Native policy designated French political decisions about Africans tinged with moral uplift
Evidence
“Native” policy (politique indigene) was the term the French used to designate policy toward Africans; more specifically, it tended to refer to the political, as opposed to the social or economic, aspects of French decision making. Many of these political policies in turn reflected France’s moral commitment to uplift Africans. The problems of both slavery and relations with existing African rulers, for example, were considered by Dakar to belong to the realm of “native” policy. I have decided to retain the term because, despite its racist overtones, it accurately reflects a way of thinking about Africans typical of the colonial era which cannot be translated any other way. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 1079
Categorization
Category: Definitional Content
- DEFINE: Defines the core term ‘native policy’ central to the book’s argument about republican ideals.
Related
- French colonial ‘native policy’ was inseparable from a moral mission to uplift Africans (similarity 0.96)
- Changing French stereotypes of Africans produced changing colonial policies. (similarity 0.79)
- A continuous republican idea of empire drove French policy from 1895 to 1930 (similarity 0.79)
- French colonial assemblies reserved all final policy authority for the colonizer (similarity 0.79)
- Moral-civilizing doctrine mattered more than economic in French colonial policy. (similarity 0.79)
- Moral improvement of Africans mattered as much as scientific development to Dakar (similarity 0.78)
- Domestic republican education ideals directly shaped French civilizing policy in West Africa. (similarity 0.78)