A Disdain for Deserts: The Sahara Sea Project and Climatic Modification in North Africa, 1864–1885

Abstract

Abstract:Though a handful of European accounts of Saharan travel predate the 1830 French invasion of Algiers, this event marked a turning point in French experience with deserts. The period of French occupation fostered a growing belief in the Maghreb's gradual environmental degradation and a desire to "restore" its inherent fertility. The late-nineteenth century plan to create an artificial inland sea represents a grandiose, transformative vision of French colonialism. Influenced by Saint-Simonianism, the project's advocates aimed to use modern technology to fulfill a utopian dream of "reclaiming" the Sahara. Led by Captain François-Élie Roudaire, the project aimed to channel waters from the Mediterranean into saline depressions in the Tunisian and Algerian Sahara. This sea, it was hoped, would transform the northern Sahara into a milder and more hospitable environment. Although it garnered the support of Ferdinand de Lesseps and other notable figures, the project fell apart by the mid-1880s. While the vision of a vast inland Saharan sea occasionally resurfaced through the twentieth century, it never manifested in any genuine construction attempts. The Sahara Sea, however, characterizes aspects of the French colonial enterprise that would manifest in other social and technological developments throughout the colonial and postcolonial periods.