France created Upper Volta purely as a reservoir of forced labor

Evidence

In I9I9, the boundary of Haut-Senegal et Niger was redrawn to create two separate colonies, Western Sudan and Upper Volta, and the military territory of Niger. In I922, Niger was made a colony. The primary reason for carving out the new colony of Upper Volta was the realization that its principal ethnic group, the Mossi, was sufficiently numerous to offer an ideal labor source for public work projects in the rest of the federation, and for the labor-poor colony to its south, Ivory Coast. Upper Volta contained an estimated population of three million-one fourth the total population of French West Africa-of whom more than a million were Mossi. Exact population figures for this period are unknown. Dakar believed that creating a separate administration for this labor source would facilitate its reallocation, by force if necessary, throughout West Africa. A secondary reason for creating Upper Volta was political. The widespread revolts during the war in western Volta suggested the need for closer supervision by the French administration. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 1386

Categorization

• XREF: Strong exemplar of the book’s thesis that colonial boundaries were drawn for extraction and control, not local benefit. Directly serves the reader’s stated goal on ramifications of French rule.
• SEED: Article angle: how an entire modern state (Burkina Faso) owes its borders to French labor-recruitment logistics rather than any shared identity.