Journalist Gabriel Charmes justified colonial violence as bringing peace and civilization

Evidence

If France were able to establish itself permanently in North Africa, to penetrate to central Africa, to make its influence felt in the entire Sahara and to win the [Western] Sudan; if in these immense regions where only fanaticism and brigandage reign today, it were to bring-even at the price of spilled blood-peace, commerce, tolerance, who could say this was a poor use of force? … Having taught millions of men civilization and freedom would fill it with the pride that makes great peoples. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 58

Categorization

• XREF: The French racial framing of pre-colonial West Africa as ‘fanaticism and brigandage’ maps onto the reader’s stated interest in how republicanism was forced onto the region, and contrasts with the reality on the ground that chapter content would document.