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The Indigénat and France’s
Empire in New Caledonia
Origins, Practices and Legacies
Isabelle Merle · Adrian Muckle

Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies
Series Editors
Richard Drayton, Department of History, King’s College London,
London, UK
Saul Dubow, Magdalene College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge,
UK
The Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies series is a well-
established collection of over 100 volumes focussing on empires in world
history and on the societies and cultures that emerged from, and chal-
lenged, colonial rule. The collection includes transnational, comparative
and connective studies, as well as works addressing the ways in which
particular regions or nations interact with global forces. In its formative
years, the series focused on the British Empire and Commonwealth, but
there is now no imperial system, period of human history or part of the
world that lies outside of its compass. While we particularly welcome
the first monographs of young researchers, we also seek major studies
by more senior scholars, and welcome collections of essays with a strong
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ature, science, art, medicine, and war. Our aim is to collect the most
exciting new scholarship on world history and to make this available to a
broad scholarly readership in a timely manner.
Isabelle Merle · Adrian Muckle
The Indigénat
and France’s Empire
in New Caledonia
Origins, Practices and Legacies
Isabelle Merle Adrian Muckle
Centre de Recherche et de School of History, Philosophy,
Documentation sur l’Océanie Political Science and International
Aix-Marseille University Relations
Marseille, France Victoria University of Wellington
Wellington, New Zealand
ISSN 2635-1633 ISSN 2635-1641 (electronic)

Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies
ISBN 978-3-030-99032-9 ISBN 978-3-030-99033-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99033-6
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
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made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps
and institutional affiliations.
Cover illustration: New Caledonian chiefs c.1900. Archives de la Nouvelle-Calédonie,

collection Serge Kakou, cliché Charles Nething, 148 Fi 22 : 137
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Preface
This book provides a long history of France’s infamous indigénat regime,

from its origins in Algeria to its contested practices and legacies in the
South Pacific archipelago of New Caledonia—a former settler colony and
the last remaining part of overseas France to have experienced the full
force of the indigénat. It explains how the regime came into being, how
it reached New Caledonia, how its measures were translated into colonial
practices, how it survived until 1946 despite constant denunciation, and
how its legacies of segregation, profound inequalities, and debate over the
“customary” status of the indigenous Kanak people play out to this day.
This book is by and large a more concise version of the book published
in French in 2019 as L’Indigénat: Genèses dans l’empire français. Pratiques
en Nouvelle-Calédonie (Paris: CNRS Editions). Researchers should note,
however, that it is not a word-for-word translation of the French edition.
While it follows the same chapter structure, a significant amount of mate-
rial has been revised, consolidated, and/or reorganized to meet differing
editorial norms and an anglophone readership. Another key difference is
that the extensive appendices to the French edition are not reproduced
here. We have also taken the opportunity to amend and update our data
and analyses where possible.
Unless otherwise stated all translations from French to English are our
own. Certain key terms particular to the indigénat in New Caledonia have
been left in the French to underscore their otherness as terms imposed by
the French administration on Kanak; these include tribu (literally tribe,
v
vi PREFACE
but in local usage encompassing the notion of a defined territory or

reservation), grand chef (high chief) and petit chef (small or petty chief)
as well as syndic (for the gendarmes who were agents of the Service of
Native Affairs). To help guide researchers we have retained some French
descriptions in references to archival sources held in New Caledonia and
France.
It is also important to note that this book is published in a different
context. At the time the French version was finalized in early 2019, New
Caledonians had voted in the first of three independence referendums
provided for by the 1998 Nouméa Accord. At the time of finalizing the
English version, in early 2022, the third referendum has recently taken
place, albeit against the wishes of the Kanak independence movement,
resulting in a third vote to remain a part of France. As we outline in the
updated epilogue, New Caledonia’s relationship with France as well as the
status of its “citizens” remains more than ever a burning question. While
this book does not directly address the debates of the last thirty and more
years or the immediate political situation, it does seek to provide tools
for a better understanding of how New Caledonia arrived at this point
and how the colonial past has shaped New Caledonian society and still
produces echoes in the contemporary situation.
Marseille, France Isabelle Merle

Wellington, New Zealand Adrian Muckle
Acknowledgments
This book is the result of a close collaboration based on mutual trust and
solid friendship between its two authors. It is also a fruit of the very special
relationship that has bound us for more than 20 years to New Caledonia,
its history, and its destiny. As a collaborative research project, it took shape
between 2008 and 2018, but it is also grounded in our earlier and over-
lapping research projects dating back to the 1990s; Isabelle’s beginning
in 1990 on the history of French settlement in New Caledonia; Adrian’s
beginning in 1998 on the history of New Caledonia’s 1917 war.
We wish foremost to acknowledge that our own research is many
respects a product of the era of the 1988 Matignon-Oudinot Accords
and the 1998 Nouméa Accord and all that these political agreements
have made possible in New Caledonia. This includes the development
of institutions that have promoted and supported historical research and
awareness in New Caledonia, most notably the Centre culturel Tjibaou
and the Archives de la Nouvelle-Calédonie. The director of the Archives,
Ingrid Utchaou, and archivist Christophe Dervieux in particular have
shown a remarkable kindness and attention to us. May they be warmly
thanked.
We jointly thank the institutions to which we belong in France
and New Zealand, respectively—France’s National Centre for Scientific
Research (CNRS) and the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
at Victoria University of Wellington—as well as all the colleagues and
students who have supported and nourished our interests over the years.
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Adrian extends particular thanks to the Camargo Foundation, Cassis, for

the support that they provided to him as a Residential Fellow in 2015 as
well as the University of Aix-Marseille and the Centre for Research and
Documentation on Oceania (CREDO) which enabled him to extend his
2015 stay in Marseille as an invited researcher.
We are also very much endebted to the Archives nationales d’outre-
mer, Aix-en-Provence, and the Service historique de la Défense,
Vincennes, and their personnel, as well as to the Musée des Beaux-Arts,
Chartres. We thank the members of the CNRS Research Group on New
Caledonia to which we both contributed between 2000 and 2008. We
wish to acknowledge in particular our great debt to the late Alban Bensa
(1948–2021) who helped to introduce us to New Caledonia and provided
encouragement through his innovative approaches, the collaborations he
offered us, and his attentive interest in our work.
For this English edition, we extend thanks to the editors and produc-
tion team at Palgrave Macmillan/Springer Nature and to Marie-Christine
Meunier Sêtre for permission to use photographs from the Meunier
album. For the earlier French edition, we remain grateful to Maurice
Godelier for his support as well as the editors at CNRS Editions.
The many friends and colleagues who have supported and accompa-
nied us on this long journey are too numerous to all list here. Adrian
extends special thanks to Vanessa Ward. Among our combined friends in
New Caledonia who provided constant and generous support we wish
to thank in particular: Samuel and Henriette Goromido, Joseph and Ida
Goromido and their daughters, Elie Poigoune, Brigitte Whaap, Catherine
Adi and Yamele Kacoco, Clément Grochain, Ricardo Poïwi and family,
Armand Goroboredjo, Fote Trolue, Johana Tein and Hervé Brossard,
Ismet Kurtovitch, and Françoise Cayrol. We also thank the friends of the
Ligue des droits de l’Homme de Nouvelle-Calédonie.
Contents
1 Introduction 1
Part I The Indigénat Regime

2 An Exceptional Legal Regime 25
3 Making the French “Native Subject” in Oceania 61
4 Bringing the Indigénat to New Caledonia 91
Part II The Order of Practices: The Indigénat at Work

5 Establishing the Indigénat: The Era
of the Administrators 121
6 Stabilizing a Colonial Order: Gendarmes, Grands
Chefs, and Petits Chefs 155
7 Imposing the Head Tax 183
8 Controlling Mobility and Residence 211
Part III The Indigénat and the “Native Condition” in

the First Half of the 20th Century
9 The Impossible Reform: Debating the Indigénat
in the Empire and New Caledonia 243
ix
x CONTENTS
10 Putting “Natives” To Work: The Indigénat

and the Colonial Labor System Between the Wars 265
11 The End of the Indigénat ? 293
12 Epilogue. Ongoing Debates 327
Bibliography 345
Index 363
Abbreviations
Abbreviations used in the Text

AICLF Association des indigènes calédoniens et loyaltiens français
AEF Afrique équatoriale française
AOF Afrique occidentale française
CPDN Committee for the Protection and Defense of Natives
EFO Établissements français d’Océanie
FLNKS Front de libération nationale kanak et socialiste
ILO International Labour Office
LMS London Missionary Society
PCC Parti communiste calédonien
UC Union Calédonienne
UICALO Union des indigènes calédoniens amis de la liberté dans l’ordre
Abbreviations used in References

AAN Archives de l’Archevêché de Nouméa
AFFECO Affaires économiques
AFFPOL Affaires politiques
ANC Archives de la Nouvelle-Calédonie, Nouméa
ANOM Archives nationales d’Outre-mer, Aix-en-Provence
BOEFO Bulletin officiel des Établissements français de l’Océanie
BONC Bulletin officiel de la Nouvelle-Calédonie
CG Conseil général
CONTR Direction du contrôle
CP Conseil privé
xi
xii ABBREVIATIONS
DAT Département de l’armée de terre

FM Fonds ministériels
JOEFO Journal officiel des Établissements Français d’Océanie
JONC Journal officiel de la Nouvelle-Calédonie
JORF Journal officiel de la République Française
NCL Nouvelle-Calédonie
OCEA Océanie
OMPA Oceania Marist Province Archives
SAI Service des affaires indigènes
SHD Service historique de la défense, Vincennes
List of Figures
Fig. 4.1 Map of New Caledonia. This map of the principal

localities shows the division of the five arrondissements
that existed from 1879 to 1898 97
Fig. 4.2 Gustave Gallet and companions. Gallet (on this
photograph’s right) was concurrently head
of the Topographical Service, the Service of Native
Affairs, and the Immigration Service between 1884–1894.
Archives de la Nouvelle-Calédonie, collection Serge Kakou,
album sergent Pinçon, 148 Fi 9: 198 100
Fig. 5.1 The Koné Chiefs Takata and Katélia (c.1890–1900).
In 1882 Takata and Bwae Atéa Katélia were
among the chiefs of the 4th arrondissement to be granted
a monthly allowance. Archives de la Nouvelle-Calédonie,
collection Serge Kakou, album sergent Pinçon, 148 Fi 9: 87 125
Fig. 5.2 The Hienghène chief, Philippe Powe Bouarate. Son
of the famed Bouarate who welcomed the first
sandalwood traders in the 1840s, Philippe Powe
(c.184?–1889) was one of the most influential chiefs
in the 4th arrondissement in the 1880s. Archives de la
Nouvelle-Calédonie, collection Serge Kakou, album sergent
Pinçon, 148 Fi 9: 160 126
Fig. 5.3 Indentured labor from the New Hebrides. Workers
on the Clavel plantation at Port Despointes in the 1870s.
Archives de la Nouvelle-Calédonie, album du docteur
Mialaret, 175 Fi 2 130
xiii
xiv LIST OF FIGURES
Fig. 5.4 The Canala chiefs Gélima and Kaké. Gélima and Kaké
were important French allies in the war of 1878–1879,
but like many other chiefs in the 1880s they
became “subjects” to be controlled. Archives de la
Nouvelle-Calédonie, cliché Alan Hughan, 178 Fi 53 137
Fig. 6.1 The reading of an ordinance. The colonial administration
informs its subjects of its orders and decisions (c.
1894–1902). Archives de la Nouvelle-Calédonie, collection
Serge Kakou, album proche du Gouverneur Feillet, 148 Fi
17: 25 159
Fig. 6.2 Amane and warriors. This photograph probably dates
from the time of Amane and his men’s much remarked
upon performance of a pilou pilou at governor Feillet’s
ball in Nouméa on 14 July 1901. Archives de la
Nouvelle-Calédonie, collection Serge Kakou, 148 Fi 33: 4 166
Fig. 6.3 The Tipindjé chief, Kavéat. Kavéat was the petit chef
of Ouen-Kout, and the principal rival of Amane. Archives
de la Nouvelle-Calédonie collection Serge Kakou, clichés
Maurice Leenhardt, 148 Fi 32: 11 170
Fig. 7.1 New Caledonia’s Head Tax Returns, 1896–1946 190
Fig. 7.2 Plantation Workers on the Leconte Estate, Koné.
As shown here, the coffee harvest employed
women and children as well as diverse
groups: Kanak, Javanese, and New Hebrideans.
clichés Charles Nething, 148 Fi 22: 1 191
Fig. 8.1 The Cosmopolitan Hotel. Kanak and European men
(and one woman and child) outside the Cosmopolitan
Hotel, Nouméa, c.1880–1890. Archives de la
Nouvelle-Calédonie, clichés Frères Dufty, 167 Fi: 16 214
Fig. 8.2 The Transportation Police commissioner and his Police.
Established in the 1860s this police was charged
with capturing escapees from the penitentiary. Archives
de la Nouvelle-Calédonie, collection Serge Kakou, album
proche du Gouverneur Feillet, 148 Fi 17: 27 217
Fig. 8.3 The Coffee Harvest. From the late 1890s
the administration brought Loyalty Islanders,
including children, to the Grande terre
for the harvest—a practice denounced by the Catholic
mission and the colonial inspectorate in 1902. Archives
de la Nouvelle-Calédonie,collection Serge Kakou, plaques
de verre Bray, 148 Fi 38: 138 225
LIST OF FIGURES xv
Fig. 9.1 The symbols of colonial administration: képi, medals,

