Place · region
Four Communes
The Four Communes were the colonial towns of Saint-Louis, Gorée, Rufisque and Dakar in Senegal, whose inhabitants, the originaires, enjoyed French civil and political rights, unlike the subjects of the rest of French West Africa. Given municipal status between 1872 and 1887, they elected a deputy to the French parliament, from 1914 Blaise Diagne, whose laws confirmed their citizenship. Their special status ended when citizenship was extended across the empire in 1946.
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Mentioned in 3 state histories
See also
Cite this entry
- APA
- The Epoch Institute. (2026). Four Communes. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/four-communes
- MLA
- “Four Communes.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/four-communes. Accessed .
- Chicago
- The Epoch Institute. “Four Communes.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/four-communes.
- Harvard
- The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Four Communes’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/four-communes (Accessed: ).
Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