caille-Gruber, Hélène Cixous. On human sciences and racial categories in France, see Conklin, Museum of Man; and Lorcin, Imperial Identities. 37. Brower, A Desert Named Peace; Gallois, History of Violence; McDougall, History; and McDougall, “Savage Wars.” 38. Gallois, History of Violence, 82. 39.  On debates over the meaning and feasibility of civilizing, see, among others, Abi Mershed, Apostles of Modernity; Conklin, A Mission to Civilize; Daughton, An Empire Divided; and Ezra, Colonial Unconscious. 40.  IREL (Instruments de Recherche en Ligne, Archives Nationales d’Outre Mer, État Civil), anom.archivesnationales.culture.gouv.fr/caomec2/resultats.php?tri=typeact e%2C+annee&territoire=ALGERIE&commune=ORAN&nom=Lasry&prenom=&type acte=&annee=&debut=&fin=&vue=&rpp=20 (accessed May 15, 2015). 41. Colley, Captives, 23–37.



Notes to Introduction

161

42.  The Jewish population of Gibraltar was 900 in the late eighteenth century and rose to 1,533 by the 1870s. See M. Benady, “Settlement of Jews.” 43.  Official Registrar of the Jewish Community of Gibraltar (RJCG), housed in the office of Mr. Mesod Belilo, Gibraltar. Thanks to Joshua Marrache for explaining the background of the Bergel family. 44. Baude, Algérie, 2: 10. 45.  See, for example, Marglin, “Mediterranean Modernity.” Marglin is building on other scholars’ work that is revisiting both Braudel’s and Peregrine and Hordon’s arguments about the medieval and early modern periods, positing instead that the Mediterranean maintained a degree of coherence as a realm of connectivity well into the modern period. See Ben-Yehoyada, “Mediterranean Modernity.” Important works positing the Mediterranean as a coherent region and/or area of significant connectivity include Braudel, La Méditerranée; and Horden and Purcell, Corrupting Sea. 46.  Lasry’s own death notice lists Rabat, whereas that of his first wife notes his birthplace as Tétouan. IREL, anom.archivesnationales.culture.gouv.fr/caomec2/resultats.php ?tri=typeacte%2C+annee&territoire=ALGERIE&commune=ORAN&nom=Lasry&pre nom=&typeacte=&annee=&debut=&fin=&vue=&rpp=20 (accessed May 15, 2015). See also IREL, death of Rica Bergel, anom.archivesnationales.culture.gouv.fr/caomec2/re sultats.php?tri=typeacte%2C+annee&territoire=ALGERIE&commune=ORAN&nom= Lasry&prenom=&typeacte=&annee=&debut=&fin=&vue=&rpp=20) (accessed May 15, 2015). 47.  Mesod Belilo, registrar for the Jewish Community of Gibraltar, suggests that Lasry was probably a more typical name for Jews from the south of Morocco, as opposed to Tétouan. Beginning in the late eighteenth century, the Moroccan leadership encouraged Jewish merchants in southern Morocco to develop the sultanates’ trade links with Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. See Schroeter, Merchants of Essaouira. 48.  M. Benady, “Settlement of Jews,” 96. Rabbi Abraham Ankawa, a well-known Moroccan rabbi who caused a stir in Oran in the 1860s, had family who made a similar migration from Salé to Gibraltar in the early nineteenth century. See Marglin, “Mediterranean Modernity,” 41. 49.  Haketia is a western Mediterranean Romance language infused with a good deal of Moroccan Arabic that was spoken largely in the cities of Tétouan, Tangiers, Gibraltar, the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, and eventually Oran. It is now considered an endangered language. 50.  IREL, death of Rica Bergel, anom.archivesnationales.culture.gouv.fr/caomec2/resultats.php?tri=typeacte%2C+ annee&territoire=ALGERIE&commune=ORAN&nom=Lasry&prenom=&typeacte=& annee=&debut=&fin=&vue=&rpp=20 (accessed May 15, 2015). 51.  RJCG, marriage records of the Jewish community. 52.  The National Archives, Kew (TNA), FO 3/21, “Consuls at Algiers, Oran,” log entry for October 19, 1829. 53.  Gibraltar Government Archives (GGA), “Traveling Passports, 1819–1830.” On the evolution of the passport, see Torpey, Invention of the Passport.

162

Notes to Introduction

54.  Gibraltar Registration Office, search under “Lasry” and multiple other spellings. 55.  TNA, FO 3/31, “Consuls at Algiers, Oran,” log entry for October 19, 1828. 56.  James A. O. C. Brown challenges traditional notions of Morocco’s isolationism during this period. See Brown, Crossing the Strait. On efforts among Algerian merchants to foster commerce with Britain, see Redouane, “British Trade.” See also Bennison, Jihad, 42–74. 57.  We remember that Muhammad III had only recently rebuilt Essaouira in 1760 to encourage trade with Europe and settled it with the help of many Jews. See Schroeter, Merchants of Essaouira. See also Schroeter, Sultan’s Jew. 58. Constantine, Community and Identity, 60. 59.  This section owes much to the genealogical research of Pierre Benoliel and Patricia Glaser, which they have shared with the public through the Geneanet.org website: gw.geneanet.org/pierrebenoliel?lang=en;pz=pierre+felix;nz=benoliel;ocz=0;p=jacob;n= lasry;oc=5 (accessed May 15, 2015). 60.  Conformity to French family law, especially those forbidding polygamy and divorce, was central to French conceptions of civilizing in the early and middle decades of the nineteenth century. See Schreier, Arabs of the Jewish Faith, 143–82; and Schreier, “Napoléon’s Long Shadow.” 61.  Archives Nationales d’Outre Mer, Aix-en-Provence (ANOM), fol. F80 1631, translation by Nahon for the Minister of War, February 28, 1846. 62.  Archives israélites 30 (1869): 251. 63. Ayoun, Typologie, 1: 241. 64.  Archives israélites 30 (1869): 252. 65.  Ben Haim, Quelques mots à propos. 66.  Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem (CAHJP), fol. P 95, Invoice of K. K. Shaar Ashamaim to Jacob Lasry, June 2, 1859. Although the archive identifies the synagogue as being in London, the Sha’ar HaShamayim synagogue in London is more frequently known as the Bevis Marks synagogue. It seems more likely that there was a mistake somewhere in the records and that the donation was made to Gibraltar’s Sha’ar HaShamayim synagogue (founded by Isaac Netto of London), located on Engineer’s Lane. 67. Schreier, Arabs of the Jewish Faith, 104–8; Marglin, “Mediterranean Modernity.” 68.  ANOM, Algérie 3U/2, Jacob Lasry to Prefet d’Oran, January 10, 1859. See also Marglin, “Mediterranean Modernity”; and Schreier, Arabs of the Jewish Faith, 104–8. 69.  CAHJP, fol. P 95, untitled document; Samuel’s relationship to Jacob remains unclear. The note gives the synagogue’s name as “K. K. Shaar Ashamaim”; I rendered it earlier with its more common spelling. 70.  Historians have explored how French colonial ethnographers and military officers (often the same people) reified categories such as “Kabyle,” “Berber,” “Jew,” and “Tuareg” to advance colonial policies. See Ageron, Les Algériens musulmans, 267–92; Lazreg, “Reproduction of Colonial Ideology”; and Lorcin, Imperial Identities, 118–66. For the place where Jews fell in French legal and anthropological thinking, see Godley, Almost Finished Frenchmen; and Schreier, Arabs of the Jewish Faith. Sarah Abrevaya Stein has



Notes to Introduction and Chapter 1

163

shown how knowledge of Saharan Jews was also deeply structured by various political and cultural currents of later colonial rule. See Stein, Saharan Jews. For an interesting discussion of mythologies surrounding the Tuareg, see Brower, A Desert Named Peace, 222–38. 71.  Goldberg, “Is It Time?” CHAPTER 1 1. Camus, La peste, 2. 2.  Basset, “Fastes chronologiques,” 13; cited in Lespès, “Oran, ville et port,” 285. 3.  Basset, “Fastes chronologiques.” 4.  Benramdane, “Étymologie de Wahran.” 5. Fey, Histoire d’Oran, 36; Lespès, “Oran, ville et port.” These sources give different stories about the city’s founding. 6.  French Orientalists, such as Georges and William Marçais, Robert Bruschvig, and Louis Massignon, writing generally between the 1920s and 1950s, proposed that Muslim cities were built on a different model from their European counterparts, featuring a certain set of institutions (e.g., mosque, market, and baths) but lacking an overall municipal organization. This model also tended to feature separate, minimally interacting, ethnically characterized quarters that were governed by their own sheikhs. It was an ahistorical and specifically Islamic model, presumably valid from Morocco to China, based on few actual examples and subject to serious criticism as early as the 1970s. French scholarship on Oran, hardly devoid of colonial ideology, did not describe the city according to this model of a ville musulmane. For an example of early conceptions, see Brunschvig, “Urbanisme médiéval”; G. Marçais, “La conception des villes”; G. Marçais, “L’urbanisme musulman”; W. Marçais, “L’Islamisme”; and Massignon, “Les corps de métiers.” For later reevaluations and critiques of this model, see Abu Lughod, “Islamic City”; Eikelman, “Is There an Islamic City?”; and Hourani and Stern, Islamic City. 7. Clancy-Smith, Mediterraneans, 13. See also Segalla, “Natural Disaster.” 8.  Urbain, “Correspondance Privée,” 36. 9.  Basset, “Fastes chronologiques”; Fey, Histoire d’Oran; Lespès, “Oran, ville et port,” 48–49. Some writers wrote polemics in favor of Oran’s strategic and commercial value. See, for example, Baude, Algérie; and Bertier de Sauvigny, Note sur Gibraltar et Oran. Indeed, Oran’s integration into larger Mediterranean trade circuits has continued to draw the attention of those interested in the city’s past. See Benkada, “Premier consulat”; ­Benkada and Louhibi, “Brève histoire”; and Lakjaa, “Oran.” 10.  On French colonial historians’ interest in Rome’s presence in Africa, see Lorcin, “Rome and France.” 11.  Lespès, “Oran, ville et port,” 286. 12. Brunhes, L’irrigation; quoted in Braudel, “Les Espagnols,” 193. 13. Lespès, Oran, 48–49. 14.  Basset, “Fastes chronologiques,” 165; cited in Lespès, “Oran, ville et port,” 281. 15.  Basset, “Fastes chronologiques,” 165; cited in Lespès, “Oran, ville et port,” 281. 16.  Basset, “Fastes chronologiques,” 165; cited in Lespès, “Oran, ville et port,” 281.

164

Notes to Chapter 1

17.  C. I. Derrien reprinted some of the initial municipal registers. See Derrien, Les français à Oran, 37–38. 18.  Lespès, “Oran, ville et port,” 284. 19.  Lespès, “Oran, ville et port,” 285. 20.  Lespès, “Oran, ville et port,” 285. 21.  Braudel, “Les Espagnols,” 197. 22.  Lawless, “Tlemcen.” 23.  Lawless, “Tlemcen,” 18–19. 24.  Lespès, “Oran, ville et port,” 292. 25. Epstein, Responsa; cited in Lespès, “Oran, ville et port,” 282. 26. Epstein, Responsa; cited in Lespès, “Oran, ville et port,” 282. 27. Fey, Histoire d’Oran, 68. 28. Fey, Histoire d’Oran, 70–71. 29. Fey, Histoire d’Oran, 69, 76. 30. Fey, Histoire d’Oran, 79. 31.  De Mas Latrie, Traités, 331; cited in Lespès, “Oran, ville et port,” 323. 32.  Israel, “Jews of Spanish Oran.” 33.  Israel, “Jews of Spanish Oran.” 34.  Vallejo, “Memoire,” 353. 35. Fey, Histoire d’Oran, 218–23; Lespès, “Oran, ville et port,” 304. 36.  Braudel, “Les Espagnols,” 79; Lespès, “Oran, ville et port,” 301, 327; Vallejo, “Memoire,” 48. 37.  Lespès, “Oran, ville et port,” 323. 38.  Lespès, “Oran, ville et port,” 324. 39.  Benkada, “Premier consulat.” 40.  Pestemaldjoglou, “Consulat français d’Oran.” 41. Colley, Captives, 68; Pellissier de Reynaud, Annales Algériennes, 1: 16. 42. Grammont, Histoire d’Alger, 344. 43. Colley, Captives, 68–70. 44. Weiss, Captives and Corsairs, 43–72. 45. Weiss, Captives and Corsairs, 125–28. 46.  Harding, “North African Piracy.” 47.  Anderson, “Great Britain.” 48.  Anderson, “Great Britain”; and Harding, “North African Piracy.” 49.  Consul Fraser to Weymouth, October 18, 1770, no. 7, FO 3/4; cited in Anderson, “Great Britain,” 90. 50. D’Argens, Lettres juives, 5: 83–85; cited in Thomson, “Arguments,” 109. 51. Paine, Rights of Man, 269; cited in Thomson, “Arguments,” 109. 52. Colley, Captives, 23–37. 53. Hornstein, Restoration Navy, 37–38; cited in Colley, Captives, 34. 54. Colley, Captives, 35. 55.  J. A. O. C. Brown, Crossing the Strait. On efforts among Algerian merchants to foster commerce with Britain, see Redouane, “British Trade.” See also Bennison, Jihad, 42–74. 56.  Anderson, “Great Britain,” 90.



Notes to Chapters 1 and 2

165

57.  Harding, “North African Piracy,” 30. 58.  Anderson, “Great Britain,” 100. 59.  Constantine, “Pirate.” 60.  T. Benady, “Role of Jews,” 48. 61.  T. Benady, “Role of Jews,” 52. 62. Constantine, Community and Identity, 60. 63.  T. Benady, “Role of Jews.” 64.  For an example of this, see Anonymous, Histoires et historiens de l’Algérie, Collection du Centenaire de l’Algérie (Paris: Librairie Félix Alcan, 1931). 65.  Anderson, “Great Britain.” 66. Plantet, Correspondence, vol. 1; cited in Anderson, “Great Britain,” 88. 67.  Amine, “Les commerçants.” 68.  Amine, “Les commerçants,” 14–15. 69.  This presence was a characteristic noted of other mercantile communities in the Mediterranean basin of the period. See, for example, Doumani, Rediscovering Palestine, 65. 70.  Amine, “Les commerçants,” 18–19. 71.  Chentouf, “Deux tentatives économiques.” 72.  See, for example, Plantet, Correspondance, 2: 560, 619; cited in Chentouf, “Deux tentatives économiques,” 170. CHAPTER 2 1. Derrien, Les français à Oran, 25. 2.  JTA, “Algeria to Reopen Shuttered Synagogues”; Souames, “Home”; Stein, “Algeria’s Jewish Past-Present.” 3.  Bloch, “Les Israélites d’Oran”; also see Benkada, “Moment in Sephardi History.” 4.  Bloch, “Les Israélites d’Oran,” 86. 5.  Benkada, “Moment in Sephardi History,” 172. 6.  Gibraltar Government Archives (GGA), “Traveling Passports, 1819–1830.” 7.  J. A. O. C. Brown, Crossing the Strait. On efforts among Algerian merchants to foster commerce with Britain, see Redouane, “British Trade.” See also Bennison, Jihad, 42–74. 8. Bennison, Jihad, 48. 9.  Emerit, “Les tribus privilégiées,” 49. 10.  Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, Archives Diplomatiques (MAEAD), La Courneuve, 231 CCC/2, vice-consul in Oran to M. Deval, consul-general of Algiers, December 31, 1821; The National Archives (TNA), Kew, FO 3/33, diary of British Vice-Consulate of Oran, 1830. 11.  TNA, FO 3/27, multiple references, including “Report on British Trade at the Ports Within the Consulate of Algiers,” quarter ending June 30, 1825. See also Masson, Histoire des établissements, 504–24. 12.  Bloch, “Les Israélites d’Oran,” 86. 13.  Service Historique de l’Armée de la Terre (SHAT), 1 H 11, dos. 2, Muhammad al-Qadi to General Boyer, undated, probably February 1832. See also Schreier, Arabs of the Jewish Faith, 31. 14.  Bloch, “Les Israélites d’Oran,” 86.

