Tunisia

TUNISIA

A long time ago Tunisia was doing well. Then the ships started arriving and before they knew it the villagers were prisoners in their own land. The visitors realized that they were ruining Africa and left. But the trouble did not end in fact Tunisia was worse than ever.

Before the Europeans came to Tunisia everything was going fine. The Tunisians had a stable way of governing themselves and paying for things. Tunisia lies bordered by Libya, its biggest trading ally, and Algeria. It has a few mountains and in the southern part has the Sahara Desert. All the Tunisians had, was crude oil, iron ore, lead, and other valuable resources which gave reason for the French to invade and would soon be taken away, all sixty three-thousand one-hundred seventy square miles of it.

A big compromise was made in Berlin about how Africa was to be split up between the European countries. There was one thing you should know about the compromise though. The one place that should have been represented that was not there was Africa. Tunisia was given to France. France entered Tunisia with a promise. The promise was to teach the Tunisians religion, writing, and reading. They were also supposed to teach the Tunisians culture, their culture. The French managed to kind of teach the Tunisians religion but most of the time they were making Tunisians work. The French enslaved the natives and made them work to deprive the land of lead and other natural resources that they had.

King Leopold decided that he should try to stop the slavery that was happening but he only wanted power in Africa. After Tunisia became independent in 1956 they had it worse than before France came and took over. A constitution was drafted in 1957 and passed in 1959. The constitution can be found here. Tunisia did gain knowledge but it was too small to be usable. With the knowledge they were also given tools which they did not know how to use. Before, Tunisia only had spears and primitive weapons. Now they had guns that barely worked and other technology that they did not how to use. Tunisians did get luxuries. Though, the luxuries that they got did not work. The machinery they have is barely used and almost everything they have was not made there. Tunisia is stuck with western technology and Muslim beliefs. The country like other post-imperialism