Mussolini's colonial race laws and state-settler relations in Africa Orientale Italiana (1935-41)

Abstract Why in Mussolini's empire were relations between colonizers and colonized regulated by the government in Rome? The reason is not to be sought in the supposed tendency of Italians to fraternize with Africans but rather in the totalitarian nature of the regime and the rapidity with which the empire was populated. In a few years tens of thousands of Italians emigrated to Africa Orientale Italiana (AOI); the informal elaboration of common standards of behaviour on the part of colonists towards the local population would have required time while Mussolini intended to forge the empire following a strict hierarchy of racial relations.

By and large, Italians were in agreement with their government over the subordination of the colonized, but they disagreed with the forms that such subordination should assume. Many Italians violated the race laws; but mixing with Africans did not necessarily mean being on friendly terms with them. A significant minority of Italians went to AOI with the intention of making rapid and easy profits: they had no intention of settling permanently and were intolerant of any rules, including those aimed at racial segregation. Thus a clash developed between these Italians, who were not interested in long-term colonial projects, and the government which was determined to impose its own model of colonial order.