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Classical Sociology

Tocqueville on the conquest and colonization of Algeria

John W. P. Veugelers
Journal of Classical Sociology 2010 10: 339
DOI: 10.1177/1468795X10379676

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Article

Journal of Classical Sociology

Tocqueville on the conquest 10(4) 339–355

© The Author(s) 2010
Reprints and permission:
and colonization of  Algeria sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1468795X10379676
http://jcs.sagepub.com

John W. P.   Veugelers
University of Toronto, Canada

Abstract
During the 1830s and 1840s the future of France’s new colony in Algeria became Tocqueville’s chief
preoccupation in politics.  At first confident that settlers from Europe would mix with the natives
of Algeria, eventually he lost his belief in an integrated colonial society. Y
  et he never abandoned his
opinion that France must consolidate its hold over Algeria for reasons of strategy and international
reputation. He deplored the pre-eminence of military men over the political affairs of the young
colony but accepted and even praised their manner of waging war against the Algerian people.
Nostalgia motivated Tocqueville’s enthusiasm for empire, but contemporary influences shaped
his views on the policies his country should adopt for the conquest and colonization of  Algeria.

Keywords
Algeria, colonialism, history of ideas, imperialism, liberalism, Tocqueville

Tocqueville the liberal?

So captivating is the image of Tocqueville the liberal that even a historian of ideas of the
stature of Isaiah Berlin claims the French thinker displayed a consistent ‘opposition to
paternalism and colonialism, every form of rule by outsiders no matter how benevolent’
(Berlin, 1965: 204). This is inaccurate and somewhat misleading. Despite some adjust-
ments in his thinking during the 1830s and 1840s, Tocqueville’s support for the conquest
and colonization of Algeria was as unyielding as the liberalism for which he is better
known.
Clearly, much of his writing suggests otherwise. Democracy in America deplores the
conquest of America:

The Spaniards, by unparalleled atrocities which brand them with indelible shame, did not
succeed in exterminating the Indian race and could not even prevent them from sharing their
rights; the United States Americans have attained both these results with wonderful ease,
quietly, legally, and philanthropically, without spilling blood and without violating a single one

Corresponding author:
John W.P.Veugelers, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, 725 Spadina Avenue, Toronto, Ontario,
Canada M5S 2J4
Email: jack.veugelers@utoronto.ca

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340 Journal of Classical Sociology 10(4)

of the great principles of morality in the eyes of the world. It is impossible to destroy men with
more respect to the laws of humanity.
(Tocqueville, 1969 [1835–1840]: 339)

Tocqueville disliked An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races (1853) by Arthur de
Gobineau. Writing to Gobineau shortly after this work was published, Tocqueville rejects
the thesis that miscegenation weakens civilization. Humanity, which is not composed of
pure races, gains nothing useful from his friend’s book: ‘Can you not see that your
doctrine naturally gives rise to all the evils bred by permanent inequality: arrogance,
violence, contempt toward others who are like oneself, tyranny, and wretchedness of
all kinds’ (Tocqueville, 2003c [1853]: 1093)?1 Analysing the Sepoy Rebellion, likewise,
Tocqueville warns his British correspondent: ‘… foreign settlers injure, or seem to injure
in a thousand ways the private interests that are precious to all mankind. … I don’t doubt
that in Algeria the Arabs and the Kabyles are more irritated by the presence of our settlers
than by our soldiers’ (quoted in Brogan, 2006: 610–611).
Coupled with his opposition to slavery, such passages suggest respect for the liberty and
rights of non-Europeans. Despite pioneering work by Richter (1963), recognition of the
place of imperialism in Tocqueville’s thought thus has come slowly. A sceptic might coun-
ter that how Tocqueville viewed imperialism matters little because not sufficiently differ-
ent or significant to warrant change in the interpretation of his principal ideas. However,
Tocqueville paid attention to Algeria in a manner that was detailed, engaged and sustained:
‘… faced with a choice of subject to which to devote himself in the decade after he com-
pleted his Democracy, Tocqueville devoted most of his time to studying Algeria rather than
the Antilles, turning toward colonization rather than emancipation’ (Drescher, 1968: 192).
His interest grew as France conquered Algiers and other towns on the coast of North
Africa, and eventually the Chamber of Deputies considered him an expert on the Algerian
question. Tocqueville presented his views on Algeria as moderate by comparison with
other alternatives.2 In 1833 Xavier de Sade told deputies that expansion beyond Algiers
would weaken France, while the spokesman for the military budget (Hippolyte Passy)
declared the occupation of Algeria a waste of funds. Eight years later, Théobald Piscatory
stated: ‘Africa ruins us during peacetime and weakens us during war. Africa is a disaster, it
is madness and if no end is in sight I am unequivocally in favour of withdrawing’ (Boulbina,
2003: 21). Other deputies, such as La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, believed France would
benefit by colonizing Algeria. Beyond the Chamber of Deputies, left-wing utopians
influenced by Fourier and Saint-Simon spoke of founding cooperative settlements
(phalanstères) in the new colony. Responding in 1846 to revelations of military brutality,
deputies such as Amédée Desjobert and Alphonse de Lamartine again called for with-
drawal. Others – such as Abraham Dubois and François Guizot (the Minister of Foreign
Affairs) – countered that France must accept means both necessary and unpleasant
(Le Cour Grandmaison, 2005: 97–100). Tocqueville’s unusual rejection of militarism and
anti-imperialism alike furthered his political isolation and irrelevance (Drescher, 1964: 3).

Tocqueville the nostalgic aristocrat?

The liberalism of Tocqueville appears strained even with his imperialism set aside.
Certainly he defends ‘such liberal principles as representative government, freedom of

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Veugelers 341

press and speech, freedom of association, the right to private property, equality under the
law, equality of opportunity, and so forth’ (Boesche, 1981: 495). Yet, he does not hide his
disdain for the cupidity of the bourgeoisie, a class whose rise he associated with social
fragmentation, individual powerlessness and mediocre ambition. Mixed with the liberal-
ism of Tocqueville are concerns and solutions befitting either a conservative or a repub-
lican, as the case may be (Boesche, 1981).
To explain such inconsistencies, Wolin advances the concept of ancienneté (the
archaic):

Caught between change and loss – loss of faith, of social status, and aristocratic privilege –
Tocqueville was forced to deal with a world being shaped by those who, literally, were making
a business of change and bore the responsibility for having destroyed much that he cared about.
He would not only try to fathom the meaning of the diverse phenomena that would go by the
name of modernity but he would also reflect on what had gone from, or was going out of, the
world he knew and valued.
(Wolin, 2001: 6–7)

Tocqueville made the best of democracy, but his values came from the Old Regime.
Looking at America, the institutions that impress him recall those that preserved the
autonomy of the French nobility before absolutism. A requiem for the passing of honour,
privilege and deference, the Recollections displays the prejudice of his social class
toward those who lack distinction. The Old Regime and the French Revolution asserts the
pre-Revolutionary nobility ‘was a great evil which nonetheless limited a still greater one’
(quoted in Wolin, 2001: 548). Stranded between a dying aristocratic heritage and a world
becoming egalitarian and over-administered, Tocqueville invested the past with mythical
poignancy (Wolin, 2001: 512–513).
Critics counter that Tocqueville was not as backward-looking as argued by Wolin
(see Kloppenberg, 2006; Mélonio, 2003).3 However, such criticism rests primarily on
an assessment of how Tocqueville viewed the relations within societies.4 This covers
much ground, certainly, but excludes the relations between societies. Significantly, Wolin
(2001: 491) asserts that ancienneté is most at home in the political sphere where demo-
cratic participation is weakest: foreign policy. Further, Tocqueville (1969 [1835–1840]:
230) claims foreign policy under democracy falls prey to momentary and ill-considered
passions: ‘from the Romans down to the English’, aristocracy has proven itself superior
to democracy in ‘conceiving, following up, and carrying to completion great designs’.
Did nostalgia shape Tocqueville’s vision of France’s place in the world and its policies
outside Europe?

Interpreting Tocqueville on Algeria

Soon after Tocqueville’s texts on Algeria were republished in 1962 they were exam-
ined by Melvin Richter, who claims the Frenchman saw imperialism as a great under-
taking capable of steering Europeans away from materialism and individualism.
Tocqueville thought empire conferred honour and nothing did more for England’s
reputation than the conquest of India. Here concerned with problems of statecraft
above all, Tocqueville believed his country could dispense with scruples in advancing

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342 Journal of Classical Sociology 10(4)

its interests, exploiting the weaknesses of the Algerians and using foreign conquest as
a remedy for domestic problems. Shaping these views, suggests Richter, was his refusal
to accept the limits imposed on France by the Congress of Vienna. Tocqueville also
doubted the Orleanist dynasty could win the devotion of the French if it neglected
national pride (Richter, 1963: 365–388).
In a clear endorsement of ancienneté, Benoît (2005) argues instead for the importance
of Tocqueville’s great-grandfather, Malesherbes, a man of legal principle who opposed
the excesses of absolutism under the Old Regime and served as counsel for the defence
of Louis XVI in 1792–1793 before following his king to the guillotine:

Tocqueville very simply is – and desires to be – nothing but the descendent and heir in spirit
of Malesherbes, an aristocrat born of the high noblesse de robe, the parliamentary nobility that
defended the liberties conferred by power and intermediary powers, a friend of the philosophes,
a defender of the universalism of the Enlightenment and a determined opponent of despotism
as well as the Terror.
(Benoît, 2005: 15)5

Also emphasizing ancestry is Jardin (1984), for whom the main influences were not just
pre-Restoration (as Richter holds) but pre-Revolutionary. Tocqueville was particularly
worried about Great Britain. Unlike many of his compatriots, he thought the key
breakthrough for France’s rival came not with the Battle of Waterloo but the Treaty of
Paris. The new strategic role of the Mediterranean Sea (the quickest route between Great
Britain and India, while bases at Gibraltar and Malta backed British influence in southern
Europe and the Middle East) gave substance to his concern; he also feared the British
might cut communication between France and Algeria (Jardin, 1991b: 1560–1561). In
addition, Jardin (1984: 130–143) describes how Tocqueville’s 1831 visit to Canada
brought out his pride in the French, nostalgia for the mores of the Old Regime and resent-
ment against Britain for taking New France.
Likewise adopting a longer view of historical influences, Boulbina (2003) writes that
territorial expansion by Austria and Russia did not provide Tocqueville with models
for colonization. Instead the great influence was Vauban, the military engineer of Louis
XIV, who in 1699 wrote a memorandum on how France should colonize North America
(transform the military colony into a settler society by giving land to soldiers once their
military service ended). Boulbina further claims Tocqueville treated the connection
between Europe and civilization as conditional; indeed, the French had brought North
Africans closer to barbarism. Tocqueville’s conception of the grandeur and power of
France before 1789 thus was more pertinent than the idea of the civilizing mission
(Boulbina, 2003: 31–41).
A shallower conception of history informs Todorov (1993), who favours formal expli-
cation in arguing that Tocqueville values both liberty and French interests. In domestic
affairs, this entails liberalism; in international affairs, the absence of rule or authority
justifies Machtpolitik. Like individuals, states have the right to ‘profit from their own
abilities and strength’ (Todorov, 1993: 210). Individuals are subject to laws, however,
whereas the state acts in a space not policed. Actions in international affairs therefore

