French non-enforcement of abolition was a political accommodation to slave-owning chiefs

Evidence

In this context, perhaps the proper reproach against the civilian administration is not that it paid lip service to the principle of abolition while in fact preserving a servile system deeply embedded in African social mores; rather, it is that the French failed to take any responsibility for exacerbating slavery in West Africa during the conquest. By constantly describ- ing slavery as a barbaric African practice and France as a liberating power, Dakar effectively masked the Republic’s role in driving ever greater numbers of displaced Africans into involuntary servitude in the 188o’s and 189o’s. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 350 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

In October 1802 Leclerc would make this fact unmistakably clear with a proclamation offering liberty to all those individuals freed in the colony by the emancipation decrees of 1793 who joined the French in fighting the insurgents. Planters promised to draw up notary acts assuring freedom to any of their former slaves who volunteered. These declarations made it undeniable that slavery was on the horizon, since otherwise no one in the colony would have any use for the individual freedoms that were being promised. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 1012 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Recent revolts, then, coupled with Diagne’s rising influence and the growing conservative climate in Paris, had only confirmed Clozel’s lifelong belief that the French had to respect preexisting Af- rican institutions if they wished to avoid future rebellions, much less accomplish anything constructive in West Africa. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 623 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims

Related

• French conquest itself drove displaced Africans into slavery while condemning it (similarity 0.88)
• French conquest itself drove displaced Africans into new slavery that abolition rhetoric masked. (similarity 0.87)
• French conquest itself drove Africans into slavery while France posed as liberator. (similarity 0.85)
• West African revolts forced Dakar to reverse its assimilationist policies (similarity 0.83)
• French West Africa claimed leadership over British colonies in antislavery enforcement. (similarity 0.82)
• France treated Africans as citizens for obligations but subjects for rights. (similarity 0.81)
• French colonial policy preserved patriarchal authority over African women while abolishing slavery (similarity 0.81)
• Dakar’s respect for African chiefs served control rather than genuine interest (similarity 0.81)
• French West Africa abolished slavery yet embraced forced labor as civilizing progress (similarity 0.81)
• French republican policy held French civilization universally applicable despite claiming to respect African customs (similarity 0.81)
• A continuous republican idea of empire drove French policy from 1895 to 1930 (similarity 0.80)
• Postwar revolts pushed French administrators toward respecting African institutions. (similarity 0.80)
• France’s pro-chief policy change served hegemony, not genuine cultural interest (similarity 0.80)
• Republicans saw no contradiction between democracy and colonialism because they deemed Africans barbarians. (similarity 0.80)
• Dakar officials by 1920 repudiated the republican anti-chief crusade as bourgeois ideology (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• French conquest itself drove displaced Africans into slavery while condemning it #corroborates (0.60) — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 350
• French promises of individual freedom revealed slavery’s planned restoration #corroborates (0.55) — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 1012
• Rebellions and Paris conservatism pushed France toward respecting African institutions #expands (0.50) — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 623