166

Notes to Chapter 2

15.  This is probable, given the widely followed naming customs among western Se­phardim. The first son is often given the name of the paternal grandfather, and the second son receives the name of the maternal grandfather. Naming daughters follows the same pattern; the first daughter receives the name of the paternal grandmother, and the second daughter receives the name of the maternal grandmother. The names of the third son and third daughter are typically those of the child’s uncles or aunts. 16.  Ayoun, “Darmon, Mordecai.” 17.  Ayoun, “Darmon, Amram.” 18.  Ayoun, “Busnach Family.” 19.  Ayoun, “Bacri, Joseph Cohen.” 20.  Kortepeter, “Jew and Turk.” 21.  Ayoun, “Les Juifs d’Oran”; Bloch, “Les Israélites d’Oran,” 86. 22.  Bloch, “Les Israélites d’Oran,” 91. 23. SHAT, 1 H 20, dos. 2, “Rapport sur la Province d’Oran et sur l’état de l’occupation dans cette partie de la Régence: Commerce Illicite,” April 23, 1833. 24.  Israel, “Jews of Spanish Oran,” 237–40. 25.  Clarence-Smith and Topik, Global Coffee Economy, 30; cited in “A History of Coffee,” cwh.ucsc.edu/brooks/coffee-site/endnotes.html (accessed March 6, 2015). 26.  TNA, FO 3/33, St. John to R. W. Hay, Algiers, July 21, 1831. 27.  MAEAD, La Courneuve, 231 CCC/2, “État des bâtiments entrés et sortis du port d’Oran pendant les mois de novembre et de décembre, 1821.” The ship’s size was listed as “100 Volume,” but the register included no unit of measure, and given the multiple systems of measurement in use, we can only read it as a midsize ship—they tended to range from 50 to 180 “volume.” 28. SHAT, 1 H 20, dos. 2, “Rapport sur la Province d’Oran et sur l’état de l’occupation dans cette partie de la Régence, April 23, 1833. 29. Valensi, Le Maghreb, 67. 30.  MAEAD, La Courneuve, 231 CCC/2, vice-consul in Oran to Vicomte de Chateau­ briand, Ministre Secrétaire d’État au Dept. des Affaires Étrangères, March 31, 1823. 31.  TNA, FO 3/27, “Gross Return of British and Foreign Trade at the Ports Within the Consulate of Algiers During the Quarter Ending the 31st of March 1825.” 32.  MAEAD, La Courneuve, 231 CCC/2. 33.  MAEAD, La Courneuve, 231 CCC/2, “Tableau de navires de commerce entrées dans le port d’Oran pendant le premier trimestre de 1823,” March 31, 1823. 34.  MAEAD, La Courneuve, 231 CCC/2, “Tableau de navires de commerce entrées dans le port d’Oran pendant le premier trimestre de 1823,” March 31, 1823. 35.  MAEAD, La Courneuve, 231 CCC/2, numerous quarterly reports of imports and exports from the years 1821–1825. 36.  MAEAD, La Courneuve, 231 CCC/2, “Tableau de navires de commerce sortis des ports d’Oran pendant le première trimestre de l’année 1823,” March 31, 1823. 37.  MAEAD, La Courneuve, 231 CCC/2, “Tableau des navires de commerce sortis des ports d’Oran, pendant le troisième trimestre de l’année mil huit cent vingt trois,” September 31, 1823.



Notes to Chapter 2

167

38.  MAEAD, La Courneuve, 231 CCC/2, “Tableau des navires de commerce sortis des ports d’Oran, pendant le premier trimestre de l’année mil huit cent vingt cinq,” March 31, 1825. 39.  MAEAD, La Courneuve, 231 CCC/2, “Tableau des navires de commerce sortis des ports d’Oran, pendant le troisième trimestre de l’année mil huit cent vingt trois,” September 31, 1823. 40.  MAEAD, La Courneuve, 231 CCC/2, “Tableau des navires de commerce sortis des ports d’Oran, pendant le second trimestre de l’année mil huit cent vingt cinq,” June 31, 1825. 41.  MAEAD, La Courneuve, 231 CCC/2, “Tableau des navires de commerce sortis des ports d’Oran, pendant le troisième trimestre de l’année mil huit cent vingt trois,” September 31, 1823. 42.  For example, MAEAD, La Courneuve, 231 CCC/2, letter from vice-consul in Oran to ministre secrétaire d’état, March 31, 1825. 43.  MAEAD, La Courneuve, 231 CCC/2, “Convention pour prèt d’argent faite par le nommé Juda Benseria en faveur de Sid ahmet ben haat saat,” March 7, 1825. 44.  Isaac Bloch spoke of Juda Benseria, with family in Gibraltar, operating during the years 1812–1813. Bloch, “Les Israélites d’Oran,” 90. 45.  Similarly, having Judaism in common with partners or associates did not ensure trust or trustworthiness in earlier Mediterranean business networks. See Trivellato, Familiarity of Strangers. 46.  TNA, FO 636/1, diary of the vice-consulate in Tétouan, 1830–1843, entry for July 23, 1831. 47.  The phrase “perils of privilege,” used in the title of this section, is borrowed from Mendelsohn, Studies in Contemporary Jewry. 48.  MAEAD, La Courneuve, 231 CCC/2, vice-consul in Oran to M. Deval, consulgeneral in Algiers, November 5, 1821. 49. Schreier, Arabs of the Jewish Faith, 30–31. 50. Churchill, Life of Abdel Kader, 49; Kiser, Commander of the Faithful, 58. 51.  See, for example, Syrett, “Keppel at Algiers.” 52.  MAEAD, La Courneuve, 231 CCC/2, vice-consul in Oran to M. Deval, consulgeneral in Algiers, December 11, 1821. 53. Meyerson, Jewish Renaissance, 17–18. 54.  MAEAD, La Courneuve, 231 CCC/2, vice-consul in Oran to M. Deval, consulgeneral in Algiers, January 23, 1822. 55.  The limits of a dey’s authority over local janissaries (Ottoman soldiers) also affected European negotiations for seized vessels and their cargoes. See Syrett, “Keppel at Algiers.” 56.  Bloch, “Les Israélites d’Oran,” 95. 57.  MAEAD, La Courneuve, 231 CCC/2, vice-consul in Oran to M. Deval, consulgeneral in Algiers, January 23, 1822. 58.  MAEAD, La Courneuve, 231 CCC/2, vice-consul in Oran Alexandre Deval to Viscompte de Chateaubriand, Ministre sécretaire d’état au Département des Affaires

168

Notes to Chapters 2 and 3

Étrangères, June 30, 1823; Alexandre Deval, vice-consulate of Oran, to Viscompte de Montmorency, Ministre secrétaire d’état au Département des Affaires Étrangères, November 3, 1822. 59.  TNA, FO 3/27, Vice-Consul W. H. Thomas, “An Account of the Several Prices of Corn and Grain Flour and Other Articles . . . for the Third Week of May 1825,” May 21, 1825. 60.  TNA, FO 3/27, W. H. Thomas, “An Account,” May 21, 1825. 61.  TNA, FO 3/27, W. H. Thomas, “An Account,” May 21, 1825. 62. SHAT, 1 H 12, dos. 3, Rapport sur la Province d’Oran, General Boyer to Governor General of Algeria, March 1, 1832. 63. SHAT, 1 H 93, dos. 2, Bugeaud to Minister of War, November 10, 1843. 64.  Emerit, “Les tribus privilégiées,” 49. 65. Schreier, Arabs of the Jewish Faith, 92. 66.  MAEAD, Nantes, 22 PO 1/68, General Boyer to Minister of War, December 28, 1831 (copy of letter dated January 26, 1832). 67. Schreier, Arabs of the Jewish Faith, 92. 68.  TNA, FO 3/33, Nathaniel Welsford, vice-consul in Oran, to R. W. St. John, British consul in Algiers, October 8, 1831. 69.  TNA, FO 3/33, Welsford to St. John, October 8, 1831. 70.  TNA, FO 3/27, Vice-Consul W. H. Thomas, “An Account of the Several Prices of Corn and Grain Flour and Other Articles . . . for the Fourth Week of May 1825,” May 28, 1825. 71.  Al-Qattan, “Dhimmis”; Marglin, Across Legal Lines. 72. Schreier, Arabs of the Jewish Faith. CHAPTER 3 1.  Notwithstanding French historiography highlighting Oran’s precolonial insignificance. Derrien, Les Français à Oran, 25. 2.  As such, I build on recent scholarship exploring the violence of the conquest of Algeria. See Brower, A Desert Named Peace; Gallois, History of Violence; McDougall, History; and McDougall, “Savage Wars.” 3. Abi-Mershed, Apostles of Modernity. 4.  Also, they were active well before the much-discussed rise of the French-­ educated évolués of the twentieth century. On the role of chaos and violence in the conquest of the Sahara, see Brower, A Desert Named Peace. On the ongoing debates about the meaning or utility of the conquest, see Sessions, By Sword and Plow. Charles-André Julien gives a good deal of space to the early stages of the conquest. See Julien, Histoire de l’Algérie contemporaine, chaps. 1 and 2. French-educated evolués, as key figures in the emergence of Algerian nationalism after World War I, have received a reasonable amount of scholarly attention. 5.  French colonial ethnographers and military officers (often the same people) ­reified categories such as Kabyle, Berber, Jew, and Tuareg to advance colonial policies. See Ageron, Les Algériens musulmans, 267–92; Lazreg, “Reproduction of Colonial



Notes to Chapter 3

169

Ideology”; and Lorcin, Imperial Identities, 118–66. For French legal and anthropological thinking about Jews, see Godley, Almost Finished Frenchmen; and Schreier, Arabs of the Jewish Faith. Sarah Abrevaya Stein shows how knowledge of Saharan Jews was also deeply structured by various political and cultural currents of later colonial rule. See Stein, Saharan Jews. For an interesting discussion of mythologies surrounding the Tuareg, see Brower, A Desert Named Peace, 222–38. 6. Lydon, Trans-Saharan Trails, 4. See also Stein, Plumes. There is robust literature on the endurance of Saharan trade into the modern period. 7.  On Saharan networks resisting and adapting to French colonialism, see ClancySmith, Rebel and Saint. On the north-south flow of labor over the Mediterranean during the nineteenth century, see Clancy-Smith, Mediterraneans. 8.  Emerit, “Les tribus privilegiées,” 49. 9.  Emerit, “Les tribus privilegiées,” 49. Only once Abd al-Kader was defeated at Mascara did his officers rally to the French. General Trézel signed a treaty with the Z’māla and the Doua’ir in 1835. 10. Julien, Histoire de l’Algérie contemporaine, 31. See also Weiss, Captives and Corsairs. 11.  On the decline of corsair economy, see Blondy, “Barbary Regencies.” Foreign Office archives attest to the dependence of the dey on local tribes for income. 12.  In the colonial period, the term kabyles, which derived from the Arabic word for tribes (qabā’il ) tended to refer to any number of groups speaking an Amazigh (Berber) language. Whether the sources here identified groups according to their language or were simply referring to their origins in Kabylia, the largely rural, independent section of the coastal Tel Atlas mountains to the east of Algiers, is unclear. Later, French human and/or racial scientists reified these linguistic distinctions. The National Archives (TNA), Kew, FO 3/27, Vice-Consul W. H. Thomas, “An Account of the Several Prices of Corn and Grain Flour and Other Articles . . . for the Third Week of May, 1825,” May 21, 1825. 13.  Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, Archives Diplomatiques (MAEAD), La Courneuve, 231 CCC/2, Alexandre Deval, vice-consul in Oran, to Vicompte du Chateau­ briand, Ministre Secrétaire d’État, March 31, 1823. 14.  MAEAD, La Courneuve, 231 CCC/2, Alexandre Deval, vice-consul in Oran, to Vicompte du Chateaubriand, Ministre Secrétaire d’État, June 30, 1823. 15.  TNA, FO 3/27, R. M. Thomas, British consul in Algiers, to His Majesty’s principal Secretary of State, Colonial Department, London, March 7, 1825. 16.  Pellissier de Reynaud, Annales Algériennes, 1: 108. 17.  TNA, FO 3/31, diary kept at the British vice-consulate of Oran, July–December 1828. In precolonial Algiers and Oran, values were discussed in several different currencies, but primarily the Ottoman boudjou and the Spanish dollar (otherwise known as a piece of eight, or in Spanish, a peso de ocho, referring to its original value at eight reals). The peso de ocho was legal tender in many places at the time, including the United States (until 1857), and the U.S. dollar was based on it. 18.  TNA, FO 3/31, diary kept at the British vice-consulate of Oran, August 21, 1828.

