Description
This uncommon pamphlet, printed in 1855, describes a plan of the French government to relocate between 20.000 and 25.000 Armenians from the Ottoman Empire to Algeria, a French colony from 1830 and a part of France from 1848 on, with a goal to boost the local economy. Armenians, who were known to be industrious, smart, hard working and were above all Christians, able to live in harsh weather conditions, were supposed to help French with the international trade in Algeria. The French government would in exchange give the Armenians more independence of their culture and build them schools, convents and other cultural objects.
Our example bears a book plate and a stamp of Justin Napoléon Samuel Prosper, Marquis de Chasseloup-Laubat (1805-1873), a French nobleman, politician and an early supporter of French colonialism. In 1859, he became the head of the Ministry for Algeria and the Colonies and held the position as a Minister of Marine and the Colonies from 1860 until 1867. De Chasseloup-Laubat had a special interest in Algeria, a French colony from 1830 on, where he worked in his younger years and visited later as a minister.
The author Victor-Amédée Barbié du Bocage (1832 – 1890) was a geographer from a prominent French family of authors and map-makers.
Provenance:
Library of Justin Napoléon Samuel Prosper, Marquis de Chasseloup-Laubat, later inherited by his son Armand Eugène Prosper de Chasseloup Laubat (1863-1954), who married Marie Louise Fanny Clémentine Thérèse, a daughter of Ernesta Stern (born Maria Ernesta Hierschel de Minerbi, 1854 – 1926), a French intellectual. The book remained a part of the family estate, until it was sold at an auction in 2023.
We could only trace two examples of the pamphlet outside French institutions (The British Library and Library of Congress). The others appear to be eBooks.
References: OCLC 52757699, 1143123249, 1176858996, 763723937 (eBooks).
