French authorities treated violent conquest as a precondition for civilizing progress

Evidence

The establishment and maintenance of order and security are the indispensable conditions for all progress, whether moral or material, and since it can now be said that this condition [in West Africa] has been met [thanks to the conquest] we are in a position to apply all our energies and available resources to the achievement of such progress. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 179

Categorization

• XREF: Central to the reader’s goal of understanding how republicanism legitimated colonial force as a step toward civilization.