170

Notes to Chapter 3

19.  TNA, FO 3/31, diary kept at the British vice-consulate of Oran, August 21, 1828. 20.  TNA, FO 3/31, diary kept by the British Consulate at Algiers, July 28, 1828. 21.  MAEAD, Nantes, 22 PO 1/68, Duc de Rovigo to Boyer, Algiers, January 28, 1832. 22. Julien, Histoire de l’Algérie contemporaine, 61. 23.  TNA, FO 3/33, diary kept by the British vice-consulate of Oran, July 15, 1830. 24.  TNA, FO 3/31, diary kept by the British vice-consulate of Oran, July 5, 1828. 25.  TNA, FO 3/33, diary kept by the British vice-consulate of Oran, July 3, 1830. 26.  TNA, FO 3/33, diary kept by the British vice-consulate of Oran, July 10, 1830. There was no native Christian population in Oran, so this warning referred to Oran’s consular and merchant communities. 27.  TNA, FO 3/33, diary kept by the British vice-consulate of Oran, July 10, 1830. 28.  TNA, FO 3/33, diary kept by the British vice-consulate of Oran, July 22, 1830. 29.  TNA, FO 3/33, diary kept by the British vice-consulate of Oran, July 27, 1830. 30.  TNA, FO 3/33, diary kept by the British vice-consulate of Oran, July 27, 1830. See also Redouane, “La Présence Anglaise.” 31.  Redouane, “British Trade.” 32.  Redouane, “British Attitude.” 33.  Redouane, “British Attitude.” 34.  TNA, FO 3/32, St. John to Murray, August 25, 1830. TNA, FO 8/9, Murray to St. John, October 9, 1830. Also cited in Redouane, “British Attitude,” 3. 35.  Redouane, “La Présence Anglaise.” 36.  TNA, FO 3/33, diary kept by the British vice-consulate of Oran, July 27, 1830. 37.  TNA, FO 3/33, St. John to Hay, Algiers, July 6 and 12, 1831. 38.  TNA, FO 3/33, St. John to R. W. Hay, Algiers, July 25, 1831. 39.  TNA, FO 3/33, St. John to R. W. Hay, Algiers, October 20, 1831. 40.  TNA, FO 3/33, St. John to R. W. Hay, Algiers, October 20, 1831. 41.  MAEAD, Nantes, 22 PO 1/68, Duc de Rovigo to Minister of War, Algiers, January 27, 1832. 42.  TNA, FO 3/33, diary kept by the British vice-consulate of Oran, October 10, 1830. 43.  TNA, FO 3/33, diary kept by the British vice-consulate of Oran, July 24 and 26, 1830. 44. Derrien, Les français à Oran. 45. Julien, Histoire de l’Algérie contemporaine, 65–66. 46.  On Algeria’s profound imprint on nineteenth-century French political culture, see Sessions, By Sword and Plow. 47. Ferrand, La colonisation militaire; Sullivan, Thomas-Robert Bugeaud. 48.  See Julien, Histoire de l’Algérie contemporaine, 64–65; Spillmann, “Anticolonialisme.” The best known of these anticolonialistes may have been Amadée Desjobert. See Pitts, A Turn to Empire, 185–89. 49. Julien, Histoire de l’Algérie contemporaine, 60–63; Pellissier de Raynaud, Annales Algériennes, 1: 110. 50.  Ahmed Bey became ruler of Tunis in 1837.



Notes to Chapter 3

171

51. Julien, Histoire de l’Algérie contemporaine, 70. 52.  L. C. Brown, The Tunisia of Bey Ahmad, 215. 53.  TNA, FO 3/33, British consul in Algiers, diary sent to London, entry for January 26, 1831. 54. Derrien, Les français à Oran, 22. 55.  In the 1941 film Casablanca Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains) famously warns Major Heinrich Strasser (Conrad Veidt) that he was with the Americans when they “blundered into Berlin in 1918.” 56.  Portions of this section are adapted from my earlier paper “From Mediterranean Merchant to French Civilizer: Jacob Lasry and the Economy of Conquest in Early Colonial Algeria,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 44 (2012): 631–49. 57.  TNA, FO 3/33, attestation by Isaac Lasry, representing Algiers merchants, in a signed document presented to the consul on December 31, 1830. According to an 1859 source, the value of a boudjou was 1.8 francs. See Revue de l’Orient de l’Algérie et les Colonies 9.1 (1859): 272. The details of the transaction come from TNA, FO 3/33, Jacob Lasry to R. W. St. John, British consul-general in Algiers (undated copy, but sometime in the first week of March 1831); and R. W. St. John to General Berthezène, March 8, 1831. 58.  TNA, FO 3/33, British consul in Algiers (to R. W. Hay?), Algiers, July 25, 1831. 59.  TNA, FO 335/57/13, James Welsford to Colonel Sir Thomas Reed, Tunis, January 18, 1832. 60.  TNA, FO 335/57/2, British consul in Algiers to Lord Viscount Goderich, October 5, 1831. 61.  TNA, FO 335/57/2, French Army of Africa, General Behaghel, by invitation of General Landois, copy of section of minutes, August 22, 1831. 62.  TNA, FO 335/57/2, British Vice-Consul Welsford, certified copy of note by Civil Intendant Banachin of Oran, October 27, 1831. 63.  TNA, FO 335/57/2, Pierre Boyer to British vice-consul, October 11, 1831. 64.  TNA, FO 335/57/2, Pierre Boyer to British vice-consul, October 11, 1831. 65.  Scholars have traditionally characterized the encounter between Jews and the French as emancipation. See Ayoun, “Les efforts d’assimilation”; Ayoun and Cohen, Les Juifs d’Algérie; Rosenstock, “Establishment of the Consistorial System”; Schwarzfuchs, “Colonialisme français”; Szajkowski, “Establishment of the Consistorial System”; and Szajkowski, “Struggle for Jewish Emancipation.” More critical approaches to this encounter have looked at the contradictions of the process of “attaching” Algeria’s Jewish minority to France. See Birnbaum, “French Jews”; Godley, Almost Finished Frenchmen; and Schreier, Arabs of the Jewish Faith. For Algerian Jewish memories of this encounter, see Katz, “Between Emancipation and Persecution.” 66.  See Schroeter, Sultan’s Jew, 95–96. 67.  TNA, FO 3/31, diary of the British vice-consulate in Oran, October 19, 1828. 68.  Gibraltar Government Archives, Traveling Passports, 1819–1830, log for September 16, 1829. 69.  TNA, FO 3/33, R. W. St. John to Colonial Office, London, March 25, 1831. 70.  TNA, FO 3/33, diary of Welsford, vice-consul of Oran, November 27, 1830.

172

Notes to Chapter 3

71.  TNA, FO 3/33, St. John to Viscount Goderich, Algiers, February 7, 1831. 72.  TNA, FO 3/33, St. John to Viscount Goderich, Algiers, February 7, 1831. 73.  TNA, FO 3/33, diary of Welsford, vice-consul of Oran, December 30, 1830. 74.  TNA, FO 3/33, St. John to Hay, Algiers, January 26, 1831. 75.  TNA, FO 3/33, R. W. St. John to General Berthezène, April 11, 1831. 76.  On how French colonialism would create new legal regimes in which Maghrebi Jews negotiated their status, see Marglin, “Two Lives.” See also Benton, Law and Colonial Cultures, esp. 6–9; Clancy-Smith, Mediterraneans, 199–246; Mary D. Lewis, “Geographies of Power,” esp. 795–96; Pennell, “Law on a Wild Frontier”; and Stein, “Protected Persons.” 77.  TNA, FO 3/33, R. W. St. John to Undersecretary of State R. W. Hay, Colonial Department, March 24, 1831. 78. Marglin, Across Legal Lines, esp. 77–101. 79.  TNA, FO 3/33, R. W. St. John to Undersecretary of State R. W. Hay, Colonial Department, March 24, 1831. 80.  TNA, FO 3/33, R. W. St. John to Undersecretary of State R. W. Hay, Colonial Department, March 24, 1831. 81.  TNA, FO 335/57/2, Husayn Basha Bey to Consul Sir Thomas Reade, Tunis, September 27, 1832. 82.  TNA, FO 335/57/2, British consulate to Lord Viscount Goderich, Algiers, October 5, 1831. 83.  On French rhetoric about the benefits of French civilization and trade replacing slavery and moral danger, see Weiss, Captives and Corsairs. 84.  TNA, FO 335/57/13, James Welsford to Sir Thomas Reade, January 18, 1832. 85.  TNA, FO 335/57/13, James Welsford to Sir Thomas Reade, January 18, 1832. 86.  This episode is also an example of how colonialism could disadvantage North African Jewish merchants, a tendency that scholars have only recently begun to explore. See Schroeter, Sultan’s Jew; Stein, “Mediterranean Jewries”; and Stein, “Modern Jewries.” 87. Julien, Histoire de l’Algérie contemporaine, 83. 88. Gallois, History of Violence, 88. 89.  TNA, FO 3/33, Welsford (probably to St. John), Oran, October 9, 1831. 90.  TNA, FO 3/33, Welsford (probably to St. John), Oran, October 9, 1831. Boyer’s tactics remind us that ISIS’s practice of issuing videos to publicize their beheadings is not entirely innovative. The French were using similar methods in 1831! 91.  TNA, FO 3/33, St. John to Lord Goderich, Algiers, November 19, 1831. 92.  TNA, FO 3/33, Welsford (probably to St. John), Oran, October 9, 1831; Derrien, Les français à Oran, 36. 93.  MAEAD, Nantes, 22 PO 1/68, copy of letter from Duc de Rovigo to General Boyer, Algiers, January 28, 1832. 94.  MAEAD, Nantes, 22 PO 1/68, copy of letter from Duc de Rovigo to General Boyer, Algiers, January 27, 1832. 95.  MAEAD, Nantes, 22 PO 1/68, copy of letter from Duc de Rovigo to Minister of War in Paris, Algiers, January 28, 1832 (copy dated February 13, 1831).



Notes to Chapters 3 and 4

173

96.  MAEAD, Nantes, 22 PO 1/68, copy of letter from Duc de Rovigo to Minister of War in Paris, Algiers, January 30, 1832 (copy dated February 13, 1831). 97.  MAEAD, Nantes, 22 PO 1/68, extract of letter from Baron Pichon to Minister of the Interior, March 14, 1832 (undated copy). 98.  MAEAD, Nantes, 22 PO 1/68, Baron Pichon to Casimir Perier, Algiers, January 30, 1832 (undated copy). 99.  MAEAD, Nantes, 22 PO 1/68, Baron Pichon to Casimir Perier, Algiers, January 30, 1832 (undated copy). 100.  MAEAD, Nantes, 22 PO 1/68, Consul-General of France in Tunis to the Duc de Rovigo, Tunis, January 23, 1832 (copy dated February 8, 1832). 101.  TNA, FO 335/58/12, Consul for the King of Two Sicilies in Tunis to Husayn Basha Bey, August 24, 1832. 102.  TNA, FO 335/57/2, Bey Husayn to Sir Thomas Reed, Tunis, September 27, 1832. CHAPTER 4 1.  The National Archives (TNA), Kew, FO 3/33, St. John to R. W. Hay, Algiers, July 21, 1831. 2.  TNA, FO 3/33, Consul R. W. St. John to R. W. Hay, Esq., April 15, 1831. 3.  TNA, FO 3/33, St. John to Lieut. General B. Berthezène, Algiers, April 11, 1831. 4.  “Généalogie de Pierre Benoliel et Patricia Blaser,” gw.geneanet.org/pierrebenoliel ?lang=fr;pz=pierre+felix;nz=benoliel;ocz=0;p=semha;n=cabessa;oc=1 (accessed February 26, 2015). 5.  TNA, FO 3/33, General Lieutenant Don of Gibraltar to R. W. St. John, Gibraltar, October 23, 1829 (undated copy, probably early 1831). 6.  Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, Archives Diplomatiques (MAEAD), Nantes, 22 PO 1/68, Boyer to Berthezène, Oran, December 11, 1831 (copy dated February 8, 1832). 7.  The story of what happens comes from the British vice-consulate. Despite the French rejection of British requests for prosecution, there is no record of French authorities disputing the accusation. TNA, FO/33, diary of the vice-consul in Oran, February 9, 1831. 8. Schreier, Arabs of the Jewish Faith, 30–31. 9. Schreier, Arabs of the Jewish Faith, 30–31. 10.  TNA, FO 3/33, R. W. St. John to General Berthezène, March 8, 1831. 11.  TNA, FO 3/33, R. W. St. John to M. Hay, Undersecretary of State, April 15, 1831. 12.  TNA, FO 3/33, diary of the British vice-consulate of Oran, February 20, 1831. 13.  TNA, FO 3/33, diary of the British vice-consulate of Oran, February 20, 1831. 14.  TNA, FO 3/33, diary of the British vice-consulate of Oran, February 20, 1831. 15.  TNA, FO 3/33, R. W. St. John to Khayr al-Din, Algiers, April 13, 1831. 16.  TNA, FO 3/33, R. W. St. John to General Berthezène, Algiers, April 11, 1831. 17.  TNA, FO 3/33, R. W. St. John to Mr. Hay, Algiers, April 15, 1831. 18.  TNA, FO 3/33, diary of the British vice-consulate of Oran, July 3, 1830, and February 20, 1831; MAEAD, La Courneuve, 231 CCC, vice-consul to Deval, consul-general in Algiers, Oran, November 5, 1821.

174

Notes to Chapter 4

19.  MAEAD, La Courneuve, 231 CCC, vice-consul to Deval, consul-general in Algiers, Oran, November 5, 1821. 20.  TNA, FO 3/33, copy of letter from Cabessa to British consul in Algiers, March 15, 1831. 21.  TNA, FO 3/33, R. W. St. John to Nathaniel Welsford, unspecified date in April 1831. 22.  TNA, FO 3/33, R. W. St. John to Hay, Algiers, November 14, 1831. 23.  TNA, FO 3/33, R. W. St. John to General Berthezène, April 11, 1831. 24.  TNA, FO 3/33, diary kept at the British vice-consulate in Oran, entry for January 13, 1831. 25.  See Schreier, Arabs of the Jewish Faith, 30–31. 26.  TNA, FO 3/33, diary kept at the British vice-consulate in Oran, January 13, 1831. 27.  TNA, FO 3/33, diary kept at the British vice-consulate in Oran, January 13, 1831. 28.  TNA, FO 3/33, St. John to Hay, Algiers, November 14, 1831. 29.  TNA, FO 3/33, St. John to Hay, November 12, 1831. 30.  MAEAD, Nantes, 22 PO 68/1, Boyer to Duc de Rovigo, undated extract (copy dated February 16, 1832). 31.  MAEAD, Nantes, 22 PO 68/1, Boyer to Minister of War, December 28, 1831 (copy dated January 26, 1832). 32.  MAEAD, Nantes, 22 PO 68/1, Boyer to Minister of War, December 28, 1831 (copy dated January 26, 1832). 33.  TNA, FO 3/33, Welsford to St. John, Oran, October 18, 1831. 34.  TNA, FO 3/33, Welsford to St. John, Oran, October 18, 1831. 35. Schreier, Arabs of the Jewish Faith, 31. 36.  MAEAD, Nantes, 22 PO 1/68, Duc de Rovigo to Minister of War, Algiers, January 30, 1832 (copy dated February 15, 1832); Boyer to Duc de Rovigo, Oran, January 21, 1832; Minister of War to Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paris, January 30, 1832 (copy dated February 13, 1831); TNA, FO 3/33, Welsford (to St. John?), Oran, October 9, 1831. According to some letters, Sebbah was sent to Marseilles or simply made his way there from Toulon. 37.  MAEAD, Nantes, 22 PO 1/68, Boyer to Minister of War, December 28, 1831. 38.  Service Historique de l’Armée de la Terre (SHAT), 1 H 12, dos. 3, Boyer to Minister of War, March 1, 1832. 39.  MAEAD, Nantes, 22 PO 1/68, Duc de Rovigo to Minister of War, Algiers, January 30, 1832 (copy dated February 13, 1832). 40.  MAEAD, Nantes, 22 PO 1/68, Boyer to Duc de Rovigo, Oran, January 21, 1832 (copy dated February 13, 1832). 41.  MAEAD, Nantes, 22 PO 1/68, Boyer to Duc de Rovigo, Oran, January 21, 1832 (copy dated February 13, 1832). 42.  MAEAD, Nantes, 22 PO 1/68, “Tribunal Israélite d’Oran,” Oran, January 30, 1832. 43.  MAEAD, Nantes, 22 PO 1/68, Duc de Rovigo to Boyer, Algiers, January 28, 1832. 44.  MAEAD, Nantes, 22 PO 1/68, Minister of War to Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paris, unspecified day in January 1832.



