Colonial critics condemned coercion’s excesses, not coercion itself

Evidence

Kair’s criticisms did not, however, lead him to the conclusion one might have expected: that the use of administrative pressure for recruiting workers in the private sphere was immoral and wasteful. Rather, while arguing that the administration should not continue “directly” to recruit workers for private individuals, he accepted that “administrative intervention” could be tolerated, provided its incidence was better controlled than in the past. Administrators in Ivory Coast were certainly guilty of having pursued a policy that flouted every principle of France’s civilizing mission. Nevertheless, it was not the recourse to coercion that was at fault; it was that insufficient discretion was exercised-itself a reflection of a code that did not say what it meant. If the administration felt it necessary to aid these planters, if the only way to get Africans to work was through administrative pressure, there was, Kair insisted, nothing shameful about admitting it. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 851

Categorization

• QUESTION: Kair’s position raises the question of whether any colonial administrator critiqued the principle of coercion rather than its manner — worth investigating how exceptional fully abolitionist positions were.