peditions of their admirals -- or Barbary pirates as they
were known to Europe; their lands undeveloped or but
poorly cultivated.

Since the days of Mohammedan expansion under the
successors of Mohammed, all of these states had been dom-
inated by the Arabs whose numbers and importance in-
creased after the fall of Granada and the expulsion of the
Moors from Spain. The entire population of North Africa
was Mohammedan and led by two classes of influential
men: the marabouts, or religious wise men, and the tribal
chiefs who were warriors. Men with military protection, or
those who could obtain it, got on fairly well; but the lot
of the common man was hard. Justice and security were
practically unknown, and nowhere were life and property
safe. Robbery and brigandage were as common on land as
piracy on the sea -- and had been for four centuries. Trade
languished; and it was impossible to make any headway
in agriculture or industry. The towns and villages were
groups of unsanitary plaster dwellings, scantily furnished;
and the masses led a hand-to-mouth existence, constantly
subject to the rapacity and corruption of rulers and chief-
tains.

Most of the European states, and the United States as
well, had relations of a desultory sort with these Barbary
states, and, early in the nineteenth century, finally forced
the rulers of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli to respect their
flags and protect their citizens. But it remained for France
to start the movement for the reoccupation of northern
Africa by Europe. This action of the French was not, how-
ever, the result of any preconceived plan of colonial or
national expansion. It was rather the result of a political
accident; and the policy pursued in the early stages by the
French authorities demonstrated clearly their lack both of
colonial experience and of a definite, enlightened colonial

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