French republican colonial administrators shared core civilizing-mission methods across Algeria and West Africa

Evidence

Leroy-Beaulieu’s recommendations had already been anticipated by administrators in Algeria in the r8so’s and r86o’s, and would soon be widely shared both in France and throughout the empire. Just how widespread the civilizing methods he advocated became under the Third Republic will be shown in subsequent chapters. Like Leroy-Beaulieu, the governors general of French West Africa would not only argue for creating new needs and wants through increased trade. They would also emphasize the importance of controlled social change to be effected through the abolition of “feudalism,” the introduction of justice and education “adapted” to the African environment, and the building of railroads and hospitals. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 88

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies what the civilizing mission concretely meant in practice: creating needs via trade plus controlled social change imposed from above.
• SEED: The framing of ‘abolition of feudalism’ as a French-imposed exportable category is an essay angle on how colonial powers project European historical stages onto African societies.