Imprisonment and Citizenship in Senegal,1917–1946: The Case of the Originaires

Different, separated: A segregated and racialized prison system

Introduced in 1820, three years after France regained control over Senegal, imprisonment was part of France's colonizing efforts. Throughout the colonial period, French authorities rationalized it as the chief form of punishment to control and repress the population, building thirty-three prisons by the time they withdrew from Senegal in 1960 (Konaté, 2018). Although the 1841 Prison Act that officially established a prison system in Senegal and subsequent decrees enacted in the twentieth century stipulated the classification of inmates based on age, sex, and length of sentences, there were no efforts in practice to separate men and women, youth and adults, old and new prisoners, or petty offenders from hardened ones. These regulations were far outweighed by significant political and economic calculations that prioritized the renovation of old military barracks, warehouses, religious buildings into prisons over the construction of new prisons. The pattern did not change in the interwar period, when only a small number of new prisons were built despite the implementation of regulations in 1929 that reiterated the classification of inmates based on sex, age, and crime. The categorization of prisons into civil prisons, houses of arrest and correction, houses of arrest, penal camps, and penitentiary schools was spelled out only on paper, not reflected in practice. In these institutions, most of the prisoners were “natives” who were subjected to harsh detention conditions. From overcrowded and dilapidated facilities to heavy workloads, poor diet, corporal punishment, and unsanitary conditions, imprisonment in colonial Senegal robbed prisoners of their humanity. Even in the prisons that fell under the jurisdictions of French courts (Dakar, Saint-Louis, Kaolack, and Ziguinchor) and that housed European prisoners, “native” prisoners were poorly treated, reflecting the systemic racial segregation that marked prisons in colonial Africa (Bernault, 2003:16–22).

In colonial Senegal, the segregation of races was the most salient characteristic of the colonial prisons. The article concurs with the previous literature that “racialized discourses constituted major driving forces of the prison system” (Séne: 2010: 126, Konaté, 2018). Racial segregation not only reinforced the separation between African and European prisoners but often led to prison policies that best suited European prisoners. Colonial officials embodied particular notions of what treatment each race could endure in the prisons. Although the ratio of Europeans to Africans was low and there were no standard dimensions, Europeans were housed in spacious and airy cells, while Africans were crowded as many as forty to fifty in small quarters. Moreover, the prison system functioned primarily to protect Europeans as colonial authorities saw it as necessary for their safety to separate them from African prisoners. The authorities also saw European prisoners as having different requirements from “native” prisoners. For example, in 1906, the French administration planned the construction of a panoptical prison in the cercle of Thiès to house the majority of prisoners in the colony with the purpose of subjecting them to a well-regulated system of discipline. Although it was never built, the 1906 Thiès panoptical prison, which was racially segregated, shows that the pavilion for European prisoners had no windows, but instead had large French doors to allow for better air circulation and lighting. The designers of the prison made the health and safety of European prisoners their priority. Throughout the colonial period, the budgetary limitations frequently decried by the French authorities did not prevent them from improving the living conditions of European inmates. For instance, after touring the Dakar prison in 1940, the Head of FWA's Health and Medical Services called for a total separation of African and European inmates. For the latter group, he urged the construction of “separate toilets with bathtubs covered with tiles” (ANS, 4P855).