and naval coat. Archives de la Nouvelle-Calédonie, albums
de l’archevêché de Nouméa, 1 Num 2: 816 257
Fig. 10.1 Revenue (in francs) from fines collected
under the indigénat, 1911–1946 270
Fig. 10.2 “Distributing the mail”. This was a mission entrusted
to Kanak who covered long distances with heavy loads.
clichés Charles Mitride, 148 Fi 23: 31 273
Fig. 10.3 Javanese and Tonkinese indentured laborers, 1919–1946 275
Fig. 10.4 Asian workers on a mine site. The first indentured
Indochinese laborers arrived in 1891 to work
in the mines. By 1929, they numbered more than 6,000.
album J.O. Haas 1, 148 Fi 13: 33 277
Fig. 10.5 Captain Meunier’s reception by the chiefs of the Koné
district at Baco, c.1931–1934. Archives de la
Nouvelle-Calédonie, fonds du capitaine Meunier, 96 J 3 279
Fig. 10.6 “Reconstruction of a traditional hut at Ouégoa. Work
carried out by the gendarme Haurat”. Archives de la
Nouvelle-Calédonie, fonds du capitaine Meunier, 96 J 3 280
Fig. 10.7 Bringing in the coffee harvest at Tiéta near Voh. This
photograph also appeared in a publication prepared
for the 1931 colonial exhibition in Paris. Archives de la
Nouvelle-Calédonie, album Renée Leenhardt, 188 Fi 106 284
Fig. 11.1 Portrait of Cyprien Kawa Braïno. On 12 April
1945, Braïno dedicated this photograph to “Colonel
Meunier” on behalf of the New Caledonian
volunteers in Paris “as a mark of gratitude, devotion
and unwavering and respectful attachment”. Archives de
la Nouvelle-Calédonie, fonds du capitaine Meunier, 96 J 3 304
Fig. 11.2 Nostalgia for the colonial order. A gendarme and his
wife, their Javanese domestic servant and their Kanak
“boy”. Archives de la Nouvelle-Calédonie, collection Serge
Kakou, album J.O. Haas 1, 148 Fi 13: 65 305
Fig. 12.1 The President and Committee of the UICALO. Archives
de la Nouvelle-Calédonie, fonds Bernard Linden, 186 Fi
2: 67 330
List of Tables
Table 2.1 Ordinances establishing the special infractions in Algeria,

1875 43
Table 4.1 The laws and decrees on the indigénat, 1881–1887 110
Table 4.2 Special infractions established in New Caledonia,
1887–1892 114
Table 7.1 The charges imposed on a Kanak “Subject”
and a French “Citizen” 206
Table 9.1 Defining the indigène or Native—1913, 1915, and 1922 254
Table 10.1 Measures for mobilizing Kanak labor between the wars 267
Table 10.2 Punishments imposed on Javanese laborers, 1925–28 276
xvii
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
Contemporary Evocations
Throughout the francophone world, the term indigénat is synonymous
with the hardships and injustices of the colonial era in the French empire.
Described variously as a “regime” or “code”, analogous to the various
French legal codes, the indigénat governed the lives of people classified
as France’s “native” subjects in colonies as diverse as Algeria, French West
Africa, Madagascar, Indochina and New Caledonia.
In Algeria, where it was applied from 1881 to 1944, contempo-
rary evocations of the indigénat recall a past marked by violence and
injustice, as in 2012 when the newspaper El Moudjahid marked the
fiftieth anniversary of Algeria’s independence with the headline: “Colonial
France: from the Code noir to the code de l’indigénat or the humiliation
of man by man”.1 While the content of these “codes” largely has been
forgotten, their evocation calls into question the fundamental contradic-
tion in France’s colonial past: how the country of the Declaration of the
Rights of Man and of the Citizen persistently departed from its principles
when it came to colonial projects or territories.
The indigénat also has been mobilized in public debate in the context
of the unique decolonization process underway in France’s other settler
colony, New Caledonia, where it applied from 1887 to 1946. In 2018,
on the eve of a visit by President Emmanuel Macron in the build-up to
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2022
I. Merle and A. Muckle, The Indigénat and France’s Empire in New
Caledonia, Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99033-6_1
2 I. MERLE AND A. MUCKLE
the first of three independence referenda held in 2018–2021, New Cale-

donia’s Customary Senate2 announced that it sought an “apology” from
the French state and condemned the lack of official recognition given to
customary chieftaincies. As reported by a journalist:
In their view, this lack of recognition of customary authority is further illus-

trated by the administrative model privileged here: a “copy and paste from
the Hexagon” whereby the municipalities, “positioned within [customary]
districts”, “operate in parallel”, “without any coordination” as if “the
indigénat regime was still in place”.3
Here the evocation of the indigénat denounces contemporary admin-

istrative structures and institutions that reproduce a French model. As we
shall see the indigénat ’s legacy is more complex, but what the Customary
Senators underscore is that the indigénat is more than an outdated
“code”; it embodies the history of the entire administrative organization
of New Caledonia.
Among the remnants of the empire that today make up France’s over-
seas departments and territories, New Caledonia is alone in having fully
experienced the indigénat . For indigenous Kanak people born between
the two world wars, the memory of what they or their parents were
subjected to is still vivid more than seventy years later.4 However their
recollections—of disparate elements such as the head tax, of controls
on movement and of forms of forced labor—are also in many respects
stereotypes, anchored in the interwar period when the regime was at its
height, and provide only partial insight to its sixty years of application.
This should alert us to the fact that behind the word and behind these
memories lies a complex, protean object of study that is difficult to grasp
in both its imperial and localized dimensions.
The Indigénat as an Imperial Framework

At one level the indigénat was an imperial framework law based on prin-
ciples common to a set of very different territorial contexts—a framework
that would be transformed in practice in each of the territories and the
situations it encountered.
In Algeria the indigénat formally emerged in a law, enacted by
France’s parliament in June 1881, granting special powers over “natives’
to certain administrators. It was simultaneously transferred and adapted in
1 INTRODUCTION 3
Cochinchina in the form of a decree, promulgated one month earlier, in

May 1881. Once this decree was in place the regime traveled throughout
France’s colonial empire: it was applied in 1887 in Dahomey/Senegal and
New Caledonia; in 1897 in French West Africa (AOF), French Equitorial
Africa (AEF), Tonkin, Annam and the Leeward islands in Polynesia; in
1898 in Cambodia; in 1901 in Madagascar and the Comores; in 1912 in
French Somaliland; and finally in 1923 and 1924 in Togo and Cameroon,
respectively.5
In each territory, the same basic framework was set. The governor
disposed of special powers authorizing him to apply penalties for “natives”
that had no legal equivalent in France: administrative internment, seques-
tration, and collective fines. Administrators of native affairs disposed of
special powers authorizing them to punish breaches by “natives” of the
long list of special infractions that each colony established. While gover-
nors acted in the register of high police, the special infractions embodied
proximity policing of the most varied areas of daily life including clothing,
sanitation, taxation, controls on mobility, respect for colonial authority,
and obedience to all orders.
Through its obligations and prohibitions, the regime thus covered
many aspects of the colonial order. This underlines the difficulty of
reducing analysis of the regime to a few fundamental principles without
studying in detail its methods of application and the impact of the regu-
lations it underpinned or, conversely, the complexity of the colonial
contexts which shaped its local specificities and evolution.
The challenge that this book addresses is twofold. We first seek to
understand the indigénat ’s origins and establishment—the laboratory for
its initial experimentation being clearly Algeria. Moving beyond the texts
and a state-centric perspective we then seek to understand the regime’s
local impact in New Caledonia; what were its practices and their daily
effects?; what did it represent both for those designated as “natives” as
well as for colonial society as a whole?
The Reemergence of a Forgotten Field

Until its demise in the 1940s, the study of the indigénat was confined
largely to the realm of colonial law.6 As this field lost its currency with
the advent of decolonization, the indigénat was relegated with it to an
imperial past that few wanted to talk about.7 There were few if any
studies exclusively devoted to the regime in the period 1960–1980.8
While some specialists took an interest in the practical modalities of this

system in certain areas, their observations remained localized and partial,
while historians of France were content to identify it as a pillar of colonial
“native” policy without however studying it in its own right.9
In the late 1990s, the indigénat reappeared as an object of study in
its own right as colonial and post-colonial studies gained momentum.
Works devoted to it adopted essentially two perspectives. The first
sought to understand its form, nature, and effects in particular colo-
nial terrains such as New Caledonia,10 Algeria,11 and West Africa.12
The second approached the subject through the history of the State,
law, and institutions, focussing on the metropole, parliamentary debates,
legal controversies, and legislative and regulatory aspects.13 The divide is
indicative of the challenges raised by the study of such a system and the
need to articulate principles and practices.14
Historian Sylvie Thénault has distinguished three “accepted meanings”
of the indigénat which have shaped recent approaches to its study. The
first is legal and concerns the system described above. This is “the most
evident” and the “most convenient” for research and the resulting studies
lend themselves toward the point of view of the colonizers.15 The second
involves an “extension of the notion of indigénat ” within the historiog-
raphy of colonial punishment and repression as illustrated by the work of
Gregory Mann and Taylor C. Sherman.16 These works are concerned
not with the texts, but with the practices of the indigénat rigorously
situated historically and in context and revealing the arbitrariness and ille-
gality that accompanied the exercise of exceptional justice. Adopting the
point of view of the colonized, this historiography places under the term
indigénat , the legal and illegal practices of repression that wove what
Sherman describes as a “coercive network” around indigenous people.
Finally, a third sense encompasses all that came under the statut indigène
or “native statutes” in both penal and civil matters. In this sense, the
indigénat covers “the sum of the dispositions constituting the status of
colonial subjects”.17
Rather than opposing texts and practices and imputing to the indigénat
a meaning fabricated after the fact, we follow the historical framework that
progressively led to thinking about and organizing the regime. Our aim is
not to cover the history of its entire extension but to gradually narrow the
inquiry. We begin in Part I by tracing the twists and turns of the debates
over what became the indigénat in Algeria between 1830 and 1881.
We then follow the “paths” by which it was transferred to Cochinchina
1 INTRODUCTION 5
between 1879 and 1881, avoided in Tahiti in 1880, and then deployed,
seven years later, in New Caledonia and Senegal. In Oceania, we note
that the application of the indigénat regime underwent several varia-
tions. Tahiti, for specific reasons linked with earlier British evangelization,
did not experience the same native policy and was largely spared from
the indigénat in its narrowest sense. In New Caledonia, where early
French intervention already had taken a more authoritarian path in
conjunction with penal settlement policies, its transfer from Cochinchina
under a newly appointed governor was bound up with the security of
settlers in the wake of New Caledonia’s 1878–1879 war and attempts
to more strongly organize relations between the settler and indigenous
populations.
In Part II our inquiry narrows further to New Caledonia where the
regime is examined in all its facets by articulating texts and practices.
We consider the ways in which the indigénat was put into practice, its
role in the making of Kanak as colonial subjects and the ways in which
colonial hegemony was established and resisted. A key concern is to
demonstrate that the regime was constituted as much by the practices
associated with it as by the texts by which it was established. While an
attentive archaeology of the texts and the discourses surrounding them
is vital to establish motives, guiding ideologies, and the social and polit-
ical contexts within which officials operated, attention must be paid to
what happened and how the regime was experienced. The focus on prac-
tice draws particular attention to the different relationships through which
the regime was constituted—initially those between civilian administrators
and Kanak “chiefs” and then between “chiefs” and French gendarmes—
and the various forms of cooperation and resistance that these entailed.
The analysis of this “colonial situation”, and of the positions and actions
of those who shaped, used, or suffered the indigénat, aims to reveal
its form, nature, and functioning, its strengths as well as its limits, on
a singular terrain the history of which is nonetheless embedded in the
broader dynamics of imperial and metropolitan history. Our aim is not
to distinguish the point of view of the colonizers or the colonized, but
to understand the sense of the conversation and interactions, the projects
and actions—in order to implement and defend it, to denounce or submit
to it, and to circumvent or resist it—that contributed to the manufacture
the indigénat in this particular archipelago.
We do not, however, lose sight of the legal debates, controversies, and
attempts at reform in France which had their echoes in New Caledonia
where they could be diverted or ignored on the pretext of the speci-

ficity of the local context. In Part III we examine the period between
the two world wars and after 1945 in which the indigénat continued
to be debated and contested before being ultimately condemned. We
further consider the situation in New Caledonia by analyzing the prac-
tical aspects of the end of the indigénat —the resistance it aroused as well
as the hopes it raised. A concluding epilogue reflects on its legacy and
the living memory of a regime that still constitutes a point of reference in
contemporary debates.
Origins and Genesis

