Imprisonment and Citizenship in Senegal, 1917–1946: The Case of the Originaires
| Author | Dior Konaté |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14624745221081950 |
| Published date | 01 December 2022 |
| Date | 01 December 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Special Issue: African Penal Histories in Global Perspective |
Imprisonment and
Citizenship in Senegal,
1917–1946: The Case of the
Originaires
Dior Konaté
South Carolina State University, Orangeburg, SC, USA
Abstract
This paper examines the incarceration of the Originaires in colonial Senegal to illuminate
how imprisonment had shaped or altered their French citizenship rights in prisons.
Among the prison population in colonial Senegal were some Originaires, the residents of
the Four Communes who were granted French citizenship rights as early as 1833, a status
that remained ambiguous until 1916 when a new law made them full-pledged French citi-
zens. But the colonial government restrictions on access to full French citizenship rights in
the Four Communes compelled the Originaires to mobilize to defend those rights. Their
struggle found a breeding ground in the colonial prisons where some Originaire prisoners
made two types of claims: to equality with European prisoners based on notions of birth-
right citizenship and cultural claims to being a different category of prisoners that deserved
differential treatment compared to “natives.”By building their requests for equal admission
to the European regime around the violation of their citizenship rights, this study will dem-
onstrate that Originaire prisoners made arguments that tied their claims-making specifically
to race and status without losing sight of the cultural differences between themselves and
“native”prisoners, all in the context of a racially segregated prison world.
Keywords
imprisonment, citizenship, senegal, originaires, french, prisons, claims
Corresponding author:
Dior Konaté South Carolina State University, Orangeburg, 300 College Street NE, SC 29117-0001, USA.
Email: dkonate@scsu.edu
Special Issue: African Penal Histories in Global Perspective
Punishment & Society
2022, Vol. 24(5) 790–806
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/14624745221081950
journals.sagepub.com/home/pun
In 1918 and 1919, Youssou Gaye, a prisoner at the Saint-Louis prison, in the colony of
Senegal, penned several letters to colonial authorities including the governor of the
colony and the director of the Saint-Louis hospital, requesting that he be admitted to
what he and the colonial officials termed the “European regime.”He pointed out the
better treatment he received under the European regime (better diet, incarceration in
the Européenne court (European quarter), exemption from prison labor, and separation
from native prisoners) at the Dakar prison but expressed his dissatisfaction at his treat-
ment at the Saint-Louis prison where “he was jampacked with native prisoners in the
same room”(ANS, 3F/00079). In making this request, Gaye cited his status as a
French citizen as justifying his placement under the European regime. Similarly, in
1925, Amadou Kane, another prisoner incarcerated at the Kaolack prison, wrote a
letter to the governor of Senegal, complaining about conditions in the prison, including
the absence of bedding. He described his sleeping conditions “as worse than in the bush. I
am unable to sleep for days.”(ANS 3F/00079). Kane, who said he deserved comfortable
bedding, asked to be treated as befitted by his status as a French citizen. In denouncing
their detention conditions, these prisoners were mainly concerned with the violation of
their status as French citizens and fought to lay equal claim to the treatment given to
European prisoners incarcerated in the same prisons. Filled with grievances, these
letters capture a fault line in the reality of imprisonment in colonial Senegal between
the treatment offered to the so-called “native”prisoners, European prisoners, and a
third group that moved between the two: Originaires.
The Originaires were Africans born in Senegal’sFour Communes (Saint-Louis,
Gorée, Dakar, and Rufisque) who were granted the rights of French citizenship as
early as 1833, a status confirmed by numerous pieces of legislation (Kopytoff, 2019,
Coquery-Vidrovitch, 2001). However, their status remained ambiguous until 1916
when Blaise Diagne, the first African deputy to the French Parliament, sponsored two
pieces of legislations that made all adult male residents of the Four Communes French
citizens.
The Originaires had the right to vote, could run for office, were subjected to French
law, and were exempted from the Indigénat (regime of administrative sanctions estab-
lished in Senegal in 1887 and abolished in 1946) applied to native Africans. The
Indigénat allowed courts to punish acts or offenses that were legally different from
those spelled out in the Penal Code. Although they were French citizens, the
Originaires sought to articulate their religious identities by bringing matters such as
inheritance, marriage, and divorce before the Muslim courts created in Senegal as
early as 1857, forging “a unique civility”in the Four Communes (Diouf, 1998:685). In
1915, however, the colonial government sought to restrict or limit access to French citi-
zenship rights in the Four Communes and in response the Originaires mobilized to
defend those same rights (Johnson, 1971). Their struggle found breeding ground in the
colonial prisons where some Originaire prisoners fought for equal treatment with
European prisoners, injecting not only race but also status-based distinctions into the
colonial discourse on imprisonment in French Senegal. Because they claimed a right
to French citizenship, they held strong beliefs that they belonged to the same group as
European prisoners. They made these claims in numerous petitions sent to colonial
Konaté 791
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