Whilst the 1841 Prison Act created mixed prisons, subsequent legislation enforced racial segregation at all levels of the penal system. Diet, clothing, detention and working conditions, and even punishment were dispensed according to whether the prisoner was African or European, native or a French citizen, black or white. A 1905 prison report on the Saint-Louis prison urged prison officials to provide European prisoners with “mosquitoes nets to protect their health while nothing similar was planned for the native prisoners who represented 95 percent of the prison population” (Séne: 2010:59). By 1929, racial segregation was further institutionalized with the adoption of a new legislation intended to reform the prison system in Senegal. On January 22, 1929, Jules Carde, then Governor-General of FWA directed prison officials to maintain a prison system aimed only at repressing those classified as “natives,” urging them “not to lose sight that the harshness of detention conditions remains an important element of imprisonment” (ANS, 3F/00101). A month later, on February 22, 1929, the colonial government reorganized its prisons into two types of prisons: prisons of the cercles, which accommodated the bulk of native inmates; and prisons under the jurisdiction of the French courts that housed French citizens (Originaires and European prisoners) and native prisoners who were serving long sentences (ANS, 3F/00085). On 3 August 1929, another decree reorganized the regime of the Dakar prison as Dakar became a separate political and administrative entity from the colony of Senegal. Although the 1929 Acts overhauled the prison system on the pattern of new classifications, the Decree of 3 August 1929, in particular, complicated those classifications by dividing inmates into seven confusing categories: Europeans and Originaires convicted or charged by civil and military jurisdictions, native military defendants and those convicted by the native courts, European and Originaires charged with debt, natives charged with debt and those sentenced under the Indigénat system, juvenile prisoners, prisoners sentenced to relegation, detention, hard labor, and reclusion, and European and Originaire political prisoners. When colonial inspector Carcassonne visited the Dakar prison in 1939, he observed that the decree “failed to completely separate Europeans from Africans. It’s crucial to erect a building reserved exclusively for European prisoners because their lifestyle is entirely different from that of native prisoners (FR ANOM 1AFF-POL 633). So, the only meaningful distinction made in the management of prisons was to differentiate the spaces reserved for and the treatment given to prisoners on the basis of their race as captured in a letter from the governor of FWA to the administrator of Dakar in 1931 about an extension plan for the Dakar prison. Built in 1924, the Dakar prison was the epitome of the classic metropolitan square-shaped prison with its perfectly aligned four sides. Designed to house over 200 prisoners, it was divided into two prisons: a prison for Europeans and another for Africans. The governor blasted the extension plan, which “from a sanitary standpoint was unfit because of the closeness of the two prisons” (ANS, 4P851). He updated the plan by adding “mosquito nettings in the rooms for Europeans to ward off an outbreak of malaria that is widespread in this neighborhood.” The Dakar prison was located in the African neighborhood of Medina. For European inmates, colonial officials considered “hygiene to be of high importance” (ANS, 3F/00060). Consistent with this statement, Dr Charles Carpot of the Saint-Louis prison, requested new blankets, bedclothes and outfits for European inmates during the rainy season, a period of malaria outbreak. Thus, racial segregation within the colonial prisons in Senegal was couched in a language of hygiene, disease, and contagion (Echengerg, 2002) in line with colonial public health policies. It was also anchored around colonial and metropolitan perceptions of race and crime.

At the heart of penal policies in colonial Senegal lay the construction of the African prisoner as somebody who was inclined to criminality. “For many colonizers, Africans were potential criminals” (Bernault, 2003:25). In colonial prison reports, stereotypes associated with African prisoners such as “suffering from primitivism,” “low mentality,” brutes, and fortes têtes were grounded in Western discourses on the degeneration of criminals or the search for visual signs of criminality (Renneville, 2013). Put simply, the African prisoner was racially and criminally stereotyped as deviant, criminal, vicious, all proof his so-called inherent savagery and must be separated from the European prisoner as pointed out by colonial inspector Carcassonne during his 1939 visit of the Dakar prison. Carcassonne called for the construction of “a separate building for European prisoners to root out the bad influence that some native prisoners may have on them and to safeguard the prestige of the nationals of the mother country” (FR ANOM 1AFF-POL 633). The differential treatment experienced by African prisoners and European prisoners shaped the Originaire prisoners’ status claim-making

French in their own words: Originaires and French citizenship claims in colonial prisons

The literature on citizenship in colonial Africa shows how European powers created mechanisms that classified Africans into citizens and subjects. Mahmood Mamdani (1996:17) traces the difference between citizens, mainly Europeans and a few privileged Africans and subjects, rurally based African peasants. Citizenship, he contends, “would be a privilege of the civilized; the un-civilized would be subject to an all-round tutelage.” What this scholarship demonstrates is that the regime of citizenship in colonial Africa created mechanisms of exclusion despite seeking to uphold an ideal of universalism. As discussed above the Originaire prisoners made two types of claims: firstly, a legal right to equality, with equality not being measured by how prisons were organized in France but rather with how European prisoners were treated in Senegal, and secondly cultural claims vis-à-vis their relative position to “native” prisoners.

