French cotton quotas functioned as an illegal disguised tax enforced by punishment

Evidence

The high administration decides to intensify the cultivation of cotton and to hand the crop over to the representatives of European merchants; [it then] holds a palaver in which good advice alternates with threats; cotton must “yield.” If these suggestions are not followed, the cultivation of the crop is then declared either a prestation or a public service-the illegality of such obligations does not, incidentally, seem to bother anyone. If the cotton is not forthcoming, the result is the same everywhere: punishment. It doesn’t matter what the natives think … that they regard this as a new tax. It does not matter that to furnish this quota they neglect their own millet … He “yielded” what he was supposed to … It is a regime of tyrants and all tyrants are far from being good ones. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 810