Tunisia

TUNISIA. - Arab state of North Africa, independent until 1881, then (Treaty of Bardo) a French protectorate, and since 1946 an associated state in the French Union: France keeps there, alongside the Bey (nominal sovereign), its own resident.

I. GEOGRAPHY

The territory (12,180 sq. km.) of T. embraces the eastern extremity of the Atlas region, whose peaks open out fanwise in a direction perpendicular to the coast (from Cape Ilon to Ras Agedir): among the valleys that face the sea the most important is the one traversed by the Medjerda, which leads to the wide Gulf of Tunis. The climate is typically Mediterranean, with abundant winter rains in the N. (Tell), but increasingly scarce toward the S., where, beyond the High Atlas, the steppe predominates and then the desert. The Tell is a region of forests (cork oak) and of agriculture (cereals, vine, olive); the Sahel (eastern littoral) of the olive; the center, of pasture (sheep and goats); the extreme S., of the date palm. The subsoil, rich in phosphates, also yields iron, lead, zinc and salt. Fishing is notable, carried on by Italians. Industries are modest, devoted above all to the processing of agricultural products.

Of the 3.4 million inhabitants (26 per sq. km.) less than 1/8 is represented by Europeans; of these, one half (about 100,000 inhabitants) are Italians, alongside an equal number of French and 50,000 Jews. The Italians are in great majority Sicilian peasants, who began to move to T. in the last century. Tunis (365,000 inhabitants), the capital, rises not far from the site of ancient Carthage; among the other urban centers of note are Gerba, or Djerba (60,000 inhabitants), Sfax (55,000) and Susa, or Sousse (37,000), all on the eastern littoral.

Giuseppe Caraci

II. CIVIL HISTORY

Present-day Tunisia, after having been under the dominion of Carthage, became part of the Roman province of Africa Proconsularis, and after more than half a century of subjection to the Vandals it passed in 533 under the Empire of Byzantium. Around 670 the region was invaded by the Arabs, who settled there firmly and founded the city of Kairouan, which became an important religious and cultural center.

The new occupiers had to struggle for a long time against the Berbers, and the governors dependent on the caliphs of Damascus and Baghdad were repeatedly forced to request help from their lords: finally, during the caliphate of the famous Hārūn ar-Rašīd, a contemporary of Charlemagne, the Berbers were subdued thanks to the energy of the governor Ibrāhīm ibn al-Aglab, founder of the Aghlabid dynasty, which held power in Tunisia until 909. Over the span of three centuries four other dynasties followed one another: the Fatimids from 909 until toward the end of the century, the Zirids until about 1160, the Almohads in turn followed by the Hafsids, lords of Tunisia until 1574. In the time of Emperor Charles V, Tunisia began to arouse the interest of the European powers, when, faced with the threats of the corsair Barbarossa, who had occupied Bizerte and Tunis, the Hafsid sultan went to Spain to invoke that sovereign's armed aid. Charles V set out with a numerous fleet for Tunis, obliged Barbarossa to renounce his conquests and restored the throne to the Sultan. By virtue of the Treaty of 6 August 1535 the sovereign of Tunis was reduced to a true and proper vassal of the Emperor. Not only did the Sultan undertake to free all Christian slaves, to grant Europeans full freedom of commerce and religion, and to forbid any act of maritime piracy, but he also ceded La Goletta to Charles V, assuming the expenses for the maintenance of the Spanish garrison of that base by means of the annual disbursement of 12,000 gold scudi, and granted to the Emperor the coral fishery in perpetual concession. Charles V, for his part, undertook to protect the Sultan against any aggression. Shortly thereafter the Sultan, threatened by various insurrections that broke out as a result of his agreements with the Christians, again requested the Emperor's support. Having set out himself for Spain, his son took advantage of his absence to have himself proclaimed sovereign. The Sultan, taken prisoner by his own son, who had him blinded, managed to flee to Europe, where he died in 1542. Meanwhile the war at sea continued between Andrea Doria and the Turkish corsair Dragut. In 1574 Sinān Pasha, sent with a great fleet by Sultan Suleiman I, asserted Turkish sovereignty over T. A governor with the title of pasha became the Porte's representative in T., but in reality the true leaders were the deys, elected by the janissaries, and the beys, commanders of the troops. The Ottoman Empire was nevertheless unable to maintain its direct sovereignty over T., which day by day asserted itself as increasingly independent of Constantinople, until in 1705 Husejn, chief of the janissaries, abolished the functions of pasha and dey and proclaimed himself bey, conferring sovereign attributes on that office and making it hereditary within his own family, which still reigns. In the course of the 19th century, having occupied Algeria, France showed an ever greater interest in T. and worked to implement a program of reforms there. Thus in 1857 the bey Mohammed issued the so-called Fundamental Pact, which guaranteed the inhabitants equality before the law and admitted Christians to landed property. Four years later Mohammed's successor, the bey Mohammed es-Sabbok, promulgated a Constitution that determined the functions of the beylicate, hereditary among the members of the Husseinite family not in the direct line, but taking into account the eldest member of the family, and instituted a Council of Ministers and a Council of Notables. France's political interest in T. determined, despite the opposition of Italian public opinion, which saw in T. an outlet for its emigration, the military occupation of the Regency in 1881, followed by the conclusion of the Treaty of Bardo (12 May

