West African customary law centered on compensation between parties, not punishment

Evidence

Maurice Delafosse described African custom on this point: “In general the natives of West Africa do not distinguish between criminal and civil offenses: in principle, any judicial affair amongst them is a civil matter between two parties, one of whom claims to have been injured by the other. It follows that the role of the court consists principally in determining whether there really is a wronged party, by whom he was injured and what reparation should be accorded to him: it is thus the principle of compensation … that supersedes that of punishment, and the latter may not even figure in the sentencing, even if according to Western jurisprudence, a crime has been committed.” — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 1173

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the restorative, party-to-party logic of precolonial West African justice in contrast to Western punitive criminal law.
• XREF: Connects to restorative-justice debates and to how colonial legal imposition forcibly reordered indigenous dispute resolution.
• SEED: Angle: how the imposition of French punitive criminal law in West Africa systematically erased a restorative justice tradition — a colonial legacy still shaping modern African legal systems.