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Veugelers 343

depend on interests and capacities alone. Faithful to these premises, Tocqueville turns
the rights of the conquered people of North Africa into a matter of moral indifference
(Todorov, 1993: 194–207).
Also avoiding history – but arguing against Todorov – Welch (2003) holds that
Tocqueville was an inconsistent liberal with a bad conscience. This led to evasions and
silences in his thinking. As a liberal, ‘respect for property and contracts and the general
ability to limit one’s action through civilized restraints … lay at the heart of his concep-
tion of an ordered human existence’ (Welch, 2003: 245). But in North Africa the French
broke their promises, violated property rights and waged brutal warfare. Tocqueville
dodged these contradictions to protect his faith in empire. Apart from his hopes for
France and his belief that withdrawal from North Africa would create an opportunity for
others, visiting America had convinced him that nothing could stop Europeans from
using their technical superiority to subdue other peoples (Welch, 2003: 245–251).
Attending to politics under the July Monarchy, Hereth (1986) argues that Tocqueville
did not criticize the conquest of Algeria because French interests were at stake. When
other peoples and governments were involved (for example, the ‘oppression’ and ‘hor-
rible condition of society’ he witnessed in British-ruled Ireland), Tocqueville’s judge-
ment was surer. With Algeria, the politician in Tocqueville willingly sacrificed reason
and scruple to mobilize the passions of his compatriots (Hereth, 1986: 158–165).
For Le Cour Grandmaison (2005), similarly, a long historical perspective is not
needed. Motivating the rejection of jus belli in Tocqueville’s approach to Algeria was an
attitude common among the French: an invidious distinction between peoples. Although
Tocqueville did not consider the Arabs as barbarians or savages, he thought them ‘badly
civilized’, and, like other lower civilizations, fated to be conquered by Europeans. He
denounced the extermination of the native peoples of North America, yet their example
also held lessons on how to wrest territory from the Algerians (by exploiting their
desire for traded goods and organizing the settlers into militias; Le Cour Grandmaison,
2005: 85–112).
Finally, Pitts (2000) invokes Bonapartism and the July Monarchy in arguing that
Tocqueville embraced empire as a solution to French domestic problems. His motiva-
tion was the same as in Democracy in America: France’s need to ‘build a stable national
community in an increasingly democratic age’ (Pitts, 2000: 297). This marks a key
transition in the history of liberal thought, for with Tocqueville (as well as John Stuart
Mill) liberalism becomes nationalistic and exclusionary (Pitts, 2000: 307–316).
The foregoing interpretations adopt three historical perspectives:

1. Benoît (2005), Boulbina (2003) and Jardin (1984, 1991b) are consistent with
Wolin (2001): to explain Tocqueville they invoke comparisons with the Old
Regime.
2. Avoiding a long view of history, Todorov (1993) and Welch (2003) favour logical
or textual explanation.
3. Between these two perspectives, Hereth (1986), Le Cour Grandmaison (2005),
Pitts (2000) and Richter (1963) invoke influences between the 1790s and the
1840s.

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344 Journal of Classical Sociology 10(4)

Sorting between these three perspectives, this paper argues that ancienneté motivated
Tocqueville’s enthusiasm for conquest and colonization but his ideas about how to achieve
these ends were permeated by contemporary influences.

The conquest of Algeria and Tocqueville’s early political career

In thinking about Algeria, Tocqueville concerned himself with a region invaded by Arab
nomads during the seventh and eighth centuries. Conversion of the native Berbers gave
rise to a form of Islam based on brotherhoods and the spiritual leadership of hermits and
holy men. Conquest and domination under the Ottomans followed in the sixteenth
century. Unlike the Arabs, the Turks hardly overcame their isolation from the indigenous
population. While about five percent of the Regency’s population (which included
minorities of Jews, Moors of Andalusian descent and tribes of Arab-Turkish ancestry)
inhabited the cities, most Arabs and Berbers lived in the hinterland (Ageron, 1999: 3–6;
Stora, 2004: 7–11).
In 1816 the dey of Algiers let the French resume trade on the Algerian coast.
Following a diplomatic incident in 1827, however, the French king decided to win
glory while diverting his subjects from their grievances. After a naval blockade and
three-week land campaign, Algiers fell to the French expeditionary force in July
1830. When news of this victory reached Paris, Charles X moved to weaken his
opponents by introducing anti-liberal measures. Over 34,000 of his most loyal
troops were in Algeria, however, and Parisians reacted with riots, barricades and
three days of street fighting that left hundreds dead. Soon after, the king abdicated
and fled to Britain (Aldrich, 1996: 24–26; Cobban, 1961: 89–90; Pervillé, 1991:
35–36).
The future author of Democracy in America held political ambitions but came from a
family of legitimists (Bourbon loyalists), so his prospects dimmed when the throne
passed to Louis-Philippe.6 Travelling to North America in 1831–1832 let him bide his
time until the political climate improved (Leca, 1988: 40–52). In Michigan, then on the
frontier, he observed the relations between colonists and native Americans as well as
how the pioneers were clearing land, planting crops and lodging themselves (Tocqueville,
1957b [1831]). In Lower Canada (Quebec) he found ‘the most splendid offshoot of
the European family in the New World’ (Tocqueville, 1998 [1831]: 146). Losing New
France became for him one of the worst disgraces of the Old Regime. Thanks to the
‘shameful Treaty of 1763’, the fate of the Canadiens was set, for one day all of North
America would speak English. History would have taken another direction if the string
of French forts once crossing the continent had resisted: America would not have rebelled
against the British while France could have avoided its Revolution (Tocqueville, 1998
[1831]: 145–146).
In October 1833, travel again became an option when Tocqueville resigned from
the magistracy. Toying with the idea of joining the young legitimists who were migrating
to Algeria, he wondered if he might learn Arabic and apply in the new colony the tech-
niques of the pioneers in the United States. These plans came to nothing – instead he
finished Volume One of Democracy in America – but later that year he did write some
notes on French colonization (Jardin, 1991a: 1493–1494). The character of the French

