Monopsonistic trading houses and export duties depressed West African crop prices

Evidence

The low prices paid to the African producer can be explained by the lack of competition which existed in West Africa among the import-export houses who bought the African peasant’s crops. The export duties which these firms had to pay, which helped to finance the budget of the Government General, also encouraged merchants to pay artificially low prices to the African producer. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 1397

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s ongoing work on how French republican empire economically exploited West Africa — the structural mechanism behind cash-crop misery.