Abstract: This paper examines how export-oriented settler agriculture shaped indigenous population distribution in colonial Algeria. By the early twentieth century, Algeria had become one of the world’s largest wine producers and the principal supplier of wine to metropolitan France. We construct a commune-level panel dataset combining census measures of indigenous population with indicators of viticultural intensity derived from agricultural reports. By exploiting variation in early exposure to viticulture across communes, we show that indigenous population growth became increasingly concentrated in high-viticulture areas from the late 1920s onward, with divergence intensifying during the Great Depression. This pattern is consistent with initial immigration driven by the relatively continuous labor demand of viticulture—unlike more seasonal crops—followed by reduced outward mobility as alternative employment opportunities contracted. We interpret these findings as evidence of a form of demographic lock-in, whereby indigenous populations remained spatially concentrated in viticultural areas despite continued exclusion from land and vineyard ownership. This analysis is the first systematic quantitative evidence linking the labor demands of settler monoculture to the spatial concentration and persistence of indigenous population growth in colonial Algeria.