Between neighbours and a colonial third party : pioneer migration of British colonial subjects to the North African coast, 1815-1870

Abstract

Set against the background of Western European colonial rivalry in the Mediterranean, this paper investigates the early wave of pioneer emigrants of so called 'British colonial subjects' or proteges (mainly Maltese, Ionian Greeks and Gibraltarians) from the neighbouring British colonies/dependencies to the Maghreb countries -with Tunisia taken as a case study. 'Pushed' by dire poverty from their places of origin, and attracted by an 'open door' policy and the privileged status they gained as 'British colonial subjects' (under the Anglo-Ottoman Conventions and other bilateral treaties with each of the Maghreb states), substantial numbers of migrants settled in the port centres of Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, as well as Tripolitania. There they came under British consular jurisdiction and enjoyed immunities from local courts of justice, as well as freedom of trade and human movement.