Before 1914 Dakar genuinely saw liberation overseas as core republican identity.

Evidence

One of my central discoveries has been that republican sentiment was stronger in Dakar before the Great War. A more modern understanding that the health of all depended upon regulating that of the individual may well have spurred public health initiatives overseas. But Dakar’s native, educational, and judicial policies and discourse confirm that being a liberating force outre-mer constituted an integral part of what it meant to be civilized, French, and republican in the prewar period. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 876

Categorization

• XREF: The claim that French liberal republicans genuinely believed in emancipation overseas, not just control, bears on the reader’s project of understanding how French republicanism actually translated into West Africa.