 "Pied-noir" (literally "black foot") is a term used to name the European-descended population (mostly Catholic), who had resided in Algeria for generations; it is sometimes used to include the indigenous Maghrebi Jewish population as well, which likewise emigrated after 1962.Europeans arrived in Algeria as immigrants from all over the western Mediterranean (particularly France, Spain, Italy and Malta), starting in 1830.The Jews arrived in several waves, some coming as early as 600 BC and during the Roman period, known as the Maghrebi Jews or Berber Jews.