Chiefs’ conservatism made them poor vehicles for French progressive reform

Evidence

Chiefs, he argued, were being consulted more by the administration anyway, as they evolved; to grant such consultations a legal existence would constitute a mere trompe l’oeil. He concluded by adding that chiefs were often the oldest and most conservative members of the community and therefore least apt to be the instruments of the progress that France aspired to achieve in West Africa. If anyone, the young evolues were best prepared to understand “the realism of our native policy.” Until the administration could balance these two different groups, Antonetti warned, it would be impossible to form genuine assemblies. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 727