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Veugelers 345

makes them unsuited to colonization, he fears. They prefer quiet domesticity and are
prone to passionate excesses when away from home. He also evokes a theme found in his
better-known writings: the ‘political habits and laws’ that result from a central govern-
ment with too much control mean the French run their colonies impractically and in ways
that discourage individual initiative (Tocqueville, 2001a [1833]). This was the first of a
series of writings on Algeria that eventually ran into hundreds of pages.
After the conquest of Algiers in 1830, the Orleanist government in Paris did little to
restrain its army in Algeria. Yet the leaders of the occupying force disagreed: Should the
occupation be extended until all tribes accepted French rule? As one general succeeded
another, the army wavered. Sometimes it sought peace through negotiation with the
native rebels, who were led by capable men, backed by religious fraternities and unified
by belief in holy war. The Algerians also enjoyed a tactical advantage, for their long-
barrelled muskets provided better range than weapons issued to French soldiers (Porch,
1986: 383). France did capture more towns on the coast, but in 1836 an attack in the
interior failed with 1,000 French troops killed. When General Bugeaud took command
of the army in Algeria in 1837, he therefore negotiated another treaty with the rebels
(Stora, 2004: 15–17).
Meanwhile, publication of Volume One of Democracy in America had won acclaim
for its author. Hoping literary renown would sweeten his political prospects, in 1837
Tocqueville sought election to the Chamber of Deputies. Contesting a seat near his
ancestral estate in rural Normandy, he wrote two open letters on the situation in Algeria.
During his 1831 visit to Quebec he had found ‘the Canadiens held many prejudices
against the English who lived in their midst, but they seemed sincerely attached to the
English government, which they saw as a disinterested arbiter placed between them-
selves and this English populace they dreaded’ (Tocqueville, 2003b [1838]: 56). Now,
his first letter on Algeria asserts that three centuries after the Ottoman conquest the Turks
had remained foreigners who did not provide good government (Tocqueville, 2001b
[1837]). The opposite is assumed in his second letter, which claims the French made a
mistake after taking Algiers. Instead of retaining the boundaries, personnel, traditions
and practices of the Turks, they tried to impose their own ways. As a result the conquered
people now lack sound government. The Turkish administration had a detestable side,
but at least it maintained order: peace between tribes, punishment for theft and upkeep of
roadways. Since the departure of the Turks, anarchy has prevailed (Tocqueville, 2003a
[1837]).
Tocqueville promises his readers that ‘with time, perseverance, skill and justice, there
is no reason why we cannot raise on the coast of Africa a great monument to the glory
of our country’ (Tocqueville, 2003a [1837]: 57). Once France offers security, physical
well-being and good government, the Kabyles will shun war out of ‘the almost invincible
attraction that attracts savages to civilized man from the moment when they no longer
fear for their liberty’ (Tocqueville, 2003a [1837]: 52). Realizing they enjoy equal status
in law and trade, the Kabyles will submit.
Matters are different with the Arabs. Although the Turks never penetrated the hin-
terland, they shared the creed of its people. Thus, they could exclude from politics
the religious elites of the Arabs. Moreover, the French invasion unleashed anarchy,
rebellion and inter-tribal friction. It even provoked the son of a marabout (holy man),

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346 Journal of Classical Sociology 10(4)

Abd el-Khader, who had rallied the Arabs in a war of resistance. To end anarchy the
French must provide able government, but not of a type that would unite the Arabs
into a single, potentially rebellious entity (Tocqueville, 2003a [1837]).
Looking ahead, Tocqueville says the French will win assent:

… due to the simple fact of the superiority of its knowledge, a people as powerful and civilized
as our own will exercise an almost invincible influence over peoples that are small and nearly
barbarian; for these peoples to become incorporated into our own, we need only establish
durable relations with them.
(Tocqueville, 2003a [1837]: 54)

He foresees an Algeria with French law, language and government where Islam has
been tamed by material interests. His second letter of 1837 concludes it is feasible ‘to
amalgamate the two races’ of French and Arab (Tocqueville, 2003a [1837]: 56–60).

