Sail Mohamed Ameriane ben Amerzaine was born on 14 October 1894 at Tarbeit-Beni-Ouglis in the Berber region of Kabylie, Algeria.
Like many Algerians, he recieved little schooling. A driver-mechanic by trade, all his life he thirsted for culture and took great pains to educate himself. From a Muslim Berber background, he became a convined atheist. During the First World War he was interned for insubordination and then desertion from the French Army. His sympathies for anarchism were already developing.
