Tunisia is located in North Africa, bounded on the west by Algeria, on the north and east by the Mediterranean Sea, and on the southeast by Libya. It is the northernmost country on the African continent. Around forty percent of the country is composed of the Sahara Desert, with much of the remainder consisting of particularly fertile soil and a 1300 km coastline. The population is approximately 10,000,000. The indigenous people are the Berber people group, who still exist today.

Like all the countries we have been to in the Mediterranean, Tunisia has a rich history. It is believed that homo sapiens inhabited North Africa as far back at 50,000 years ago. Around 1100 BC, Phoenicians (from modern day Syria & Lebanon) arrived and set up trading posts in Tunisia. In 814 BC, the Phoenician traders founded the city of Carthage. They continued to set up more trading posts along the coast of Tunisia, as well as in other areas of the Mediterranean, including Sicily, Malta and Spain, and dominated trade in the western Mediterranean.

In the 7th century BC, Greeks arrived to also set up trading posts. The Greeks were viewed as a great threat by the Phoenicians. The Phoenician trading posts had all been independent from one another, but when the Greeks arrived, the Phoenician trading posts set up an alliance led by Carthage, and we henceforth refer to the country as Carthage and the people as Carthagians. In 480 BC, the Greeks and Carthargians went to battle over control of the island of Sicily, which they had previously been sharing. The Carthagians also took complete control of Malta, which it had also been sharing with the Greeks. The wars over Sicily had weakened Carthage, and some domestic rebellions by the locals further weakened Carthage. In 310 BC, the Greeks invaded Carthage, which turned out to be a three year battle where many areas of Carthage, Carthage City in particular, were badly damaged. The Carthagians won, and it seemed that the battles with the Greeks were over, not just in Tunisia, but also in Sicily.

In 263 BC the insignificant city of Rome picked a war over the control of Sicily. This was the start of the Punic Wars, which lasted 117 years. Sicily fell to the Romans rather quickly, and Malta not too much later. By the end of the wars, all of Carthage’s territories came under Roman control. Carthage City was burned to the ground, and the Romans set about rebuilding it in their own style, which was big and impressive.

By 44 BC, North Africa was in an economic boom from their agriculture, including grains and olive oil. North Africa was one of the most stable regions in the Roman Empire and becoming politically more and more important to the Romans. In 312 BC, the Roman Empire adopted Christianity as their official religion. The North Africans had adopted a Christian sect called Donatist that was considered heretical by the official Roman church, and Donatists were persecuted by the Romans.

In 439 AD, the local Donatists help the Vandals (a Germanic people group) conquer the Romans for control of the region. The western half of the Roman Empire had already been in severe decline before this conquest, and 40 years after this loss, Western Rome disintegrated completely. The Vandals did a lot of damage to Roman buildings and artifacts, and they did not bring any real progress or cultural achievements the Carthagians.

In 533 AD the Byzantines (the new name for the eastern half of the Roman Empire, which stayed in tact after the western half fell) conquer the region, met with little resistance. In 646 the Byzantine’s give Carthage its independence, but Carthage is conquered the following year by the Arabs. The local Berber people were fairly amenable to switching to the new religion of Islam, but chose the Khariji sect of Islam, which outraged the Sunni conquerors. The Arabs renamed the land Tunisia.

In 761, after rebellions by the local Berbers, the Arabs drive the Berbers to the south of Tunisia, where they establish an independent Berber state. By 800, the relative independence of Tunisia from Baghdad was established. In 827, the Tunisians invaded and eventually conquered Sicily from the Byzantines, and in 870 took Malta from the Byzantines, we well.

In 909, the Fatimids came to power in Tunisia, who were of the Isma’ili Shi’ia sect. This caused battles between the Sunni, Shi’ia and Khariji sects, each group vying for power. While all the religious battles were going on at home, the Fatimids focused their attention on conquering Egypt, which they did in 984 (we mention in the “History of Egypt” post that several different Muslim dynasties conquered Egypt over a 600 year period). The Fatimids moved their capital to Egypt. In the 11th century, the Fatimids were displeased when the leaders they left in charge in Tunisia attempted to rebel. As revenge, the Fatimids encouraged 200,0000 300,000 nomadic Berber people to migrate to Tunisia and ravage it.

In 1072, the Normans conquer most of Sicily, then proceed to take several other Tunisian holdings, including Malta, the island of Jerba and some coastal cities. Most of the areas are regained by the Arabs, but not Malta or Sicily.

1159 Almohads from Morocco conquer the city of Tunis and by the end of century had conquered all of Tunisia. The Almohads put the Berber Hafsid family in power in 1207, expecting them to be puppets. In 1229 Hasfids declare independence from the Almohads. Under the Hafsids, Tunisia enters into a golden age of culture and architecture. In the late 1400’s, an influx of immigrants from Spain came in, bringing with them knowledge, skills and culture that positively impacted Tunisia. 1574 Tunisia is conquered by the Ottoman Turks. The Turks gave the Tunisians relative autonomy, and Tunisia was run by Ottoman governors called beys.

In 1705, Husayn ibn Ali came to power as the bey, and under him there was peace and prosperity, and they had so much autonomy that they were virtually independent. However, Tunisia had run up a lot of debt, so in 1869, France, Italy and Great Britain took control of Tunisia’s finances. In 1881, Tunisia became a protectorate of France. This angered Italy, who had wanted Tunisia for themselves. Italy made many threats of annexing Tunisia in the years before World War I.

In 1884, the French replaced Tunisia’s ruler from the bey with the French resident-general. The French invested heavily in modernizing Tunisia. In 1920 the Destour Political Party formed, calling for democratic reforms in Tunisia. France responded to demands for internal autonomy with repression. In 1934, the party split in two, the Destour party and the more radical Neo-Destour Party. When France fell to the Nazis in World War II, so did Tunisia. In November 1942, Nazi troops arrive in Tunisia to fight the Allied troops that had established themselves in Algeria and Morocco. Major battles in the war were fought on Tunisian soil.

In 1946, Tunisia was given the status of being a semi-autonomous associated state in the French Union. The people wanted independence, though, and there were riots and political demonstrations going on. In 1954, the French introduced limited reforms that favored the Tunisians. In 1955, France gave them complete internal self-government. In March 1956, France granted Tunisia the status of an independent nation. Elections were held, and the Neo-Destour Party won a sweeping victory. The neo-destour leader, Bourguiba is elected president. In 1957, Tunisia becomes a Republic.

The neo-Destour party continued to win election after election by landslides, and it was widely believed the elections were not fair or free. In 1987 Bourguiba was ousted as president and replaced by Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, who is still president today, and plagued by the same vote rigging allegations as his predecessor.