Notes to Chapters 4 and 5

175

45.  MAEAD, Nantes, 22 PO 1/68 (IMG 2359), Duc de Rovigo to Minister of War, Algiers, January 27, 1832. 46.  MAEAD, Nantes, 22 PO 1/68, Duc de Rovigo to Minister of War, Algiers, January 27, 1832. 47.  Instruments de Recherche en Ligne (IREL), Centre des archives d’outre mer, état civil records. 48.  MAEAD, Nantes, 22 PO 1/68, Boyer to Minister of War, December 28, 1831 (copy dated January 26, 1832). 49.  MAEAD, Nantes, 22 PO 1/68, Boyer to Minister of War, December 28, 1831 (copy dated January 26, 1832). 50.  MAEAD, Nantes, 22 PO 1/68, Boyer to Minister of War, December 28, 1831 (copy dated January 26, 1832). 51.  TNA, FO 3/33, Consul St. John to Hay, November 12, 1831. 52. Julien, Histoire de l’Algérie contemporaine, 24. CHAPTER 5 Portions of this chapter are adapted from my earlier paper “From Mediterranean Merchant to French Civilizer: Jacob Lasry and the Economy of Conquest in Early Colonial Algeria,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 44 (2012): 631–49. 1.  Archives Nationales de France (ANP), Fichiers alphabétiques de l’état civil reconstitué (XVIe siècle, 1859). 2.  Archives Nationales d’Outre Mer, Aix-en-Provence (ANOM), F80 1631, Copy of letter from Jacob Lasry to Minister of War, Paris, February 28, 1846. 3. Dieuzaide, Histoire de l’Algérie, 53. 4. Dieuzaide, Histoire de l’Algérie, 53. 5.  See, notably, Service Historique de l’Armée de la Terre (SHAT), 1H 55. 6. Dieuzaide, Histoire de l’Algérie, 48–49. 7. Clauzel, Explications, 17–26. 8. Julien, Histoire de l’Algérie contemporaine, 128. 9. Julien, Histoire de l’Algérie contemporaine, 128. 10.  French workers in 1837 earned about 2.3 francs a day, whereas artisans earned closer to 3.75 francs a day. See www.iisg.nl/hpw/data.php#europe (accessed June 20, 2012). 11.  Mamluk literally means “owned” or “slave,” but these castes rose to significant military power in a number of medieval and early modern Islamic societies. 12.  This paragraph relies on Jouhaud, Yousouf, 7–30. 13. Jouhaud, Yousouf, 7–30. 14. Dieuzaide, Histoire de l’Algérie, 53. 15. Clauzel, Explications, 70. 16.  Pellissier de Reynaud, Annales Algériennes, 2: 57. See also Julien, Histoire de l’Algérie contemporaine, 128. 17. Dieuzaide, Histoire de l’Algérie, 54. 18. Dieuzaide, Histoire de l’Algérie, 48. 19. Dieuzaide, Histoire de l’Algérie, 54–60.

176

Notes to Chapter 5

20. Baude, Algérie, 283; Dieuzaide, Histoire de l’Algérie, 54; Julien, Histoire de l’Algérie contemporaine, 128; Pellissier de Reynaud, Annales Algériennes, 2: 58. Clauzel admitted that the job involved some coercion; he said that the Koulougli divisions allied with the French were essentially permitted to pillage the town before the contribution. 21. Clauzel, Explications, 66–67. 22. Clauzel, Explications, 71. 23. Clauzel, Explications, 69–70. 24. Clauzel, Explications, 71. 25. SHAT, 1 H 55, Jacob Lasry to Lieutenant General Baron Rapatel, Commander of the Province of Oran, March 9, 1838; and SHAT, 1 H 55, copy of minutes of the meeting between Melchior Poinchevalle, M. Falcon, and Jacob Lasry, Oran, January 12, 1837. 26. SHAT, 1 H 55, copy of the agreement signed by General Clauzel and (presumably) intended for Jacob Lasry, April 2, 1836. 27. SHAT, 1 H 55, Jacob Lasry to Lieutenant General Baron Rapatel, Commander of the Province of Oran, March 9, 1838. 28.  This is a central argument in Gallois, History of Violence. It should be noted that remarking on the necessity of adopting especially brutal methods when fighting in Islamic lands was a feature of popular historical works on Algeria well into the late twentieth century. See, for example, Jouhaud, Yousouf. 29.  Quoted in Jouhaud, Yousouf, 49. 30. SHAT, 1H 74, dos. 4, undated copy of several loan documents made for the Ministry of War. The quoted section reproduces documents originally produced on March 20, 1836. 31.  For a discussion of Ahmed Bey’s rule in the province of Constantine during this period, see Temimi, Le Beylik de Constantine. 32. SHAT, 1H 74, dos. 4, summary of debt agreements drawn up by the Minister of War, March 20, 1836. The boudjou, an Ottoman currency, was used well into the colonial period. 33. SHAT, 1H 74, dos. 4, undated copy of several loan documents made for the Ministry of War. The quoted section reproduces documents originally produced on March 20, 1836. 34. SHAT, 1H 74, dos. 4, undated copy of several loan documents made for the Ministry of War. It is unclear what formula produced the 550 additional francs. 35. SHAT, 1H 74, dos. 4, Chancellery of the Consulate of France in Tunis, extract from the registers, May 5, 1836. 36. SHAT, 1H 74, dos. 4, list of expenses incurred in the province of Bône, prepared by Yusuf, April 1837. 37. SHAT, 1H 74, dos. 4, list of expenses incurred in the province of Bône, prepared by Yusuf, April 1837. 38. SHAT, 1H 74, dos. 4, list of expenses incurred in the province of Bône, prepared by Yusuf, April 1837. 39. SHAT, 1H 74, dos. 4, list of expenses incurred in the province of Bône, prepared by Yusuf, April 1837.



Notes to Chapters 5 and 6

177

40. SHAT, 1H 74, dos. 4, undated copy of several loan documents made for the Ministry of War. The quoted section reproduces documents originally made on April 24, 1837. 41. SHAT, 1H 74, dos. 4, “Projet de liquidation de la créance de l’Israélite Lasry contre Lieutenant Colonel Joussouf,” undated (1841). 42. A huissier is an officer attached to a ministry who is charged with announcing procedural actions and executing judicial decisions, which may include seizing property. 43. SHAT, 1H 74, dos. 4, Yusuf to Minister of War, July 13, 1837. 44. SHAT, 1H 74, dos. 4, Yusuf to Minister of War, July 13, 1837. 45. SHAT, 1H 74, dos. 4, Yusuf to Minister of War, July 13, 1837. 46. SHAT, 1H 74, fol. 4, General Trézel to Governor-General Damrémont, August 26, 1837. 47. SHAT, 1H 74, fol. 4, Governor-General Damrémont to Minister of War, September 4, 1837. 48. SHAT, 1H 74, fol. 4, Armandy to Lt. General Trézel, September 8, 1837. 49. SHAT, 1H 74, fol. 4, Conseiller d’État to General Trézel, October 11, 1837. 50. SHAT, 1H 74, fol. 4, Procurer General to Minister of War, March 19, 1838. This is the only reference to Mustafa bin Karīm, a generally Muslim-sounding name, being Jewish. 51. SHAT, 1H 74, fol. 4, Conseiller d’État to General Lamoricière, February 10, 1841. 52. SHAT, 1H 74, fol. 4, Ministry of War, “Projet de liquidation de la créance de l’Israélite Lasry contre Lieutenant Colonel Joussouf,” undated. 53. SHAT, 1H 74, fol. 4, Conseiller d’État to General Lamoricière, February 10, 1841. 54. SHAT, 1H 74, fol. 4, Conseiller d’État to General Lamoricière, February 10, 1841. 55. SHAT, 1H 74, fol. 4, Ministry of War, “Projet de liquidation de la créance de l’Israélite Lasry contre Lieutenant Colonel Joussouf,” undated. 56. SHAT, 1H 74, fol. 4, Duc de Dalmatie to General Lamoricière, March 6, 1841. 57. SHAT, 1H 74, fol. 4, Duc de Dalmatie to General Lamoricière, April 16, 1841. 58.  ANOM, esp. fol. 3U/1. 59. Schreier, Arabs of the Jewish Faith, esp. 143–76. CHAPTER 6 Portions of this chapter were published earlier in my paper “The Creation of the ‘Israél­ ite indigène’: Jewish Merchants in Early Colonial Oran,” Journal of North African Studies 17.5 (2012): 757–72. 1. Derrien, Les français à Oran, 37–38. 2. Derrien, Les français à Oran, 230. 3. Clancy-Smith, Mediterraneans; Valensi, Mordochée Naggiar. Sarah A ­ brevaya Stein’s study of Silas Aaron Hardoon provides a fascinating example of a Jewish merchant negotiating legal statuses in a different colonial context, the modern colonial era. See Stein, “Protected Persons.” 4.  On the emergence of the idea and political importance of “minorities” in both

178

Notes to Chapter 6

European and Middle Eastern contexts during the interwar period, see Mahmood, Religious Difference, esp. 31–110; and White, Emergence of Minorities, esp. 1–42. 5.  Service Historique de l’Armée de la Terre (SHAT), 1 H 93, dos. 2, Bugeaud to Minister of War, November 10, 1843. 6.  Archives Nationales d’Outre Mer, Aix-en-Provence (ANOM), 2EE 5, Bugeaud to Minister of War, November 19, 1843. Michel Ansky suggests that by the seventeenth century and until the arrival of the French, Jews essentially dominated commerce in Algerian cities. See Ansky, Les Juifs d’Algérie, 23–24. 7.  See, for example, Schroeter, Sultan’s Jew, 32. 8. Derrien, Les français à Oran, 108. 9. Derrien, Les français à Oran, 176. 10. Karcenti, Gushpanka deMalka, sec. Hilchot Makirah, 55. 11. Karcenti, Gushpanka deMalka, sec. Hilchot Makirah, 55. 12.  Chambre de Commerce d’Oran, Compte-rendu, 5. 13.  Chambre de Commerce d’Oran, Compte-rendu, 5. 14.  Chambre de Commerce d’Oran, Compte-rendu, 5. 15.  Chambre de Commerce d’Oran, Compte-rendu, 5. 16.  ANOM, fol. 7K 1, Conseil de Direction de la Province d’Oran, Registre des Procès-verbeaux des Séances. 17. Derrien, Les français à Oran, 192–93. 18.  Archives Nationales de France (ANF), F19 11150, report written by the Prefect of Oran for the Minister of Public Instruction and Religions, August 8, 1855. 19.  ANF, F19 11150, report written by the Prefect of Oran for the Minister of Public Instruction and Religions, August 8, 1855. 20.  Archives israelites 10 (1849); Ayoun, Typologie, 205. 21.  ANF, F19 11150, report written by the Prefect of Oran for the Minister of Public Instruction and Religions, August 8, 1855. 22.  L’Illustration: Journal universel (1855), 204. 23.  ANOM, fol. 7K 1, Conseil de Direction de la Province d’Oran, Registre des Procès-verbeaux des Séances, November 15, 1847. 24.  ANOM (library), B//520, Société de bienfaisance israélite d’Oran pour la propagation du travail et de l’instruction (Oran: Adolphe Perrier, 1859). 25. Schreier, Arabs of the Jewish Faith, 86–113. 26. Schreier, Arabs of the Jewish Faith, 86–113. It should also be noted that French observers made similar arguments about Muslim religious endowments (awqāf, sing. waqf ) that supported mosques, schools, and other institutions. 27.  Assan, “Les Synagogues.” 28.  L’Univers israélite 11 (1856): 315. 29. Schreier, Arabs of the Jewish Faith, 23–55. 30. Bottin, Almanach, 1009. 31.  Ayoun, “Problématique,” 75. 32. ANOM, 3U/1, Civil Commissioner of Mostaganem to Director of Civil Affairs of Oran, January 26, 1848.



Notes to Chapter 6 and Conclusion

179

33. Schreier, Arabs of the Jewish Faith, 23–59. See also MAEAD, Nantes, 22 PO 1/68, General Boyer to Minister of War, December 28, 1831 (copy of letter dated January 26, 1832). 34. Ayoun, Typologie, 241. 35.  ANF, F19 11150, report written by the Prefect of Oran for the Minister of Public Instruction and Religions, August 8, 1855. 36.  ANF, F19 11150, report written by the Prefect of Oran for the Minister of Public Instruction and Religions, August 8, 1855. 37. ANOM, 3U/1, petition to General Cavaignac, Governor General of Algeria, copy dated April 1, 1848. 38. ANOM, 7K 1, November 6, 1848. 39. ANOM, 7K 1, November 6, 1848. 40. ANOM, 7K 1, November 20, 1848. 41.  Oran’s synagogues have been discussed elsewhere. See Assan, Les consistoires israélites, esp. 285–312; Assan, “Les synagogues”; and Schreier, Arabs of the Jewish Faith, 86–113. 42.  ANF, F19 11155, Lasry to Sub-Direction of Interior, Oran, January 5, 1843. 43.  ANOM, F80 1631, Lasry to the Minister of War, transcribed and attached to a letter from the Ministry of War, Direction of Algerian Affairs, to the Governor-General, February 24, 1846. 44.  ANOM, F80 1631, Lasry to the Minister of War, transcribed and attached to a letter from the Ministry of War, Direction of Algerian Affairs, to the Governor-General, February 24, 1846. 45.  L’Univers israélite 11 (1856): 315. 46.  Archives israélites 17 (1856): 51. 47.  The public sphere, a concept pioneered by the political philosopher Jürgen Habermas, was theorized as an important component in the development of more representative governments. Fed initially by the need of merchants and others for more commercial information, the public sphere was a place where private individuals could debate public matters. The public sphere, and the attendant notion of the public good (not to mention the fear of public ridicule), served as a counterweight to political authority. See Habermas, Structural Transformation, esp. 14–26. 48.  ANF, F19 11150 and F/19/11155. 49.  Ben Haim, Quelques mots à propos. According to consistorial correspondence, the real author of the brochure was Abraham ben Haim. 50.  Ben Haim, Quelques mots à propos, 7. 51.  Ben Haim, Quelques mots à propos, 17. 52.  Ben Haim, Quelques mots à propos, 17. CONCLUSION 1.  See, for example, Ayoun, “Problématique”; Dermenjian, La crise antijuive oranaise; Archives Nationales d’Outre Mer, Aix-en-Provence (ANOM), état civil record for marriage of Chemahoun al-Kanoui and Estelle-Louise Lasry.

