‘In my Senegalese quality and as a compatriot’: Senegalese students in the metropolis and the language of affinity, 1880–1890

Abstract

This article argues that experience in the metropolis has long played a significant role in the attitudes and worldviews of Senegalese elites. As such, travel to France has had profound implications for local understandings of nationality, culture, and race, well before the interwar period during which Negritude and other cultural movements flourished. The article analyzes a controversy surrounding a small group of students, which included Blaise Diagne, at a school in Aix-en-Provence, France during the 1880s, paying special attention to letters the students addressed to the Ministry of the Colonies. In their letters, students described themselves as ‘compatriots’ and made claims to certain rights. The article concludes that categories like ‘compatriot’ and even nation took on new significance in France. Given former students’ prominent positions after returning to Senegal, travel to the metropolis had great potential to shape cultural and political understandings at home.

Keywords:

• Senegalese diaspora
• education
• nationality
• Blaise Diagne

Acknowledgement

Research for this article was supported by several generous grants, including an International Dissertation Research Fellowship from the Social Science Research Council; a Fulbright-Hays grant; a TIAA-CREF Ruth Simms Hamilton Research Fellowship; and summer travel grants from the following Johns Hopkins Institutions: the Institute for Global Studies, the Center for Africana Studies, and the Department of History.

Notes

1. Several of these names appear in the archive with different spellings. B. Diaye (Blaise Diagne) appears variously as Blaise/Blaize Diaye/Diagne. Isaac Konaré is sometimes Isaac Konary. In the body of the text, I have kept the spellings as they appeared in the document about which I am writing. It is clear, however, that despite the different spellings, the identity of the person is consistent.