Coerced labor made Africans hate work and hurt France’s long-term economic goals

Evidence

Kair concluded that it would have been simpler for the administration to have subsidized the forest and cocoa concessions outright, through an additional tax upon the African. This tactic would have had the merit of allowing the latter to opt for the labor of his choice, and thus have helped form a labor force better equipped to help the French in the future. Instead, the African’s natural repugnance for work had only been heightened by the oppressive regime in Ivory Coast. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 848