Forced labor risked driving Sudanese workers to emigrate to British colonies

Evidence

To increase [the native’s capacity for labor] it has often been suggested that administrative regulations be instituted to force the native to produce. The least that can be said about this legislated coercion is that it is ineffectual. First, because it conflicts headlong with our own ideas of what constitutes personal liberty and second, for reasons that too often are neglected and that are of a geographical nature. The Sudan is not an island! It is a relatively populous hinterland, bordered by foreign colonies some of which have significant labor needs. And just because the reasons that used to cause the peoples of the Niger and the Volta frequently to migrate have since disappeared, there is no reason to believe that their current tendency to settle down would persist in the face of administrative measures that directly challenged their own customs. There is every reason to believe that, instead of the abundant labor that we had hoped to acquire in this manner, a vast migratory movement toward Gold Coast and Nigeria would quickly manifest itself. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 800

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the wider literature on transcolonial labor migration in West Africa between French and British spheres.