The Col des Beni Aicha had been a flashpoint since 1837, when Colonel Schauenburg first recognized its strategic importance during the French conquest. Control of the pass meant control of the corridor between Algiers and Great Kabylia, and battles there recurred for two decades until the region was declared "pacified" in 1857. Colonization followed: in July 1860, a settler named Paul Just arrived from Embrun in the Hautes-Alpes with a military escort, under orders from Governor General Patrice de MacMahon, to establish an agricultural concession. The settlement grew slowly, its Pieds-Noir inhabitants eking out a living from thin soil and the custom of travelers stopping at the stagecoach station. For eleven years the arrangement held. Then Cheikh Mokrani rose.

The Mokrani Revolt of 1871, the largest Algerian uprising of the 19th century, erupted after France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War left the colonial garrison weakened. After capturing Palestro on 14 April, Cheikh Mokrani's forces swept through Lower Kabylia, burning the colony at Laazib Zamoum, taking Bordj Menaiel, and pushing toward Algiers. The rebels who struck the Col des Beni Aicha on 19 April were commanded by two religious leaders: Cheikh Boumerdassi of the Zawiyet Sidi Boumerdassi and Cheikh Boushaki of the Zawiyet Sidi Boushaki. Fighters from the Iflissen, the Issers, the Beni Aicha, the Beni-Amran, and the Khachnas converged on the settlement. By noon, the village was in flames and the rebels held the pass.

Colonel Alexandre Fourchault recaptured the pass on 30 April after sharp fighting, but Algerian attacks continued until 8 May. What happened next bears witness to the colonial military's methods of collective punishment. On 7 May, Fourchault received orders to burn villages on the left bank of the Oued Isser. The two targeted settlements were razed without resistance, their inhabitants having fled. Two Algerians found with weapons were executed on the spot. But on 8 May, as General Lallemand's column approached the pass, unarmed villagers from Soumaa, Gueddara, Meraldene, Tabrahimt, and Azela came out to offer their submission. Fourchault, suspecting them of having participated in the looting, ordered his cavalry to surround them and open fire at close range. Fifteen fell dead. His soldiers then fired on women and men fleeing into the ravines, killing at least five more people and one woman.

The revolt's leaders were hunted down and captured. Cheikh Boumerdassi, his brother Abdelkader, and Cheikh Mohamed Boushaki were imprisoned. In 1874, Cheikh Mohamed Boumerdassi, then 56 years old, was deported to New Caledonia -- an ocean and half a world away from the mountains he had defended. He traveled aboard the ship La Loire as one of thirty-four Algerian political deportees, leaving Brest on 5 June 1874 and arriving in Noumea on 16 October. The lands of the insurgents were sequestered and redistributed to settlers. Others were sentenced to death or hard labor. The pass was rebuilt, resettled, and would eventually become the town of Thenia. But the Kabyle memory of 1871 -- of resistance, defeat, and deportation -- persisted long after the wooden village was replaced by stone.