French administrators justified railroads as civilization’s prerequisite for West Africa

Evidence

Certainly everything there is to say about the utility, the necessity of building railroads as the indispensable first step in a country’s development in the modern world has been said, and we do not pretend to be adding anything new to the subject; but what characterizes the situation in West Africa in this respect is that, while most other countries have been able to attain some degree of civilization-and a quite advanced one-without railroads, here because of the [isolation and lack of natural communications] no noteworthy progress in any direction whatsoever has occurred in their absence … In West Africa, outside of a very limited number of coastal zones, true economic activity cannot even be conceived without railroads. It is therefore our duty, if I may be so bold to say, as a civilized nation, to take those steps that nature itself imposes and which are the only effective ones. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 183

Categorization

• DEFINE: Shows how France’s republican ‘civilizing mission’ ideology fused economic infrastructure with a moral duty rhetoric.