French officials redefined taxation and conscription as proof of African elevation toward civilization

Evidence

Before 1912, the most important obligations imposed on Africans had been taxation and free labor for building roads; nevertheless, given the Third Republic’s patriotism, it was only a matter of time before defending the motherland was added to the list. The very way the Government General spoke of taxation and recruitment revealed this conflation of the duties of citizen and subject; both the head tax and conscription were described less as obligations that had to be forced upon Africans than duties willingly embraced. “For the native,” Panty stated in 19rr, “taxation, far from being the sign of a humiliating servitude, is seen rather as proof that he is beginning to rise on the ladder of humanity, that he has entered upon the path of civilization. To ask him to contribute to our common expenses, is, so to speak, to elevate him in the social hierarchy.” — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 498

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Directly relevant to ‘On Sacrifice: The Real Kind, with Corpses’ — the colonial demand for a ‘blood tax’ recasts military conscription as sacrifice demanded of subjects, extending the analysis of who is expected to give their lives and why.
• XREF: connects to: the MOC “The Republic’s Impossible Embrace: How Universalism Turned Algeria from the Future of France into Its Undoing”