Colonial policy regressed by destroying African institutions.

Evidence

The situation was worse than in the first years of French occupation. “Our native policy has regressed, not progressed.” He attributed this situation to a lack of interest in, and respect for, the cultures France had undertaken to change. Ponty, he pointed out, had held in contempt all scientific inquiry. The African people had a history of their own, which, he concluded, “we do not have the right to ignore nor disdain, on the grounds that it is not written and does not appear on university curricula. It is the history of a human race and, for this reason alone, cannot remain unknown to men, whomever they might be, and particularly not to men who have received the mission to continue [this history].” — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 638

Categorization

• SEED: Delafosse’s critique — that a people with an unwritten history nevertheless has a human history no colonial power may disdain — could anchor an essay on how colonial epistemology dismissed non-Western pasts while claiming a ‘civilizing’ mission.