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3 North Africans: Mysterious Peoples The territories in North Africa had a special place in the empire because of a number of factors that included the proximity of the Maghreb to France’s southern shores, a history of settlement by French emigrants in Algeria, and lengthy commercial ties. Before World War I, French exposition organizers and entrepreneurs presented the Arab, Berber, and Moorish populations of North Africa as mysterious peoples with customs considerably different from their own. At the same time, supporters of colonialism wanted to instill in the minds of the public the idea that Algeria was becoming an integral part of metropolitan France. In their definitions of Arab and Berber peoples, the French had to look beyond the phenotypic definition of “race,” since both were “white” in the familiar classification systems of the day. These systems ranked peoples within each broad racial group. Arthur de Gobineau placed Europeans at the apex of all white races based on their beauty and their ability to produce “civilization .” Racial mixing, he believed, created weakened types, and efforts to civilize these non-European groups produced mixed results.1 He argued that Semitic Arabs constituted a less-developed white group. Dr. Gustave Le Bon, writing in Les Lois psychologiques de l’evolution des peoples (1894), agreed with this assessment of Arab capabilities based on his study of their psychology and lower level of “civilization.” He ranked Arabs, Chinese, and 47 north africans: mysterious peoples other Asians as moyenne (average), just behind the supérieur Indo-Europeans and ahead of inferieur Africans and primitive groups. This popular conception of the relatively positive racial standing of North Africans helped the French accept the inclusion of the Maghreb in the political métropole.2 Yet the French linked an inferior ranking of this group vis-à-vis Europeans to what they viewed as unusual traits of Islamic culture. The exhibits at the government-sponsored Algerian section of the 1900 Exposition universelle stressed the economic development and modernization of the colony. When they defined the section’s appearance, however , the organizers relied on traditional symbols of an exotic and mysterious North Africa that remained outside the reach of French influence. Product trademarks registered during this period reflected these portrayals , presenting North Africans as members of a vast Oriental Muslim culture , as residents of a land of abundance, and as Muslim zealots and Maghrebian warriors.3 French representations of North Africans during this period show the interplay between the image of a prosperous modernizing French Maghreb and an exotic traditional Islamic society. This chapter focuses on the relationship between these two themes in trademark illustrations, especially in exposition propaganda, and what the themes reveal about France’s identity as an imperialist nation. Trademark Images, 1886–1913 French designers used stereotypical Oriental scenes as the backdrop for many product labels. Turbaned men seated in Moorish courtyards smoked from long Turkish water pipes, alluring women lounged in palace salons, and Arabs on camelback led caravans across endless deserts. Images of the Orient and Arab North Africa meshed, making it impossible to pinpoint the specific location of each scene from the collection of trademarks in this category. The individuals, dwellings, and decor portrayed in these labels describe an exotic Oriental world utterly unlike that of continental Europe. Merchants also depicted North Africans as producers of a range of agricultural products common to their region. Business-owners also emphasized Islam to characterize the North Africans depicted on their product labels. Muslim religious figures, devotees, political leaders, and warriors appeared on numerous trademarks. North Africa and the Exotic Orient During the period 1886 to 1913, entrepreneurs displayed North Africans or Orientals on trademark labels for various products, presumably relying on exotic presentations of these cultures to distinguish their label from the hundreds that entered the market each year. The use of these images appar- 48 on the path to civilization, 1886–1913 ently served two commercial purposes: to attract the French consumer by allusions to mysterious and distant cultures and to expand an Arabic-speaking market by offering products with familiar Arab images. The Marseillais soap industry, for instance, appealed to an Arab North African market with a variety of soap bars stamped with Arabic captions. However, most products with registered trademarks that included North African images were ultimately destined for a French or European market. An exotic view of North African populations dominated the trademarks registered during this period. One example of this was a scene in the Witz et Colas soap label...

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