Military necessity led French conquerors to perpetuate slavery in the Western Sudan.

Evidence

It was during the conquest of the Western Sudan, however, that French tolerance of slavery was most marked. Here, too, necessity overcame whatever moral scruples against slavery and the slave trade might have obtained among military commanders. French troops depended on African auxiliaries and strategic alliances with African chiefs to maintain their advantage. To guarantee the loyalty of their collaborators, the French distributed captured slaves after victories, and allowed these slaves to be sold for export by their new owners. … Slaves fleeing chiefs hostile to the French were always freed, and what were known as villages de liberte were set up for freed homeless slaves. The creation of such villages was popular with antislavery groups in France; the villages also provided the army with a labor supply of its own for food production, porters, and railroad construction. The colonial army also recruited slaves into the ranks of the African tirailleurs, giving the French needed manpower and allowing slaves to escape from their servile status. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 331

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader theme of the civilizing mission being compromised by on-the-ground political necessity.
• DEEPTHINKING: The passage reveals the dual function of seemingly humanitarian institutions (villages de liberte) as labor-supply mechanisms — a dense insight about how imperial rhetoric and material extraction interlock.