As we develop in Part I the indigénat ’s genesis was a complex process
that took shape in the context of the war that France undertook in
Algeria following 1830. It was one of the essential instruments of “paci-
fication”—the euphemism describing the imposition of a new colonial
public order in newly subjugated regions. For jurist René Pommier in
1907, the indigénat “is nothing more than the residue of the mili-
tary powers required by the necessities of conquest”,18 in a situation
“that is no longer open warfare, but which is a long way from social
peace”.19 The measures called for included: the special powers of high
police entrusted to governors—administrative internment, sequestration
of property, collective fines; and the special powers entrusted to offi-
cers and civilian administrators of native affairs authorizing them to
punish “natives” and those assimilated to them for offences not known
or provided for in metropolitan France.
In its narrowest definition therefore the indigénat provided for a devi-
ation from the Penal Code. Its genealogy also links it to the equally
infamous Code noir. Both embody a legal exception in the sense that
they comprise “a set of laws articulating a series of rights and responsibil-
ities that are exceptional to the general concert of French law or, more
modestly, to the legally accepted practices in metropolitan France”, to use
the definition provided by Louis Sala-Molins.20
Administrative and legal systems according to “native” peoples a
separate or particular status and organizing either special apparatus or
“exceptions” to “rules of law” for the purposes of their control and
repression were in no way unique to France’s empire; taking a variety of
forms they were a common feature of European imperial regimes in the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries. One can trace various forms of legal
1 INTRODUCTION 7
pluralism or differentiation that allowed the operation of separate laws and

jurisdictions for different populations within colonies and which could
also allow justice to be dispensed by colonial administrators, in defiance
of notions of the rule of law, rather than an ostensibly separate judiciary.21
One can also trace the “extraordinary” powers that governments acquired
and wielded in colonial situations to deal with both the exceptional and
everyday challenges of colonial rule, including the development of puni-
tive local “native” codes or regulations a feature of which in many cases
was to extend limited punitive powers to local administrators or police
and/or indigenous authorities rather than to the judiciary.22 Seen in this
regard the genesis of the indigénat and the system it underpinned was not
exceptional.23 The “rule” or “politics” of colonial difference everywhere
ultimately justified colonial authoritarianism or despotism and everywhere
these were also contested.24
While any case for French exceptionalism must not therefore be over-
stated, the special repressive regime for French “native” subjects that
began to emerge during the Second Empire had the particularity of being
at once centralized, in the sense that it was in principle applicable to all the
French colonies, while also metamorphosing locally over time as a func-
tion of the particular contexts in which its regulations were applied. In
the British, German and Italian empires the status of “natives” tended to
be worked out on a case-by-case basis in the colonies themselves without
any pretense (as in France) of developing a regime at the highest level
of state that would apply to the entire empire notwithstanding local
adjustments. France’s elaboration of centrally endorsed “codes” appli-
cable to the colonies as a whole reflects a Jacobin tradition based on
a strong centralization of the State. Like the Code noir before it, the
indigénat emerged from practices and reflections based on specific local
situations which were then legalized at the highest level of the state—
though without being recognized as a code on the same footing as the
Civil Code or the Penal Code.
The complexity of the indigénat ’s genesis and the acute contradictions
that its exceptional form of justice raises with regard to the fundamental
principles of French law, also make it an important subject to study as
a revelation of the tensions linked to the joint creation of nation and
empire in the nineteenth century. To study the indigénat is to examine
the fundamental paradox described by political scientist Hélé Béji: “Let
us not forget that colonialism was the work of democracies, of parlia-
mentary nations. […] As the moderns forged their political rights, they
refused them to us, the natives”. This fundamental injustice opened the
way to violence, both extreme and ordinary, for which the indigénat was
a key instrument.25 As we shall see, the regime created was intimately
linked to the construction of “natives” as subjects without citizenship—
a hallmark of the construction of nationality in French colonies which
distinguished between subjects and citizens—and the interlocking of
special penal, civil and political regimes ultimately determined “the status
of native people in law”.26 What must not be forgotten, however, is that
throughout the colonial period this exception with regard to the common
law created debates, disputes, and challenges that reveal the complexity
of the construction of the state in a colonial situation. The colonies were
areas of “exceptionality” where the fundamental principles of the nation
were put to the test.27
The “Colonial Situation”

While the indigénat as an object of study calls into question the French
nation and its imperial history, its local metamorphoses, as examined in
Parts II and III, call attention to the “colonial situation” in the sense
given to it by Georges Balandier in his case for a rigorously histori-
cized sociological approach to the composite societies created by colonial
contact and domination.28 As a colony of settlement whose indigenous
and diverse foreign populations were roughly equal by the 1950s, New
Caledonia helps illustrate the idea entertained Balandier among others
that the colonial situation manufactures the “native” as much as the settler
and forces both to respond to the mirror games it imposes. For, if the
indigénat weighed heavily on those directly under it, it also strongly
conditioned the actions and behavior of the Europeans and others who
actively or passively benefitted from it. In shaping daily life, participating
in the segregation of space, seeking to control mobility, sociability, and
interrelations between the various communities it shaped the whole of
colonial society. Indigenous Kanak experiences of colonial rule cannot be
treated in isolation.
Attention to the “colonial situation” or whole of society approach
as well as to indigenous agency and subaltern perspectives shapes our
understanding of the indigénat in important ways. In our exploration
of the New Caledonian situation, we draw on the understanding that the
indigénat ’s local history is a function of both colonial and indigenous
practices.
1 INTRODUCTION 9
Some idea of the scale, particularities, and complexity of the New Cale-
donian “situation” may be gleaned from the census taken in 1911, some
24 years after the indigénat’ s introduction and 35 before its abolition.
Estimated at 50,098 persons, the colony’s population, in the terminology
of its official gazette, comprised of:
• the “free population” of 13,138 persons;

• the “penal population” of 5,671 persons;
• the “native population of the tribus ” of 28,075 persons; and
• the “regulated immigrants and natives living outside of the tribus ”,
some 3,214 persons (2,454 of whom were Javanese, Tonkinese,
“Hindou” and New Hebridean; 405 of whom were “Loyaltiens ”;
and 355 of whom were “Néo-Calédoniens ”).29
The extent to which each of these groups was controlled can be appre-
ciated only by taking into account the regimes designed for different parts
of the population and the ways in which they intersected.
The way in which this “situation” shaped, and was shaped by the
indigenous Kanak people, is twofold. Across Parts II and III we chart
evidence of forms of “indirect rule” or association in the form of an
ongoing administrative project to identify Kanak “chiefs” and to make
them answerable to the colonial state for all that happened within their
designated territories. As we will see, a particularity of the decree that
introduced the indigénat to New Caledonia in 1887 was that it was not
limited to legalizing the special powers of the governor and his subal-
terns; it also affirmed the ambition to reorganize Kanak space and society
through the delimitation of territories called “tribus ”—an eminently colo-
nial notion with no sociological basis in the Kanak world—and the
designation of their “chiefs”—in the colonial sense of the term—whose
responsibilities were also to be defined. This will to impose a new terri-
torial organization as well as new figures of power was constitutive of
the indigénat regime in New Caledonia. Seen in the long run it was
part of a process of territorializing and centralizing authority that would
continue well into the middle of the twentieth century.30 A function of
both indigenous and colonial practice, this involved the articulation of
colonial bureaucracy with Kanak structures of power over a period of
decades—before, during and after the era of the indigénat. As Michel
Naepels observes in a study of one Kanak chieftaincy under colonial
rule, the colonial state “became a component of a segmentary political

process the means of which it was radically transforming”.31 Attention
to this process and the interaction between chiefs and administrators or
gendarmes (between Kanak and the state) is one key thread of this study.
The indigénat also shaped Kanak, as the “native population of the
tribus ”, in other important ways. Insofar as it enforced the proce-
dures for delimiting reserves, the control of mobility, the collection of
a head tax, and the payment of bonuses to chiefs for the mobilization
of labor, the indigénat contributed to the shaping of the “customary”
domain—including the principles of collective or communal responsibility
or solidarity and the authority of administrative chiefs. We also note that
the intensification of the indigénat in the interwar period served to ulti-
mately override earlier administrative distinctions and racial hierarchies
established between inhabitants of the Loyalty Islands (“Loyaltiens ”) and
the Grande Terre (“Néo-Calédoniens ”)—based on linguistic, cultural, and
physical differences and by different patterns of colonial interaction and
mission presence. This was assisted by the emergence in 1915 of a formal
race-based definition of the term “native” that encompassed all Pacific
Islanders.
Degrees of engagement or intervention, of cooperation or collabora-
tion with, if not also the outright invention of, indigenous structures,
and authorities are common to most systems or rules of colonial govern-
ment and difference. As Mahmood Mamdani has underscored in Africa,
for example, “differentiation” entailed the development of “specifically
‘native’ institutions through which to rule subjects” in what he describes
as “decentralized despotism”.32 Historians also have been encouraged to
look beyond the “euphemisms” such as “indirect rule” and “collabora-
tion” and to examine the working relationships and interactions with local
systems including the dynamics of competition and the politics of status
rivalry.33
While the New Caledonian situation is again no exception to the wider
pattern, it stands out in two broad regards. On the colonial side, the very
low placement of Kanak in European racial hierarchies and the near total
disinterest in developing ethnographic and linguistic knowledge on the
part of local administrators led to only superficial intervention in internal
customary affairs and also acted as a break on the promotion or devel-
opment of indigenous elites. Lip service was paid to the idea of eventual
assimilation of Kanak as citizens, but in reality racial ideas imposed limits
on the development of the stepping stones deemed necessary for that
1 INTRODUCTION 11
end in French terms—as we shall see in the absence of any codification

of customary law and the failure to realize a formal “native statute”.34
On the Kanak side, the very diffuseness of power within Kanak society
due to the “complex interaction between the principles of ascription and
achievement in recruitment to local and descent groups and in succession
to and retention of chiefly office” created significant obstacles to what
French attempts there were to mold indigenous figures of authority.35
This complexity can be traced in the widely varying colonial representa-
tions of Kanak “chiefs” as both weak and authoritarian from the 1850s
to the 1950s.
Equally influential in shaping the indigénat —and no less compli-
cated—was the wider colonial political economy. The territorializing and
centralizing of Kanak chiefly authority, the role given to the colonial
gendarmerie, and the emerging definition of the term “native”, cannot
be fully understood without reference to developments in the wider polit-
ical and social economy and the administration’s own internal structures
and dynamics. In this regard we pay particular attention to the tension
between settler and indigenous interests in a colony of settlement; the
transition from penal to free settlement; the tension between the agricul-
tural and mining economies and their associated labor requirements; and
the tension between the executive policy-setting authority represented
by the Governor in his Conseil privé and the elected Conseil général
which exercised considerable control over the budget. Also of note are
the internal competition for rank within the colonial administration and
gendarmerie; the preoccupation with prestige; the constantly changing
personnel at all levels of administration; and the extent to which ideas
about race and depopulation informed administrative practice.
The fact of being a colony of penal and free settlement would “for-
mat” the New Caledonian indigénat in a particular manner. The penal
settlement that began in the 1860s would diminish with the cessation of
transportation in 1897, but its legacies were far-reaching. The indigénat
we suggest became a key tool in effecting the shift from a penal settle-
ment to free settlement at the turn of the century. In this transitional
period the controls placed on penal settlers and on Kanak, as well as on
immigrant indentured laborers, were mutually reinforcing and fundamen-
tally interrelated. By the 1920s, most of the forms of labor previously
provided by convicts were provided by Kanak. The penal influence was
more than just structural, however. Its traces can be found in practices
such as the payment of “arrest bonuses” to police for capturing “natives”
or “escaped” laborers and in the regimes that governed institutions where

they were incarcerated—as well as in the everyday violence of the regime
whose principal European agents from the late 1890s were gendarmes.
This is not to mention the wider influence of the free settlers whose
demand for cheap and compliant labor was as constant as their hostility
to any reform.
It is also significant that in the New Caledonian “situation” the indige-
nous Kanak were not the regime’s only “native” subjects. The indigénat
applied also to those who were assimilated to them: the “regulated immi-
grants” or indentured laborers imported from elsewhere in Oceania and
from Asia (including French subjects from Indochina and Dutch subjects
from Java). Although fewer than 3,000 in 1911, their numbers would
steadily climb, reaching a peak of 14,000 in 1929. These several different
kinds of “native” were subject to the indigénat in different ways and
to varying extents. It has been important for this study to not overlook
how the indigénat and the indentured labor regime interlocked with
each other to shape the possibilities available to all “natives”, including
those Kanak who became “natives living outside of the tribus ”.36 As we
shall see, for example, it was primarily through the indenture regime that
Kanak could achieve the status of “free resident” and thereby escape some
of the indigénat ’s restrictions.
A Periodization of the New Caledonian Regime