180

Notes to Conclusion

2.  Ayoun, “Problématique,” 75. 3.  Archives Nationales de France (ANF), F19 11150, Oran Prefecture to Minister of Justice and Religions, Oran, January 18, 1855. 4.  ANF, F19 11150, Oran Prefecture to Minister of Justice and Religions, Oran, August 8, 1855. 5.  ANF, F19 11150, Oran Prefecture to Minister of Justice and Religions, Oran, ­August 8, 1855. 6.  ANF, F19 11150, Consistory of Algiers to Minister of Justice and Religions, ­Algiers, June 10, 1855. 7.  L’Univers israélite 11 (1856): 239. 8.  The cemetery was reduced in size with the expansion of the adjacent street in the early 1970s, and stacks of displaced tombstones lay among the weeds on its periphery. 9. Schreier, Arabs of the Jewish Faith, 143–76. 10.  Schreier, “Napoléon’s Long Shadow”; Schreier, Arabs of the Jewish Faith, 143–76. 10.  On-line archives of the Department of Bouches-de-Rhone, France, Registers of Etat-Civil for Aix-en-Provence, Births in the year 1847 (page 81 of 121) http://doris.archives 13.fr/dorisuec/jsp/system/win_main.jsp (last accessed December 5, 2016) 12. ANOM, état civil record of marriage of al-Kanoui and Lasry, 1863. anom.ar chivesnationales.culture.gouv.fr/caomec2/resultats.php?tri=typeacte%2C+annee&territ oire=ALGERIE&commune=ORAN&nom=Lasry&prenom=&typeacte=&annee=&deb ut=&fin=&vue=&rpp=20&page=2 (accessed December 5, 2016). 13. ANOM, état civil record of marriage of al-Kanoui and Lasry, 1863. 14.  On this story, see also Geneviève Dermenjian, “Être juif à Oran,” lecture given at the Centre Alliance Edmond J. Safra, April 3, 2014, www.judaicalgeria.com/pages/etre -juif-a-oran.html#ky7WJBBdJSADXOOF.99 (accessed May 28, 2015).

BIBLIOGR APHY

ARCHIVES, INCLUDING DIGITIZED RECORDS Archives Nationales de France: F19 11150, F19 11155 Archives Nationales d’Outre Mer, Aix-en-Provence: F80 1631, 3U/1 Archives Numérisées de Paris Central Archives of the Jewish People, Jerusalem: fol. P 95 Fichiers de l’état civil reconstituté (XVIe siècle–1859) Gibraltar Government Archives: Bound volume Traveling Passports, 1819–1830 Gibraltar Registration Office Instruments de Recherche en Ligne (online research tool of the Archives Nationales d’Outre Mer, Aix-en-Provence) Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, Archives Diplomatiques, La Courneuve: 231 CCC/2 Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, Archives Diplomatiques, Nantes: 22 PO 1/68 The National Archives, Kew: FO 3/21, FO 3/27, FO 3/31, FO 3/32, FO 3/33, FO 335/57/2, FO 335/57/13, FO 636/1 Registrar of the Jewish Community of Gibraltar: Uncategorized bound volumes held by the Jewish Community Service Historique de l’Armée de la Terre: 1 H 11, dos. 2; 1 H 12, dos. 3; 1 H 20, dos. 2; 1 H 55; 1 H 74, dos. 4; 1 H 93, dos. 2 NINETEENTH-CENTURY JOURNALS Archives israélites Revue des Études Juives (1886) L’Univers israélite (1856) WEBSITES Geneanet.org, notably the page of Pierre Benoliel and Patricia Glaser: gw.geneanet.org/ pierrebenoliel?lang=en;pz=pierre+felix;nz=benoliel;ocz=0;p=jacob;n=lasry;oc=5 WORKS CITED Abi Mershed, Osama. Apostles of Modernity: Saint Simonians and the Civilizing Mission in Algeria. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010. Abitbol, Michel. “The Encounter Between French Jewry and the Jews of North Africa:

182 Bibliography

Analysis of a Discourse.” In The Jews in Modern France, Frances Malino and Bernard Wasserstein, eds., 31–53. Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press, 1985. ———. Juifs d’Afrique du Nord sous Vichy. Paris: Éditions du CNRS, 2008. Abu Lughod, Janet. “The Islamic City: Historic Myth, Islamic Essence, and Contemporary Relevance.” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 19.2 (May 1987): 155–76. Ageron, Charles-Robert. Les Algériens musulmans et la France, 1871–1919. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1968. Al-Qattan, Najwa. “Dhimmis in the Muslim Court, Legal Autonomy, and Religious Discrimination.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 31 (1999): 429–44. Amine, Mohamed. “Les commerçants à Alger à la veille de 1830.” Revue d’histoire maghrebine (Tunis) 22.77–78 (May 1995): 11–112. Anderson, M. S. “Great Britain and the Barbary States in the Eighteenth Century.” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 26 (1956): 87–107. Ansky, Michel. Les Juifs d’Algérie: du décret Crémieux à la libération. Paris: Éditions du Centre, 1950. Assan, Valérie. Les consistoires israélites d’Algérie au XIXe siècle: l’alliance de la civilisation et de la religion. Paris: Armand Colin/Recherches, 2012. ———. “Les synagogues dans l’Algérie coloniale du XIXe siècle.” Archives Juives 37.1 (2004): 70–85. Ayoun, Richard. “Bacri, Joseph Cohen.” In Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, online ed., Norman A. Stillman, exec. ed. Leiden: Brill, 2010. referenceworks.brillon line.com/entries/encyclopedia-of-jews-in-the-islamic-world/bacri-joseph-cohen -SIM_0002900 (accessed April 9, 2015). ———. “Busnach (Būjanāḥ) Family.” In Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, online ed., Norman A. Stillman, exec. ed. Leiden: Brill, 2010. referenceworks.brillonline .com/entries/encyclopedia-of-jews-in-the-islamic-world/busnach-bujanah-family -SIM_0004730 (accessed April 9, 2015). ———. “Darmon, Mordecai.” In Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, Norman A. Stillman, exec. ed., 2: 31–32. Leiden: Brill, 2010. ———. “Les éfforts d’assimilation intellectuelle et l’émancipation législative des Juifs d’Algérie.” In Cultures juives méditerranéennes et orientales, Centre Georges Pompidou, ed., 171–88. Paris: Syros, 1982. ———. “Les Juifs d’Oran avant la conquête française.” Revue Historique 267.2 (1982): 375–90. ———. “Problématique des conflits internes de la communauté juive: Simon Kanoui, président du Consistoire Israélite d’Oran.” In Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies, 75–82. Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1986. ———. Typologie d’une carrière rabbinique: l’example de Mahir Charleville, vol. 1. Nancy: Presses Universitaires de Nancy, 1993. Ayoun, Richard, and Bernard Cohen. Les Juifs d’Algérie: 2000 ans d’histoire. Paris: JC Lattès, 1982. Bashkin, Orit. “The Middle Eastern Shift and Provincializing Zionism.” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 46 (2014): 577–80.

Bibliography 183

———. The New Babylonians: A History of Jews in Modern Iraq. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012. Basset, R. “Fastes chronologiques de la ville d’Oran pendant la période arabe (290–903 de l’Hégire).” Bulletin de la Société de Géographie et d’Archéologie d’Oran 12 (1892): 50–75. Baude, Baron Jean-Jacques. Algérie, tome 2. Paris: Arthus Bertrand, 1841. Beinin, Joel. “Egypt and its Jews.” In Minorities in the Modern Arab World: New Perspectives, Laura Robson, ed., 77–90. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2016. Benady, Mesod. “The Settlement of Jews in Gibraltar, 1704–1783.” Transactions and Miscellanies (Jewish Historical Society of England) 26 (1979): 87–110. Benady, T. “The Role of Jews in the British Colonies of the Western Mediterranean.” Jewish Historical Studies 33 (1992–1994): 45–63. Benbassa, Esther. “L’éducation féminine en orient: l’école des filles de l’Alliance israélite universelle à Galata, Istanbul (1879–1912).” Histoire, Économie et Société 10.4 (December 1991): 521–59. Ben Haim, Isaac. Quelques mots à propos d’un article de L’Univers israélite du moi de Mars, 1856 sur la Synagogue Lasry à Oran. Marseille: Arnaud, 1856. Benkada, Saddek. “A Moment in Sephardi History: The Reestablishment of the Jewish Community of Oran, 1792–1831.” In Jewish Culture and Society in North Africa, Emily Benichou Gottreich and Daniel J. Schroeter, eds., 168–76. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011. ———. “Le premier consulat de France à Oran date de 1719.” El Watan, September 15, 2007. www.djazairess.com/fr/elwatan/76210 (accessed August 10, 2013). Benkada, Saddek, and M. S. Louhibi. “Brève histoire du port d’Oran.” Insaniyat: Revue algérienne d’anthropologie et des sciences sociales 41 (2008): 159–60. Bennison, Amira. Jihad and Its Interpretation in Pre-Colonial Morocco: State-Society Relations During the French Conquest of Algeria. London: Routledge, 2002. Benramdane, Farid. “De l’étymologie de Wahran: de Ouadaharan à Oran.” Insaniyat: Revue algérienne d’anthropologie et des sciences sociales 23–24 (2004): 249–72. Benton, Lauren. Law and Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in World History, 1400–1900. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Ben-Yehoyada, Naor. “Mediterranean Modernity?” In A Companion to Mediterranean History, Peregrine Horden and Sharon Kinoshita, eds., 107–21. London: Wiley, 2014. Berkowitz, Jay. The Shaping of Jewish Identity in Nineteenth-Century France. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989. Bertier de Sauvigny, Albert de. Note sur Gibraltar et Oran. Paris: de Bat, 1846. Betts, Raymond. Assimilation and Association in French Colonial Theory, 1890–1914. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005 [1960]. Biale, David. Power and Powerlessness in Jewish History. New York: Schocken, 1986. Birnbaum, Pierre. L’aigle et la synagogue: Napoléon, les Juifs, et l’état. Paris: Fayard, 2007. ———. “French Jews and the ‘Regeneration’ of Algerian Jewry.” In Jews and the State: Dangerous Alliances and the Perils of Privilege, Ezra Mendelssohn, ed., 88–103. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.

184 Bibliography

Bloch, Isaac. “Les Israélites d’Oran, de 1792 à 1815.” Revue des Études Juives 13.1 (1886): 85–104. Blondy, Alain. “The Barbary Regencies and Corsair Activity in the Mediterranean from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century: From the Community of Origin to Evolutionary Divergence.” Journal of Mediterranean Studies 12.2 (2002): 241–48. Bottin, Sébastien. Almanach du Commerce de Paris, des départements de l’Empire français et des principales villes du monde, XIX année, année 1837. Paris, Bureau de l’Almanach du Commerce, 1837. Boum, Aomar. Memories of Absence: How Muslims Remember Jews in Morocco. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013. Braudel, Fernand. “Les Espagnols et l’Afrique du Nord de 1492–1577.” Revue Africaine 69.335–336 (1928): 184–233, 351–428. ———. La Méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen à l’époque de Philippe II. Paris: Librairie Armand Colin, 1949. Brower, Benjamin Claude. A Desert Named Peace: The Violence of France’s Empire in the Algerian Sahara. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010. Brown, James A. O. C. Crossing the Strait: Morocco, Gibraltar, and Great Britain in the 18th and 19th Centuries. Leiden: Brill Academic, 2012. Brown, Leon Carl. The Tunisia of Bey Ahmad, 1837–1855. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974. Brunhes, Jean. L’irrigation: ses conditions géographiques, ses modes et son organisation dans la péninsule ibérique et dans l’Afrique du Nord. Paris: C. Naud, 1902. Brunschvig, Robert. “Urbanisme médiéval et droit musulman.” Revue des Études Islam­ iques 15 (1947): 127–55. Campos, Michelle. Ottoman Brothers: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Early TwentiethCentury Palestine. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010. Camus, Albert. La peste. Paris: Poche, 2012. Chambre de Commerce d’Oran. Compte-rendu de ses travaux du 13 Avril 1850 au 13 Avril 1851. Oran: F. Renard, 1851. Chemouilli, Henri. Une diaspora méconnue: les Juifs d’Algérie. Paris: Imprimerie Moderne de la Presse, 1976. Chentouf, Tayeb. “Deux tentatives économiques du Bey Mohammad el-Kebir à la fin du XVIIIe siècle.” Cahiers de Tunisie 29.3–4 (1981): 159–75. Choi, Sung. “Complex Compatriots: Jews in Post-Vichy French Algeria.” Journal of North African Studies 17.5 (December 2012): 863–80. Churchill, Colonel [Charles Henry]. The Life of Abdel Kader, Ex-Sultan of the Arabs of Algeria. London: Chapman & Hall, 1867. Cixous, Hélène, and Mireille Caille-Gruber. Hélène Cixous: Rootprints—Memory and Life Writing. New York: Routledge, 1997. Clancy-Smith, Julia. Mediterraneans: North Africa and Europe in an Age of Migration, 1800–1900. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011. ———. Rebel and Saint: Muslim Notables, Populist Protest, Colonial Encounters (Algeria and Tunisia, 1800–1904). Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.

