Algerians of the Pacific

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in French. Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 1,674 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at [[:fr:Algériens de Nouvelle-Calédonie]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|fr|Algériens de Nouvelle-Calédonie}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (February 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

The Algerians of the Pacific were a group of Algerian men deported by French authorities to labor camps on the island of New Caledonia, after taking part in the 1871–1872 Mokrani Revolt against colonial rule in Algeria.

Their arrest took place in 1871, and 212 persons were tried together in 1873, in the city of Constantine. Most were sent over to prisons in metropolitan France – Oléron and Saint-Martin-de-Ré (on Île de Ré) – then, as these were due to be closed, to Quélern (near Brest). At the same time, 29 of them were kept in Oran; Antoine Chanzy, the Governor-General, attempted to have them removed from the public's eye by proposing they should be sent to the Marquesas Islands. They too were ultimately transported to Quélern, through Marseille. A third group was imprisoned together with former Communards in Thouars.

Due to malfunctions in the communication between ministries, the distinction between sentences to transportation (traditionally, to French Guiana) and deportation (to New Caledonia) was no longer made – all were sent to New Caledonia in the end.

Their arrival on the island coincided with transports of Communards, who were to leave precious testimonies of the Kabyles' presence. However, the Kabyles were left behind when the Communards were granted amnesty in 1879, and remained in exile despite campaigns to raise sympathy among the French public. An amnesty was awarded only in 1895, and they were not able to return to Algeria until after 1904.

Some descendants of the deported still live in New Caledonia. One of them, Taïeb Aïfa, served as the mayor of Bourail from 1977 to 2001. In Nessadiou [fr], south of Bourail, there is a Cimetière des Arabes, or "Cemetery of the Arabs"; over time, the community began to identify as "Arabs" rather than with a Kabyle or local designation. One elderly Algerian-Caledonian traces this to an occasion when the Algerians arrived to perform labour during Ramadan dressed in white robes, whereupon the native Caledonians decided that they must be "Arabs".^[1]

• Cheikh Boumerdassi

• French ship Loire (1827)

• Mehdi Lallaoui, Kabyles du Pacifique, 1994, Éditions Au nom de la mémoire.
• http://www.iisg.nl/collections/new-caledonia/: article and list of names of the deported (2011)