Ahmed I Bey

Ahmed I Bey was an enlightened sovereign who recognized that survival against European colonial expansion required radical internal modernization. On January 23, 1846, he issued a historic royal decree officially abolishing slavery throughout the Regency of Tunis, decades ahead of the United States and European colonies.

In 1840, he founded the Bardo Polytechnic Military Academy, employing European and Arab instructors to teach modern mathematics, artillery, and languages, training the generation of reformers that included Kheireddine Pasha. In 1846, he was received with state honors in Paris by King Louis-Philippe.