French colonizers framed ethnic segregation as liberal justice liberating groups from neighbors’ influence.

Evidence

In principle, it can only be advantageous to choose a native chief from a family of the ethnic group that he will represent; indeed, we do not have the right to sacrifice the future of one race to the future of another; each people must conserve its autonomy relative to a neighboring people; to take the side of one tribe, which was formerly dominant over that of a conquered tribe, would be contrary to the ideas of justice and liberalism that have always presided over our action in Africa. Additionally, by allowing each ethnic group to evolve within its own particular mentality, by preserving as much as possible the particularism of the tribe, we are furthering the birth of individual effort within each group, and thus liberating the entire group from the religious or political influence of the neighboring group. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 391

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes divide-and-rule logic seen in British colonial ‘martial races’ and postcolonial ethnic engineering.