The consolidation of French rule and Tocqueville as

parliamentarian
Tocqueville failed in his first bid to enter the Chamber of Deputies but succeeded two
years later. Meanwhile, the French were finding that holding only a few towns on the
Algerian coast did not give them a foothold. Unable to consolidate their position
through military campaigns, agreements with tribal leaders or secret negotiations with
the Ottomans, they faced a choice between withdrawal and expansion. Pressed by the
jihad of Abd el-Khader, Paris decided to apply more force (Pervillé, 1991: 36).
It sent General Bugeaud, who had previously opposed the occupation of Algeria: ‘…
a burdensome possession the nation could do without easily if it had enough honesty
and backbone to stand up to a small clique of loudmouths in the press’ (quoted in Ageron,
1999: 14). Bugeaud now concluded that the French were repeating the mistakes they had
made in the Peninsular War against the Spanish. He switched his army to methods later
lauded by Tocqueville. Instead of defending fixed positions or venturing forth in large,
slow-moving columns of men, horses, supplies and equipment, Bugeaud sent out
mobile columns that scoured the countryside and brought the fight to the Algerians. To
starve the enemy, demoralize its supporters and reduce the weight of their own supplies,
the French looted or destroyed crops, herds, orchards, granaries and even whole villages.
By 1845, reports of atrocities that left hundreds of Arab civilians dead reached Paris.
Although some French were outraged, Bugeaud stayed on as governor-general of Algeria
until 1847. By then many of the insurgents loyal to Abd el-Khader and other rebel leaders
had surrendered (Aldrich, 1996: 26–27; Pervillé, 1991: 36; Porch, 1986).
Adopting a practice he used when studying the United States, Tocqueville tried to
fathom Algerian society by way of its religion: he read the Qur’an. He also found another
use for his comparative approach. France could only gain by contrasting its methods
with those that had proven themselves in India, where the British had achieved ‘greatness’
(la grandeur). Tocqueville scrutinized the reports of government officials in North
Africa. Curious about how they applied executive orders, he was appalled by their disre-
gard for settlers’ rights (Boulbina, 2003: 13–14; Jardin, 1991a: 1495).

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Veugelers 347

When Tocqueville finally visited Algeria in 1841 he thus was wary of its administrators.
Illness cut his trip short after four weeks, but he did speak with a bishop, settlers, military
men (including Bugeaud) and civil servants in six towns. Astonished and disoriented at
first, he found his bearings in what seemed familiar: the bustle and mixing of peoples in
Algiers reminded him of ‘Cincinnati transposed to the soil of Africa’; the fertile vegeta-
tion outside Algiers made him think of ‘Sicily if it had the industriousness of France’; the
green vastness of the Mitidja plain evoked Alsace (Tocqueville, 1991a [1841]: 659–660).
Some of his travel notes confirm past beliefs. Civilian colonization and extensive cul-
tivation of this land are feasible, but the crudeness and violence of military officers – as
well as their hatred of settlers and administrators – render them unfit to govern. Other
notes mention discoveries. A Frenchman who served as a tribal caïd7 for one year told
him colonization would fan war with the Algerians. Thus it would be better for France to
rule through native intermediaries, as in Egypt (Tocqueville, 1991a [1841]: 681–687).
Upon returning to Normandy, Tocqueville reviewed his opinions in a long essay never
published during his lifetime. Now the success of Abd el-Khader was weakening the will
of his compatriots. Some balked at the financial burden of conquest; others saw conquest
as simply impossible. In his essay of 1841, Tocqueville admits victory will be costly and
difficult. Yet France is justified in making great sacrifices because its greatest interests
are at stake (Jardin, 1991a: 1495).
In Volume Two of Democracy in America, Tocqueville (1969 [1835–1840]: 647–648)
echoes Machiavelli’s idea that a republic risks falling under a dictator if it relies on
mercenaries instead of its own citizen army: in a democracy the wounded pride of the
military man makes him crave war or revolution (Benoît, 2005: 218–221). Similarly, in
his Essay on Algeria he writes:

It cannot be denied that an officer who has chosen Africa, and made it the scene of his action,
will also acquire there habits, ways of thinking and of acting that are very dangerous
everywhere, but especially in a free country. … God preserve us from the day when France
will be ruled by one of the officers from its army in Africa.
(Tocqueville, 1991b [1841]: 712–713)

Although unhappy that military men dominated civilians and administrators in the
new colony, Tocqueville praised their way of fighting. By breaking the native resis-
tance, Bugeaud had served France well. Nonetheless, Tocqueville warned, Bugeaud
‘has done nothing to bring about what everyone today realises as the great end that
France must set itself: the establishment of a European society in Africa’ (Tocqueville,
2001c [1841]: 112).
With geopolitics on his mind, he saw a chance for France to gain control of a crucial
sea-lane. Algiers, already a commercial port of some importance, should become a
major naval base. Another base should be established at Mers el-Kebir (located where
the Mediterranean tapers toward the Straight of Gibraltar, its harbour could shelter a
sizeable fleet while the hills nearby formed a barrier against land attack). Protecting
these valuable sites required the defeat of Abd el-Khader and his allies. If France did not
people this land with loyal settlers, another country would wrest it away, either alone or
with native help (Tocqueville, 1991b [1841]: 692–699).

