Shades of fraternity : creolization and the making of citizenship in French India, 1790–1792

On October 16, 1790, a group of topas men wrote a petition to the Colonial Assembly at Pondichéry, protesting the decision of September that year to exclude them from the electoral list of active citizens on the basis of “race.” These propertied, free men of color demanded to have the same rights as Europeans and the métis. While historians of the French empire have long considered how mulatto and creole people in the French Caribbean negotiated the boundaries of citizenship after the Revolution, the debate that emerged in India offers a different view. This essay argues that the topas drew on precedents from other French colonies, as well as on the status of foreigners in France itself, to argue that domicile (ius solis) rather than bloodline (ius sanguinis) formed the basis of what it meant to be French. Hence skin color could not be a barrier to citizenship rights.