Bibliography 185

Clarence-Smith, William Gervase, and Steven Topik. The Global Coffee Economy in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, 1500–1989. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Clauzel, Bertrand. Explications du Maréchal Clauzel. Paris: A. Dupont, 1837. Cohen, Julia Phillips. Becoming Ottomans: Sephardi Jews and Imperial Citizenship in the Modern Era. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2014. Colley, Linda. Captives: Britain, Empire, and the World, 1600–1850. New York: Anchor, 2002. Conklin, Alice. In the Museum of Man: Race, Anthropology, and Empire in France, 1850– 1950. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013. ———. A Mission to Civilize: The Republican Idea of Empire in France and West Africa, 1895–1930. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997. Constantine, Stephen. Community and Identity: The Making of Modern Gibraltar. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2009. ———. “The Pirate, the Governor, and the Secretary of State: Aliens, Police, and Surveillance in Early Nineteenth-Century Gibraltar.” English Historical Review 123.504 (October 2008): 1166–92. ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ (accessed February 8, 2013). d’Argens, J. B. Lettres juives. The Hague: Pierre Paupie, 1738. Daughton, J. P. An Empire Divided: Religion, Republicanism, and the Making of French Colonialism, 1880–1914. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Davidson, Naomi. Only Muslim: Embodying Islam in Twentieth-Century France. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012. De Mas Latrie, M. L. Traités de paix et de commerce et documents divers concernant les relations des chrétiens avec les Arabes de l’Afrique septentrionale au Moyen Âge. Paris: Henri Plon, 1866–1872. Dermenjian, Geneviève. La crise anti-juive oranaise, 1895–1905. Paris: l’Harmattan, 1986. Derrien, C. I. Les français à Oran depuis 1830 jusqu’à nos jours. Aix-en-Provence: Imprimerie Niciot, 1886. Dieuzaide, Victor Anédée. Histoire de l’Algérie, 1830–1878. Oran: Imprimerie de l’association ouvrière, 1883. Doumani, Beshara. Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700–1900. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Eikelman, Dale. “Is There an Islamic City?” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 5 (1974): 274–94. Eldridge, Claire. “Remembering the Other: Postcolonial Perspectives on Relationships Between Jews and Muslims in French Algeria.” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 11.3 (2012): 299–317. Emerit, Marcel. “Les tribus privilégiées en Algérie dans la première moitié du XIXe ­siècle.” Annales: Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations 21.1 (1966): 44–58. Epstein, Isadore. The Responsa of Rabbi Simon B. Zemah Duran. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1930. Ezra, Elizabeth. The Colonial Unconscious: Race and Culture in Interwar France. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000.

186 Bibliography

Fanon, Franz. Les damnés de la terre. Paris: La Décourverte/Poche, 2007 [1961]. Ferrand, Gaston. La colonisation militaire du Maréchal Bugeaud, 1841–1847. PhD diss. Paris: Émile Larose, 1909. Fey, Henri-Léon. Histoire d’Oran: avant, pendant, et après la domination espagnole. Oran: Adolphe Perrier, 1858. Filippini, Jean-Pierre. “Les Juifs d’Afrique du nord et la communauté de Livourne au XVIIIe siècle.” In Les relations intercommunautaires juives en méditerranée occidentale aux XIIIe–XXe siècles, J. L. Mìege, ed., 60–69. Paris: Éditions du CNRS, 1984. Friedman, Elizabeth. Colonialism and After: An Algerian Jewish Community. South Hadley, MA: Bergin & Garvey, 1988. Gallois, William. A History of Violence in the Early Algerian Colony. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Godley, Nathan. “Almost Finished Frenchmen”: The Jews of Algeria and the Question of French National Identity, 1830–1902. PhD diss., University of Iowa, 2006. Goldberg, Jeffrey. “Is It Time for the Jews to Leave Europe?” The Atlantic, April 2015. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/is-it-time-for-the-jews-to-leave -europe/386279/ (accessed November 18, 2016). Gottreich, Emily Benichou. “Historicizing the Concept of Arab Jews in the Maghrib.” Jewish Quarterly Review 98.4 (fall 2008): 433–51. Grammont, H. D. de. Histoire d’Alger sous la domination Turque (1550–1830). Paris: ­Ernest Leroux, 1887. Gran, Peter. The Islamic Roots of Capitalism: Egypt, 1760–1840. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1979. Habermas, Jürgen. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, Thomas Burger and Frederick Lawrence, trans. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991. Hannoum, Abdelmajid. Violent Modernity: France in Algeria. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Middle Eastern Monographs, 2010. Harding, Nicholas B. “North African Piracy, the Hanoverian Carrying Trade, and the British State, 1728–1828.” Historical Journal 43.1 (March 2000): 25–47. Horden, Peregrine, and Nicholas Purcell. The Corrupting Sea: Studies in Mediterranean History. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000. Hornstein, Sari R. The Restoration Navy and English Foreign Trade, 1674–1688. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1991. Hourani, Albert, and S. M. Stern, eds. The Islamic City: A Colloquium. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1974. Israel, Jonathan. Diasporas Within a Diaspora: Jews, Crypto-Jews, and the World of Maritime Empires (1540–1740). Leiden: Brill, 2002. ———. “The Jews of Spanish Oran and Their Expulsion in 1669.” Mediterranean Historical Review 9.2 (December 1994): 235–55. Jouhaud, Edmond. Yousouf: Esclave, Mamelouk, général de l’armée d’Afrique. Paris: Éditions Robert Lafont, 1980. JTA (Jewish Telegraphic Agency). “Algeria to Reopen Shuttered Synagogues, Minister

Bibliography 187

Says.” Haaretz, July 5, 2014. www.haaretz.com/jewish/news/1.603147 (accessed November 6, 2016). Julien, Charles-André. Histoire de l’Algérie contemporaine. Paris: PUF, 1964. Kalman, Samuel. “Le Combat par Tous les Moyens: Colonial Violence and the Extreme Right in 1930s Oran.” French Historical Studies 34.1 (2011): 125–53. ———. French Colonial Fascism: The Extreme Right in Algeria, 1919–1939. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Karcenti, Faruz. Gushpanka deMalka. Livorno: Shlomo Belforte and Company, 1861. Katz, Ethan. “Between Emancipation and Persecution, Algerian Jewish Memory in the Longue Durée (1830–1970).” Journal of North African Studies 17.5 (December 2012): 793–820. ———. Burdens of Brotherhood: Muslims and Jews from North Africa to France. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015. Kiser, John W. Commander of the Faithful: The Life and Times of Emir Abd el-Kader, 1808–1883. Rhinebeck, NY: Monkfish, 2010. Kortepeter, Max. “Jew and Turk in Algiers in 1800.” In The Jews of the Ottoman Empire, Avigdor Levy, ed., 327–53. Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 1994. Lakjaa, Abdelkader. “Oran, une ville algérienne reconquise: un centre historique en mutation.” Année du Maghreb 4 (2008): 441–56. Laskier, Michael. The Alliance Israelite Universelle and the Jewish Communities of Morocco, 1862–1962. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983. ———. North African Jewry in the Twentieth Century: The Jews of Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria. New York: New York University Press, 1994. Laurent, Franck, ed. Le Voyage en Algérie: Anthologie de voyageurs français dans l’Algérie coloniale, 1830–1930. Paris: Robert Laffont, 2008. Lawless, R. I. “Tlemcen, Capital City of the ‘Abd al-Wādids: A Study of the Functions of a Medieval Islamic City.” Islamic Quarterly 18.1 (January 1974): 14–20. Lazreg, Marnia. “The Reproduction of Colonial Ideology: The Case of the Kabyle ­Berbers.” Arab Studies Quarterly 5 (1983): 380–95. Leff, Lisa Moses. “The Impact of the Napoleonic Sanhedrin on French Colonial Policy in Algeria.” CCAR Journal 54.1 (winter 2007): 35–54. ———. Sacred Bonds of Solidarity: Jewish Internationalism in Nineteenth-Century France. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006. Lespès, René. Oran: Étude de géographie et d’histoire urbaines. Oran: Édition Bel Horizon, 2003 [Paris, 1938]. ———. “Oran, ville et port, avant l’occupation française (1831).” Revue Africaine 75 (1934): 277–335. Levy, Lital. “Historicizing the Concept of Arab Jews in the Mashriq.” Jewish Quarterly Review 98.4 (fall 2008): 452–69. Lewis, Bernard. The Jews of Islam. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984. Lewis, Martin Deming. “One Hundred Million Frenchmen: The ‘Assimilation’ Theory in French Colonial Policy.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 4.2 (January 1962): 129–53.

188 Bibliography

Lewis, Mary Dewhurst. Divided Rule: Sovereignty and Empire in French Tunisia, 1881– 1938. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013. ———. “Geographies of Power: The Tunisian Civic Order, Jurisdictional Politics, and Imperial Rivalry in the Mediterranean, 1881–1935.” Journal of Modern History 80.4 (2008): 791–830. Lorcin, Patricia. Imperial Identities: Stereotyping, Prejudice, and Race in Colonial Algeria. New York: I. B. Tauris, 1995. ———. “Rome and France in Africa: Recovering Algeria’s Latin Past.” French Historical Studies 25.2 (spring 2002): 295–329. Lydon, Ghislaine. On Trans-Saharan Trails: Islamic Law, Trade Networks, and Cross-­ Cultural Exchange in Nineteenth-Century Western Africa. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Mahmood, Saba. Religious Difference in a Secular Age: A Minority Report. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015. Mandel, Maude. Muslims and Jews in France: History of a Conflict. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014. Marçais, Georges. “La conception des villes dans l’Islam.” Revue d’Alger 2 (1945): 517–33. ———. “L’urbanisme musulman.” In 5e Congrès de la Fédération des Sociétés Savantes de l’Afrique du Nord, 13–34. Algiers: Imprimerie la Typo-Litho et Jules Carbonet réunies, 1940. Marçais, William. “L’Islamisme et la vie urbaine.” L’Académie des Inscriptions et BellesLettres, Comptes Rendus 72.1 (January–March 1928): 86–100. Marglin, Jessica. Across Legal Lines: Jews and Muslims in Modern Morocco. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016. ———. “Mediterranean Modernity Through Jewish Eyes: The Transimperial Life of Abraham Ankawa.” Jewish Social Studies: History, Culture, Society 20.2 (winter 2014): 34–68. ———. “The Two Lives of Mas’ud Amoyal: Pseudo-Algerians in Morocco, 1830–1912.” International Journal for Middle East Studies 44 (2012): 651–70. Massignon, Louis. “Les corps de métiers et la cite Islamique.” Revue Internationale de Sociologie 28 (1920): 473–87. Masson, Paul. Histoire des établissements et du commerce français dans l’Afrique barbar­ esque (1590–1793). Paris: Hachette, 1903. McDougall, James. History and the Culture of Nationalism in Algeria. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006. ———. “Savage Wars? Codes of Violence in Algeria, 1830s–1990s.” Third World Quarterly 26.1 (2005): 117–31. Memmi, Albert. Portrait du colonisé, précédé du portrait du colonisateur. Paris: Gallimard, 2002 [1957]. ———. La statue de sel. Paris: Folio, 1972. Mendelsohn, Ezra, ed., Studies in Contemporary Jewry, vol. 19, Jews and the State: Dangerous Alliances and the Perils of Privilege. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Bibliography 189

Meyerson, Mark D. A Jewish Renaissance in Fifteenth-Century Spain. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004. Nord, Phillip. The Republican Moment: Struggles for Democracy in Nineteenth-Century France. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994. Paine, Thomas. Rights of Man, pt. 2. London: Dent, 1969. Pellissier de Reynaud, Edmond. Annales Algériennes, 3 vols. 1. Paris: Anselin et Gaultier Laguionie, 1836. Pennell, C. R. “Law on a Wild Frontier: Moroccans in the Spanish Courts in Melilla in the Nineteenth Century.” Journal of North African Studies 7.3 (2002): 67–78. Pestemaldjoglou, Alexandre. “Le consulat français d’Oran de 1732–1754.” Revue Africaine 86 (1942): 220–54. Phillipp, Thomas. Acre: The Rise and Fall of a Palestinian City, 1730–1831. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. Pitts, Jennifer. A Turn to Empire: The Rise of Liberal Imperialism in Britain and France. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005. Plantet, E. Correspondance des deys d’Alger avec la Cour de France, 1579–1833, 2 vols. Paris: Felix Alcan, 1889. Redouane, Joëlle. “British Attitude to the French Conquest of Algeria, 1830–1871.” Maghreb Review 15.1–2 (1990): 2–15. ———. “British Trade with Algeria in the Nineteenth Century: An Ally Against France?” Maghreb Review 13.3–4 (1988): 175–82. ———. “La Présence Anglaise en Algérie de 1830 à 1930.” Revue de l’Occident Musulman et de la Méditerranée 38 (1984): 15–36. Renan, Ernst. Discours et conférences. Paris: C. Levy, 1887. Robson, Laura, ed. Minorities and the Modern Arab World: New Perspectives. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2016. Rodrigue, Aron. French Jews, Turkish Jews: The Alliance Israélite Universelle and the Politics of Jewish Schooling in Turkey, 1860–1925. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990. ———. Images of Sephardi and Eastern Jewries in Transition: The Teachers of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, 1860–1939. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1993. Rosenstock, Morton. “The Establishment of the Consistorial System in Algeria.” Jewish Social Studies 18.1 (January 1956): 41–54. Rowbotham, W. B. “The Bombardment of Algiers, 27 August, 1816.” Royal United Service Institution Journal 111.643 (1966): 248–52. Schechter, Ronald. Obstinate Hebrews: Representations of Jews in France, 1715–1815. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Scholch, Alexander. Palestine in Transformation: 1856–1882, 2nd ed. Washington, DC: Institute for Palestine Studies, 2006. Schreier, Joshua. Arabs of the Jewish Faith: The Civilizing Mission in Colonial Algeria. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2010. ———. “The Creation of the ‘Israélite indigène’: Jewish Merchants in Early Colonial Oran.” Journal of North African Studies 17.5 (2012): 757–72. ———. “From Mediterranean Merchant to French Civilizer: Jacob Lasry and the Econ-

190 Bibliography

omy of Conquest in Early Colonial Algeria.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 44.4 (November 2012): 631–49. ———. “A Jewish Riot Against Muslims: The Polemics of History in Late Colonial Algeria.” Contemporary Studies in Society and History 58.3 (2016): 746–73. ———. “Napoléon’s Long Shadow, Morality, Civilization, and the Jews in France and Algeria: 1808–1870.” French Historical Studies 30.1 (winter 2007): 77–103. Schroeter, Daniel. The Merchants of Essaouira: Urban Society and Imperialism in Southwestern Morocco, 1844–1886. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988. ———. “The Shifting Boundaries of Moroccan Jewish Identity.” Jewish Social Studies: History, Culture Society 15.1 (Fall 2008): 145–64. ———. The Sultan’s Jew: Morocco and the Sephardi World. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002. Schwarzfuchs, Simon. “Colonialisme français et colonialisme juif.” In Judaïsme en ­Afrique du Nord aux XIXe–XXe siècles: histoire, société, et culture, Michel Abitbol, ed., 37–48. Jerusalem: Institut Ben Zvi, 1981. ———. Du Juif à l’Israélite histoire d’une mutation, 1770–1870. Paris: Fayard, 1989. Segalla, Spencer. “Natural Disaster, Globalization, and Decolonization: The Case of the 1960 Agadir Earthquake.” In French Mediterraneans: Transnational and National Histories, Patricia Lorcin and Todd Shepard, eds. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2016, 101–30. Sepinwall, Alyssa Goldstein. The Abbé Grégoire and the French Revolution: The Making of Modern Universalism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. Sessions, Jennifer E. By Sword and Plow: France and the Conquest of Algeria. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011. Shepard, Todd. “Algerian Nationalism, Zionism, and French Laïcité: A History of Ethnoreligious Nationalisms and Decolonization.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 45 (2013): 445–67. ———. The Invention of Decolonization: The Algerian War and the Remaking of France. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006. Shurkin, Michael. “French Liberal Governance and the Emancipation of Algeria’s Jews.” French Historical Studies 33.2 (spring 2010): 259–80. Smith, Julia Clancy. Mediterraneans: North Africa and Europe in an Age of Migration, 1800–1900. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012. Souames, Farah. “Home, for Algeria’s Jews, Is Elsewhere.” Open Democracy, February 27, 2015. www.opendemocracy.net/openglobalrights/farah-souames/home-for-alge ria’s-jews-is-elsewhere (accessed November 6, 2016). Spillmann, Georges. “L’anticolonialisme en france du XVIIe siècle a nos jours.” Afrique et l’Asie 101 (1974): 3–20. Stein, Sarah Abrevaya. “Algeria’s Jewish Past-Present.” Jadaliyya, September 11, 2014. www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/19205/algeria’s-jewish-past-present (accessed November 4, 2016). ———. “The Field of In-Between.” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 46.3 (August 2014): 581–84.