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348 Journal of Classical Sociology 10(4)

Justifying imperialism was the rank of France in the world. Tocqueville claimed his
country ran the danger of becoming a second-rate power. Algeria was the best means of
holding onto influence in Europe. Further, France could not exit because other countries
would see a symbol of decline: ‘When a people readily lets go of what it has taken and
chooses to withdraw peacefully within its previous borders, it thereby announces that its
best days are past’ (Tocqueville, 1991b [1841]: 691). Significantly, visiting the colony
ended his hope of turning Algerians into Frenchmen. Now he writes that a fusion between
the Christian and Muslim peoples of Algeria is ‘a fantasy that only a person who has not
been there could dream up’ (Tocqueville, 1991b [1841]: 752). Unlike the colonies of
ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, copying the society from which the settlers had
originated would not be feasible. The Christians and Muslims who lived in Algeria were
fatally different and ever more isolated from one another. Hence, the colony would need
two law codes (Tocqueville, 1991b [1841]: 751–752).
Always curious about the British example, in 1843 Tocqueville drafted a study of
colonial India.8 His notes call the section on warfare ‘the most practical portion of the
entire work’ (Tocqueville, 1991c [1843]: 989). Impressed by the small number of British
colonizers relative to the large Indian population, he concludes the British played the
Indian princes off against each other, with those who prevailed fatally weakened by their
dependency on the colonizer. Unlike the French in Algeria, moreover, Britain controlled
its army in India by placing it under the authority of a civilian governor (Tocqueville,
1991c [1843]: 968–980). Indeed, the structure of government in the colony reflected that
of the metropole: ‘The centralization of power was not any more prevalent in India than
in England’ (Tocqueville, 1991c [1843]: 976). Playing on a theme more fully developed
in The Old Regime and the French Revolution, Tocqueville decides the lack of uniformity
and centralization in English habits of government helped them in India, where adminis-
trative systems are as numerous as provinces. The French would have ruined this system
by trying to unify it (Tocqueville, 1991d [1843]: 1051).9

European settlement in Algeria and Tocqueville the

parliamentary expert
In a speech before the Chamber of Deputies in 1846, Tocqueville called the ‘African
affair’ first among France’s interests in the world. Algeria was adrift, however. The army
fought well but its meddling in civil administration had created ‘a complication of petty
and miserable contradictory measures’ (Tocqueville, 2001d [1846]: 122). Paris lacked
basic information about its colony: how many settlers had migrated from Europe, what
they produced, which land was available and how it was allocated. France should strive
for a form of civilian colonization, but the mishandling of Algerian policy had led to
military colonization instead. Pointing to the British example, Tocqueville urged France
to adopt ‘the methods followed by all peoples who have done great things for their
colonies’ (Tocqueville, 2001d [1846]: 126). By gathering Algerian affairs under a special
ministry, France would devote proper attention to its foremost interest (Tocqueville,
2001d [1846]: 126–127).
Later that year Tocqueville returned to Algeria for a second and last visit. Staying
longer than he had five years earlier, again he picked the brains of settlers, officers and
administrators. Treating Algeria as a social, economic and political experiment, he was

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Veugelers 349

alert to practical problems: the advantages of different crops; the concentration of land
holdings; the development of a native proletariat of rural workers; the importance of
capital in the success of the wealthier settlers; and the methods by which the French were
appropriating land and distributing it among the settlers (Tocqueville, 1991e [1846]).
Now seen as an expert on Algerian affairs, in 1847 he wrote two reports on behalf of
a special parliamentary committee. These reports – which proved to be the last of his
published works on Algeria – reassert that France’s greatest interests are at stake in North
Africa (Tocqueville, 1991f [1847]: 848–849).10 The first report starts on a high note: ‘a
war conducted with skill and glory’ has nearly subdued the rebels, while the chiefs
and princes of North Africa are accepting French rule (Tocqueville, 1991f [1847]: 797).
The people of Algeria realize that France has a dominant position, so to withdraw now
would ‘sow astonishment and confusion in their minds, and fill them with notions that
are erroneous and dangerous’ (Tocqueville, 1991f [1847]: 814). With the French
unable to provide good government, however, the Algerians have become ‘much more
miserable, more disorganized, more ignorant and more barbarian than before we arrived’
(Tocqueville, 1991f [1847]: 813).
France should prohibit the disorderly seizure of native lands by Europeans. It should
avoid military campaigns into Kabylia and the desert. Tocqueville recommends the aboli-
tion of slavery in North Africa as well as colonial rule through a system of intermediaries
that would keep the Arab tribal aristocracy above the native population (Tocqueville,
1991f [1847]: 810). Consistent with his admiration for the township system of New
England in Democracy in America, he calls for local self-government in Algeria. Yet, he
also advises France to protect its interests in North Africa by placing limits on freedom of
the press (Tocqueville, 1991f [1847]: 845–847).
His second report deplores the miserable conditions of the settlers, adding that the
growth of prosperous villages seems doubtful owing to the meddling of administrators
(Tocqueville, 1991g [1847]: 883). France must make it possible for Europeans to live as
well in North Africa as in Europe. Algeria needs sound political institutions, civil and
political rights, and an unregulated economy that offers not only comfort but also a
chance to get rich (Tocqueville, 1991g [1847]: 900–901).
Tocqueville warns that Algeria resembles America before it threw off British rule: the
fees, taxes, duties, tariffs and other charges imposed by Paris weigh too heavily on the
new colony. To reduce costs, raise production and inject capital, the military in Algeria
should pay higher prices for local products while the Bank of France should offer cheap
loans to farmers (Tocqueville, 1991g [1847]: 901–903). France needs such policies
because ‘the peaceful settlement of a European population on the soil of Africa would be
the most effective means of there establishing and securing our rule’ (Tocqueville, 1991g
[1847]: 874).

