Dakar’s tariff monopoly pushed local administrations to raise taxes on African consumers

Evidence

Although no study of the finances of the Government General exists, individual monographs confirm this tendency to increase tariffs, particularly during the 192o’s and the Great Depression. For example, Pehaut, Les oleagineux, p. 6o8; Searing, “Accommodation and Resistance,” chap. 4; Hopkins, Economic History of West Africa, p. 260. It should also be recalled that Dakar’s monopoly on customs tariffs encouraged local administrations to increase indirect taxes to increase their budgets, which resulted in higher costs to the African consumer of imported goods. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 1022

Categorization

• QUESTION: How did the tariff structure redistribute the colonial fiscal burden onto African consumers — and did that pattern shape later resistance?