Bibliography 191

———. “Mediterranean Jewries and Global Commerce in the Modern Period: On the Trail of the Jewish Feather Trade.” Jewish Social Studies: History, Culture, Society 13.2 (winter 2007): 1–39. ———. “Modern Jewries and the Imperial Imagination.” AJS Perspectives (fall 2005): 14–16. ———. Plumes: Ostrich Feathers, Jews, and a Lost World of Global Commerce. New ­Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008. ———. “Protected Persons? The Baghdadi Jewish Diaspora, the British State, and the Persistence of Empire.” American Historical Review 116.1 (February 2011): 80–108. ———. Saharan Jews and the Fate of French Algeria. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014. Stora, Benjamin. Les trois exils: Juifs d’Algérie. Paris: Stock, 2006. Stora, Benjamin, and Geneviève Dermenjian. “Les Juifs dans le regard des militaires et des Juifs de France à l’époque de la conquète.” Révue Historique 284.2 (1990): 333–39. Sullivan, Antony Thrall. Thomas-Robert Bugeaud: France and Algeria, 1784–1849—­Politics, Power, and the Good Society. Hamden, CT: Archon, 1983. Syrett, David. “Keppel at Algiers: Diplomacy and the Limits of Naval Power.” Mariner’s Mirror 91.1 (February 2005): 13–23. Szajkowski, Zosa. “The Establishment of the Consistorial System in Algeria.” Jewish Social Studies 18.1 (1956): 41–54. ———. “The Struggle for Jewish Emancipation in Algeria After the French Occupation.” Historia Judaica 18.1 (1956): 27–40. Temimi, Abdeljelil. Le Beylik de Constantine et hadj ’Ahmed Bey (1830–1837). Tunis: Publications d’Histoire Maghrébine, 1978. Thomson, Ann. “Arguments for the Conquest of Algiers in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries.” Maghreb Review 14.1–2 (1989): 108–18. Torpey, John. The Invention of the Passport: Surveillance, Citizenship, and the State. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Trivellato, Francesca. The Familiarity of Strangers: The Sephardic Diaspora, Livorno, and Cross-Cultural Trade in the Early Modern Period. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008. Tsur, Yaron. “Jewish ‘Sectional Societies’ in France and Algeria on the Eve of the Colonial Encounter.” Journal of Mediterranean Studies 4.2 (1994): 263–77. ———. “Prélude aux relations judéo-françaises à l’époque colonial: les rapports entre les marchands juifs et les français, en Algérie, du XVIIIe–début XIXe siècles.” In La France et la Méditerranée: vingt-sept siècles d’interdépendance, Irad Malkin, ed., 401–411. Leiden: Brill, 1990. ———. “The Two Jewish Societies of Tunis on the Eve of the Colonial Period.” In Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies, 3: 67–73. Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1986. Urbain, Ismayl. “Correspondance Privée.” In Le Voyage en Algérie: Anthologie de voyageurs français dans l’Algérie coloniale, 1830–1930, Franck Laurent, ed. Paris: Robert Laffont, 2008.

192 Bibliography

Valensi, Lucette. Le Maghreb avant la prise d’Alger, 1790–1830. Paris: Flammarion, 1969. ———. Mordochée Naggiar: Enquète sur un inconnu. Paris: Stock, 2008. ———. On the Eve of Colonialism: North Africa Before the French Conquest, Kenneth Perkins, trans. New York: Africana, 1977. Vallejo, Don Joseph. “Mémoire sur l’état et la valeur des places de Oran et de Mers-elKebir,” Jean Cazenave, trans. Revue Africaine 66 (1925): 323–68. Weiss, Gillian. Captives and Corsairs: France and Slavery in the Early Modern Mediterranean. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011. White, Benjamin Thomas. The Emergence of Minorities in the Middle East: The Politics of Community in French Mandate Syria. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011. Younsi, Rochdi Ali. “Caught in a Colonial Triangle: Competing Loyalties Within the Jewish Community of Algeria, 1842–1943.” PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2003. Zack, Lizabeth. “French and Algerian Identity Formation in 1890s Algeria.” French Colonial History 2 (2002): 115–43.

INDEX

Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations. Abd al-Kader, 61, 74, 76, 115–16 Abd al-Mu’amin al-Kumi, 28 Abd al-Salām ben Kairan, 91 ‘Abdun, Muhammad ben, 25 Aberdeen, George Hamilton Gordon, Earl of, 78 Abu ‘Abdullah, 32 Abu al-Hassan Ali, 29 Abu-‘Aoun, Muhammad ben, 25 Abu Hamma, 31 Abulker family, 51 Abu Yusuf Yakub al-Mansur, 28 Agha Omar, 62 Ahmed, Hajj (merchant), 43 Ahmed, Hajj (bey of Oran), 82, 114, 121 Ahmed Bey, 122 Ahmet bin Haat Saat, Sid, 58–60 Alcaudète, Count d’, 32 Algeciras, Spain, 51 Algiers (city), 7, 26, 29, 32, 54; AngloDutch bombardment of, 38, 50; Danish attack on, 37–38; growth of, 21, 42–45; French traffic in, 56; Muslim merchants in, 43, 58 Algiers, Regency of: Anglo-French tussling in, 92, 111; British trade in, 39, 51, 87, 91; business practices in, 85, 123–24, 139; exports from, 9, 12, 44; French attitudes toward Jews in, 10, 19, 65, 68, 109–10, 129, 137, 143, 147, 152; French conquest of, 3, 4, 5, 9, 11, 14, 18, 22,

35, 53, 55, 61, 71–81, 83, 85–87, 90, 95, 96–97, 98, 114, 118, 120, 125, 144, 154; Jewish consistories in, 5, 68, 147; Jewish disappearance from, 8, 48; Jewish diversity in, 6; Jews naturalized in, 10, 14, 129, 140, 152; as military power, 36, 38, 42–43, 104, 115; Oran conquered by, 12, 36, 37, 39, 51, 52, 54; Oran’s growth and, 21, 42, 45, 47; political fluidity in, 105, 108; Spain and, 39, 44, 50, 63; War of Independence in, 3, 7 Alhambra expulsion (1492), 51 Ali ben Khrelil, Haji, 62 Ali Kodja, 136 Alliance Israélite Universelle, 8 Almería, Spain, 51, 52 Almohads, 28 Almoravid Dynasty, 28 Amar, David, 136 Amar, Mordecai, 9, 42, 61–62, 77, 83, 88, 95, 110, 132, 140, 149; Cabessa’s killing linked to, 96, 98, 99, 100–102; Lasry’s challenge to, 66–67, 102–4; Sebbah vs., 104–9 animal hides, 17, 21, 30, 35, 45, 55, 56, 58, 71, 86 Ankawa, Abraham, 20 Annaba, Algeria, 81, 121–26 anti-Semitism, 11, 23, 104, 109–10, 114, 126–29 Aragon, 29

194 Index

Argens, Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, ­marquis d’, 38 armaments, 44, 54 Armandy (squadron chief), 126 Aron (censal), 63–65, 67 Arzew, Algeria, 53, 55, 67, 89, 97–98, 101 Ashkenazim, 146 Aspinwall, Stanhope, 42 Bacri, Jacob, 52–53 Bacri, Joseph Cohen, 52, 67 Bacri, Mordecai, 52 Bacri, Solomon, 52 Bacri and Busnach (export firm), 42, 43 Bakrī, Abū ’Ubayd ’Abd Allāh ibn ’Abd al-’Azīz, 25, 27 Balearic Islands, 51 Balenzi, Haim, 59 Barbarossa (Ibn ‘Aruj), 31 Barcelo, Don Angelo, 36 Barcelona, 29 Bargli, Ali Kora, 73, 97, 101 barilla tree, 44 Baude, Jean-Jacques, 117–18 Beit ha-Knesset Européen Lasry (Synagogue Lasry), 19, 20, 143 ben Allah, Jacob, 136 ben Attar, Abraham, 42 ben Daoud, Yonah, 48 ben Haim, Abraham, 141, 143, 145–47 ben Haim, Isaac, 145 ben Haim, Nessim, 136 ben Haim, Rafael, 108–9, 141 Beni Ahmar, 47 ben Ichou, Abraham, 150 ben Merwas, Amram, 48 Benseria, Juda, 58–60 ben Zaguen, Messaoud, 136 ben Zemah Duran, Simeon, 31 ben Zephat, Samuel Alevy, 42 berats (letters of protection), 88, 99, 107 Bergel, Intob (Yomtob), 140 Bergel, Rica (Rivka), 12, 16, 153, 154

Berthezène, Pierre, 82, 84, 89, 96, 99, 100 Bevis Marks (Sha’ar HaShamayim) synagogue, 20, 42 Bey Husayn of Tunis (al-Husayn II ibn Mahmud; Husayn Basha Bey), 72, 81–82, 116 bin Ismā’īl, Mustafa, 116, 119 bin Karīm, Mustafa, 122, 127, 128 Blida, 74 Bloch, Isaac, 48, 62 blood libel, 8 Bolton, Thomas, 42 Bougie, Algeria, 32 Bou Mezrag, Mustapha, 79–80, 84 Bourmont, Louis-Auguste-Victor de Ghaisnes, comte de, 77, 81 Bou Terfas, 62 Boyer, Pierre, 93, 104, 110, 111, 131; Jewish influence lamented by, 65, 132, 155; Oran controlled by, 82, 84, 89, 90–92, 109; ruthlessness of, 90–91; Sebbah vs., 105–8 Braudel, Fernand, 26 Breshk, Algeria, 29 Brunhes, Jean, 26–27 Budarba, Ahmad, 43 Budarba, Hajj Mustapha, 43 Bugeaud, Robert, 65, 81, 132 Busnach, Naftali, 42 Busnach family, 52 Cabana group, 44 Cabessa, David, 62–63 Cabessa, Elie, 153 Cabessa, Israel, 52, 53 Cabessa, Joseph, 9, 52, 62–63, 75, 89, 110, 132; killing of, 97–104 Cabessa, Sarah, 153 Cabessa, Semha, 14, 18, 52, 97, 113, 153, 154 Cabessa, Solomon, 63, 67, 101 Cabessa family, 52, 149 Cádiz, Spain, 38 Cahen, Lazare, 150 Cairo, 26

Index 195

Calfon, Maklouf, 141 Camus, Albert, 25 Cansino, Jacob de Salvador, 53 Cansino family, 32 Cartagena, Spain, 38, 51, 52 Casablanca, 44 cattle, 27, 43, 44, 83, 105; for bey of Oran, 100, 106, 108; French limits on exporting, 89, 97, 98; to Gibraltar; 9, 10, 53, 58–59, 71, 75, 86, 91; Lasry’s trade in, 120–23, 127, 128; raising of, 14; to Spain, 52, 97 censales, 62 Chambord, Henri-Charles-FerdinandMarie-Dieudonné d’Artois, comte de, 81 Charles III, king of Spain, 35, 36 Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, 39 Charles X, king of France, 78, 80, 81 Christians, 3, 8, 28, 30, 31, 36, 84 Clauzel, Bertrand, 18, 22, 61, 80, 81–89, 93, 99, 113, 114, 147; Constantine mission by, 120–21; Tlemcen expedition by, 115–20; Yusuf recruited by, 120–21, 124 coffee, 43, 54–55, 57, 75 Cohen, Abraham, 140 Cohen-Salmon family, 51 Colley, Linda, 38 Compagnie d’Afrique, 56 Congress of Vienna (1815), 54 consistoire israélite de la province d’Oran, 1–2, 9, 14, 19, 61, 67, 131 Constantine, Algeria, 10, 22, 82, 114, 117; French expedition to, 120–22, 128 coral, 30, 51, 56 Cordoso, Aron, 53 Cornaro, François, 32 corsairs, 9, 31, 37–38, 50, 74, 116 Crémieux Decree (1870), 5, 8, 10, 68, 129–30, 148, 152 Cumberland, Richard, 198 Cyprus, 38

Dalmatie, Jean-de-Dieu Soult, duc de, 108, 128 Damrémont, Charles-Marie Denys, Comte de, 103, 124, 125 Darmon, Amram, 52 Darmon, Mordechai, 52 Debdou, Morocco, 7 de Lesseps, Mathieu, 116 Denmark, 37–38 Deval, Pierre, 109 Diego Fernández de Córdoba y Arellano, marqués de Comares, 31 divorce, 18, 152, 154 Djurdjura range, 81 Doua’ir, 47, 51, 106 Durand, David, 53 Durand, Djoard, 149 Durand family, 134 Egypt, 38 El Kala (La Calle), Algeria, 51, 56 Elliott, Roger, 39, 41, 42 export permits (tiskeras), 21, 83–93, 98, 103, 104, 133 fabric, 30, 43, 54–55, 57, 75 Falcon, Mr., 119 fanādiq, 29 Fez, Morocco, 47 Figuig, Morocco, 7 France: Algeria conquered by, 3, 4, 5, 9, 11, 14, 18, 22, 35, 53, 55, 61, 71–81, 83, 85–87, 90, 95, 96–97, 98, 114, 118, 120, 125, 144, 154; Algerian Jews granted citizenship by, 10, 14, 129, 140, 152; ­Algeria vs., 43; civilizing mission of, 1–2, 6, 11, 15, 20, 23, 129, 137, 139, 143, 144, 155; consistories in, 1; Jews disdained in, 4–5, 8; local expertise exploited by, 9, 22, 72–73, 115, 119–20, 130, 155; Oran conquered by, 14, 21, 28, 55, 61, 72–94; Oran’s trade with, 28, 55–56 French Revolution, 140