Conclusion
Before judging Tocqueville by anachronistic standards, consider what Friedrich Engels
wrote in 1848:

… though the manner in which brutal soldiers, like Bugeaud, have carried on the war is highly
blamable, the conquest of Algeria is an important and fortunate fact for the progress of

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350 Journal of Classical Sociology 10(4)

civilization. … the modern bourgeois, with civilization, industry, order, and at least relative
enlightenment following him, is preferable to the feudal lord or to the marauding robber, with
the barbarian state of society to which they belong.
(Marx and Engels, 1975: 469)

Support for empire was not universal during Tocqueville’s day, but it spanned the
ideological spectrum and proved remarkably enduring (Girardet, 1972). When Fernand
Braudel’s posting at a lycée in Algiers ended in the early 1930s, he too defended the
French:

Next to our mistakes and errors, which it would be imprudent not to recognize, is our work of
civilization. … Fortune, which is a great force, led us into North Africa. There we accomplished
great things. In my opinion we can consider the past without remorse.
(Braudel, 1996 [1933]: 164)

An alternative – judging Tocqueville by his own standards – reveals several incon-

sistencies between his claims or assumptions about Algeria and other parts of his
thought:

  1. Democracy in America asserts that the spread of human equality is inexorable

(‘… it is universal and permanent, it is daily passing beyond human control’
(Tocqueville, 1969 [1835–1840]: 120)).
  2. Democracy in America, the Recollections and The Old Regime and the French
Revolution treat individual liberty as a supreme value to be protected in the face
of the historical trend toward equality.
  3. Democracy in America describes as ‘noble and virtuous’ George Washington’s
plea to treat the ‘Indian nations … with kindness and even generosity’ (Tocqueville,
1969 [1835–1840]: 334).
  4. Witnessing the degeneration of French culture under British rule in Canada,
Tocqueville laments that ‘the greatest and most irreparable calamity for a people
is to be conquered’ (1957a [1831]: 213).
  5. Tocqueville (1954 [1858]: 254–255) considers the estrangement between colonized
and British colonizer the fundamental cause of the Sepoy Rebellion.
  6. The Old Regime and the French Revolution argues that the feudal order in France
fell into decay once society became divided by a caste system seen as illegitimate
by those below (Tocqueville, 2004b [1856]: 121–143).
  7. After studying France, England and Ireland, Tocqueville concludes that political
stability suffers when a large peasant class lacking bonds of community with its
rulers is dispossessed of its lands (Drescher, 1964: 115–116).
  8. Looking at Britain, Tocqueville saw that empire could nurture worry and disagree-
ment in the metropole rather than inspiring and uniting its inhabitants (‘Ireland
was like a never ending nightmare, and no matter how one twisted and turned, a
solution seemed beyond reach’ (Drescher, 1964: 105)).
  9. Tocqueville expects the French occupation of North Africa will bring honour to
his country, yet Democracy in America argues the mixing of classes and the

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Veugelers 351

weakening of the nobility render a consensus over what constitutes an honourable

action almost impossible in France (Tocqueville, 1969 [1835-40]: 625).
10. War ‘almost automatically’ fosters two tendencies that Tocqueville (1969
[1835–1840]: 650) deplores, namely the centralization of political power and
the over-administration of society.

What are the implications for the thesis of ancienneté? Some contradictions derive
from comparisons made between Tocqueville’s own time and the Old Regime. Most
important among the conclusions from such a historical comparison was the view that
since the Treaty of Paris (1763) France had declined – in particular relative to Great
Britain – and that its status as a great power was shaky. This concern underwrote
Tocqueville’s opinion that Algeria presented France with its best opportunity of recovering
honour and influence abroad. Although the texts do not reveal when this opinion was born
or whether it weakened later in his life, certainly he held it from his entry into electoral
politics in 1837 until the end of the July Monarchy, when he served as rapporteur for the
parliamentary committee on Algeria.
The other set of enduring beliefs that seem grounded in comparisons with France
prior to 1789 involve his assessments of political centralization and the role of interme-
diaries between ruler and ruled. Rooted in his dislike of absolutism under the Old
Regime and his admiration for the nobility before its privileges became unmerited,
these assessments recur in Tocqueville’s respect for the British system of rule in India,
his criticism of French rule in Algeria and his recommendations for the political and
social organization of the new colony.
Tocqueville also made long-range historical comparisons when he drew upon what he
had learned from his visit to Quebec (as well, perhaps, as what anti-slavery politics
taught about Haiti). These informed his early (1833) affirmation that the French were
not suited to colonization. This provides evidence for the weakness of the archaic in
Tocqueville’s thinking, however, because after visiting Algeria in 1841 his position
changed and thereafter he urged his country to colonize.
Some have argued that Tocqueville supported empire not only out of a concern with
France’s international standing but also for domestic reasons: he saw Algeria as a grand
project that would steer his society away from petty ambition and civil privatism (Pitts,
2000: 308; Richter, 1963: 388). This implies another long-range comparison, for in
Democracy in America the meaning of individualism (‘… a calm and considered feeling
which disposes each citizen to isolate himself from the mass of his fellows and withdraw
into the circle of family and friends’) is embedded in contrasting images of aristocratic and
democratic societies (Tocqueville, 1969 [1835–1840]: 506). The claim that Tocqueville
believed his country’s domestic problems would improve thanks to Algeria is merely
plausible, however. It rests on inference (such as parallel statements, in his notes and
private correspondence, about empire and its benefits for the English) rather than any direct
evidence to be found in his writing and speeches on Algeria. Thus it is not so surprising
that Tocqueville ‘never described the mechanism through which the empire would draw
the whole population into collective political projects’ (Pitts, 2000: 312).
For the rest, his views on Algeria seem rooted in considerations more immediate than
archaic. From his visit to the United States, Tocqueville learned about the techniques of

