The politique des races also condemned all traditional African elites as feudal oppressors

Evidence

As the very term politique des races suggests, the republican principle of ethnic self-determination was a dominant theme of the 1909 circular. Yet there were other themes as well. Having declared the “equal human value of all people,” Panty not surprisingly addressed another form of African oppression-one noted by his predecessor: the inequality in a society divided between “feudal oppressors” and exploited masses. Embedded within Panty’s condemnation of foreign chiefs was a more general critique of all traditional African rulers, foreign or otherwise: It appears that we can only gain by substituting for the policy of native territorial commands, the politique des races, which consists not in dividing up our authority among the mass of our subjects, but rather in rendering it more tutelary by establishing direct contact between the administrator and the subject … — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 394

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies that politique des races covered anti-aristocratic critique, not just ethnic reorganization.