The Government General respected African customs except when they conflicted with civilization

Evidence

Along with self-interest, then, prevailing ideologies and scientific advances in the metropole, and earlier successes in France and West Africa, encouraged the new governors general in Dakar to make cer- tain assumptions about the best way to uplift Africans. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 228 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

Related

• French republican policy held French civilization universally applicable despite claiming to respect African customs (similarity 0.82)
• Delafosse persuaded colonial policy toward respecting African institutions (similarity 0.81)
• Dakar’s respect for African chiefs served control rather than genuine interest (similarity 0.81)
• Colonial courts served both French and African interests. (similarity 0.81)
• West African revolts forced Dakar to reverse its assimilationist policies (similarity 0.81)
• Moral improvement of Africans mattered as much as scientific development to Dakar (similarity 0.80)
• Some colonial scholars advocated respecting existing African institutions (similarity 0.80)
• Moral-civilizing doctrine mattered more than economic in French colonial policy. (similarity 0.80)
• Dakar’s limited power-sharing failed within thirty years as evolues demanded equality (similarity 0.80)
• Colonial governors and Dakar clashed over whether courts should force custom change (similarity 0.79)
• French colonial policy professed gradualism to justify preserving rather than destroying African customs (similarity 0.79)
• Metropolitan indifference allowed Dakar’s economic doctrine to ossify before 1914 (similarity 0.79)
• French republicanism fused with racial evolutionism to justify suppressing African customs. (similarity 0.79)
• Dakar revised the civilizing mission after admitting its old policies failed (similarity 0.79)
• French civilizing ideology proved internally contradictory about respecting native custom (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Dakar’s respect for African chiefs served control rather than genuine interest #complicates (0.70)
• Metropolitan ideologies and science shaped colonial governors’ assumptions about uplifting Africans. #corroborates (0.60) — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 228
• West African revolts forced Dakar to reverse its assimilationist policies #exemplifies (0.55)
• Colonial powers impose a double moral standard demanding restraint only from the colonized #complicates (0.55)