Africans in Upper Volta were forced to grow cotton under armed guard

Evidence

The first mission took place in 1925 and was led by Inspector Picanon. He discovered guards in the fields, whose job was to force Africans to grow cotton. One can measure “the weight of this coercion by the number of guards deployed.” Concluding that the colony lacked a viable marketing network, he recommended that more specific regulations on the use of force be issued. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 1396

Categorization

• XREF: The coercion by armed guards in the fields is a concrete detail for the ADDENDUM-style narrative on coerced labor central to this book’s treatment of republican empire.
• SHARE: Someone studying French colonial labor systems or the history of Upper Volta/Burkina Faso would find this coercion-grading detail valuable.