Who deserves to be a citizen? Colonial Citizenship reveals how citizenship emerged from empire as a technology of racial and civilisational sorting. Navigating the longest-standing European empire, it analyses colonial policies, citizenship regulations and segregation laws to show how citizenship works as both affirmation and denial of rights. Drawing on newly uncovered Portuguese archives, it develops a critical citizenship theory that asks, from the perspective of the colonised, who has the right to have rights and whether citizenship, despite its colonial nature, can become a tool for justice. A devastating critique and a theory of survival essential for decolonial studies, jurisprudence, and constitutional law.