Assyrians adopted an ‘outsider identity’ during the British mandate in Iraq (1920-1932). British, Assyrian, and Iraqi officials played an important role in the shaping and manufacturing of this new identity for the Assyrian community. Soon after their arrival to Iraq in 1919, Assyrian refugees from the Hakkari and Urmia regions were placed in the Ba’qubah refugee camp. This paper will contextualize the history of the Ba’quabh refugee camp, and place it into the larger literature that deals with the formation of the modern Iraqi state. Given that the camp remains unexamined at present, this paper hopes to shed some light on the various policies that helped to manufacture a new Assyrian identity during the period of the British mandate. This paper will argue that British colonial officials modeled the refugee camp after a ‘modern European’ city, where the Assyrians were expected to participate in labour and leisure activities introduced by colonial officials with the aim of managing the social and political lives of the population. The activities introduced by the British played an important role in the re-shaping of Assyrian societal order, and helped in the creation of a new outsider identity for the Assyrian refugees. In direct contrast to the colonial policies on labour and leisure, colonial officials also encouraged the Assyrian religious and tribal leadership to manage the internal affairs of the refugees at Ba’qubah. Officials believed that this continuation of so-called ‘traditional political management’ of the community was going to help keep the refugees organized and managed in their new environment. These policies encouraged a number of prominent Assyrians to claim that they were the rightful and sole leaders of the Assyrian people. These leadership claims helped to fuel Assyrian nationalist sentiments and political schisms that continued to play a role in Assyrian-Iraqi relations well into the mandatory period. Finally this paper will examine the struggle between Iraqi officials and Assyrian refugees at Ba’qubah. Local Iraqi politicians were reluctant to consider the Assyrians as citizens of the modern Iraqi state, these policies created hostilities between Iraqi and Assyrian residents of the newly created state, which helped to foster changes in the political and social order of the Assyrian community. The antagonistic relationship helped to reinforce the outsider identity that the Assyrians community reinforced through the period of the British mandate.