196 Index

Gabisson, Joseph, 136 Genoa, 14, 29, 54 Germany, 132 Gershom ben Yehudah, 154 Ghana, 28 Gharaba, 47 Gibraltar, 14, 16, 43, 77, 95, 108, 140; British acquisition of, 36, 39–41, 91; British trade with, 67–68; exports to, 9, 10, 17, 53, 57, 58–59, 71, 75, 80, 86, 91, 97, 98, 101; Jews in, 12, 40–42, 52, 53–54, 57, 66, 75, 76, 79, 104, 153; migration to Oran from, 21, 48, 149; Moroccan influence in, 50– 51; Oran’s trade with, 20, 38, 39, 53, 55, 57, 59, 60, 78, 80, 87, 103, 111, 155; Oran’s proximity to, 9, 13, 26, 38, 79; regulating trade with, 75–76, 88, 89; supplies needed in, 17, 18, 40, 41, 45, 54, 71, 86, 91 grain, 13, 14, 30, 43, 44, 83, 90, 101; barley, 33, 54, 55, 57, 58; French limits on exporting, 86, 89, 97, 98; government stores of, 50, 51, 73–74; Oran traffic in, 9, 10, 30, 35, 54, 71, 75, 91; wheat, 27, 29, 35, 42 Granada, 31 Great Britain: Algiers bombarded by, 38, 50; after French conquest of Oran, 77–78; Gibraltar acquired by, 36, 39–41, 91; Jewish merchants protected by, 5, 6, 10, 51, 67, 73; Jewish population of, 40–41; Mediterranean influence of, 38–39, 51, 76; Morocco linked to, 17, 41; piracy against, 37 Great Siege of Gibraltar (1779–1783), 17 gunpowder, 53, 62, 79 Hantabat, Don Harnaldo, 35–36 Hassan, Abraham, 137 Hassan, bey of Oran, 42, 71, 73–78, 79, 80, 82, 92, 100, 101, 134; Amar confronted by, 105; houses sold by, 95–96; tiskeras sold by, 83–84, 87, 88–89, 98, 103 hides, 17, 21, 30, 35, 45, 55, 56, 58, 71, 86

Huja, H., 43 Huja, ‘Utman, 43 Husayn, dey of Algiers, 76–77, 81, 92, 122 Husayn II ibn Mahmud, al- (Husayn Basha Bey; Bey Husayn of Tunis), 72, 81–82, 116 Ibn ‘Aruj (Barbarossa), 31 ibn Hawqal, Muḥammad Abū’l-Qāsim, 27 ibn Tashfin, Ibrahim, 28 al-Idrisi, Muhammad, 27 India, 38 Inquisition, 32 Ionian Islands, 38 Ismail, Mulay, 42 Israel, 7, 8 Istanbul, 26 Italy, 28, 37, 40, 132 Jacob, Ould, 48 Jaime I, king of Aragon, 29 Jaime II, king of Aragon, 29 janissaries, 38, 51, 63–64 jewelry, 43, 117–19 July Revolution (1830), 80–81 Junta des Abastos, 35 Kabilia, Algeria, 81 al-Kabir, Muhammad, 38, 39, 41, 44, 47, 51, 52 Kanoui, Abraham al-, 9, 19, 136, 149 Kanoui, Nedjma, 149 Kanoui, Shimon al-, 19, 138, 149 Kanoui family, 137 Karcenti, Faruz, 133–34 Karcenti, Yomtov, 133 Karoubi, Abraham, 136 Khayr al-Din, 72; as bey, 82, 95, 115; ­Cabessa’s killing and, 98, 99–100, removal from power of, 84, 90; tiskeras sold by, 83–84, 89, 92–93, 103 La Calle (El Kala), Algeria, 51, 56

Index 197

La Goulette, Tunisia, 32 Lamoricière, Christophe Louis Léon Juchault de, 128 Languedoc, 29, 35 Lasry, Dona, 18 Lasry, Eliahu, 15, 153 Lasry, Elie, 18 Lasry, Estelle (Esther) Louise, 18, 19, 113, 149, 152, 153 Lasry, Fadmossa, 18 Lasry, Faduena, 18 Lasry, Isaac, 16 Lasry, Jacob: Amar challenged by, 66–67, 102–4; British protection received by, 2, 5, 6, 14, 17, 19, 86, 89–90, 101; colonial role of, 9–10, 113–14, 115, 119, 147, 150; as consistory president, 1, 127, 128, 141, 142, 144–45, 150; death of, 151; deceptive practices imputed to, 133–34, 145–46; early years of, 12, 15–16; export business of, 21, 30, 80, 83–93, 101; French citizenship taken by, 2, 14, 19, 20, 142, 154; Gibraltarian passport granted to, 16–17, 19, 50, 86; money lent by, 2, 18, 114; as philanthropist, 6, 15, 16, 19, 20; as polygamist, 18, 153–54; public expenses borne by, 82, 136–37, 139, 147, 150; real estate investments of, 58, 132–36, 142; reputation of, 1–2, 19, 150; resourcefulness of, 9, 11, 18, 110–11, 115; synagogue founded by, 15, 16, 19–20, 113, 139–40, 143–47, 154; on Tlemchen expedition, 22, 52, 115–20; Yusuf ’s deal with, 120–28 Lasry, Meriem, 18 Lasry, Rachel, 18, 137 Lasry, Samuel, 20 Lasry, Sarah, 18 Levy Bram family, 51 Livorno, Italy, 5, 28, 52, 54, 98 Louis-Philippe, king of France, 81, 92, 136 Mahmud ibn Muhammad, bey of Tunisia, 116

Majorca, 28–29, 31 Málaga, Spain, 51, 52 Malta, 38, 39, 132 Marinids, 28 Marqués de los Vélez, 32 Marseilles, 29, 54, 56 Mascara, Algeria, 7, 21, 36, 44, 51, 67, 73–74, 76, 115–16; migration to Oran from, 47, 48 Mazary, khālifah of Mostaganem, 119 Médéa, Algeria, 21, 47, 78 Methuen, John, 39 Milianah, Algeria, 21, 47 Minorca, 38, 39–40, 54 Moatti, Moise, 75, 78 Morocco, 6, 21, 36–37, 44; British trade pursued by, 17, 39, 50; business practices in, 85; Christian mercenaries in, 28; Gibraltar’s proximity to, 40, 41; migration to Oran from, 47, 48; Oran linked to, 50–51; Tangier occupied by, 38 Mostaganem, Algeria, 7, 32, 44, 48, 51, 67, 73, 141, 142 Muhammad, Sidi, 38 Mulud, Muhammad, 43 muqaddem (chief of the Jewish nation), 52–53, 61, 67–68, 97, 102–3 Muslims, 4, 9, 10, 15, 28, 154; in Algiers, 43–44, 58; in Gibraltar, 41, 42; Jewish cooperation with, 3, 8, 58–60, 68, 88–89, 120, 136; Jews vs., 23; migration to Oran by, 21, 33, 47, 48, 56, 58, 66, 71, 131; persecution of, 30, 91, 106; in Tlemcen, 31–32 Nahon, Emmanuel Menahem, 136, 137, 141 Napoleon I, emperor of the French, 1, 81, 98 Napoleon III, emperor of the French, 26 Napoleonic Wars, 38 Navarro, Pedro de, 31 Nedroma, Algeria, 7, 48 Netherlands, 37, 39, 40, 50

198 Index

Netto, Isaac, 41–42 Oran: architecture in, 13; artillery in, 44; as capital, 26, 47, 48, 51, 64, 71, 73; in chaos, 73–83; climate of, 14; “commerce juif ” in, 56–61; as commercial hub, 9, 10, 21, 25, 30, 44–45, 54–61, 71, 75–76; decline of, 31–33, 36; earthquake in, 14, 36, 45, 71; fanādiq in, 29–30; founding of, 25; French conquest of, 14, 21, 28, 55, 61, 72–94; Gibraltarian merchants in, 6; Gibraltar’s proximity to, 9, 13, 26, 38, 79; growth of 3, 18, 27, 47–48; Iberian Peninsula linked to, 20, 21, 26–27, 47; Jewish disappearance from, 23; Jewish diversity in, 5–7, 49–50, 66, 155; Jewish internecine rivalries in, 22, 23, 95–97, 105, 106; Jewish migration to, 30–31; Jewish power and precariousness in, 61–66; Ottoman conquest of, 2, 4, 9, 12, 21, 31–33, 36–37, 38, 47, 56, 58, 71, 73–74; during Roman era, 26; Spanish control of, 13, 25–26, 31, 33, 34, 35, 73 O’Reilly, Alejandro, 36 Ottoman Empire, 3, 28; Algiers controlled by, 12; Oran conquered by, 2, 4, 9, 12, 21, 31–33, 36–37, 38, 47, 56, 58, 71, 73–74; Tlemcen controlled by, 29, 32 Oudja, Morocco, 7, 47 Paine, Thomas, 38 Palma de Majorca, 28 Pedro I, king of Castile and León, 90 Pellissier de Reynaud, Edmond, 75, 117, 145 Peninsular War (1808–1814), 97 Perrier, Casimir, 92 Philip V, king of Spain, 39 Pichon, Louis-André, 92 Piedmont, 54 piracy, 29, 30 Pisa, 28, 29 plague, 33

Plague, The (Camus), 25 Poinchevalle, François Melchior, 118 Polignac, Jules Auguste Armand Marie, prince de, 78 polygamy, 18, 152, 154 Portugal, 38, 42–43, 132 Pujol, Captain, 131 Pyrenees, 26–27 Rabat, Morocco, 16, 48 al-Rakid, Muhammad, 62 Rapatel, Paul Marie, 118–19 Ras al-‘Ayin, 13–14, 27, 35, 133 Reade, Thomas, 90, 92–93 Reconquista, 28, 31 Reha al-Rih, 48 Rights of Man (Paine), 38 Rovigo, René de, 75–76, 78, 79, 89, 91–92, 106, 107–8, 111 Russia, 36 Sabiyyar, ‘Abd al-Rahman, 43 Sahara, 73 St. John, Robert William, 43, 75, 90, 95, 104, 106; Boyer viewed by, 91; Cabessa’s killing and, 100; French accusations against, 78–79; Welsford of concern to, 87–88, 96, 102 Salé, Morocco, 16 Sardinia, 48, 54 Sarfati, Solomon, 9, 11, 137, 140–41, 142–43, 147 Savoy, House of, 54 Sebbah, Judah, 9, 77, 78, 96, 104–9, 110–11, 141 Senanes, Abraham, 134 Sephardim, 51, 144, 146 Sha’ar HaShamayim (Bevis Marks) synagogue, 20 shipwrecks, 29, 30 Sicilies (Kingdom of the Two), 92–93 Sidi Sha’aban, Algeria, 48 sipahis, 22

Index 199

slavery, 9, 30, 35, 37–38, 74 soap, 30, 35, 44 Solomon, Isaac Cohen, 75 Spain, 40; Britain vs., 17, 39, 71; censales in, 62; Gibraltar besieged by, 41–42; migration to Oran from, 28, 31, 33, 132; Oran abandoned by, 36; Oran linked to, 25, 26–27, 35, 36, 44, 45, 47, 51, 52, 53, 155; religious persecution in, 30; Tlemcen linked to, 31–32 Spanish-Moroccan War (1859–1860), 141 Stuart de Rothesay, Charles Stuart, Sir, baron, 78 sugar, 57, 75 Sweden, 37, 48 Synagogue Lasry (Beit ha-Knesset Européen Lasry), 19, 20, 143–44 Tafilalet, Morocco, 7 Tangiers, 38, 39, 74 Teboul, Messaoud, 133 Temim family, 51 Ténès, 29 Tétouan, Morocco, 14, 15–16, 19, 20, 40, 48, 60, 141, 144, 153–54 textiles, 30, 43, 54–55, 57, 75 Thomas, W. H., 67–68, 75 tiskeras (export permits), 21, 83–93, 98, 103, 104, 133 Titteri, Algeria, 80 Tlemcen, Algeria, 16, 18, 22, 50, 51, 73, 114, 115–20, 145; arms production in, 44; fanādiq in, 29–30; migration to Oran from, 7, 21, 47, 48; Oran as tributary of, 25, 26, 27, 28; as Spanish tributary, 31, 32; as Zayyanid capital, 28, 29 Toulon, France, 38

Treaty of Utrecht (1713), 41, 42, 54 Trézel, Camille Alphonse, 74, 125 tribute, 53, 57, 101, 121, 124; from Oran, 51, 64, 73, 77, 82; from Spain, 36 Tripoli, 39 Tunis, 28, 32, 39, 62, 73, 84 Urbain, Ismayl, 26 Valencia, 29 Valenciano, Muhammad, 91, 98, 106, 107 Vallejo, Don Joseph, 33, 35, 47 Venice, 28, 29, 30, 32 Villards, Mr., 123 Wali, Bin, 43 War of the Spanish Succession, 39, 42 Welsford, James, 83, 86–93, 96, 111 Welsford, Nathaniel, 17, 75, 86, 103, 104, 105, 107, 108, 111; Boyer vs., 84, 109; ­Cabessa’s killing and, 98, 99, 100; ethical cloud over, 87–88, 95–96, 102 wheat, 27, 29, 42 Ximénes de Cisneros, Francisco, 31 Yusuf (general), 18, 22, 114, 116–17, 129, 130, 140, 144, 147; Lasry’s deal with, 120–28 Zaken, Preciada, 15, 153 Zayyanids, 28, 29, 32 Zermaty, Joseph, 84 Zionism, 8 Z’māla, 47, 51, 106 Zuawawa, Ben, 31

STANFORD STUDIES IN JEW ISH HISTORY AND CULTURE Edited by David Biale and Sarah Abrevaya Stein This series features novel approaches to examining the Jewish past in the form of innovative work that brings the field into productive dialogue with the newest scholarly concepts and methods. Open to a range of disiplinary and interdisciplinary approaches from history to cultural studies, this series publishes exceptional scholarship balanced by an accessible tone that illustrates histories of difference and addresses issues of current urgency. Books in this list push the boundaries of Jewish Studies and speak compellingly to a wide audience of scholars and students. Alan Mintz, Ancestral Tales: Reading the Buczacz Stories of S. Y. Agnon 2017 Ellie R. Schainker, Confessions of the Shtetl: Converts from Judaism in Imperial Russia, 1817–1906 2016 Devin E. Naar, Jewish Salonica: Between the Ottoman Empire and Modern Greece 2016 Naomi Seidman, The Marriage Plot: Or, How Jews Fell in Love with Love, and with Literature 2016 Ivan Jablonka, A History of the Grandparents I Never Had 2016 For a complete listing of titles in this series, visit the Stanford University Press website, www.sup.org.