Loyal African communities paid heavier costs than rebels under French rule
Evidence
Not only have we not revolted, but at the moment when the entire region was getting ready to do so, we helped suppress the rebels … Because we are your friends, you profit from us to ask for tirailleurs and cattle, which we promptly provide. We have the French school in our encampments, while the circles of Timboctou and Gao do not have one. We have accepted to be counted and given exact information, and now we are paying the price, while those who revolted go wherever they like and pay almost no taxes. There do not have to be many more measures of this type to make our people conclude that it is better to keep a distance from the French rather than to be their friends, because only in the former case do they leave you alone. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 515
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
- XREF: Rewards loyalty with punishment rather than protection — echoes the perverse incentive patterns seen in the colonial-era examples from Milgrom’s law merchant chapters about reputation systems rewarding defection.
- SEED: The perverse incentive of colonial ‘rewarding the loyal with new burdens’ is a strong angle for an essay on how governance systems structurally penalize cooperation.