French pro-natalism and eugenics simultaneously justified coercion and mandated better care for Africans

Evidence

The burgeoning pro-natalist and eugenics movements in France cut two ways for Africans. Both doctrines encouraged the idea that these workers were inferior to white workers, and therefore it was France’s duty and right to coerce them into productivity. But these same doctrines also insisted, in theory at least, that France’s African workers now had to be more adequately fed, paid, and vaccinated, so they would grow more numerous and more robust. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 748

Categorization

• DEFINE: Shows how eugenic/pro-natalist doctrine had a genuinely two-faced logic toward colonized workers — coercion plus welfare — a useful clarification of how ‘improvement’ ideology operated.