Railroad completion enabled cotton exports from the West African interior

Evidence

Within a year of taking office, Carde sent out a major circular “organizing the production of textiles in French West Africa.” He began by noting that Sarraut had given priority to cotton production, and so Dakar had formulated guidelines for French administrators in the West African savanna, where production would naturally be concentrated. The completion of the Thies-Kayes-Niger railroad the year before, linking the Niger River to the Atlantic Ocean at Dakar, had finally created, Carde noted, the means for bringing the interior into international commerce. However, the railroad alone would not “provoke the continuous production of cotton in this country.” Coordinated measures were necessary if the local peasant, who for centuries had grown cotton to satisfy his own needs, was to produce the quality and the quantity of cotton sufficient for French industry. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 791