Four Communes originaires alone held electoral and parliamentary rights in French West Africa

Evidence

The Four Communes of Senegal, alone among French possessions in West Africa, had the right to send a deputy to Parliament and enjoyed the same civil and electoral rights as municipalities in France. Most (90 percent) of the indigenous inhabitants, or originaires, of the Four Communes were illiterate, poor, and Muslim, and they cared little about those privileges. Two additional groups of originaires, however, had always taken their rights seriously and considered themselves French. These included the old, largely Catholic, metis or assimile elite of Saint-Louis, whose links to France and French culture predated the Revolution, and a new class of French-educated, predominantly Muslim, African clerks now working in Dakar for the federal agencies or a large trading company. The administration referred to this group as evolues. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 519

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the crucial legal distinctions among originaires, assimiles, and evolues — the class structure of French citizenship in West Africa.