This petition against the continued slave trade and slavery in French-occupied Algeria contrasts the case of the Bey of Tunis, who had just abolished the slave trade in his territory, with that of the French administration in Algeria, in allowing slavery to continue. The so-called French "civilising mission" in North Africa should consider it their duty to uproot the "leprosy of slavery" in the new colony, according to the petitioners (1). They describe the transaharan slave trade and its high mortality rate (citing the British travellers Denham & Clapperton), and attempt to shame the administration of the French governor Bugeaud, who encouraged these trading routes.