ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the problem of race as a category of identification in French West Africa and the incoherence of French laws that relegated Africans and Caribbeans who lived in territories administered under French law to the status of ‘colonial citizens’; a category that relegated Africans and Caribbeans to a position in-between that of full citizens and colonial subjects. First, it considers the discourse of race in twentieth-century French Empire as a means of codifying difference between Africa and Europe. The chapter then takes up the politics of assimilation in French West Africa by identifying the laws established by Third Republic France that created an enclave of political and legal rights for Africans living in Senegal's Four Communes, and by demonstrating that colonial authorities attempted to deny these rights to Muslim residents of the towns who refused to renounce their religion. Finally, it analyzes the long history of French Caribbeans in West Africa, their interactions with people of color of Senegal's Atlantic towns and the implications of these encounters for building Pan-African and cross-cultural relationships.
