Ivory Coast cocoa profits came entirely from coerced, exploited African labor

Evidence

Spectacular profits had been made, but purely because wages were withheld from a labor force coerced into working for Europeans. Particularly grievous was the fact that none of the guarantees in the 1925 decree had been respected. Kair discovered that at no point was the worker informed of his rights; his legal work hours were ignored; the minimum wage, established by the Government General to protect the worker, had become the maximum wage protecting the employer’s interests; minimum food rations were the maximum allotment; no effort was made to recognize workers’ differing dietary traditions; sickness often ensued, with only one-fourth of wages paid out over eight days as compensation; a contract nevertheless could not be invalidated on the basis of poor health. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 848

Categorization

• XREF: The pattern of legally-enshrined protections turned upside down (minimum wage becomes maximum, food rations become ceilings) resonates with the reader’s broader theme of republican ideals betrayed in practice in West Africa.