Maltese community in Algeria

Excerpts from the work of Jeannine VERDES-LEROUX
entitled: "The French of Algeria from 1830 to today"

It was essentially in eastern Algeria that the Maltese had settled. In the 19th century, they had a poor reputation. This immigration, which grew rapidly from 1833 to 1851, subsequently increased only through the excess of births over deaths. In 1886, at their peak, they numbered 15,533. At the very beginning of the conquest, many of them appear to have been army suppliers and, for the most part, small traders (beverage sellers, cheap restaurant owners, grocers, etc.); fifty years later, they were said to be driven by a powerful "instinct for profit."

René Lespès emphasized their qualities: "Eagerness for work, spirit of thrift, commercial aptitudes."

One obvious point should be highlighted: the same trait can be named pejoratively (spirit of profit) or positively (commercial aptitudes). Pierre Dimech, currently national president of the Cercle algérianiste and who proclaims his "100% Maltese" origin, identified in Algérianiste literature the most frequent stereotypes of the Maltese: conspicuous piety, greed for gain, relentless work ethic, cunning, rough sense of family.

These "border men," so often caricatured, ridiculed, even despised, had ended up being ashamed of their origin, wanting to erase it, he writes, which was facilitated by their faculty of assimilation, as these islanders were very often invaded, dominated, transformed.

During an interview, a French Algerian of Maltese origin often returns to the subject of the Maltese: they have "many faults, they are hot-tempered, there are family feuds, quarrels lasting generations, they are islanders, with tenacious grudges, they are said to be grasping; there is one quality that cannot be taken from them, and that is hard work. All the people I knew in Algeria died at their task and with dignity."

"The Maltese are rough, taciturn, that is the difference with the Italian cousins who are exuberant. The Maltese are exuberant in their actions, but there is something already oriental about them, which is due to their history, to all the invasions they endured. When he does not think he is being observed, the Maltese man often has a stern face, a furrowed brow."

"I understood why Malta was never spoken of (in Algiers). The Maltese were ashamed. I know no one who was ashamed of their parents as such, but ashamed of the community. I knew Maltese people who had their name changed, and yet one cannot say there were persecutions. We had lost our ties with Malta; it was the steamroller of the French school system that came through, and a willingly accepted steamroller; we turned en masse and in haste toward France. We were heading toward a merger."

Excerpts selected by Georges GANDER

1. Economic life in Malta in the 18th century, Aurore Verié
2. Foreigners in Malta (late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries), Anne Brogini
3. The Maltese language, a linguistic crossroads, Martine VANHOVE
4. The Jews in Malta, Aurore Verié
5. The French in Algeria from 1830 to today (excerpts), Jeannine VERDES-LEROUX
6. The emigration of Maltese in Algeria in the nineteenth century, Marc DONATO
7. Malta in "A Winter in Egypt" (excerpts), Eugène Poitou
8. The Maltese in Tunisia before the Protectorate (excerpts), Andrea L. SMITH
9. The population of Malta in the seventeenth century, a reflection of modernity (excerpts), Anne Brogini
10. The fear of the French Revolution in Malta, Frans CIAPPARA
11. The Siege of Malta by Napoleon Bonaparte (excerpts)
12. Malte, frontière de chrétienté (1530-1670), de Anne BROGINI
13. L'esclavage au quotidien à Malte au xvie siècle, de Anne BROGINI
14. Noblesse maltaise et généalogie, de Loïck PORTELLI
15. Some Disreputable Maltese, by Loïck PORTELLI