The Genevan Trading Company of the Swiss Colonies of Sétif

The Genevan Trading Company of the Swiss colonies of Sétif was a private share company which operated in Geneva from 1853 to 1956. Founded thanks to an imperial concession from France granting 20,000 hectares of land in Algeria for the establishment of an agricultural settlers’ colony, it’s first agents included several prominent Genevan figures such as François Auguste Sautter de Beauregard (1826-1885) and Paul-Élisée Lullin (1800-1872). The company’s affaires implied millions of francs in the currency of the time. Henry Dunant (1828-1910), future initiator and co-founder of the Red Cross humanitarian movement, was also an employee of the Geneva Trading Company. Dunant subsequently settled in Algeria, launching his own colonial businesses such as the Société financière et industrielle des moulins de Mons-Djémila whose shares were bought by such illustrious Genevans as General Guillaume Henri Dufour (1787-1875) and the naturalist Henri de Saussure (1829-1905).