A further objective of this book has been to examine the regime’s evolu-
tion over time. Contemporary evocations offer a static portrait of the
regime reduced to some of its most notorious functions such as taxation,
controls on movement and “forced labor”—and are based on experiences
and memories of the interwar period. Seeking to contextualize these, we
examine how, contrary to certain interpretations, the system reinforced
itself and became more systematic across its six decades.
Four key periods are evident. The first long decade from 1887 to 1898
involved a transition from “diplomacy” to “control” in relations between
the colonial administrators, Kanak chiefs and the emerging Service of
Native Affairs. This period ended with the 1898 transfer of everyday
responsibility for “native affairs” from the civilian administrators to the
gendarmerie and the establishment of a hierarchy of grands chefs and petits
chefs based on defined territories. A key preoccupation of this period was
the security of settlers in the wake of the 1878–79 war and a concern
1 INTRODUCTION 13
to police more closely the relations between Kanak, free settlers, penal
settlers, and indentured laborers as penal settlement began to be phased
out from 1894 and as free settlement took hold.
Dovetailing with the shift from penal to free settlement and the mass
confinement of Kanak in reservations, the two decades from 1898 to the
end of the Great War, would be characterized by attempts to work out
the relationship between gendarmes and chiefs and between chiefs and
their subjects. Central to these relations was the establishment of a head
tax permanently from 1899 as well as an increasing focus on the policing
of mobility. In these two decades, the despotism of the system was in
full swing and was strongly denounced by the colonial inspectorate. It
was a key colonizing moment during which the administrative system was
imposed and during which the instrumentalization and contestation of
the system by Kanak was at its most overt. This was also the period in
which interpersonal relations—and the interplay of status rivalry, dignity,
and prestige—between chiefs, administrators, and gendarmes counted the
most. The Great War would show that the results were mixed. On the one
hand, the colony would secure more Kanak labor and military manpower
than ever before, but in certain regions, the limits of the colonial order
were very evident and stability would not be secured until after the local
war that broke out in 1917.
The interwar period saw an intensification of the colonial regime, as
exemplified by the mass mobilization of Kanak labor. Key to this was
the recognition of the value and potential of Kanak labor as the popula-
tion decline so evident in the late-nineteenth century ended. The exercise
of colonial rule under the indigénat now became less arbitrary, but it
was also much more intense and systematic. Rejecting the argument that
the development-oriented policies of a “new native policy” represented a
form of protection from the indigénat , we show how the new demands
of this era added to the obligations enforced by the indigénat. The space
for overt resistance and challenges to authority became extremely limited.
Colonial power was consolidated and the closer monitoring of both the
gendarmes and of chiefly authority became an almost daily task. World
War II saw a further intensification of the regime at the same time as new
freedoms, opportunities and possibilities began to emerge.
The final period concerns the years immediately after the formal aboli-
tion across the empire of the key texts on the indigénat between 1944
and 1947 when Kanak became citizens of the French Union. New polit-
ical forces, notably the New Caledonia Communist Party, threatened to
radicalize the new political field, but there was resistance from settlers and
from the local administration itself. The year 1946 in particular marked
a radical rupture, but there were also important continuities. The accu-
mulated effects of the regime did not disappear. The postwar decade in
many respects marked the high point of the indigénat entailing a further
bureaucratization of the roles accorded to chiefs. The Service of Native
Affairs, the gendarmes, and the chiefs still remained present. Well into
the 1950s, local authorities still sought to reinforce the role of the chiefs
in the maintenance of order. More generally, the structural inequalities
established or reinforced by the regime persist to this day.
Why a History of the Indigénat

in New Caledonia Today?
Why a history of the indigénat in New Caledonia now? Foremost among
the responses to this question is the expertise that we bring as historians
who have each worked on New Caledonia’s history for more than twenty
years. This study of the indigénat is the result of a long investigation
in a fragmented and scattered colonial archive, which builds on an in-
depth knowledge of the collections and the context.37 We have of course
benefitted from earlier studies of the subject conducted from particular
angles, but none has covered the history of the regime over its longue
durée as outlined above.38
A further reason is the importance of the indigénat to contempo-
rary debates about decolonization and the status of Kanak custom.39
We hypothesize that in an archipelago and colony of settlement with a
small population, as compared with France’s African and Asian colonies,
the indigenat had an especially strong impact by seeking to organize
Kanak society and the daily lives of individuals in a wide range of polit-
ical, economic, social and cultural spheres, as well as in terms of territory
and land.40 The indigénat is the principle of a spatial and social organiza-
tion that persists to this day. An essential legacy of the colonial period, as
evoked by the Customary Senate in 2018, this spatial and social organiza-
tion has been central to the post-1946 debates, among Kanak and within
New Caledonia society more generally, concerning the future of Kanak
society in a post-colonial context.
Of particular note is that the indigénat played an almost exclusive role
in defining the Kanak “native” as a legal subject. The intense legal work
on “native statutes” and the codification of custom that began in Algeria,
1 INTRODUCTION 15
sub-Saharan Africa and Indochina in the late nineteenth century did not
occur in New Caledonia. This legal lacuna had paradoxical effects. As the
only context in which the “native” was formally defined, the indigénat
highlighted the negligence of colonial law with regard to Kanak; even
by the late 1920s little attention had been paid to making Kanak fully
fledged subjects of colonial law (according to the norms of the time)
by clarifying their personal status. The jurist Henri Solus, for example,
doubted that Kanak had a recognized personal status (i.e., recognition
of their customs in matters such as filiation, marriage, inheritance, and
property rights), writing that “We do not know of any text that formally
proclaims this”.41 Outside of the reserves, the Kanak “native” was defined
by the indigénat. Within them the Kanak “native” was what we might call
a “legal unthinkable” which allowed Kanak to preserve practices, sociabil-
ities, and customs sheltered from the European gaze and the imposition
of exogenous legal norms.
The desire expressed by the Customary Senate in 2018, supported by
certain metropolitan jurists, to re-found a Kanak customary law, including
the recognition of customary chiefs, is intimately linked to this heritage.42
This cannot be understood or interpreted, we suggest, without a thor-
ough knowledge of a history sitting at the intersection of Kanak social
and political worlds and French colonial law. The “legal unthinkables” of
the past are today’s issues whose genesis must be precisely recalled to shed
light on contemporary debates. Regardless of New Caledonia’s future
political relationship with France, these concerns will remain.
The victory of the “No” to independence in the referenda recently held
in 2018, 2020, and 2021 may maintain New Caledonia within France,
but it will not extinguish the profound aspiration of a large part of its
population, including the majority of Kanak, for the construction of a
sovereign country, based on a New Caledonian citizenship. This is all the
more so given that the triumph of the “No” vote in 2021 occurred in
a tense political context marked by the massive non-participation of the
pro-independence camp, casting major doubt over the outcome’s political
legitimacy even if its legality has been upheld.43 It confirms, however, the
persistence of a major divide between Kanak and non-Kanak. This is deter-
mined not only by diverging projects for the future of the country but also
by the historical experiences that each side mobilizes, based on, among
other things, the old and deep divide between colonists and “natives”—a
divide fundamentally structured by the indigénat.
The indigénat remains at the centre of history that the descendants

of settlers still find difficult to acknowledge while for Kanak it serves
as a rebuttal argument. For both, it provides a key point of reference
in sometimes nostalgic evocations of an “old order”. While Kanak extol
the memory of youth who respected their elders and of “chiefs” who
were obeyed by their subjects, Europeans imagine a very French terri-
tory where delinquency does not exist, where the metropolitan model is
imposed along with the French way of life and Western values.
The memory of the indigénat also symbolizes past inequalities and
injustices, calling out to all those New Caledonians who seek to
develop distinct citizenship and affirm a shared future. Behind the word
“indigénat ” lies not only the suffering of its victims but also the respon-
sibility of those New Caledonians or metropolitans who defended it
throughout the first half of the twentieth century against demands for
reform and against those who, in New Caledonia and France, sought to
support values, other than colonial ones, nourished by the principles of
the rule of law or humanism.
On opening this pandora’s box we hope to contribute to the search for
knowledge and objectivity which is at the heart of the historian’s profes-
sion. We also want to render justice and responsibility to the actors of the
past, so that their descendants can support their history in conscience,
without pain, bitterness, or guilt. We hope that our work will nourish
debate and help us understand the past in order to better overcome it.
Notes
1. A. Cherfi, “La France coloniale: du Code noir au Code de l’indigénat ou
l’humiliation de l’homme par l’homme”, El Moudjahid, July 5, 2012.
2. Institution established in 1999 to represent Kanak customary authorities.
Its opinion must be sought on local laws and deliberations concerning
land, customary affairs, and Kanak identity.
3. Demain en Nouvelle-Calédonie, April 19, 2018, http://www.dnc.nc/vis
ite-presidentielle-le-senat-coutumier-veut-un-pardon-de-letat-et-la-reconn
aissance-de-lautorite-des-chefferies/.
4. See for instance the interviews published in Mwà Véé: revue culturelle
kanak, no. 15 (1997): 23–27, 33–36; no. 16 (1997): 16–22; and no. 57
(2007): 16–20.
5. Pierre Dareste, Traité de droit colonial, vol. 2 (Paris, 1931), 502–512.
6. Key examples include: Louis Rinn, Régime pénal de l’indigénat en Algérie.
Les Commissions disciplinaires (Alger: A. Jourdan, 1885); Régime pénal
1 INTRODUCTION 17
de l’indigénat en Algérie. Le séquestre et la responsabilité collective (Alger:

