Railroads built for strategy also expanded West African peanut cash-crop production

Evidence

In West Africa as well, one of the first railroads to be built, the Dakar-Saint-Louis line, fully confirmed the belief of contemporaries that a network of rails would indeed create a “joyous activity” in its wake and benefit all humanity. Although built for strategic and political reasons as much as economic ones, this line had become lucrative shortly after its completion in the late 188o’s. Senegambia was the one part of French West Africa that was exporting an African cash crop-peanuts-before the establishment of the Government General. By creating a new inland corridor along which more agricultural products and imported goods could now flow, the completion of the Dakar-Saint-Louis railroad quickly led to an expansion in Senegal’s peanut production. The early success of the Dakar-Saint-Louis line reinforced the impression in late-nineteenthcentury France that “lines of penetration” were crucial for opening up West Africa to civilizing trade. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 206

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in French republican empire-building mechanisms — here the concrete economic causal chain (railroad → new inland corridor → expanded peanut exports) by which ‘civilizing’ infrastructure reshaped West African economy.