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352 Journal of Classical Sociology 10(4)

the pioneers, the economy of a settler society, the role of local self-government and
the military superiority of European civilization. Witnessing the loyalty to their British
masters of the French Canadians in Quebec, he inferred that imperial rule must bring
good government. Comparing reports from French officials in Algeria with what he
learned about British rule in India led him to conclude that the North African colony
required more administrative autonomy (both from Paris and from ministries with other
commitments) and a separation of military from civilian authority. Apart from convinc-
ing him of the need for naval ports at Algiers and Mers-el-Kebir, visiting Algeria strength-
ened his belief in the strategic importance of European settlement and the practical
impossibility of integrating the settler society with that of the colonized.
A review of Tocqueville’s thinking about Algeria thus provides qualified support for
the ancienneté thesis. Worries rooted in a sour assessment of France’s changing place
in the world motivated his commitment to empire. A long historical perspective also
motivated his belief that administrative decentralization would encourage colonization.
Beyond his commitment to empire, however, much of what he claimed should be done
by France was rooted in contemporary influences. Thus, the lack of integration between
Tocqueville’s views on Algeria and the rest of his thought is sometimes rooted in com-
parisons with the Old Regime, other times not.
Rather than necessarily giving rise to obvious tensions in his thought, ideas grounded
in Tocqueville’s time could serve beliefs embedded in comparisons of France before and
after 1789. Ancienneté called for empire; what Tocqueville learned from the British
example, the reports of French colonial officials and his visits to Algeria, Canada and the
United States showed him how to make empire possible. These ideas he made his own,
even at the cost of underlying inconsistencies within his thought as a whole.

Notes
Thank you to Daniel Silver and the anonymous reviewers of this journal for their comments
and suggestions. This paper was written during a visiting research fellowship at the Camargo
Foundation (France).

  1. On Tocqueville and Gobineau, see Stokes (1990).

  2. Other times he sought to persuade by setting his own opinion and French withdrawal from North
Africa in ‘an exaggerated dichotomy’ (Welch, 2003: 244–253). On style and argumentation
in Tocqueville (including his use of irony, rhetoric, metaphor and moral indignation), see Ali-
Khodja (2006); Janara (2001, 2004); Jaume (2008); Welch (2003); Wolin (2001).
  3. These critics tend to underemphasize the idea that, estranged as he was, Tocqueville did not
reject post-Revolutionary society (as the Romantic conservatives did) but instead tried to
mediate between aristocratic fears and bourgeois politics (Wolin, 2001: 130–131); they also
miss the dynamic side of Wolin’s interpretation, which treats the ancienneté of Tocqueville as
more pronounced later than earlier.
  4. Wolin (2001: 489–492) provides only a short treatment of Tocqueville’s time as Foreign
Minister and neglects French imperialism. Mélonio (2003: 155) mentions briefly the
revolutions of 1848 and concludes that, apart from lapses owing to his country’s isolation
in international affairs, Tocqueville favoured the cause of liberty abroad and thus was not on
the side of reaction. Kloppenberg (2006: 514–515) argues that Tocqueville’s response to the
French conquest of Algeria must be understood historically.

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Veugelers 353

  5. More generally, Tocqueville chose Malesherbes as his ‘political model’ (Drescher, 1968: 103).
  6. In his Recollections he writes of his ‘hereditary affection’ for the Bourbon regime until Charles
X ‘violated rights that I cherished; at that time I also hoped that the liberty of my country
would be reinvigorated rather than suppressed by his fall’ (Tocqueville, 2004a [1850–1851]:
729). To his family’s dismay, Tocqueville took the oath of loyalty to the Orleanist regime;
nonetheless, his family background and social connections kept him politically suspect
(Drescher, 1964: 24).
  7. A caïd was a local official with the combined responsibilities of judge, administrator, and
police chief.
  8. Tocqueville abandoned this work after a few months and never published it (Jardin, 1991b:
1495).
  9. Like Marx (1978 [1853]), Tocqueville attributes the speed of the British conquest of India
to the social disunity created by differences, if not rivalries, between castes, religions and
princes. Also like Marx, he discerns in the village system of India a basis for the social
stability that persisted beneath the waves of conquest and rule by Arabs, Turks, Tartars and
Moguls. Unlike Marx, who argues that ‘English steam and English free trade’ were dissolving
the village system, Tocqueville saw the imposition of British administration and justice as the
main causes of social transformation.
10. By this time the imperial ambitions of the July Monarchy were in decline (Pervillé, 1991: 36).
Between 1840 and 1843, ‘Tocqueville’s call for great acts in foreign affairs imperceptibly
gave way to vehement pleas for the salvation of political action at home’ (Drescher, 1964: 162).
His Recollections barely mentions Algeria (except to say that army officers during the Paris
uprisings of 1848 had served there previously), with only European affairs included before
the account of his brief career as Foreign Minister under the Second Republic breaks off
(Tocqueville, 2004a [1850–1851]: 927–950).

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Author biography
John W.P. Veugelers is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the
University of Toronto. He is a political sociologist with a special interest in processes
of historical transmission in post-war Italy and France. His current research examines
the legacy for contemporary French politics of the colonization of Algeria.

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