A. Jourdan, 1890); Antoine-Louis Carlotti, De l’application faite en
Cochinchine du principe de la séparation des autorités administratives et
judiciaires : décrets sur l’indigénat (Paris: A. Chevalier-Marescq, 1903);
Jacques Aumont-Thiéville, Du régime de l’indigénat en Algérie (Thèse
de doctorat, Paris, 1906); René Pommier, Le régime de l’indigénat en
Indochine (Paris: Michallon, 1907); François Marneur, L’indigénat en
Algérie, Considérations sur le régime actuel, critique, projets de réformes
(Paris: Recueil Sirey, 1914); L. Spas, Etude sur l’organisation de Mada-
gascar: justice indigène, indigénat , conseils d’arbitrage (Paris: M. Giard &
É. Brière, 1912); Emile Larcher, Traité élémentaire de législation algéri-
enne, 3 vols (Paris: A. Rousseau, 1923); Dareste, Traité de droit colonial,
2 vols (Paris: 1931); A. Girault, Principes de colonisation et de législation
coloniale. Les colonies françaises avant et depuis 1815, notions historiques ,
administratives , juridiques , économiques et financières (Paris: Sirey, 1943,
1st ed. 1894).
7. Daniel Rivet, “Le Fait colonial et nous. Histoire d’un éloigne-
ment”, Vingtième Siècle, revue d’histoire, no. 33 (1992): 127.
8. An exception is A.I. Asiwaju, “Control Through Coercion: A Study of
the Indigenat Regime in French West African Administration, l887–l946”,
Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 9, no. 1 (1978): 91–124.
9. Charles-Robert Ageron, Les Algériens musulmans et la France (1871–
1919), vol. 1 (Paris: Bouchène, 2005, 1st ed. 1968); Jean Suret-Canale,
Afrique Noire. L’ère coloniale (Paris: Éditions sociales, 1961); P. Guil-
laume, Le Monde Colonial, XIX e -XX e siècle (Paris: Armand Colin, 1994,
1st ed. 1974); Claude Collot, Les institutions de l’Algérie durant la période
coloniale (1830–1962) (Paris: Éditions du CNRS, 1987); Babacar Fall,
Le travail forcé en Afrique Occidentale Française (1900–1945) (Paris:
Karthala, 1993).
10. On New Caledonia we refer to our own earlier works. For Isabelle
Merle see: Expériences coloniales. La Nouvelle-Calédonie, 1853–1920 (Paris:
Belin, 1995); “Le régime de l’Indigénat et l’impôt de capitation en
Nouvelle-Calédonie. De la force et du droit: la genèse d’une législation
d’exception ou les principes fondateurs d’un Ordre colonial”, in Colonies,
Territoires , Sociétés. L’enjeu français, ed. Alain Saussol and Joseph Zito-
mersky (Paris: L’Harmattan: 1996), 223–241; “L’état français, le droit
et la violence coloniale: le régime de l’indigénat en question”, in Les
figures de l’État en Allemagne et en France, 1870–1945; Figurationen des
Staates in Deutschland und Frankreich, 1870–1945, ed. A. Chatriot and
D. Gosewinkel (Oldenbourg: Wissenschaftsverlag, 2006), 97–116; “Du
sujet à l’autochthone en passant par le citoyen. Les méandres, enjeux et
ambiguïtés de la définition du statut des personnes en situation coloniale
et postcoloniale. Pour exemple, la Nouvelle-Calédonie”, in La Nouvelle-

Calédonie, vers un destin commun ?, ed. Isabelle Merle and Else Faugère
(Paris: Karthala, 2010), 19–37. For Adrian Muckle see: “Troublesome
Chiefs and Disorderly Subjects: The Indigénat and the Internment of
Kanak in New Caledonia (1887–1928)”, French Colonial History 11
(2010): 131–160; “‘Natives’, ‘Immigrants’ and “‘libérés ’: The Colonial
Regulation of Mobility in New Caledonia”, Law Text Culture 15 (2011):
135–161; “The Presumption of Indigeneity: Colonial Administration, the
‘Community of Race’ and the Category of indigène in New Caledonia,
1887–1946”, Journal of Pacific History 47, no. 3 (2012): 309–328;
“Putting Kanak to Work: Kanak and the colonial labor system in New
Caledonia”, Pacific Studies 38, no. 3 (2015): 345–372.
11. On Algeria see: Didier Guignard, L’abus de pouvoir dans l’Algérie coloniale
(1880–1914). Singularités et visibilités (Nanterre: Presses universitaires de
Paris Ouest, 2010); Sylvie Thénault, Violence ordinaire dans l’Algérie colo-
niale. Camps, internements, assignations à résidence (Paris: Odile Jacob,
2012).
12. On sub-Saharan African see: Laurent Manière, “Le code de l’indigénat
en Afrique occidentale et son application: le cas du Dahomey (1887–
1946)” (Thèse de doctorat, Université Paris VII, 2007); Gregory
Mann, “What Was the Indigénat? The Empire of Law in French West
Africa”, Journal of African History 50 (2009): 331–353.
13. Alexis Héricord-Gorre, “Eléments pour une histoire de l’administration
des colonisés de l’Empire français. Le ‘régime de l’indigénat’ et son
fonctionnement depuis sa matrice algérienne (1881–c.1920)” (Thèse de
doctorat, l’institut européen de Florence, 2008); Emmanuelle Saada,
“‘La question des métis’ dans les colonies françaises: socio-histoire d’une
catégorie juridique (Indochine française et autres territoires de l’Empire
français, années 1890-années 1950)” (Thèse de doctorat, EHESS, Paris,
2001; Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison, De l’indigénat. Anatomie d’un
monstre juridique. Le droit colonial en Algérie et dans l’Empire français
(Paris: La Découverte, 2010).
14. Isabelle Merle, “De la légalisation de la violence en contexte colonial. Le
régime de l’indigénat en question”, Politix 17, no. 66 (2004: 137–162.
15. Sylvie Thénault, “L’indigénat dans l’Empire français:
Algérie/Cochinchine, une double matrice”, Monde(s) 12, no. 2 (2017):
23.
16. Ibid., 23–24. See also: Mann, “What Was the Indigénat ?”; Taylor C.
Sherman, “Tensions of Colonial Punishment: Perspectives on Recent
Developments in the Study of Coercive Networks in Asia, Africa and the
Caribbean”, History Compass 7, no. 3 (2009): 659–677.
17. Thénault, “L’indigénat”, 25.
1 INTRODUCTION 19
18. Pommier, Le régime de l’indigénat, 17. The expression in fact belongs to

Emile Larcher.
19. Cited in Saada, “La question des métis”, 359.
20. Louis Sala-Molins, Le Code Noir ou le calvaire de Canaan (Paris: Puf,
1987), 73.
21. On their formation in the context of jurisdictional disputes and on struc-
tural similarities between British and French contexts see in particular
Lauren Benton “Colonial Law and Cultural Difference: Jurisdictional Poli-
tics and the Formation of the Colonial State”, Comparative Studies in
Society and History 41, no. 3 (1999): 563–588 (especially p. 583). For the
Dutch East Indies see: Sanne Ravensbergen, “Rule of Lawyers: Liberalism
and Colonial Judges in Nineteenth-Century Java”, in The Dutch Empire
Between Ideas and Practice, 1600–2000, ed., René Koekkoek, Anne-
Isabelle Richard, and Arthur Weststeijn (Cham: Springer International
Publishing, 2019), 159–181.
For Italian practices in Libya see: Alessia Maria Di Stefano, “The
System of Difference: Justice and Citizenship in Libya (1911–1922)”, in
Citizens and Subjects of the Italian Colonies: Legal Constructions and Social
Practices, 1882–1943, ed. Simona Berhe and Olindo De Napoli (New York
and Abingdon: Routledge, 2022), 68–87.
22. In the case of early 19th-century India, Inagaki recently has argued that
the emergence of “despotic legal pluralism” was not just a response to
moments of “emergency”, but was driven by Indian appropriation of
everyday jurisdictional conflicts. Haruki Inagaki, The Rule of Law and
Emergency in Colonial India: Judicial Politics in the Early Nineteenth
Century (Cham: Springer International Publishing AG, 2021), 6–10.
There is a wide literature on “native” regulations in diverse places
and by extension on the colonial state and policing. Some indicative
examples include: On Native Regulations in Fiji see: Nicholas Thomas,
“Sanitation and Seeing: The Creation of State Power in Early Colonial
Fiji”, Comparative Studies in Society and History 32, no. 1 (1990): 149–
170. On Native Regulations in Southern Rhodesia and claims to judicial
power by Native Commissioners see: Alison K. Shutt, “‘The Natives Are
Getting Out of Hand’: Legislating Manners, Insolence and Contemptuous
Behaviour in Southern Rhodesia, c. 1910–1963”, Journal of Southern
African Studies 33, no. 3 (2007): 653–672. On German South-West
Africa see Jakob Zollmann, “Communicating Colonial Order: The Police
of German South-West-Africa (c. 1894–1915)”, Crime, Histoire & Sociétés
/ Crime, History & Societies 15, no. 1 (2011): 33–57.
23. On this point see Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject, Contempo-
rary Africa and the Legacy of the Late Colonialism (Kampala: Fountain
Publishers, 1996), 126–127.
24. Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolo-
nial Histories (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 18; Cooper,
Colonialism in Question, 23.
25. Hélé Béji, Nous, décolonisés (Paris: Arléa, 2008), 23.
26. To reprise the title of jurist Henry Solus’s, Traité de la condition des
indigènes en droit privé: colonies et pays de protectorat et pays sous mandat
(Paris: Recueil Sirey, 1927).
27. Here we underline the contribution from research concerning the colo-
nial state, modes of “governmentality” and the articulation of nation and
empire. See for example: Frederick Cooper and Ann Laura Stoler, ed.,
Tensions of Empire, Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1997); David Scott, “Colonial Governmen-
tality”, Social Text 43 (1995): 191–220; Mamdani, Citizen and Subject;
Bernard Cohn and Nicholas Dirks, “Beyond the Fringe: The Nation State,
Colonialism, and the Technologies of Power”, Journal of Historical Soci-
ology 1, no 2 (1988): 224–229. In the French domain see: Emmanuelle
Saada, Empire’s Children: Race, Filiation, and Citizenship in the French
Colonies, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2012); Laure Blévis, “Sociologie d’un droit colonial: citoyenneté et
nationalité en Algérie (1865–1947): une exception républicaine ?” (Thèse
de doctorat, Aix-Marseille, 2004).
28. Georges Balandier, “The Colonial Situation: A Theoretical Approach”, in
Social Change: The Colonial Situation, ed. Immanuel Wallerstein (New
York: John Wiley, 1966): 54–56. Cf. Frederick Cooper, Colonialism in
Question: Theory, Knowledge, History (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2005), 33–55; Natacha Gagné, “The Study of Colonial Situations:
The Emergence of a New General Approach”, Reviews in Anthropology 41
(2012): 109–135; Isabelle Merle, “‘La situation coloniale’ chez Georges
Balandier. Relecture historienne”, Monde(s) 2, no. 4 (2013): 211–232.
29. The “native population of the tribes” lived in reserves on the Grande
terre (16,297), the Loyalty Islands (11,173) and the Isle of Pines (605)
though at the time of the census 1,528 were absent from the reserves in
addition to the 760 counted as indentured labourers. Journal officiel de
la Nouvelle-Calédonie et Dépendances (hereinafter JONC ), 16 May 1911;
Bulletin du Commerce (Supplément), 7 Oct. 1921.
30. On this process see also Michel Naepels, “Le devenir colonial d’une chef-
ferie kanake (Houaïlou, Nouvelle-Calédonie)”, Annales. Histoire, Sciences
Sociales 65, no. 4 (2010): 913–943.
31. Ibid., 942.
32. Mamdani, Citizen, 7 and 145.
33. Colin Newbury, Patrons, Clients, and Empire: Chieftaincy and Over-Rule
in Asia, Africa, and the Pacific (New York: Oxford University Press,
2003), 1–2 and 258.
1 INTRODUCTION 21
34. On assimilation as a key ideology of European expansion and the idea