Record keeping of prison populations during the colonial period is incomplete. It is difficult to provide the total numbers of prisoners in general and that of Originaire prisoners in particular. But the available evidence indicates a growing prison population throughout the colonial period. Prisoners in Senegal in 1930 numbered 851 (both native and French justice). This number rose to 1766 prisoners in 1943 and 2331 in 1952 (3F/00133). This colony-wide increase of the prison population did not reflect the reality in different prisons where numbers fluctuated based on releases, prison breaks, and transfers of prisoners. For instance, the Saint-Louis prison housed 140 prisoners in 1938, 118 in 1940 (3F/00077), and 218 in 1943 (3F/00078). At the Dakar prison, there 260 prisoners in 1927, 315 in 1929, 260 in 1932, and 400 inmates in 1939 (FR ANOM 1 AFF-POL 633). The Originaire and European prisoners made up a small number compared to native prisoners who constituted the bulk of the prison population. On April 2, 1924, the Saint-Louis prison housed 115 prisoners; of those prisoners 23 were Europeans and Originaires (3F/00071). In April 1925, the Kaolack prison accommodated 153 prisoners including ten French citizens (Europeans and Originaires. In October 1918, the Dakar prison housed 25 prisoners under the European regime (nine Europeans and sixteen Originaires). In June 1922, 262 prisoners were incarcerated there including 46 Europeans (ANS, 3F/00034). Although it is also difficult to provide an inventory of the crimes that the Originaires had committed due to fragmented archives, their petitions provide hints on the length of their sentences and some of the crimes that landed them in prison. For example, Abdoulaye Sow, an Originaire inmate at the Saint-Louis prison, received a 6-month sentence for robbery while Saliou Ndiaye, another Originaire at the same prison, was serving three years for missing a military recruitment deadline (ANS, 3F/00079). It is also worth noting that the Originaires were not a homogenous group; they were found in different prisons, although most of the complaints concerned Originaires held at the prisons of Dakar and Saint-Louis. Their complaints crystallized into demands that ranged from better food and detention conditions, exemption from prison labor, better access to medical care, and basic needs such as clothing, and bedding (ANS, 3F/00079). In articulating their complaints, however, the Originaires indicated the fundamental issue at stake was the violation of their rights as French citizens.

Claims based on Legal Status

All the Originaires included in this study were held at prisons that fell under the jurisdiction of the French courts (the prisons of Dakar, Saint-Louis, and Kaolack). Those at the prison of Saint-Louis initiated the first complaints. The Saint-Louis prison was the first prison built in Senegal by the French in 1863. There, Originaire prisoners called out colonial authorities for what they described as their unfair treatment. Starting 1918, a number of petitioners from Saint-Louis requested that they be readmitted to the European regime they had been receiving in the Dakar prison before being transferred. It is unknown why the administrators at Dakar held these prisoners under the European regime whereas the administrators at Saint-Louis would not, but this demonstrates the arbitrariness of the distinctions being made within the prisons, where prisoners were subjected to the whims of administrators. In 1918, Saliou Ndiaye, an Originaire originally held at the prison of Dakar and then transferred to Saint-Louis wrote several letters to the governor of Senegal asking for re-admission to the European regime. In 1919, he reached out to the government's general secretary, reiterating his request In it, he stated that Mr Griévaud, the prison doctor, mailed out Ndiaye's first letter on his behalf, suggesting the doctor was perhaps sympathetic to his request (ANS, 3F/00079). In 1919, Ndiaye joined force with Youssou Gaye (seen above in the introduction) also transferred to Saint-Louis from Dakar. They persistently asked to be put on a European regime in compliance with the decree of September 29, 1916. Around the same time, Boubacar Sarr, another Originaire inmate in Saint-Louis, joined the chorus of protesters. He wrote four letters to the governor of Senegal, voicing similar complaints. At Saint-Louis, the prisoners pointed the finger at the prison director, attributing their situation to his own methods of running the prison.

