Algerian resistance and tropical disease reframed French civilization as technological mastery.

Evidence

By 1837, when the scientific commission was formed, the army had met fierce Algerian resistance. French soldiers were also dying from malaria and other tropical diseases. Indeed, in the hostile Algerian environment one of the greatest problems was not only defeating the local populations, but identifying the proper hygienic measures and civil engineering techniques that would make the country healthy and profitable for future settlers. After fifteen years of educational and health care efforts-in which metropolitan schools and medical techniques were adopted in the colony without modification-the French also discovered a stubborn refusal by most of their new subjects to embrace the gifts of Western culture and science so “generously” proffered. These various forms of resistance made new scientific arguments about the inherent inferiority of other races that much more believable. Meanwhile, with the help of modern technology and medicine, it became clear that the white race could adapt to hot climates without intermarriage to acclimatized “natives.” These crosscurrents subdued any residual enthusiasm for offering all of civilization’s achievements to the colonized. Instead, French definitions of what it meant to be civilized began to shift to reflect the latest European accomplishment: the mastery of nature through technology and science. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 87

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The crucial move — that native rejection of imposed culture fed racial-inferiority arguments rather than self-critique, and ‘civilization’ came to be redefined as technology so whites could adapt without intermarriage — is dense and central to the book’s thesis.
• QUESTION: How exactly did a scientific justification for hereditary inferiority gain credibility from resistance to education? The mechanism of this inference deserves closer tracing.