added to the Penal Code in 1881 and initially applied to Algeria only, established an inferior legal status for French subjects compared to French citizens, and provided for the application of local customary law as interpreted by executive-dominated colonial tribunals to French subjects, while French citizens were governed by the French civil code. Although the French imperial system did not employ the British concept of indirect rule under customary law, there was in practice a very similar distinction between indigènes and those of French civil status — that is to say mostly those of European descent. The exception to this rule was the French civil status given to the inhabitants (black African as well as white) of four communes in Senegal — Dakar, Saint Louis, Gorée and Rufisque — who had enjoyed special privileges since the 1830s, including the option to access the courts under the civil code and, from 1848, the right to elect a deputy to the French parliament.8 French mandated territories also had their own status, but a similar administrative system in practice. In the final years of colonial rule, there was an effort in the French territories, not paralleled in the British protectorates, to extend citizenship more widely9; however, the rights promised were never granted in full, especially in relation to political rights, and did not satisfy the demands for equality and independence from French control. From 1958, the new constitution of the French 5th Republic created a Communauté française in which the territories of AOF had much greater autonomy than before, though foreign relations and thus nationality remained within French jurisdiction. Only Guinea rejected the terms of the short-lived Communauté, attaining independence from France in 1958 under the radical leadership of Sekou Touré, two years earlier than most other AOF territories. Portugal drew similar distinctions between “European” and “native” in its five colonies in Africa, including Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau and São Tomé and Príncipe in West Africa. Two categories of citizenship were introduced in 1899, the indígena (native) and the não-indígena (non-native). The não-indígenas, European-born Portuguese and white-skinned foreigners, were full Portuguese citizens subject to metropolitan laws, whereas the indígenas were administered by African law, that is the “customary” laws of each territory. The indigenato code, applied in all Portuguese colonies except Cape Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe, was applied administratively, without possible appeal to any court of law.10 Formal legal equality in the colonies was established by the Portuguese only in 1961, in the midst of liberation wars in Africa, when any African could formally choose to become a Portuguese citizen and the worst kinds of forced labour were abolished.11 Liberia had its own very particular history with regard to citizenship, starting from its foundation in 1822 by American Colonization Society. The 1839 Constitution adopted by the board of directors of the Society clearly established the colonists as legally separate from the “several African tribes”, from 8 See Christian Bruschi, “La nationalité dans le droit colonial,” Procès: Cahiers d’analyse politique et juridique, 1987-1988, special issue on “Le droit colonial”, pp. 29-83. 9 In particular, the famous Loi Lamine Guèye, named after a Senegalese delegate to the Constituent Assembly drafting the constitution of the French Fourth Republic, which provided that “A partir du 1er juin 1946, tous les ressortissants des territoires d’Outre-Mer ont la qualité de citoyen, au même titre que les nationaux français de la métropole et des territoires d’Outre-Mer. Des lois particulières établiront les conditions dans lesquelles ils exerceront leurs droits de citoyens. » Loi 46-940 du 7 mai 1946 tendant à proclamer citoyens tous les ressortissants des territoires d’outre-mer. 10 Peter Karibe Mendy, “Portugal’s Civilizing Mission in Colonial Guinea-Bissau: Rhetoric and Reality,” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 2003, vol. 36, no. 1, p. 44. 11 Bridget O’Laughlin, “Class and the customary: the ambiguous legacy of the Indigenato in Mozambique”, African Affairs, Vol.99, No.394, 2000, pp. 5-42. 8