Forced labor concentrated in colonies with labor shortages or surpluses

Evidence

Although the actual incidence of coercion by the French in West Africa is impossible to quantify in the 192o’s, the persistence of prestations indicates that forced labor continued everywhere in the upkeep of local roads and administration buildings. The promulgation of directives encouraging cotton cultivation and legitimating the use of force suggests, moreover, an upsurge in coercion wherever this crop was tried out in the 192o’s. Finally, forced labor for infrastructure and on European-owned concessions in this period seems to have most affected colonies with either labor shortages or labor excesses. Areas with low population density would almost certainly encourage coercion; areas where a surplus of manpower was believed to exist would serve as a recruiting ground for those same labor-poor colonies. Three colonies in particular fit one or more of these descriptions, and they appear to have been the ones where coercion was most prevalent: Ivory Coast, the Western Sudan, and the recently created colony of Upper Volta. The administration resorted to force in Ivory Coast because of a chronic labor shortage, a perceived enormous cash-crop potential, and rich forest reserves. The Western Sudan and Upper Volta were susceptible to heavy coercion because of their suitability for cotton production and supposed manpower excess, respectively. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 784

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader literature on colonial labor coercion and economic exploitation of African colonies.