France fragmented West African chiefdoms to install loyal canton chiefs

Evidence

As governor general, Roume did not elaborate a formal declaration of principle regarding chiefs, as had been the case with slavery. But he did approve measures against several remaining precolonial rulers in different colonies. All “great native commands” and “great chiefs,” he explained more than once to his subordinates, now had to be dismantledY “It is best to avoid … granting [chiefs] commands that are too extensive, which they too often … abuse, and which only add … unjustified extra burdens to the population’s normal ones.” 15 Like his military predecessors, Roume accepted that these chiefs ruled by force rather than by popular consent. Such rule by force clashed with the democratic principles from which the Third Republic derived its own legitimacy, and therefore had to be attenuated. As a result of Roume’s instructions, the protectorate system-or what was left of it-underwent in the early 19oo’s a process of further fragmentation as the rulers were either removed from power or stripped of all real authority. Former states began to be subdivided into provinces or cantons of uniform size. The administration then often appointed “new men”-from outside the families in which power had traditionally been vested-as canton chiefs to carry out the bulk of French administrative demands. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 387