The Mejba Revolt

The Mejba Revolt (1864–65) was a rebellion in Tunisia against the doubling of an unpopular poll tax (the mejba) imposed on his subjects by Sadok Bey. The most extensive revolt against the rule of the Husainid Beys of Tunis, it saw uprisings all over the country and came close to prompting military intervention by Britain and France. The revolt was suppressed with great brutality and the government became ever more seriously indebted to foreign creditors, backed by European governments, until it was finally unable to resist French occupation in 1881.

Public debt did not exist in the Regency of Tunis until the end of the reign of Mustapha Bey in 1837, but his successors found themselves in increasingly difficult financial circumstances. They wanted to modernise the country and its institutions: Ahmed Bey had set up a military academy at Le Bardo and begun training a larger army. He sent 15,000 Tunisian soldiers to fight for the Ottoman Empire in the Crimean War, and also established new government offices - the rabta managing state grain silos; the ghaba in charge of olive oil forests; and the ghorfa, the central state procurement office. His successor Muhammad Bey was an ambitious palace-builder.

To fund these expensive new ventures, the Beys of Tunis relied on tax revenues paid on a customary basis. Most of the country paid the mejba (Arabic: مجبة‎‎) established in the seventeenth century under the Muradid dynasty. There is much scholarly debate about exactly what this constituted and how it was levied, but it appears that before 1856, the term mejba signified a tax paid by a tribe, clan or other social group, based on a collective assessment. The Beys also imposed monopoly taxes on salt, tobacco, tanned hides and other commodities.

In 1856, Muhammad Bey embarked on a major fiscal reform. He gave up most of his taxes on commodities and agricultural goods (except for olive and date trees, oils and cereals) as well as the old mejba levies, and instituted a new capitation tax called the i'ana (Arabic: اعانة‎‎) which quickly also became known as the mejba, although it was a new tax calculated on a completely different basis - it was levied on individuals rather than on groups. This new mejba was fixed at 36 piastres per adult male per year. For most peasants, this equated to about 45 days' labour. To reduce potential unrest, the five largest towns - Tunis, Sfax, Sousse, Monastir, Tunisia and Kairouan - were exempted. The new tax raised 9.7m piastres out of a total 22.95m piastres of government income. Although burdensome, the new mejba was not sufficient to eliminate the government deficit. The developing economy meant that increasingly gold and silver coin tended to fall into the hands of European merchants, who took it out of the country. When the foreign merchants refused to accept copper coins, Muhammad Bey issued debased currency in 1858.

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