Maltese migration to Algeria and Tunisia from 1830 to 1930

Abstract

During the 19th century, Malta experienced a large-scale migratory phenomenon. The main cause of this mass exodus was not political or religious persecution, but poverty engendered by an underdeveloped economy that was unbalanced by the overpopulation of the island. Refusing the possibilities offered to them to set up outside Europe as part of an organized emigration, the majority of the candidates for migrating, chose to embark on the venture on their own, with a view to reach the surrounding Mediterranean countries, in particular Algeria and Tunisia. At the peak of migration, more than one-sixth of the Maltese population was distributed between these two French possessions, into two almost equal shares. Yet the statistical analysis reveals differences in the duration and frequency of migration flows to these two countries. Can we conclude from this observation that there were two differentiated flows? And if so, what were the economic, political or psychological criteria that have guided the choice of migrants? What was the future reserved for each? What remains today of this episode in the collective memory? These are a few specific points which the present thesis will try to clear. The recent access to the Algerian civil status registers from 1832 to 1904, the Maltese national archives of Rabat and the free access to certain works of the nineteenth century, now in the public domain, facilitated a statistical and sociological approach to these migratory phenomena. In the backdrop to the above lies also the thorny question of what represents the national identity.