In articulating their claims, these prisoners repeatedly evoked the decree of September 29, 1916, arguing that the decree entitled them to equal treatment with European prisoners within the prison. The decree stipulated that “the natives of the communes de plein exercise of Senegal and their descendants are and remain French citizens.” The prisoners consistently called for the enforcement of the 1916 law within colonial prisons and they used the language of the law to make their claims. On October 20, 1918, Saliou Ndiaye and several other Originaire prisoners petitioned the governor of Senegal for their admission to the European regime. In their petition, they invoked significant phrases in the 1916 legislation, writing: “We are from the Four Communes therefore we are legally French. We were imprisoned at the prison of Dakar where we were admitted to the European regime without hesitation. We are currently serving our time at the prison of Saint-Louis, where we asked to be placed in the cour européenne (European quarter).” To them, the word “European” in the expression “European regime” or cour européenne simply meant “French” and encapsulated their “Frenchness.” Identifying themselves as French, they firmly asserted that the fact of their imprisonment could justify differential treatment. “We are all Originaires, and according to the law, we have the same duties and rights as our brothers.” By brothers, they meant the French citizens in Senegal and France. To better plead their case, they brought up their military sacrifice and service to their country, France, asserting claims to citizenship through service: “most of us have served in the army and have our military records with us.” The 1916 decree also stipulated that the Originaires and their descendants “are subject to the military obligations contained in the law of October 19, 1915,” which allowed the Originaires to serve in the French army. For instance, “7200 Originaires would eventually serve as citizen-soldiers, the majority were conscripts, not volunteers” (Mann, 2003: 370). Thus, their military records offered leverage and legitimacy. By pointing to admission to the European regime at the Dakar prison and denouncing the denial for the same treatment at the Saint-Louis prison, Ndiaye and his fellow Originaires exposed the lack of uniformity of prison policies in Senegal. Their complaints also suggest that prison officials engaged in practices of exclusion, determining who was a French citizen or who was not, and in which prisons, the rights of French citizenship would be enforced in or denied. Their attitude toward the Originaires’ claim-making emerged from Saliou Ndiaye's letters to the governor of Senegal. In one letter, Ndiaye wrote: “annoyed by my repeated requests for access to the European regime, the prison director told me that you (the governor) had rejected my request; that all Originaires serving time in Dakar or Saint-Louis are subjected to the indigéne regime by your order (the governor).” In another letter, Ndiaye claimed that “the prison director told him that the decree of 29 September 1916 was repealed and all Originaires had lost their rights.” This seems to suggest at the Saint-Louis prison, the director believed that Originaires lost all entitlements to their rights of French citizens once in prison. In other words, imprisonment and French citizenship did not seem to coincide in the colonial penal world.

The evidence also reveals that Originaire prisoners felt a strong sense of being discriminated against, provoking deep resentment manifested in cries for help from prominent local politicians known for their defense of the interests of the Originaires. On February 24, 1919, Boubacar Sarr and Youssou Gaye, incarcerated at the Saint-Louis prison, wrote a letter to their lawyer François Carpot, an Originaire and a former Senegalese representative in the French Parliament (ANS, 3F/00079). They believed that Carpot, a protector of the rights of native populations, would support their requests due to his strong stance against France's assimilation policy in Senegal. According to Alice Conklin (1997:145), François Carpot believed that “France's entire approach to governing was to treat them (Originaires) as French citizens each time it was a question of obligation and duties, and to treat them as subjects each time it was a question of rights and privileges.” There is no evidence that Carpot raised the issue of the Originaire prisoners with colonial authorities, but on March 15, 1919, Sarr and Gaye contacted F. Fons, the deputy mayor of Saint-Louis, who did pass on their request for admission to the European regime to the governor of Senegal (ANS, 3F/00079). Repeated complaints prompted local elites to invite officials to respect the Originaires’ given rights of French citizenship, turning the whole issue of their claim-making into a politically charged issue. In June 1919, Télémaque Camara, a Saint-Louis-based African lawyer and Originaire, wrote a letter to Gabriel Angoulvant, then governor-general of FWA, drawing attention to the violation of the Originaire prisoners’ rights to a European regime. He called out France's hypocrisy, lamenting that such violation refuted the principles of humanism, justice, and equality the French advocated in Senegal (ANS, 3F/00079). He commented, “for 5 months, Originaire prisoners transferred from Dakar to Saint-Louis have repeatedly requested their admission to the European regime but were ignored by the administration.” Decrying the double standards applied to these prisoners, he pointed out that “in 1916, 1917, and in the first part of 1918, all Originaires incarcerated in Saint-Louis were housed in the European quarter.”

