When French troops invaded the Ottoman Regency of Algiers in 1830 they initiated a bloody conquest that lasted for over half a century. French colonial rule in Algeria was predicated on a treaty that legally committed France to "tolerate" the religion of local populations. This talk explores religious toleration as an instrument of colonial control; an instrument that aimed to draw the boundaries of inclusion and differentiation in French Algeria along religious (and consistorial) lines. At the same time, this colonial policy also served as a critical platform of negotiation over questions of religion, rule, and rights between colonial officials and Algerian Jewish, Muslim, and Christian settler communities.
