Migration, Adaptation, and Innovation: Firearms and Franco-Ottoman Technological Dialogue in Eighteenth-Century Algiers

This article explores the mission of two French cannon founders, Dupont Sr. and his son François, to build a new foundry and produce cannons for the Ottoman Algerian authorities in 1772–1775. The analysis of consular correspondence and Arabic and Ottoman inscriptions on the cannons produced in Algiers between 1775 and 1782 challenges the preconceived notion of a mere technological transfer from Europe to an Islamic country. Focusing on Dupont’s experience as migrant-expert, it becomes clear that a successful technological enterprise requires a dialogue between foreign and local experts. This dialogue involved technical features as well as socio-religious matters concerning the migrant’s experience in a foreign place. Using the technologies of cannon making as a case study, this micro-global analysis examines the successful development of an innovative product by migrants coming from different parts of the Mediterranean world, such as Rochefort, Algiers, Switzerland, and Istanbul.