of the transformation of colonized peoples into “improved Europeans”
see Saliha Belmessous. In the Algerian case Belmessous notes its appeal
to “indigenous hearts and minds” as well as its failure due to "the stub-
born endurance of racial thought". In New Caledonia, where the settler
presence was proportionally much greater, we would argue that racial
thought was especially strong and provided a still stronger break on assimi-
lationist agendas. Saliha Belmessous, Assimilation and Empire: Uniformity
in French and British Colonies, 1541–1954 (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2013), 1–12.
35. Bronwen Douglas, Across the Great Divide: Journeys in History and
Anthropology (Amsterdam: Harwood, 1998), 51–53 and 76–78.
36. In this regard our study complements works examining other groups of
indentured labour in New Caledonia —which until now have neglected
the Kanak experience—as well as to wider studies of such regimes in
Australia and the Pacific. Cf. Dorothy Shineberg, The People Trade. Pacific
Island Laborers and New Caledonia, 1865–1930 (Honolulu: University of
Hawai‘i Press, 1999); Catherine Adi, Orang kontrak. Les engagés origi-
naires de Java venus sous contrat en Nouvelle-Calédonie, 1896–1955 (Koné:
Editions de la Province Nord, 2014); Tracey Banivanua Mar, Violence
and Colonial Dialogue: The Australian Pacific Indentured Labor Trade
(Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2007).
37. All the more so as the archives of the Service of Native Affairs, especially
for the period prior to 1930, are extremely fragmentary, making difficult
the kind of statistical work conducted for Algeria and the AOF.
38. In addition to our own the key works centred on the indigénat in
New Caledonia are: Bruno Corre, “Histoire du service des affaires
indigènes de Nouvelle-Calédonie. Affaires indigènes, Indigénat et poli-
tiques indigènes de 1856 à 1954, assimilation ou ségrégation ?” (Diplôme
d’études approfondies, Université française du Pacifique, 1997); Jean-
Marie Lambert, La nouvelle politique indigène en Nouvelle-Calédonie.
Le capitaine Meunier et ses gendarmes, 1918–1954 (Paris: L’Harmattan,
1999); Ismet Kurtovitch, La vie politique en Nouvelle-Calédonie: 1940–
1953 (Villeneuve-d’Ascq: Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 2000);
“Sortir de l’indigénat: Cinquantième anniversaire du régime de l’indigénat
en Nouvelle-Calédonie”, Journal de la Société des Océanistes, no. 105
(1997): 117–139. Also valuable are the dossiers published in the Revue
culturelle kanak, Mwà Véé, no. 15 (1997), no. 16 (1997) and no. 57
(2007).
39. On the relationship between the movements for political independence
and indigenous rights see Anthony Tutugoro, “Incompatible Struggles?
Reclaiming Indigenous Sovereignty and Political Sovereignty in Kanaky
and/or New Caledonia”, Department of Pacific Affairs Discussion Paper,
2020/5, https://dpa.bellschool.anu.edu.au/experts-publications/public
ations/7915/dp-202005-incompatible-struggles-reclaiming-indigenous.
40. Our research on “native policy” and the experiences of Kanak is also
complementary to: Alain Saussol, L’Héritage. Essai sur le problème foncier
mélanésien en Nouvelle-Calédonie (Paris: Musée de l’Homme, 1979);
Joël Dauphiné, Les spoliations foncières en Nouvelle-Calédonie, 1853–1913
(Paris: L’Harmattan, 1989); Anne-Laure Jaumouillie, “Entre ‘sagaïes’
et médailles: Processus colonial de reconnaissance des chefs kanak en
Nouvelle-Calédonie (1878–1946)” (Thèse de doctorat, Université de
la Rochelle, 2007); Marie Salaün, L’école indigène. Nouvelle-Calédonie.
1885–1945 (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2005); Benoît
Trépied, Une mairie dans la France coloniale. Koné, Nouvelle-Calédonie
(Paris: Karthala, 2010); Naepels, “Le devenir colonial”; Shineberg, The
People Trade; Adi, Orang kontrak.
41. Solus, Traité de la condition indigène, 151.
42. See in particular: Régis Lafargue, La coutume face à son destin. Réflexions
sur la coutume judiciaire en Nouvelle-Calédonie et la résilience des ordres
juridiques infra-étatiques (Paris: LGDJ, 2010). Cf. Christine Demmer and
Benoît Trépied, ed., La coutume kanak dans l’Etat: perspectives coloniales
et postcoloniales sur la Nouvelle-Calédonie (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2017).
43. On the independence referenda and in particular the ramifications of the
third held in 2021 see Chapter 12.
PART I
The Indigénat Regime

CHAPTER 2
An Exceptional Legal Regime
Appearing in French dictionaries in the 1860s, the term indigénat had

two distinct meanings. It referred on the one hand to the law that
attached to the citizen of a state and on the other to the “Quality of
being native to a country. The indigénat of a race”.1 In the first sense,
for a foreigner to obtain the indigénat was to be naturalized or to acquire
the privileges of the locally born élite. It was in this sense that the term
was used in an 1871 translation of the constitution of the second German
Reich and in an 1889 travelogue which observed that French residents
of the Channel Islands were “lost to the mother land” and that their
children, having acquired “the advantage of the indigénat ”, were not
therefore subject to conscription.2
In its second sense—grounded in the idea of origins and of being
native (indigène) to a place or country—the word has a long etymology
rooted in the latin indigena. In Émile Littré’s 1873 dictionary indigène
designated something originating from a country or, in the case of
nations, the inhabitants of a country since time immemorial. However,
Littré distinguished the indigènes —the people born in a country—from
autochtones or aborigènes —people who had been in a country for all time
and who had not arrived by immigration.3 The idea of origins or land
of birth also underpins the definition given in Pierre Larousse’s universal
dictionary; to illustrate the phrase “the indigénat of a race”, Larousse
cites politician Pierre-Joseph Proudhon: “It is certain that each race can
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 25

Switzerland AG 2022
I. Merle and A. Muckle, The Indigénat and France’s Empire in New
Caledonia, Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99033-6_2
and must be regarded as native to the soil where it is found; by this

indigénat man and earth become immanent to each other”.4 The same
idea was to the fore in 1871 when parliamentarians deliberated on the
situation of Algeria’s “native Israelites “ to whom French citizenship had
been granted in 1870; those seeking to exercise their electoral rights were
required to provide “proof of indigénat according to the principles of
French civil law”.5
Over the course of the nineteenth century, the terms indigène and
indigénat would acquire an increasingly restrictive sense. The term
indigène, formerly designating the native of a place or country, became
ever more tied to the colonized person and it became incongruous to
refer to “French natives” to designate the inhabitants of metropolitan
France. By the same token, it was incongruous for Europeans in Algeria
to refer to themselves as “Algerian natives”.6 By the twentieth century,
no French person could be unaware that indigène designated the empire’s
colonized populations, understood from the point-of-view of their legal
status, or that the term indigénat referred to a set of special administra-
tive regulations pertaining to those designated as “natives”. In 1905 the
Larousse dictionary provided the following definitions of indigénat: “[1]
The quality or state of a native. [2] All the natives of a country: the Alge-
rian indigénat is governed by special laws. [3] The rights of a citizen in a
State”.7
The chapter that follows goes back in time to shed light on the
origins of these “special laws”. After reestablishing their filiation with
the Code noir governing slaves under the Ancien régime, we examine
how that “special” treatment was extended to the populations that came
under French sovereignty following the conquest of Algeria. We end with
their “legalization” in Algeria under the law of 28 June 1881 and their
simultaneous extension to Cochinchina by decree in May 1881.
The Code Noir on Slavery

and the Principle of Special Laws
One starting point for a history of the indigénat is the notorious Code
noir or “edict on the policing of slaves” which in 1685 defined the condi-
tion of slavery and established a comprehensive set of regulations for the
governance of slaves in the French colonies. Drawing upon fifty years of
practical experience as well as a disparate set of ordinances, edicts, decrees
2 AN EXCEPTIONAL LEGAL REGIME 27
and orders in council, the code was an assemblage dealing with ques-
tions of religion, civil and penal justice, relations between slaves and free
persons and the status of any children from such relations. It also dealt
with labor, the obligations of masters toward slaves and conditions of
emancipation. In terms of justice, the slave was incapable from the point
of view of civil acts and could not sue or be sued, but was criminally
liable. The code itself dealt only with crimes and offences linked with the
condition of slavery; striking one’s master or any other assault on free
persons as well as the act of running away was to be severely punished by
the Sovereign Councils as was the theft of cattle and stores. Masters were
responsible for damages caused by their slaves and retained the power to
punish, but recourse to torture or the death penalty fell under the jurisdic-
tion of royal justice. Masters were also free to emancipate their slaves—at
the age of 20 for men and 15 for women—who then became “French
subjects”.8
The Code noir’s importance to the indigénat ’s history is that it
was a new and unprecedented code, reserved specifically for a part of
the colonial population and manufactured from the practices and local
jurisprudence of slavery with the objective of establishing a homogeneous
set of regulations under a central authority: the King.9 It was in this sense
an exception code requested by the monarch to regulate, among other
things, the extreme violence of masters over slaves. As would later be the
case with the indigénat, the Code noir legitimized the exercise of excep-
tional violence in the colony while at the same time framing it so as to
better defend its principle. As observed by Louis Sala-Molins, the Code
noir had little to do with softening behavior:
Imagine the ferocity of the settlers, what excesses would their passions not
have known if the Code noir had curbed their power, repressed their arro-
gance and dampened their delirious fever! […] And many are the historians
who measure the cruelty of the possible crimes that were not committed
because repressed under the Code noir, the positivity of the Code noir
despite the monstrosity of the real crimes that it prescribed and justified.
[…] Here, then, is the slave safe from pure arbitrariness if one agrees to
put within parentheses the pure arbitrariness of the Code noir.10
Inapplicable in metropolitan France, the Code noir sought to both

justify and circumscribe the exercise of a violence deemed excessive in
relation to common law, but legitimate in a colonial context. Based on
local experiences of controlling particular populations—slaves in the one

case, indigènes in the other—and then endorsed by the central govern-
ment, the Code noir and the indigénat testify both to the suspicion
in which central authorities held the behavior and actions of colonial
actors—slave masters, colonial civil servants, or native chiefs—as well as
to the support the same authorities were prepared to give them.
The Code noir also calls our attention for other reasons. As we shall
see many of its articles shared the same preoccupations as the indigénat ’s
special infractions: forbidding gatherings and the carrying of weapons,
requiring identity papers, or controlling the sale or supply of alcohol.
It also implemented a head tax payable by masters for each slave; a tax
that would be reactivated at the end of the nineteenth century and with
the help of the indigénat imposed on indigènes alone. Finally, it also has
much in common with the indentured labor regimes which, in New Cale-
donia especially, became closely intertwined with the indigénat with the
common objective of controlling “native” labor.
Civic Integration
and the Imperative of Socialization
Through the Code noir the Ancien régime treated slaves as both objects
and as subjects. Emancipated slaves and mulatto were full subjects of the
Kingdom while the indigenous peoples designated as “savages” could
be granted the status of “French naturals” upon their conversion to
Catholicism. They were then “eligible for all debts, honours, bequests and
donations […] without being required to acquire letters or declarations
of naturalisation”.11 Also benefitting from the status of “French natu-
rals” were the inhabitants of certain settlements in Senegal (Saint Louis,
Gorée) and India (Chandernagor, Yanaon, Pondichéry, Karikal, Malé).
What remained to be defined in law was the unconverted “savages”.
The situation changed radically on 4 February 1794 when the revo-
lutionary government, the National Convention, abolished slavery and
extended the principle of citizenship and elected representation to all
inhabitants of the colonies. The breakthrough was short-lived—slavery
was reestablished in 1802 and under Bonaparte colonial representation
was abolished—but led by Victor Schoelcher the struggle resumed under
the Restoration (1814–1830) and the July Monarchy (1830–1848).
Equality between whites and free men of color was obtained in 1833,
though it was not until the revolution of 1848 that the principle of
2 AN EXCEPTIONAL LEGAL REGIME 29
complete emancipation finally triumphed in the French colonies. The

aftermath saw the establishment of universal male suffrage, the extension
of civil and political rights to former slaves, and the granting of local
representation to the inhabitants of Senegal’s Four Communes and the
French establishments in India.12
For the inhabitants of the territories that France had begun to acquire
in Algeria after 1830 the situation was very different. In 1848 the
Second Republic (1848–1851) evaded the question of their status.13 For
Schoelcher and his contemporaries the access to universal male suffrage
opened in 1848 to all French men, rich or poor, white or colored, was
only possible if all shared, in the private sphere, the morals, and customs
guaranteed by the Civil Code. While the inhabitants of the newly annexed
territories in Algeria remained strangers to French civilization, the former
slaves on the other hand had been immersed in French civilization for
two centuries. The length of their socialization justified their full partic-
ipation in the exercise of citizenship. For the same reason, an exception
was also accorded to the inhabitants of Senegal’s Four Communes and
the French establishments in India for whom a limited citizenship in the
form of the vote was tolerated while their statut personnel or personal
status continued to be governed by custom.
The idea of socialization was all important in determining who could
become French and a citizen and would be remobilized in the major
1889 law on nationality which established the principle of jus soli for the
naturalization of foreigners and their children. As Patrick Weil explains:
Foreigners were reclassified according to their degree of socialization, or

more precisely according to the length of time they or their families had
been in France. Foreigners born in France were automatically French if one
parent had also been born in France (the double jus soli); otherwise they
became French upon reaching the age of majority. Foreigners not born
in France could request naturalization, but during the waiting period they
had fewer rights than before the law of 1889 was passed.14
In the course of the nineteenth century the conditions for accessing

