France’s moral agenda for Africa hinged on police security, schools, courts, and abolishing slavery.

Evidence

According to Roume, along with railroads and health care, progress required providing Africans with the security and peace of a well-policed society-a goal that military conquest had achieved. Second, the Government General had to introduce a system of modern schools and courts, if it wished to advance the cause of civilization. Finally, African uplift depended upon respecting the freedom of the individual and the rights of the masses; domestic slavery and predatory aristocratic rule, which Dakar believed to be entrenched institutions in precolonial African society, had to be abolished. Having articulated this moral agenda, Roume and his successors initiated a variety of policies consistent with their statements. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 252

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: The abolition angle connects to the reader’s article on sacrifice and ritual order — here it’s the republican justification for destroying ‘predatory aristocratic rule.’