If scholars have shown the power of European expertise in colonial situations, they have often neglected the agency of local actors by focusing on colonial sources. Taking as a case study a land conflict in Morocco and building on private Arabic-language archives, this article aims at understanding the strategy of a local expert. By transforming the collective lands of the tribe of Bānū Ḥ’ṣayn into individual lands, Pasha Sbihi not only resisted the claims of the colonial authorities and colonization. He also strengthened his alliances with the Moroccan monarchy and the inhabitants of his city. Down the road, the pasha succeeded in perpetuating a local consensus thanks to his local expertise, defined here as the ability to prove ownership in a context of legal pluralism This case study points to the relevance of studying family archives in the Moroccan context: in the absence of centralized state- archive, the historian has to seek private sources of local powers, and meet actors and institutions that perpetuate memory and a historical narrative that is still relevant in today’s Morocco. Pasha Sbihi’s case demonstrates thus that historical investigation and fieldwork are deeply intertwined in North Africa.