As their complaints were ignored, the Originaires made efforts to organize themselves. In 1923, those at the Saint-Louis prison took a joint decision, writing a letter to the general secretary of the government, complaining about their food that “smells like gasoline” (ANS, 3F/00071) and the lack of basic necessities such as soap and daily showers. This letter further highlighted their status claims as a matter of discrimination. Yet, embedded in their writings were hints of patriotism despite the crude reality of their imprisonment. In Saint-Louis, Originaire prisoners known only as A. D, A. S., and A. G, petitioned the governor of Senegal for their release to join the French army in 1939 when the Second World War broke out, after the prison director had rejected their request They lamented that the director's actions violated not only the Decree of September 1, 1939, but also robbed them of their patriotism because he took away their pride and willingness to defend, and die for, their country, France. The 1939 decree stipulated the release of French citizens and subjects with military duties sentenced to less than six months in prison (this was for serving military personnel who were imprisoned), highlighting again that the Originaires’ demands continued to draw directly from the legislation that granted them full French citizenship rights. In addition to their legal claims, the Originaires also invoked particular cultural identities and cultural difference between themselves and “native” prisoners in order to buttress their claims based on legal status.

Cultural differences: Originaires v. Native Prisoners

To bolster the political discourses used to claim their “Frenchness,” the Originaires also added a cultural discourse. Their claim to be legally French and legally equal with European prisoners was also predicated on claims to being culturally different from “native” prisoners. The Originaires were tactical in differentiating themselves culturally as well as legally from this category of prisoners. As they fought against the unjust treatment they faced, they used “native” prisoners as a wedge between themselves and European prisoners. Adopting the divisive language of the assimilation policy that created the two categories of French citizens (Originaires) and French subjects (indigénes) in Senegal, they identified themselves as “évolués”– educated, assimilated elites who had culturally assimilated French values. They argued that these factors and identities entitled them to a preferential treatment in colonial prisons and necessitated better conditions. No wonder they fiercely expressed their resentment of prison officials who put them in common cells with native inmates. In 1925, Amadou Kane, an Originaire incarcerated at the Kaolack prison wrote to the governor of Senegal, blasting the prison director for “confining Originaires and indigénes in the same penal quarters.” Similarly, Youssou Gaye, another Originaire at the Saint-Louis prison complained that “he was jampacked with native prisoners in the same room,” and compelled to “vivre à l’indigénat“ which he deemed an “anormalité, illégalité.” Gaye, Kane, and fellow Originaires believed that sharing penal quarters with “native” inmates was an outrageous violation of their rights as French citizens. They even described their detention conditions in stereotypical terms that resonated with colonial discourses of “native” cultures and behaviors. At the Kaolack prison, Amadou Kane described his detention conditions “as worst” because “he slept in the same conditions as those in the bush.” The Originaires also resented prison officials for serving them the diet reserved for native prisoners. In his letters, Saliou Ndiaye emphasized his poor health, which he claimed worsened after he was forced to “live under the Indigénat regime.” In a letter dated March 1, 1919, and addressed to the mayor of Saint-Louis, Youssou Gaye claimed that after numerous failed requests to be placed under the European regime, he had no choice but “to follow the native regime to the detriment of my health, which has deteriorated significantly.” On March 7, 1919, Gaye wrote to the governor of Senegal, stating: “since my arrival in Saint-Louis, I eat only bread at my own expense because I cannot consume the food prepared for the native category, to which I was unfairly placed under.” Similar complaints were found even in Télémaque Camara's letter to governor general Angoulvant discussed above. Camara lamented that Originaires were “considered mere natives of the bush and given a diet so unhealthy that the worst human being would not eat it.” There is no doubt that the Originaire prisoners viewed themselves as culturally different from “native” prisoners and did not hesitate to bring up those differences to highlight their distinctiveness. Their perceptions of “native” prisoners emerged clearly in the context of their fight for equal treatment with European prisoners.

