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  • Colonial Justice, Crime, and Social Stratification in the "Native Quarters" of Colonial Asmara, 1890–1941:Preliminary Insights from the Court Records of the Indigenous Tribunal of Hamasien1
  • Francesca Locatelli

In 1859, Karl Marx wrote that "law does not only punish the criminal act, but can even create it." The law formulated by a professional jurist tends to do this.2 Thus, law, as a complex process of interaction between society and legislators, the ruling class, and economic lobbies, is the definitional parameter for establishing what is to be considered "deviancy." The relevance of Marx's statement is apparent if we analyze the relationship between law and society in colonial contexts, in which the system of power reveals more fragile and vulnerable features and relations are defined along class, gender, and race lines.

The definition of the legal system constituted one of the main problems to be solved in colonial Eritrea. (Indeed, the colonial legal system was central to the imprint the Italian administration wanted to impress on Eritrea and at the same time essential to control a territory that was still very politically unstable.) Making the colony became a burning issue, especially after the defeat at Adwa in 1896 that led Italy to revise the colonial policy in all its aspects: economic, social, administrative, and political.

While the development of the administrative and juridical set-up of the Italian colonia primogenita (the firstborn colony) drew the attention [End Page 101] of many scholars,3 still little has been written about its impact on the local social and cultural structure. The discovery of the Registri del Tribunale Indigeno dell'Hamasien (Registries of the Indigenous Tribunal of Hamasien) and the sentences of the Tribunale Civile e Penale of Asmara is revealing in this regard.4 This contribution is mostly based on the sources of the Registries, a vast body of evidence consisting of the summaries of civil and especially petty criminal cases regarding the entire area of Hamasien and particularly Asmara. It examines some features of the system of justice imposed by the Italian administration in Eritrea and the extent to which it was functional to the control of the ever-growing African population in Asmara. Court records are used here for reconstructing the history of lesser forms of "criminality" in the urban context of Asmara and for analyzing the construction of the complex social hierarchy established by Italian colonialism through which Italian administration decentralized power and justified its system of punishment and control over the colonial social order.

Italian Law and the Indigenous Tribunal of Hamasien

Before evaluating the nature of petty criminality in Asmara during the Italian period, it is important to highlight a few aspects of the system of justice for indigenous people introduced in Eritrea by the colonial administration. Particular attention will be given to the colonial means to control petty urban criminality.

The creation of a system of justice that could be adapted to the political, social, and economic situation encountered in the colony was a problem closely connected to the more general redefinition of the administrative set-up of Eritrea. It was through regulating the system of justice that the Italian administration sought to legitimize its presence in the colony. Furthermore, especially during the first years of the Italian occupation, state security problems rendered the organization of justice in the colony a pressing issue. Indeed, resistance to the Italian expansion was deep rooted and often nurtured by the "unreliable" attitudes of the local chiefs in the various occupied areas. During the first few years of colonial expansionist policy, the control of the occupied territories was [End Page 102] implemented through the application of military laws and the use of military tribunals which could guarantee a quick administration of justice and certainly a more efficient repression of the local opposition.5

With the establishment of the first civil, and not anymore military, government in 1898, the creation of a system of justice more adequate to the exigencies of Italian administration in Eritrea became an urgent issue. The material and political conditions in the firstborn colony had changed, and the need to create a "real colony" based on the model of other European powers led to a...

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