Volu m e II - Purdue University Calumet

Kiley Miller
Indiana University – Purdue University Fort Wayne
Victims versus Bad Guys:
The Lasting Effects of the Colonizer-Colonized Relationship
Grandpa was French, but he was born in Algiers, Algeria. I had known this for as long as I could
remember, but it was not until around the time I was in high school that I ever realized the obvious
disconnect with this proclamation of identity. When I began to ask questions, I learned from Mom that
Grandpa and his sister were both born in Algiers while it was still a French colony. American history had
taught me enough over the years to know the detrimental effects of colonization, and that it was a “bad”
thing, but I never made the connection between the French and the typical war-mongering, greedy idea of a
“colonizer.” Still, it surprised me more to discover that Grandpa had never actually even lived in France
before immigrating to the United States shortly after his service with the French in World War II, so I was
puzzled that he so strongly identified as French. Then, a few years before his death, at almost eighty years
old, Grandpa let it slip that his father was half Turkish – half Arab – then proceeded to insult the whole
Arab race, further complicating Grandpa’s idea of his identity. With these sporadic conversations about my
family’s heritage and the French history I had started to piece together from my high school and college
French classes, I slowly began to realize the depth of the relationship and tension between Algeria and
France. It was clear that the nature of this relationship had been determined long before the French-
Algerian War in 1954, dating back to France’s first involvement when Algeria was colonized in 1830.
The Conquest and Occupation of Algeria
Algerian colonization began in 1830 when the French invaded, which was a common practice for
European nations at the time. Algeria, however, differed from many colonies in that the French
government encouraged French citizens (later named the pied-noirs) to migrate from the mainland, as
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