Official responses: racialized rejections and transfers

The evidence shows that of all Originaire prisoners, only Saliou Ndiaye was successful in his request for admission to the European regime after the director of the Dakar prison confirmed that during his eight-month incarceration (March-October 1918) in Dakar, he was under that regime. The evidence does not tell how many petitions received a response, but it reveals authorities’ responses to local politicians about the Originaires’ complaints. A week after he received Télémaque Camara's letter, governor-general Angoulvant urged the governor of Senegal “to take all necessary measures to ensure that Originaire prisoners are to be subjected to a regime that best suit their social habits.” He did not elaborate on what he meant by social habits, though this suggests some of the cultural claims identified above. But he warned that “it would unfortunate that some prisoners because they belong to a certain category are treated better in prison than they are actually treated in life,” suggesting a concern both with ensuring less-eligibility throughout the prisons and that the status distinctions advocated by the Originaires threatened to elevate conditions for native prisoners. Angoulvant is making an argument that was made in metropolitan prisons called “less eligibility” that essentially the conditions in the prisons had to be worse than whatever the living conditions for the prisoners would be outside (Paton, 2004). Otherwise, the thinking went, individuals would commit crimes in order to enjoy the supposed benefits of living in prison. It seems that Angoulvant's order was not enforced because Originaire prisoners continued seeking admission to the European regime. They made their claims knowing they may face repercussions.

When in 1919, Sarr and Gaye petitioned the governor of Senegal to be placed under the European regime, they claimed that the prison director had denied them their legislatively allowed family visits when they first made their request to him. The prisoners suggested that retaliation was the norm at the prison when they begged the governor to conceal their letters because they feared reprisals for writing to him. It appears, therefore, that prison officials were sufficiently aggrieved by the Originaires’ claims making that they took the time and efforts to retaliate.

Colonial officials deemed the Originaire prisoners to be as politically toxic. After a group of Originaires at the Kaolack prison voiced their complaints in April 1925, Mr Court, the prison director, sent a letter to his superior, the commandant of Sine-Saloum, expressing fear that their agitations would incite an uprising. He wrote:

For the natives, the prison is a paradise because they get free food and cozy beds. There is currently in the prison a group of demanding and unruly prisoners and I mean the Originaires. They frequently grumble about anything and refuse to work. It would be safer to transfer all of them to Dakar or Saint-Louis. In doing so, we get rid of people who are treated better than other natives from whom they are not different because they are of the same color and from the same country, a fact the Orginaires refused to admit” (ANS, 3F/00079).

Court's first point is indicative of the colonial construction of the African prisoner as someone who experienced a higher quality of life inside prison than outside. Put simply, he contended that Africans welcomed imprisonment, an attitude that was consistent with mainstream colonial thoughts. But Court's last point was a crucial one. He not only dismissed the Originaires’ as demanding, but also identified them as “natives.” His letter highlights that a preoccupation with racial differences was common to both the Originaires’ complaints and colonial authorities’ responses. By insisting that the Originaires and the natives “are not different because they are of the same color and from the same country,” prison officials like Court cultivated racial segregation, suggesting the preeminence of racialized thinking in penal practices in colonial Senegal. He not only refused to acknowledge their “Frenchness” but also adopted colonial tropes of African behavior to insist on their “nativeness.” By racially identifying the Originaires as “natives,” Court conceptualized “Frenchness” narrowly and in racial terms, not only as a means for justifying his attitude toward the Originaires but also as part of the larger efforts to restrict their French citizenship. His perception of Originaire prisoners was clear: arrogant, unruly, and spoiled. In a letter to the commandant of Sine-Saloum dated May 8, 1925, Court wondered if the Originaires “are entitled to a regime other than of non-citizens? I cannot say except for the food part. He acknowledged that a note issued on October 11, 1922, by the Public Ministry of Koalack, instructed that Originaires be served “pasta and vegetables,” but when given that diet they “begged for their national dish, that is, rice,” which was served to native prisoners. He also framed the Orignaires’ requests for a European regime by asking if “they are entitled to plates, spoons, forks? I cannot say.” Here the link between the Originaires’ eating habits and preferences and their “nativeness” is made explicit and underscored governor-general Angoulvant's order to provide them with “a regime that best suit their social habits” as discussed above. By raising these questions, prison officials like Court blurred the distinction between Originaires and natives to delegitimize their claims-making while changing their narratives about their “Frenchness.” Furthermore, by questioning whether Originaire prisoners were entitled to various accommodations in keeping with their social status, Court is arguing that they are not entitled to the respect and dignity afforded European prisoners, and that, instead, they should be brought down to the level of “native” prisoners.

