The Italian Community in Tunisia

Abstract

The essay deals with the issue of the birth of the Italian community in Tunisia in the early decades of the nineteenth century and describes the fundamental events until the declaration of the French protectorate in 1881 and the first decades of the twentieth century. In fact we should speak not of one but of many communities, for different local contexts, different social classes, religious affiliation (the Jewish community from Livorno was very important) and for cultural level. In Tunisia, in few words, there were two Italian emigration components: the "bare arms " and the flux, less conspicuous but very important, of the intellectuals and political militants (exiles and refugees since the Risorgimento up to the Fascist period). In this context the essay focuses on the history of migrants from Sardinia, a migration that basically consisted of poor workers and miners in search of better living conditions.