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At first glance, the fate of France’s indigènes could be interpreted as one of the Republic’s major internal contradictions. By denying indigenous peoples full citizenship and the benefits of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the Republic seemed to overlook the universality of its own values, or to deny the humanity of the indigènes. It was to restore a semblance of consistency with their definition of the social contract that republicans outlined a means by which the “worthiest” indigènes could be integrated into the national community. And, in a vast corpus of doctrine concerning colonized subjects, Republicans also felt compelled to justify the exclusion of all others. Yet, a closer look at the situation of the indigènes reveals not a set of contradictions , but rather a powerful way to understand two essential features of the republican regime: how it dealt with “otherness,” and precisely what it meant to belong to the body of French citizens. Before the notion of indigène appeared in the middle of the nineteenth century , much of the drama destined to unfold in the colonial period was already in place. It was in the founding moments of the French Revolution, in connection with “people of color,” whether free or slaves, that the first breach of republican principles appeared. Despite pressure from the Société des Amis des Noirs (Society of Friends of the Blacks), the antislavery positions of Enlightenment philosophers, and the impassioned speeches by the abolitionists abbé Grégoire and the marquis de Condorcet, free “men of color” did not gain civil and political equality until 1792, and the emancipation of slaves was promised but put off. Their ultimate emancipation resulted less from the triumph of Enlightenment principles than from facts on the ground. Slave revolts in Saint Domingue forced the Convention (the French revolutionary parliament) to free the island’s slaves in August 1793. Elsewhere in the French Caribbean, slaves rose to demand a Republic true to its name, one that would grant them freedom and equality and 25 The Republic and the Indigènes Emmanuelle Saada Translated by Renée Champion and Edward Berenson 224 S The French Republic universalize the French Revolution. As a result of their intervention, abolition was extended throughout the colonies in February 1794. It lasted just eight short years. In 1802, Napoleon Bonaparte reinstituted slavery and then revoked the civil and political rights that the Revolution had granted “people of color.” They were now forbidden to enter metropolitan France and to legally register interracial marriages. During the July Monarchy, the debates of the Revolution flared up again with new priority given to equality. A law of 1833 ruled out any distinction among French nationals, guaranteeing to “each person born free or having legally acquired freedom” the benefit of civil rights and “political rights under the conditions prescribed by law.” This text did not apply to Algeria, the conquest of which began with the taking of Algiers in 1830, followed by full annexation four years later. As for the debate over liberty and the abolition of slavery, it was postponed until the 1840s, when it began to engage an educated public. The debate was resolved after the Revolution of 1848, when the Provisional Government decreed on April 27, 1848, “the immediate abolition of slavery.” This decision freed some 250,000 men, women and children, and it immutably linked liberty and equality in the exercise of citizenship. The antislavery advocate Victor Schoelcher, president of the commission created to prepare the abolition decree, was instrumental in granting citizenship rights to former slaves. He refused to transform former slaves, in his words, into “half-citizens, quarter citizens, political hermaphrodites.” France, the commission affirmed, has just provided the nations of the world an example for all eternity. It has reestablished the form of republican government that had once extended civilization far and wide, and it has rejected slavery. The Republic no longer intends to make distinctions within the human family. She does not believe that it suffices to boast of being a free people, while remaining silent about an entire class of men excluded from humanity’s common rights. She has taken her principle seriously. She intends to make amends for the crime that took these unfortunate souls from their parents and from their native countries, by giving them France as their motherland and allowing them to inherit all the rights of French citizens; she has thus clearly demonstrated that she does not exclude anyone from...

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