French planners hoped to make West Africa a cotton plantation for metropolitan self-sufficiency

Evidence

Conditions in Ivory Coast were unique. In Dahomey rich land, together with high population density, made land scarce; in Upper Volta, poor soil automatically earmarked it as a labor exporter; in Senegal, subjects could defend their rights against the depredations of an imprudent administration and the abuses of employers. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 1430 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: France federated its West African colonies to decentralize rule and rationalize economic development — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 91; Each French West African colony’s labor fate hinged on land and population — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 1430; French development economics inherited colonial premises about exporting African cash crops (+4 more)

Related

• Each French West African colony’s labor fate hinged on land and population (similarity 0.89)
• France federated its West African colonies to decentralize rule and rationalize economic development (similarity 0.86)
• Paris repeatedly pressured Dakar to boost cotton and raw-material production for the metropole (similarity 0.83)
• French planners expected cotton exports to finance African purchase of French manufactured cloth (similarity 0.82)
• West African manpower scarcity drove deeper French intervention in African labor (similarity 0.82)
• Postwar France sought cotton self-sufficiency through Niger Valley irrigation schemes. (similarity 0.82)
• French colonial development rhetoric failed economically in West Africa (similarity 0.82)
• French officials blamed African farming methods for low cotton yields (similarity 0.82)
• West African poverty forced a pooled federal structure to justify colonial costs (similarity 0.81)
• Geography and transportation costs, not just French policy, limited West African export integration. (similarity 0.81)
• Africa was selected for slave labor because it sat outside Europe’s world-economy. (similarity 0.80)
• Africa’s low population-to-land ratio helped drive its internal slave systems (similarity 0.80)
• French West African trade barely grew in the federation’s first decade (similarity 0.80)
• Railroad completion enabled cotton exports from the West African interior (similarity 0.80)
• French administrators claimed cotton expansion need not reduce African food production (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• French development economics inherited colonial premises about exporting African cash crops #expands (0.60)
• Each French West African colony’s labor fate hinged on land and population #expands (0.50) — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 1430
• Early cotton schemes avoided coercion but collapsed when Africans refused #complicates (0.50)
• Colonial cotton schemes failed because Africans refused to grow export crops #complicates (0.50)
• Paris pressured Dakar to intensify raw-material extraction from West Africa #expands (0.45)
• French administrators deemed the cotton-growing peasant incapable of meeting industrial demand unaided #qualifies (0.40)