text: Alexis de Tocqueville wrote and never completed an unpublished essay outlining his ideas for how to transform Algeria from an occupied tributary state to a colonial regime, wherein he advocated for a mixed system of "total domination and total colonization" whereby French military would wage total war against civilian populations while a colonial administration would provide rule of law and property rights to settlers within French occupied cities.From 1848 until independence, France administered the whole Mediterranean region of Algeria as an integral part and département of the nation.One of France's longest-held overseas territories, Algeria became a destination for hundreds of thousands of European immigrants, who became known as colons and later, as Pied-Noirs.Between 1825 and 1847, 50,000 French people emigrated to Algeria.These settlers benefited from the French government's confiscation of communal land from tribal peoples, and the application of modern agricultural techniques that increased the amount of arable land.Many Europeans settled in Oran and Algiers, and by the early 20th century they formed a majority of the population in both cities.During the late 19th and early 20th century, the European share was almost a fifth of the population.The French government aimed at making Algeria an assimilated part of France, and this included substantial educational investments especially after 1900.The indigenous cultural and religious resistance heavily opposed this tendency, but in contrast to the other colonized countries' path in central Asia and Caucasus, Algeria kept its individual skills and a relatively human-capital intensive agriculture.During the Second World War, Algeria came under Vichy control before being liberated by the Allies in Operation Torch, which saw the first large-scale deployment of American troops in the North African campaign.