TUNISIA

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

I. GEOGRAPHY

The territory (12,180 sq. km.) of T. encompasses the easternmost part of the Atlas region, whose summits fan out in a direction perpendicular to the coast (from C. Ilon to Ras Agedir). Among the valleys facing the sea, the most important is that traversed by the Megerda, which opens into the broad Gulf of Tunis. The climate is typically Mediterranean, with abundant winter rainfall in the N. (Tell), but increasingly scantier toward the S., where, beyond the High Atlas, the steppe and then the desert predominate. The Tell is a region of forests (cork oak) and agriculture (cereals, vines, olives); the Sahel (eastern littoral), of olive cultivation; the central region, of pasture (sheep and goats); the far S., of date palms. The subsoil, rich in phosphates, also yields iron, lead, zinc, and salt. Fishing, carried on by Italians, is noteworthy. Industries are modest and devoted chiefly to the processing of agricultural products.

Of the 3.4 million inhabitants (26 per sq. km.), less than one-eighth are Europeans; of these, approximately half (about 100,000 inhabitants) are Italians, alongside an equal number of French and 50,000 Jews. The Italians are overwhelmingly Sicilian peasants, who began moving to T. in the last century. Tunis (365,000 inhabitants), the capital, stands not far from the site of ancient Carthage; among the other noteworthy urban centers are Gerba, or Djerba (60,000 inhabitants), Sfax (55,000), and Susa, or Sousse (37,000), all on the eastern littoral.

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 seek help from their lords. Finally, during the caliphate of the celebrated Hārūn ar-Rašīd, a contemporary of Charlemagne, the Berbers were defeated thanks to the energy of the governor Ibrāhīm ibn al-Aglab, founder of the Aghlabid dynasty, which retained power in T. until 909. Over the course of three centuries, four other dynasties succeeded one another: the Fāṭimids from 909 until around the end of the century, the Zīrids until approximately 1160, and the Almohads, in turn followed by the Hafsids, lords of T. until 1574. In the time of the Emperor Charles V, T. 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 implore that sovereign’s armed assistance. Charles V set out for Tunis with a large fleet, compelled Barbarossa to renounce his conquests, and restored the throne to the Sultan. By virtue of the Treaty of 6 Aug. 1535, the sovereign of Tunis

was reduced to a true vassal of the Emperor. Not only did the Sultan undertake to liberate all Christian slaves, to grant Europeans full freedom of commerce and religion, and to prohibit every act of maritime piracy, but he also ceded La Goletta to Charles V, assuming the expenses for maintaining the Spanish garrison of that base by paying an annual sum of 12,000 gold écus, and granted the Emperor the coral fishery in perpetuity. Charles V, for his part, undertook to protect the Sultan against every aggression. Shortly thereafter, the Sultan, threatened by various insurrections that had broken out as a result of his agreements with the Christians, again requested the Emperor’s support. When he himself went to 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 between Andrea Doria and the Turkish corsair Dragut continued at sea. In 1574 Sinān Pasha, sent with a large fleet by Sultan Soliman I, asserted Turkish sovereignty over T. The representative of the Porte in T. became a governor with the title of pasha, 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 became increasingly independent of Constantinople, until in 1705 Husejn, head of the Janissaries, abolished the offices of pasha and dey and proclaimed himself bey, conferring sovereign attributes upon that office and making it hereditary within his own family, which still reigns today. During the 19th century, after occupying Algeria, France showed an ever greater interest in T. and set about implementing a program of reforms there. Thus, in 1857, bey Mohammed promulgated the so-called Fundamental Pact, which guaranteed inhabitants equality before the law and admitted Christians to land ownership. Four years later, Mohammed’s successor, bey Mohammed es-Sabbok, promulgated a Constitution that defined the functions of the beylik, hereditary among the members of the Husejnite family not in the direct line, but assigned according to the family’s eldest member, and established a Council of Ministers and a Council of Notables. France’s political interest in T. led, despite the opposition of Italian public opinion, which saw T. as an outlet for its emigration, to the military occupation of the Regency in 1881, followed by the conclusion of the Treaty of Bardo (12 May-

(June 1881), which placed T. under a French protectorate. Although the action subsequently undertaken by France tended to provide T. with a modern structure along with all the benefits of Western civilization, nationalist forces emerged in the aftermath of the First World War, represented by the Destour (Constitution) party, which, on the basis of Wilson’s “Fourteen Points,” demanded—and continues to demand—the introduction of a parliamentary representative system in the country and, consequently, in practice, the end of the French protectorate. The Destour’s program also won the pronounced sympathies of more than one bey, and during the Second World War Moncef bey, who ascended the throne in June 1942, became its staunch advocate, also taking advantage of France’s highly difficult and precarious situation (the protectorate had remained under the control of the Vichy government). After T. was occupied by Italo-German forces in November 1942, following the Allied landings 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 his successor, Lamin bey, who at the time of his accession to the throne was regarded as a figure of little importance, soon openly demonstrated his support for the Destour.

In 1219 the first Franciscans, Fra' Egidio and several companions, arrived in T., but the Christians residing there, out of fear of persecution by the Saracens, advised them to return to Italy. Later, probably as a result of the treaty between Pisa and T. (1229–30), in which the Pisans were granted a church and a cemetery in the funduq, Dominicans and Franciscans were found there in 1235; their ministry, however, was restricted to Christian merchants and slaves. There is also evidence of the presence of Dominicans in T. in the years 1256–70. The Crusade of Louis IX of France against T. destroyed this mission. After the Crusade, the treaty between T. and France granted the latter a church and a convent, which was built by the Franciscans. Raimondo Lullo arrived there in 1291 and again in 1314 to preach the Gospel to the Muslims: 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 named Placido is found there. There are no documents proving any further presence of priests in T. during the 15th and 16th centuries, because in 1574 the country had definitively fallen under Turkish rule. There is, however, mention of slave priests such as Jeronimo Gracian de la Madre de Dios, O.C.D., and others, who cared for the numerous Christian slaves in the region. The expeditions of Charles V in 1535 and of Juan de Vega in 1550 against T., one of the principal bases for slave hunting, produced no results in the missionary field.

Only in 1637 did Propaganda decree a mission of Discalced Augustinians for T., Bona, and Constantine, based at Bastion de France. In 1636 and again in 1638 it decreed a mission of Capuchins for T., Numidia, Bona, and Constantine, based at Tabarka. Both missions disappeared: that of the Augustinians in 1658 and that of the Capuchins in 1652. From 1645 the Lazarist Juline Guérin lived in T. as chaplain to the French consul. As in Algeria, so too in T. the Lazarists served as French consuls from 1647. But this position enabled them to minister among Christian slaves and to engage in their redemption. Jean Le Vacher C. M. was appointed apostolic prefect in 1648 and apostolic vicar of T. in 1650; he retained this office even when he transferred to Algeria, where he was martyred in 1683. In 1672 Propaganda entrusted the mission of T. to the Capuchins for a second time; after the treaty of 30 July 1685 between France and T., they carried out their activity under French protection. In 1720 the Spanish Trinitarians established a hospice in T. for the redemption of slaves. It lasted until 1818.

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

For the subsequent developments in the history of the Church in T.

V. CARTONE, ARCIDIOCESI di

Vedi tav. LIX.