Kabyles of the Pacific

The Kabyles of the Pacific are Kabyles, men and women, deportees with the Bagne of New Caledonia to have taken part in the insurrections of 1870 - 71 in Algérie.

The penitentiary wandering

Stopped in 1871, their lawsuit takes place with Constantine in 1873 for 212 marked. Their judgment does not regulate their fate for as much. The majority are sent in the jails of the metropolis, initially with the Château of Oléron or Saint-Martin-of-D, then these deposits having to close, they are transferred to the Fort from Quélern (close to Brest). In same some time of them (29) were left with Oran, which embarrasses the governor of Algeria which even thinks of sending them to the Marquesas Islands. They are finally sent at the height of Quélern, via Marseilles. Another group, still, division with Thouars the sorrow of the communards.

In addition to the complexity of the interdepartmental shuttles, confusion comes owing to the fact that, in theory, transported must join the French Guiana while the deportees go until in New Caledonia. They in fact all are sent in New Caledonia.

Life in New Caledonia

There is in fact few documents on this adventure, except the military documents and penitentiaries. Only testimonys of their companions of mishap who were the communards made it possible to avoid the lapse of memory to which they were dedicated. Whereas the off-set communards could profit from a Amnistie in 1879, the Kabyles of the Pacific remain exiled to thousands of kilometers of their ground in spite of the public awareness campaigns of the French public opinion in which the communards of return to Paris take part. This so much awaited amnesty will intervene only in 1895 and they will be authorized to return in Algérie only in 1904, that is to say 33 years after their judgment.

Some descendants of the deportees continue to live in New Caledonia. There exists with Nessadiou, in the south of Bourail, a place called usually “Cemetery of the Arabs” , by allusion to Kabyles of the Pacific.

Among these descendants Taïeb Jean-Pierre Aïfa, called “the caliph”, was mayor of Bourail of 1977 to 2001 and chair territorial Assemblée on several occasions. He is member of the Congress today.

Sources

Kabyles of the Pacific of Mehdi Lallaoui. (ED. In the name of the memory, 1994 ISBN 2-910780-00-7). A film of 52 min. of the same author, goes back to 1993.
'' the dramatic history of the Algerian deportees of New Caledonia '': article of Rachid Sellal on the site algerie-dz.com

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