Collective agitation and originaire prison resistance

As the Originaires continued to identify injustices pertaining to their rights of French citizenship, open acts of defiance began to occur. The Originaires’ grievances were disruptive as they organized to challenge colonial authorities. As their claim-making continued, open resistance become a more significant tactic. Due to existing cultures of prison resistance (Konaté, 2018), it was perhaps inevitable that the Originaires would seek redress by taking part in riots. In August 1920, the Dakar prison was the site of a two-day riot that involved Originaire prisoners who demanded the same diet given to European prisoners (ANS, 3F/00079). Their request came after they discovered that they were given less food. In response, the Originaires wrote a petition to the sous-commissaire of prisons who stopped the mail and in retaliation punished them by cancelling family visits, a common retaliatory tactic. Prisoners opposed the measure, and a riot ensured with “native” prisoners joining in support. This suggests wider relationships of solidarity between Originaire prisoners and “native, particularly when both groups were subjected to mistreatment from prison staff. The riot sent shudders down the spines of prison officials after what started as an uprising among Originaires expanded to involve “native” prisoners who showed their support by refusing to work. Order was finally restored after Bernard, the delegate of the government, met with inmates, who then agreed to resume working. Two years later, echoes of the 1920 Dakar riot reached the Saint-Louis prison where Originaire prisoners capitalized on that incident to advance their grievances. In a petition addressed to the Mayor of Saint-Louis on April 19, 1923, they warned that the same demands that led to the Dakar riot were brewing in Saint-Louis and if those demands are not addressed, they would go down the same path of violence “even if it takes two or three of them do die to be treated fairly” (ANS, 3F/00079). At this juncture, the Originaire prisoners’ claim-making boiled to a point where it was a matter of life and death. Yet their agitations and the context in which they unfolded called into question the wider relationships of solidarity between themselves and “native” prisoners. In 1935, a hunger strike occurred at the Saint-Louis prison. After the prison director reduced the extra-time given to them to prepare the tea they drink for breakfast, “native” prisoners refused to eat until they could meet with the commandant of the cercle. They claimed that the prison director threatened them with a gun when even they refused to perform their daily tasks, writing

We have been under the supervision of five directors, and we never felt harassed. But our conditions worsened when Mr Gaillard was appointed as the director of the prison. We are very tired and stressed by his rules. (ANS, 3F/00095).

Surprisingly, the Originaires denied any involvement in the hunger strike and accused the “native” prisoners of staging the riot. In a letter, the Originaires prisoners wrote:

We don't have any complaints about Mr Gaillard. We congratulate him for what he is doing every day for us. The favors that we are enjoying here at Saint-Louis would not be tolerated elsewhere. We consider ourselves blessed to have Mr Gaillard as our director and we wish to see him serve as such until the end of our sentences (ANS, 3F/00096).

By blaming the “native” prisoners for the riot, the Originaires consciously distanced themselves from these latter for various reasons: to pursue their own fight, show they were different, distinct from the “natives,” and to better argue their “Frenchness.” The evidence shows that Originaires had singled out “native” prisoners when trouble happened because they saw violence as countering their claims to civilized “French status.” When in 1895, inmates mutinied at the Saint-Louis prison, beating a guard to death, six Originaire prisoners asked to be separated from the rioters, claiming their innocence. There were, however, instances where Originaires and natives joined forces to address detention conditions, suggesting that the Originaire prisoners exploited the support from native prisoners when they believed it would help them achieve their goals.