THE REOCCUPATION OF NORTHERN AFRICA 245 
Since the days of Mohammedan expansion under the suc- 
cessors of Mohammed, all of these states had been domi- 
nated 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 practi- 
cally 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 lan- 
guished; 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, however, 
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 au- 
thorities demonstrated clearly their lack both of colonial ex- 
perience and of a definite, enlightened colonial program. In 
the treaty of December 28, 1801, with Algiers, the French 
representatives secured promises that French subjects would 
no longer be enslaved; their property already seized by the