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Colonialism and Landscape: Population dynamics and Land Use in Northern Tunisia under Roman and French Rule

Abstract Within the framework of a Geographical Information System (GIS) study applied to the landscapes of the Qlibya and Beja regions of Northern Tunisia, the author investigates the programme of Roman agricultural colonisation (146 B.C.–A.D. 439): the expropriation of land, the re-structuring of the countryside into ager (arable), saltus (pasture), and bad lands put under cultivation (olive, vine, wheat, and fruit trees) by the distribution of plots of land to army veterans regulated by agrarian laws promulgated by the Antonines and Severi and engraved on stelae uncovered near imperial estates in the Beja region. The Roman villa was integrated into a commercial system of distribution of agricultural produce linking the cities to their 'territorial zones'. The European colonists who settled in Tunisia during the French Protectorate (1881–1956) used the Roman precedent as a model, in particular deliberately establishing farms on the same locations as the villae. The agricultural regime thrived under Roman and French occupation, but with such intensity that the environment was ultimately degraded by soil impoverishment, particularly by erosion on unterraced steep slopes: the ultimate perverse gifts of colonialism.