Colonial revolts during the war prompted France to restore hereditary chiefs as rulers.

Evidence

Like many local witnesses, Clozel thought these revolts were a response to long-standing grievances about the exercise of French authority, not just recruitment alone. Encouraged in this assessment by Delafosse, Clozel issued new instructions for the appointment of chiefs throughout the federation. These instructions stressed the importance of respecting customary lineages when appointing chiefs, thereby implicitly legitimating a precolonial institution that earlier administrators had dismissed as parasitic and tyrannical. Henceforth, Clozel insisted, in a revision of his predecessor’s instructions, chiefs were to be chosen in conformity with local tradition after consultation with the local populations; no new men were to be appointed in recompense for services rendered to the French. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 618

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: Connects to the broader theme in this book of indirect rule and how rebellion forced colonial powers to reconsider native institutions.

Related

• Colonial revolts forced a reversal toward legitimating customary chiefly rule (similarity 0.92)
• Rebellion flared where French rule had already eliminated traditional chiefs (similarity 0.86)
• France reversed its prewar view by reframing precolonial chiefs as representative and honorable. (similarity 0.83)
• Rebellion correlated with the absence of surviving traditional chiefs (similarity 0.82)
• French colonial officials reversed their view of precolonial African chieftaincy (similarity 0.82)
• Dispossessed chiefs and religious leaders fueled the 1916 and 1917 revolts (similarity 0.81)
• French colonial destruction of indigenous chieftaincy triggered rebellion by surviving occult chiefs (similarity 0.81)
• Unrest in one colony prompted France to reinforce rural chiefs across Africa (similarity 0.81)
• Colonial ‘association’ meant informing chiefs of their duties, not empowering them (similarity 0.80)
• French indirect rule had actually weakened the chiefs it depended upon (similarity 0.80)
• Dismantling native chiefdoms risked French rule without replacements available (similarity 0.79)
• Postwar revolts pushed French administrators toward respecting African institutions. (similarity 0.79)
• Postwar French domestic patriarchy concerns directly shaped colonial support for traditional chiefs. (similarity 0.79)
• Chiefs could not serve simultaneously as ethnic representatives and French agents (similarity 0.79)
• Unexpected wartime revolts shifted France toward a conservative, distancing republicanism (similarity 0.79)