ABSTRACTMy thesis explores the relationships between the prison of Saint-Louis (Senegal), the development of the penitentiary institution, and colonization in Senegal, between ca. 1830 and ca. 1940. Beyond the institutional frame, I focus on how the colonial society influenced the implementation of, and the mission assigned to, imprisonment. Conversely, I explore the extent to which the situation in the prison impacted the relationships between the colonizers and the colonized populations. First, I look at the evolution of the Prison of Saint-Louis by focusing on the preoccupations of the colonial authorities and the legislation that helped implement the establishment and organize its operation. I examine the facilities in comparison with the other prisons in the colony. Second, I analyze the internal operation of the prison in relation to the French colonial agenda and policies. Third and lastly, I focus on the `prison society'. I look at the contentions, negotiations and accommodations that occurred within the carceral space, between the colonizer and the colonized people. I show that imprisonment played an important role in French colonization in Senegal, and that the prison of Saint-Louis was not just a model for, but also the nodal center of, the development of the penitentiary. Colonial imprisonment was not meant to be a true replica of that in metropolitan France. Therefore, Saint-Louis received people who were just charged, those sentenced, vagrants, and even people in transit who never committed any crimes. The driving forces of the system were the need for control over a poorly understood sociopolitical order, and for cheap labor force, that went hand in hand with French territorial expansion. The absence of a clear penitentiary theory, of basic technical expertise in prison management, and of sufficient financial resources, distorted the system and created space for a prison subculture never really understood by the French, and which had a serious impact on the penitentiary.I collected archival sources in Senegal (Dakar and Saint-Louis) and France (Aix-en-Provence). I root the study in the historiography of African colonization, and imprisonment in other colonial settings. I am inspired by the Subaltern Studies and am using theories developed by Michel Foucault, David Rothman and the literature on punishment they inspired. I borrow from James Scott's concepts of the "weapons of the weak" and "infrapolitics of subordinate groups" to analyze African agency in the prison space.The crisis in the prison system in many African countries, the political use of imprisonment, and the increasing development of "private" methods of policing and punishment due to the growing lack of trust by large components of African civil societies in the formal legal systems, are mostly informed by the colonial legacy. I argue that understanding these trends and their antecedents through historical inquiry is critical in the current process of building more democratic and socially just societies in Africa. Imprisonment is an institution through the history of which we gain a fresh view on the logics, the actors, and the outcome of French colonialism. My research sheds new light on a critical part of the history of Senegal and West Africa, but also opens up new research directions for a better understanding of the philosophy and politics of punishment and their implications for the rule of law in our societies in the postcolonial era.
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