1881), which placed T. under a French protectorate. Although the action carried out by France thereafter tended to equip T. with a modern structure with all the benefits of Western civilization, the nationalist forces made themselves felt in the aftermath of the First World War, represented by the Destour (Constitution) party, which on the basis of Wilson's "fourteen points" demanded, as it still demands, the introduction of a parliamentary representative system in the country and therefore practically the demise of the French protectorate. The Destour's program also met with the marked sympathies of more than one bey, and during the Second World War Moncef bey, who ascended the throne in June 1942, became its strenuous supporter, also taking advantage of France's very difficult and precarious situation (the protectorate had remained under the control of the Vichy government). After T. was occupied by Italo-German forces in Nov. 1942, following the Allied landing in Algeria and Morocco, it became a battlefield. After the expulsion of the Axis forces from Africa, the first act of General Juin, acting as resident general, was to impose the abdication of Moncef bey. But even his successor, Lamin bey, considered at the time of his accession to the throne a figure of little importance, soon openly demonstrated his support for the Destour.

Silvio Furlani

III. EVANGELIZATION

For the ecclesiastical history from its origins to the extermination of the Catholic Church in the 11th and 12th centuries, and for the related archaeological material, v. AFRICA, III. Ancient Christian history, V. Christian monuments; CARTAGINE, archdiocese and councils. The last record of the Church of Tunisia, once flourishing and later destroyed by the Arabs, is found in the brief addressed by Gregory VII in 1076 to Cyriacus, archbishop of Carthage, complaining that in that place there were not even the three bishops necessary to consecrate another. This last Church too was then exterminated, and there were no more bishops at Carthage.

In 1219 the first Franciscans, Friar Giles with other companions, reached Tunisia, but the Christians residing there, for fear of persecution by the Saracens, advised them to return to Italy. Later, probably as a result of the Treaty between Pisa and Tunisia (1229-30), in which the Pisans were granted a church and a cemetery in the fondaco, Dominicans and Franciscans are found there in 1235, though their ministry was restricted to Christian merchants and slaves. There is also evidence of the presence of Dominicans in Tunisia in the years 1256-70. The Crusade of Louis IX of France against Tunisia destroyed this mission. After the Crusade ended, the Treaty between Tunisia and France allowed the latter a church and a convent, which was built by the Franciscans. Raymond Lull reached there in 1291 and again in 1314 to preach the Gospel to the Mohammedans: he suffered martyrdom in 1315 in the Kingdom of Bougie. The Franciscan convent lasted until the middle of the 14th century. From 1392 to 1427 a Benedictine, Placidus, is found there. There are no documents proving a further presence of priests in Tunisia during the 15th and 16th centuries, because the country had fallen definitively under Turkish rule in 1574. Mentioned, however, are slave priests such as Jerónimo Gracián de la Madre de Dios, O.C.D., and others, who attended to the care of the numerous Christian slaves of the region. The expeditions of Charles V in 1535 and of Juan de Vega in 1550 against Tunisia, one of the main bases for slave-hunting, had no results in the missionary field.

Only in 1637 did Propaganda decree a mission of Discalced Augustinians for Tunisia, Bona and Constantine, with its seat at Bastion de France. In 1636 and again in 1638 the same congregation decreed a mission of Capuchins for Tunisia, Numidia, Bona and Constantine, with its seat at Tabarca. Both missions disappeared, that of the Augustinians in 1658 and that of the Capuchins in 1652. From 1645 the Lazarist Julien Guérin lived in Tunisia as chaplain of the French consul. As in Algeria, so in Tunisia the Lazarists from 1647 served as French consuls. But this position allowed them the ministry among Christian slaves and the ransoming of captives. Jean Le Vacher C.M. was appointed apostolic prefect in 1648, vicar apostolic of Tunisia in 1650, and retained this office even when he moved to Algeria, where in 1683 he was martyred. In 1672 Propaganda entrusted the mission of Tunisia for the second time to the Capuchins, who, after the Treaty of 30 July 1685 between France and Tunisia, carried out their activity under the French protectorate. In 1720 the Spanish Trinitarians erected a hospice in Tunisia for the ransoming of slaves. It lasted until 1818.

The Capuchin mission was consolidated during the 19th century with the arrival of many Italian immigrants. In 1843 Tunisia was erected into an apostolic vicariate. Under the energetic direction of Msgr. Fedele Sutter it developed very well. The Brothers of the Christian Schools and the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Apparition founded flourishing schools in the city of Tunis and in other places. In 1881 Tunisia fell under the protectorate of France, and Msgr. Sutter had to resign. Msgr. Lavigerie was then appointed administrator, and in 1884 archbishop of Carthage, again erected as an archdiocese. The Italian and Maltese Capuchins gradually had to leave Tunisia: in 1891 the last Capuchin departed.

For the further developments of the history of the Church in Tunisia v. CARTAGINE, ARCIDIOCESI di. - See plate LIX.

Giovanni Rommerskirchen