ABSTRACT
The outbreak in Algeria was led by the distinguished bashaga of a district in Constantine, Sidi Mokrani; his dominating motive was to force the French to utilize important families like his own as agents of government, the indirect control method. To make Algeria a real prolongation of France the civil territory was much enlarged by addition of some 2,250,000 hectares, so that there were at the end of his term not 10,000 Frenchmen living in military territory. The defeat by Prussia thrust France into a doldrum of uncertainty. The law of 1873 made more land available by providing new facilities for breakup of the communal lands of the tribes. This law attempted to make a categorical change in the legal status of property in a country where the land laws differed according to regions, the status of the tenants, and the method of acquisition.
