Journal of Modern Italian Studies 8(3) 2003: 425–443 Journal of Modern Italian Studies ISSN 1354-571X print/ISSN 1469-9583 online © 2003 Taylor & Francis Ltd http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/1354571032000113770 Mussolini’s colonial race laws and state–settler relations in Africa Orientale Italiana (1935–41) Giulia Barrera Direz ione generale per gli A rchivi, R ome Abstract Why in Mussolini’s empire were relations between colonizers and colonized regu- lated 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 infor- mal 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 subordi- nation 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. Keywords Colonizers, colonized, race, segregation, settlement. Introduction In October 1940, an Italian woman living in Asmara wrote to a friend: ‘Nowa- days here in the colony the blacks are favoured over the nationals, while it seems to me that we should have more right to earn than them.’ 1 In the period following the creation of the empire, 2 complaints of this sort were not unusual among Italian settlers in Africa Orientale Italiana (AOI). R eports by the censor- ship office and by police informers testify to widespread discontent among Italian colonists, who believed that the government protected Africans too much. 3 Some Italians were dissatisfied because the ‘natives’ were ‘insufficiently dominated’ and displayed ‘haughtiness’. 4 Others complained about High Commissioner De Bono’s 5 ‘excessively soft hand with the natives’. 6 An Italian trader protested: