Neighboring kingdoms like the Ashanti Empire to the west and Dahomey to the east constantly posed threats with invasions.
[33] Merchants from Brandenburg established a trading post there[34] but in 1688, the Royal African Company was in charge of the fort there, which would become the only significant coastal port in Togo in the slaving era.
[36] Slave raiders from the Asante Empire and Kingdom of Dahomey became common in the south and central parts of the region during this time.
[28] From the eighteenth century, the Danes dominated the slave trade on the Togolese coast, and brought in Protestant missionaries to the area.
[40] In 1795, the fort was attacked by troops from Dahomey and the Hulagan Kingdom centered in Grand-Popo, now in Benin, but within a year, trading had resumed.
[28] The British purchase of Suez Canal shares in 1875 and bombing of Alexandria, Egypt in 1882, as well as France establishing a protectorate in Tunis in 1881, caused German speculation about acquiring its own territory in Africa.
[44] Between 1880 and 1884, businesses were established at Baguida, Little Popo and Lomé by firms from Bremen and Hamburg, and other factories dotted the coast of Togoland.
In 1882, Adolph Woermann developed a shipping line transporting goods regularly between Hamburg and coastal West Africa.
[45] German Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, was initially reluctant to support colonization of Africa because of the expense and political climate, but by 1884, he was in favor of growth.
[44][46][47] When in that year, the German merchants asked him to support them against rival British and French claims, Bismark sent a warship in January and dispatched Gustav Nachtigal to help with negotiations.
[28][48][49] Nachtigal sailed into Little Popo in February to arrest the King Lawson III, who German merchants claimed was a British agent.
[51][52][53] On 4 July 1884 a treaty was signed with Chief Mlapa III of Togoville forming a basis to establish a German Protectorate over the territory, which they named after the village.
Though explorers encountered minor conflicts by 1897, Germany had secured the northern part of the territory and selected Lomé, as the capital of the colony.
[77] The 1915 law allowed subjects or protected persons who were non-citizen nationals of Algeria, Morocco, or Tunisia and had established domicile in a French territory to acquire full citizenship, including the naturalization of their wives and minor children, by having received the cross of the Legion of Honor, having obtained a university degree, having rendered service to the nation, having attained the rank of an officer or received a medal from the French army, who had married a Frenchwoman and established a one-year residency; or who had resided for more than ten years in a colony other than their country of origin.
[80] On 7 November 1930, a decree was passed specifically authorizing the individual naturalization of persons in the French mandates of Togo and Cameroun.
[81][82] A second decree issued on 17 April 1931, allowed foreigners the option of acquiring French nationality in the mandates by naturalization, after a three-year residency, which would be granted as a united state for all members of a family.
[84] After World War II, France strove to create policies which would integrate the inhabitants of its trust territories into the French Union.
[93] This meant that from 1848 when the Civil Code was extended to all of the French nationals in the colonies, women were legally incapacitated and paternal authority was established over their children.
[101] It also allowed children born in France to native-born French women married to foreigners to acquire their nationality from their mothers.
[104] It expressly applied to Algeria, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique and Réunion and was extended to the Overseas Territories in 1953, but in the case of the latter had distinctions for the rights of those who were naturalized.
[109] Replacing references to persons born in France in the 1945 Code with the phrase born "in a territory subject to French sovereignty" (French: en territoire soumis à la souveraineté française), the 1956 Decree established a separate nationality for the Trust Territory.
[110] Based upon legal filiation proven under French law, children automatically acquired nationality if their father was born in Togo or if they were foundlings.
[115] In 1957, the UN Trusteeship Council noted that as Togo had no constitutional autonomy, the Togolese population could not decide on the nature of their relationship with France and recommended change.
[119] In a September meeting with the UN Trusteeship Council, France's representative gave assurances that further reforms were forthcoming which would grant Toto full jurisdiction over legislation, except with respect to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the French Constitution and international obligations France had ratified on behalf of Togo; judicial matters, other than high court decisions on appeals and matters against judgments rendered by Togolese courts; and its internal governmental organization.
[106] Faced with continual upheaval, in 1959, France recognized that the African states could have separate nationality codes and still be part of the French Community.
New provisions under the statute were that under Article 2, anyone born in Togolese territory who had no other nationality were automatically Togolese and under Article 8, that children born in Togo to foreigners without diplomatic immunity had the option of obtaining nationality upon reaching majority, if they had lived in the country since the age of sixteen.
[132] Because the nationality laws were not updated, discrepancies in legislation occurred, leaving ambiguity as to what procedure officials should follow.
[20] In 2017, women's groups met with government ministers, jurists, and civil society organizations in an attempt to press for the nationality code to be brought in line with other more recent legislation.