French nationality, to which citizenship was indexed, became more and
more defined. These conditions in turn clarified, a contrario, the status of
the foreigner as well as that of the indigène or native.
Another random document with
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“Here, I have something better than that,” cried Tavia, who had
been watching Dorothy’s clumsy efforts to unloose Joe’s bonds.
She fished frantically in the pockets of her jacket and brought forth
a rather grimy ball of cord and a penknife. This she held up
triumphantly.
“A good sight better than your fingers!”
“Oh, give it to me, quickly,” cried Dorothy, reaching for the knife in
an agony of apprehension. “Oh, it won’t open! Yes, I have it!”
With the sharp blade she sawed feverishly at the cords.
They gave way one after another and she flung them on to the floor
of the cave.
Joe tried to get to his feet, but stumbled and fell.
“Feel funny and numb, kind of,” he muttered. “Been tied up too
long, I guess.”
“But, Joe, you must stand up—you must!” cried Dorothy
frantically. “Come, try again. I’ll hold you. You must try, Joe. They
will be back in a minute! Never mind how much it hurts, stand up!”
With Dorothy’s aid Joe got to his feet again slowly and painfully
and stood there, swaying, an arm about his sister’s shoulders, the
other hand clenched tight against the damp, rocky wall of the cave.
The pain was so intense as the blood flowed back into his tortured
feet that his face went white and he clenched his teeth to keep from
crying out.
“Do you think you can walk at all, dear?” asked Dorothy, her own
face white with the reflection of his misery. “If you could manage to
walk a little way! We have horses in the woods and it would be
harder for them to find us there. Try, Joe dear! Try!”
“I guess I can make it now, Sis,” said Joe from between his
clenched teeth. “If Tavia will help a little too—on the other side.”
“I guess so!” cried Tavia with alacrity, as she put Joe’s other arm
about her shoulders and gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. “Now
something tells me that the sooner we leave this place behind the
healthier it will be for all of us.”
“Hush! What’s that?” cried Dorothy, and they stood motionless for
a moment, listening.
“I didn’t hear anything, Doro,” whispered Tavia. “It was just
nerves, I guess.”
They took a step toward the entrance of the cave, Joe still leaning
heavily upon the two girls.
A horse whinnied sharply and as they paused again, startled, a
sinister shadow fell across the narrow entrance to the cave. They
shrank back as substance followed shadow and a man wedged his
way into the cave.
He straightened up and winked his eyes at the unexpected sight
that met them.
Dorothy stifled a startled exclamation as she recognized him. It
was the small, black-eyed man, Gibbons, known to Desert City as
George Lightly, who stood blinking at them.
Suddenly he laughed, a short, sharp laugh, and turned back toward
the mouth of the cave.
“Come on in, fellows!” he called cautiously. “Just see what I
found!”
Joe’s face, through the grime and dirt that covered it, had grown
fiery red and he struggled to get free of Dorothy and Tavia.
“Just you let me get my hands on him!” he muttered. “I’ll show
him! I’ll——”
“You keep out of this, Joe,” Dorothy whispered fiercely. “Let me do
the talking.”
Three other men squeezed through the narrow opening and stood
blinking in the semi-darkness of the cave.
One of them Dorothy recognized as Joe’s former captor, a big,
burly man with shifty eyes and a loose-lipped mouth, another was
Philo Marsh, more smug and self-sufficient than she remembered
him, and the third was Cal Stiffbold, her handsome cavalier of the
train ride, who had called himself Stanley Blake.
It took the girls, crouched against the wall of the cave, only a
moment to see all this, and the men were no slower in reading the
meaning of the situation.
Stiffbold’s face was suffused with fury as he recognized Dorothy
and Tavia, and he took a threatening step forward. Philo Marsh
reached out a hand and drew him back, saying in mild tones:
“Easy there, Stiffbold. Don’t do anything you are likely to regret.”
“So, ladies to the rescue, eh?” sneered Lightly, thrusting his hands
into his pockets and regarding the girls with an insulting leer.
“Regular little heroines and all, ain’t you? Well, now, I’ll be blowed!”
“Young ladies, this isn’t the place for you, you know.” Philo Marsh
took a step forward, reaching out his hand toward Joe. “You’re
interfering, you know, and you’re likely to get yourselves in a heap o’
trouble. But if you’ll go away and stay away and keep your mouths
closed——”
“And leave my brother here with you scoundrels, I suppose?”
suggested Dorothy.
The hypocritical expression upon the face of Philo Marsh changed
suddenly to fury at her short, scornful laugh.
“Scoundrels, is it?” he sneered. “Well, my young lady, maybe you’ll
know better than to call honest people names before you leave this
place.”
“Honest people! You?” cried Dorothy, no longer able to contain her
furious indignation. “That sounds startling coming from you, Philo
Marsh, and your—honest friends!
“Do you call it honest,” she took a step forward and the men
retreated momentarily, abashed before her fury, “to take a poor boy
away from his people, to hide him here in a place like this, to torture
him physically and mentally, to attempt to make him false to all his
standards of right——”
“See here, this won’t do!” Lightly blustered, but Dorothy turned
upon him like a tigress.
“You will listen to me till I have said what I am going to say,” she
flung at him. “You do all this—you honest men,” she turned to the
others, searing them with her scorn. “And why? So that you can force
Garry Knapp, who has the best farmlands anywhere around here—
and who will make more than good some day, in spite of you, yes, in
spite of you, I say—to turn over his lands to you for a song, an
amount of money that would hardly pay him for the loss of one little
corner of it——”
“Say, are we goin’ to stand here and take this?”
“Yes, you are—Stanley Blake!” Dorothy flamed at him, and the
man retreated before her fury. “And then, when this boy defies you,
what do you do? Act like honest men? Of course you do! You
threaten to ‘put the screws on’ until he is too weak to defy you, a boy
against four—honest—men! If that is honesty, if that is bravery, then
I would rather be like that slimy toad out in the woods who knows
nothing of such things!”
“Hold on there, you!” George Lightly started forward, his hand
uplifted threateningly. “You call us any more of those pretty names
and I’ll——”
“What will you do?” Dorothy defied him gloriously, her eyes
blazing. “You dare to lay a hand upon me or my friend or my
brother,” instinctively her arm tightened about Joe, “and Garry
Knapp will hound you to the ends of the earth. Hark! What’s that?”
She paused, head uplifted, listening.
They all listened in a breathless silence while the distant clatter of
horses’ hoofs breaking a way through the woodland came closer—
ever closer!
“Garry!” Dorothy lifted her head and sent her cry ringing through
the woodland. “We are over this way, Garry, over this way! Come qui
——”
A HORSEMAN BROKE THROUGH THE
UNDERBRUSH. IT WAS GARRY.
“Dorothy Dale to the Rescue.” Page

237
CHAPTER XXX
CAPTURED
A rough hand closed over Dorothy’s mouth, shutting off her

breath, strangling her. In an instant Tavia and Joe were similarly
gagged and helpless.
There was a silence during which their captors waited breathlessly,
hoping that the horseman had not heard the cry, would pass the cave
by.
For a moment, remembering how well the spot was concealed,
Dorothy was horribly afraid that this might actually happen. If it was
really Garry coming! If he had heard her!
But the clattering hoofs still came on. She could hear the shouts of
the riders, Garry’s voice, calling her name!
She felt herself released with a suddenness and violence that sent
her reeling toward the rear of the cave. The men were making for the
entrance, jostling one another and snarling in their efforts to escape.
The men out of sight beyond the huge rock, Dorothy and Tavia
rushed to the cave mouth, leaving poor Joe to limp painfully after
them, just in time to see the knaves disappear among the trees.
The next moment a horseman broke through the underbrush,
charging straight for them. It was Garry!
At sight of Dorothy he pulled his horse to its haunches, drawing in
his breath in a sharp exclamation.
“Dorothy! Thank heaven! I thought——”
“Never mind about us, Garry. They went over that way—the men
you are after!”
She pointed in the direction the men had disappeared and Garry
nodded. The next moment he had spurred his pony in pursuit,
followed by several other horsemen who had come up behind him.
The girls watched them go, and Joe, coming up behind them, laid a
dirty hand upon his sister’s shoulder.
“You—you were great, Sis, to those men!” he said awkwardly. “I
was awfully proud of you.”
Dorothy smiled through tears and, taking Joe’s grimy hand,
pressed it against her cheek.
“It is so wonderful to have you again, dear!” she said huskily.
They were back again in a moment, Garry and his men, bringing
with them two captives—the big-framed, loose-lipped fellow who had
first taunted Joe in the cave, and George Lightly.
By Garry’s face it was easy to see he was in no mood to deal gently
with his prisoners.
He dismounted, threw the bridle to one of the men, and
approached the big fellow whom he knew to be a tool of the Larrimer
gang.
The fellow was sullen and glowering, but Garry was a good enough
judge to guess that beneath this exterior the fellow was ready to
break.
“Now then,” Garry said coolly, as he pressed the muzzle of his
revolver in uncomfortable proximity to the ribs of his prisoner, “you
tell us what you were doing in that cave over there and you’ll go scot
free. Otherwise, it’s jail for you—if not worse. My men,” he added, in
a gentle drawl, “are just hankering to take part in a lynching party.
It’s a right smart time since they have been treated to that sort of
entertainment, and they are just ripe for a little excitement. How
about it, boys, am I right?”
There came an ominous murmur from the “boys” that caused the
prisoner to look up at them quickly and then down again at his
shuffling feet.
Lightly tried to interfere, but Garry silenced him sharply.
“You hankering to be in this lynching party, too?” he inquired,
adding gratingly: “Because if you are not, I’d advise you to keep your
mouth tight shut!”
It was not long before the captive yielded to the insistence of that
revolver muzzle pressed beneath his fifth rib and made a clean breast
of the whole ugly business. Possibly the invitation to the lynching
party had something to do with his surrender.
As he stutteringly and sullenly revealed the plot which would have
forced Garry to the sale of his lands to insure the safety of his
fiancée’s brother, Garry jotted down the complete confession in his
notebook and at the conclusion forced both his prisoners at the point
of his revolver to sign the document.
Then Garry turned to two of the cowboys, who had been looking
on with appreciative grins.
“Here, Steve, and you, Gay, take these two worms to town and see
that they are put where they belong,” he ordered, and the two boys
leaped to the task eagerly. “You others go help the boys round up the
rest of the gentlemen mentioned in this valuable document,” and he
tapped the confession with a cheerful grin. “So long, you fellows!”
They waved their hats at him, wheeled their ponies joyfully, and
were off to do his bidding.
Then it was that Garry came toward Dorothy, his arms
outstretched. It is doubtful if at that moment he even saw Joe and
Tavia standing there.
Dorothy took a step toward him and suddenly the whole world
seemed to rock and whirl about her. She flung out her hand and
grasped nothing but air. Then down, down into fathomless space and
nothingness!
Dorothy opened her eyes again to find herself in a bed whose

