French colonial textbooks taught Africans their role was labor and military service

Evidence

The French, “more advanced in civilization,” helped the African by sharing with him the fruits of science, which was “the work of whites,” but which blacks “could study and profit from.” Blacks helped whites with their labor and by fighting for France. In the end, Moussa grew up to be a model soldier in the colonial army, and Gi-gla returned to his natal village in Dahomey to be a model farmer. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 467