softness and cleanliness meant untold luxury to her. Her body ached
all over, horribly, and her head ached too.
She closed her eyes, but there was a movement beside the bed that
made her open them again swiftly. Somebody had coughed, and it
had sounded like Joe.
She turned over slowly, discovering new aches and pains as she did
so, and saw that it was indeed Joe sitting there, his eyes fixed
hungrily upon her.
She opened her arms and he ran to her and knelt beside the bed.
“Aw, now, don’t go to crying, Sis,” he said, patting her shoulder
awkwardly. “They said if I bothered you they wouldn’t let me stay.”
“I’d like to see them get you away,” cried Dorothy. “Joe, sit back a
little bit and let me look at you. I can’t believe it’s you!”
“But I did an awful thing, Dot,” he said, hanging his head. “You’d
better let me tell you about it before you get too glad I’m back.”
“Tell me about it then, dear,” said Dorothy quietly. “I’ve been
wanting to know just why you ran away.”
“It was all because of the fire at Haskell’s toy store,” said Joe,
speaking swiftly, as though he would be glad to get the explanation
over. “Jack Popella said the explosion was all my fault and he told me
I would be put in prison——”
“But just what did you do?” Dorothy insisted.
“Well, it was like this.” Joe took a long breath, glanced up at her,
then turned his eyes away again. “Jack had a fight with Mr. Haskell
over some money he picked up in the road. Mr. Haskell said he stole
it from his cash drawer, but Jack kept on saying he found it in the
road. I shouldn’t wonder if he did steal it though, at that,” Joe went
on, thoughtfully, and for the first time Dorothy looked at him
accusingly.
“You know I begged you not to have anything to do with Jack
Popella, Joe.”
The lad hung his head and flushed scarlet.
“I know you did. I won’t ever, any more.”
“All right, dear. Tell me what happened then.”
“Jack was so mad at Mr. Haskell he said he would like to knock
down all the boxes in the room back of his store just to get even. He
asked me to help him and—just for fun—I said sure I would. Then he
told me to go on in and get started and he would come in a minute.
“I knocked down a couple of boxes,” Joe continued, after a
strained silence. “And then—the explosion came. Jack said I was to
blame and—the—the cops were after me. I wasn’t going to let them
send me to prison,” he lifted his head with a sort of bravado and met
Dorothy’s gaze steadily. “So—so I came out West to Garry.”
“And you are going back again with me, Joe,” said his sister firmly.
“It was cowardly to run away. Now you will have to face the music!”
Joe hung his head for a moment, then squared his shoulders and
looked bravely at Dorothy.
“All right, Dot. I guess it was kind of sneaking to run away. I—I’m
awful sorry.”
The door opened softly behind them and Tavia poked her head in.
“My goodness gracious, Doro Doodlekins,” she cried, “you look as
bright as a button. First thing you know I’ll be minus a patient.”
Dorothy propped herself up on her elbow and stared at her chum.
“Tavia, we must send a telegram immediately,” she cried. “The
Major must know that Joe is safe.”
Tavia came over and smoothed her pillow fondly.
“Foolish child, did you think no one but you would think of that?”
she chided. “Garry sent one of the boys to Dugonne with orders to
send a night letter to The Cedars telling everything that happened.
That was after you fainted, you know, and we brought you here.”
“Such a foolish thing to do,” sighed Dorothy, sinking back on her
pillow. “What must Garry think of me?”
“Suppose I let him answer that for himself,” suggested the flyaway,
and before Dorothy could protest she had seized Joe by the arm and
escorted him gently from the room. A moment later Dorothy could
hear Tavia calling to Garry that he was “needed very much upstairs.”
Dorothy closed her eyes and opened them the next minute to find
Garry standing beside the bed, looking down at her. She reached out
a hand to him and he took it very gently, kneeling down beside her.
“Joe and Tavia have been telling me how you stood up to those
men in the cave, little girl. I only wish I had been there to see you do
it. We’ve got them all, by the way, and Stiffbold and Lightly and the
rest of them are where they won’t hatch any more schemes in a hurry
—thanks to you.”
“Thanks to me?” repeated Dorothy, wondering. “Garry, why?”
“I never would have discovered that cave if I hadn’t heard you call
out,” Garry explained. “That hole in the mountainside was the coziest
little retreat I ever saw.”
“Well, I’m glad if I helped a little,” sighed Dorothy. “I was afraid
you might be going to scold me.”
“Scold you?” repeated Garry tenderly. “You foolish, little brick!”
It was a long time before Garry remembered something that had
once seemed important to him. With an exclamation of dismay he
stuck his hand in his pocket and drew forth a yellow envelope.
“Here’s a telegram from The Cedars, and I clean forgot all about
it,” he said penitently. “One of the boys brought it from Dugonne
where he went to send the telegram to Major Dale. I didn’t mean to
keep it, honest I didn’t!”
“Under the circumstances, I don’t blame you in the least,” said
Dorothy demurely, as she hastily tore open the telegram.
She read it through, then turned to Garry with shining eyes.
“This is the one thing I needed to make me perfectly happy,
Garry,” she said. “Nat says that Jack Popella has been arrested for
setting Haskell’s store on fire. That automatically clears Joe of
suspicion!”
“That’s great. The poor kid has had more than his share of worry
lately. Just wait till he reads that telegram.” And to Tavia, passing the
door at that moment, he gave the yellow sheet with the request that
she convey it to Joe with all possible speed.
“Just to be comfortable and safe and happy once more,”
murmured Dorothy, as Garry came back to her. “It seems very
wonderful, Garry.”
“And my job,” said Garry softly, “will be to keep you safe and
comfortable and happy for the rest of your life!”
THE END
THE DOROTHY DALE SERIES
By MARGARET PENROSE
Author of “The Motor Girls Series,” “Radio Girls Series,” &c.
12 mo. Illustrated
Price per volume, $1.00, postpaid

Dorothy Dale is the daughter of an old Civil War
veteran who is running a weekly newspaper in a
small Eastern town. Her sunny disposition, her fun-
loving ways and her trials and triumphs make
clean, interesting and fascinating reading. The
Dorothy Dale Series is one of the most popular
series of books for girls ever published.
DOROTHY DALE: A GIRL OF TO-DAY

DOROTHY DALE AT GLENWOOD SCHOOL
DOROTHY DALE’S GREAT SECRET
DOROTHY DALE AND HER CHUMS
DOROTHY DALE’S QUEER HOLIDAYS
DOROTHY DALE’S CAMPING DAYS
DOROTHY DALE’S SCHOOL RIVALS
DOROTHY DALE IN THE CITY
DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE
DOROTHY DALE IN THE WEST
DOROTHY DALE’S STRANGE DISCOVERY
DOROTHY DALE’S ENGAGEMENT
DOROTHY DALE TO THE RESCUE
The Motor Girls Series
By MARGARET PENROSE
Author of the highly successful “Dorothy Dale Series”
12mo. Illustrated. Price per volume, $1.00 postpaid.

Since the enormous success of our “Motor Boys
Series,” by Clarence Young, we have been asked to
get out a similar series for girls. No one is better
equipped to furnish these tales than Mrs. Penrose,
who, besides being an able writer, is an expert
automobilist.
The Motor Girls

or A Mystery of the Road
The Motor Girls on a Tour

or Keeping a Strange Promise
The Motor Girls at Lookout Beach

or In Quest of the Runaways
The Motor Girls Through New England

or Held by the Gypsies
The Motor Girls on Cedar Lake

or The Hermit of Fern Island
The Motor Girls on the Coast

or The Waif from the Sea
The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay

or The Secret of the Red Oar
The Motor Girls on Waters Blue

or The Strange Cruise of the Tartar
The Motor Girls at Camp Surprise

or The Cave in the Mountain
The Motor Girls in the Mountains

or The Gypsy Girl’s Secret
THE LINGER-NOT SERIES
By AGNES MILLER
12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Jacket in full colors
Price per volume, 65 cents, postpaid

This new series of girls’ books is in a new style of
story writing. The interest is in knowing the girls
and seeing them solve the problems that develop
their character. Incidentally, a great deal of
historical information is imparted, and a fine
atmosphere of responsibility is made pleasing and
useful to the reader.
1. THE LINGER-NOTS AND THE

MYSTERY HOUSE
or The Story of Nine Adventurous Girls
How the Linger-Not girls met and formed their club seems
commonplace, but this writer makes it fascinating, and how they
made their club serve a great purpose continues the interest to the
end, and introduces a new type of girlhood.
2. THE LINGER-NOTS AND THE VALLEY FEUD

or The Great West Point Chain
The Linger-Not girls had no thought of becoming mixed up with
feuds or mysteries, but their habit of being useful soon entangled
them in some surprising adventures that turned out happily for all,
and made the valley better because of their visit.
3. THE LINGER-NOTS AND THEIR GOLDEN
QUEST
or The Log of the Ocean Monarch
For a club of girls to become involved in a mystery leading back
into the times of the California gold-rush, seems unnatural until the
reader sees how it happened, and how the girls helped one of their
friends to come into her rightful name and inheritance, forms a fine
story.
THE RADIO GIRLS SERIES
By MARGARET PENROSE

A new and up-to-date series, taking in the
activities of several bright girls who become
interested in radio. The stories tell of thrilling
exploits, out-door life and the great part the Radio
plays in the adventures of the girls and in solving
their mysteries. Fascinating books that girls of all
ages will want to read.
1. THE RADIO GIRLS OF ROSELAWN

or A Strange Message from the Air
Showing how Jessie Norwood and her chums became interested in
radiophoning, how they gave a concert for a worthy local charity, and
how they received a sudden and unexpected call for help out of the
air. A girl wanted as witness in a celebrated law case disappears, and
the radio girls go to the rescue.
2. THE RADIO GIRLS ON THE PROGRAM

or Singing and Reciting at the Sending Station
When listening in on a thrilling recitation or a superb concert
number who of us has not longed to “look behind the scenes” to see
how it was done? The girls had made the acquaintance of a sending
station manager and in this volume are permitted to get on the
program, much to their delight. A tale full of action and fun.
3. THE RADIO GIRLS ON STATION ISLAND

or The Wireless from the Steam Yacht
In this volume the girls travel to the seashore and put in a vacation
on an island where is located a big radio sending station. The big
brother of one of the girls owns a steam yacht and while out with a
pleasure party those on the island receive word by radio that the
yacht is on fire. A tale thrilling to the last page.
4. THE RADIO GIRLS AT FOREST LODGE

or The Strange Hut in the Swamp
The Radio Girls spend several weeks on the shores of a beautiful
lake and with their radio get news of a great forest fire. It also aids
them in rounding up some undesirable folks who occupy the strange
hut in the swamp.
THE BETTY GORDON SERIES
By ALICE B. EMERSON
Author of the Famous “Ruth Fielding” Series

A series of stories by Alice B. Emerson which are
bound to make this writer more popular than ever
with her host of girl readers.
1. BETTY GORDON AT BRAMBLE

FARM
or The Mystery of a Nobody
At the age of twelve Betty is left an orphan.
2. BETTY GORDON IN WASHINGTON

or Strange Adventures in a Great City
In this volume Betty goes to the National Capitol to find her uncle
and has several unusual adventures.
3. BETTY GORDON IN THE LAND OF OIL

or The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune
From Washington the scene is shifted to the great oil fields of our
country. A splendid picture of the oil field operations of to-day.
4. BETTY GORDON AT BOARDING SCHOOL
or The Treasure of Indian Chasm
Seeking the treasure of Indian Chasm makes an exceedingly
interesting incident.
5. BETTY GORDON AT MOUNTAIN CAMP

or The Mystery of Ida Bellethorne
At Mountain Camp Betty found herself in the midst of a mystery
involving a girl whom she had previously met in Washington.
6. BETTY GORDON AT OCEAN PARK

or School Chums on the Boardwalk
A glorious outing that Betty and her chums never forgot.
7. BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS

or Bringing the Rebels to Terms
Rebellious students, disliked teachers and mysterious robberies
make a fascinating story.

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The Indigénat and France’s Empire in

New Caledonia: Origins, Practices and

France, Mexico and Informal Empire in Latin America,

Empire Unbound: France and the Muslim Mediterranean,

The Persian Mirror: Reflections of the Safavid Empire

Spitfire in Love Isabelle Ronin

Experimental and Expanded Animation: New Perspectives

Digital Healthcare and Expertise: Mental Health and New

The Ethnomethodology Program: Legacies and Prospects

Origins of the Mass Party: dispossession and the party-

Isabelle Merle · Adrian Muckle

ISSN 2635-1633 ISSN 2635-1641 (electronic)

Cover illustration: New Caledonian chiefs c.1900. Archives de la Nouvelle-Calédonie,

This book provides a long history of France’s infamous indigénat regime,

but in local usage encompassing the notion of a defined territory or

Marseille, France Isabelle Merle

Adrian extends particular thanks to the Camargo Foundation, Cassis, for

Part I The Indigénat Regime

Part II The Order of Practices: The Indigénat at Work

Part III The Indigénat and the “Native Condition” in

10 Putting “Natives” To Work: The Indigénat

Abbreviations used in the Text

Abbreviations used in References

DAT Département de l’armée de terre

Fig. 4.1 Map of New Caledonia. This map of the principal

Fig. 9.1 The symbols of colonial administration: képi, medals,

Table 2.1 Ordinances establishing the special infractions in Algeria,

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

the first of three independence referenda held in 2018–2021, New Cale-

In their view, this lack of recognition of customary authority is further illus-

Here the evocation of the indigénat denounces contemporary admin-

The Indigénat as an Imperial Framework

Cochinchina in the form of a decree, promulgated one month earlier, in

The Reemergence of a Forgotten Field

While some specialists took an interest in the practical modalities of this

where they could be diverted or ignored on the pretext of the speci-

Origins and Genesis

pluralism or differentiation that allowed the operation of separate laws and

The “Colonial Situation”

• the “free population” of 13,138 persons;

rule, the colonial state “became a component of a segmentary political

end in French terms—as we shall see in the absence of any codification

or “escaped” laborers and in the regimes that governed institutions where

A Periodization of the New Caledonian Regime

Why a History of the Indigénat

The indigénat remains at the centre of history that the descendants

de l’indigénat en Algérie. Le séquestre et la responsabilité collective (Alger:

et postcoloniale. Pour exemple, la Nouvelle-Calédonie”, in La Nouvelle-

18. Pommier, Le régime de l’indigénat, 17. The expression in fact belongs to

34. On assimilation as a key ideology of European expansion and the idea

The Indigénat Regime

An Exceptional Legal Regime

Appearing in French dictionaries in the 1860s, the term indigénat had

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 25

and must be regarded as native to the soil where it is found; by this

The Code Noir on Slavery

Inapplicable in metropolitan France, the Code noir sought to both

local experiences of controlling particular populations—slaves in the one