Conflicted Missionaries: Power and Identity in French West Africa during the 1930s

Author(s): James E. Genova

Source: The Historian , SPRING 2004, Vol. 66, No. 1 (SPRING 2004), pp. 45-66
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.

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 Conflicted Missionaries:
Power and Identity in
French West Africa during
the 1930s
James Ε. Genova

IN A 1935 SPEECH TO MEMBERS of the colonial administration in the federation

of French West Africa (AOF—Afrique Occidentale française), Governor
General Jules Brévié asserted that one of France's most important tasks was to
bring about a "cultural renaissance" among the indigenous peoples of the region.
France's redefined mission civilisatrice was to be fulfilled, Brévié argued, by
teaching the subject populations how to live according to "authentic African
traditions,"1 and they were to receive that instruction in "rural popular schools"
founded by the government general in the 1930s.2 This vision of France's
role overseas as the protector of indigenous cultures in the colonies challenged
earlier presentations of the colonial mission that had presented France as the
bearer of "European civilization" and "French culture" destined to bring Africa
out of the "darkness" in which many late-nineteenth-century colonizers claimed
its people lived.3
This transformation occurred because by the 1930s many colonial officials
had concluded that the earlier version of the civilizing mission had produced a
"dangerous class" of "semi-civilized" natives that threatened the future of French

James E. Genova is an assistant professor of history at Indiana State University.

1. Le Centre des Archives d'Outre-Mer (CAOM), Commission Guernut (CG)/52, speech by

Brévié, December 1935.

2. The best work to date on France's civilizing mission is Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civi
lize; The Republican Idea of Empire in France and West Africa, 1895-1930 (Stanford,
Ca., 1997). See also the earlier work of Raoul Girardet, L'Idée coloniale en France de 1871
à 1962 (Paris, 1972), which explores the notion of "Colonial Humanism" as an organizing
conceptual framework for France's imperial policies.

3. See Général Joseph Galliéni, Neufs ans à Madagascar (Paris, 1908), 27. The profundity of
that feeling among the early colonizers is confirmed by the work of Girardet, L'Idée coloniale
en France, 87; and Paul Rabinow, French Modern: Norms and Forms of the Social Envi
ronment (Chicago, 111., 1989), 144.

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 46 The Historian

power in West Af
French officialdo
after the First W
educated elite pr
both the threat
too closely appr
"problem" did no
gether, in particu
of tutelage. Rath
objectives of the
rural areas. The r
ized" elite within the colonies that would serve as an antidote to the earlier
"Frenchified" elite.

This article seeks to understand some of the ways in which power was con
figured and contested in the colonized context of French West Africa. The gov
ernment general's rural education campaign in West Africa highlights a larger
shift in official colonialist discourse, reflected in imperial praxis, that was both a
response to challenges to French rule from elements of the colonized population
as well as an attempt to reconfigure imperial power in order to preserve France's
dominance in the region. This shift contributed to the articulation of separate
and essentialist French and African identities during the 1930s that was shaped
by and, in turn, helped to configure a "dominant cultural framework" privileg
ing notions of racial and ethnic identity as the bases for social differentiation and
political action among colonizers and colonized. Thus, elites and subalterns
within rulers and ruled became enmeshed in what David Laitin calls "a web of

significance" that sustained a hegemonic discourse founded upon notions of

essential and immutable differences between African and French culture.6 The
idea of the "rural popular schools," consequently, became part of the larger

4. CAOM, 3/Service de Liaison entre les Originaires des Territoires d'Outre-mer

(SLOTFOM)/101, "Note sur la propagande révolutionnaire intéressant les pays d'outre-mer,"
15 June 1923. This sentiment is also expressed in: CAOM, 3/SLOTFOM/2, Letter from the
Government General for French Equatorial Africa to the Ministry of Colonies, "A/s du
refoulement dans leur pays d'origine de certains indigenes habitant la Métropole," 8 July
1929; and CAOM, CG/60, untitled notation in the files of the commission, 1931.

5. On the increasingly conservative and essentialist (i.e., racist) discourse within France during
the interwar period see: Herman Lebovics, True France: The Wars over Cultural Identity,
1900-1945 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1992).

6. David D. Laitin, Hegemony and Culture: Politics and Religious Change among the Yoruba
(Chicago, 111., 1986), 171, 183.

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 Conflicted Missionaries 47

terrain of struggle betwee

of governance in France an
Recent work on the histo
nial experience as well as i
Much of this scholarship ha
each locale, and the asserti
through a genealogy born o
Sackur argue that "[ejmpir
modern French national ide
oppositions of colonizer an
rights for those from the
attainment of French cultu
of colonialism demonstrate
French-educated elite from the colonies that were said to have abandoned their

autochthonous traditions and acquired a measure of French civilization.11

7. I am referring to the political upheavals known as the "Franco-French Civil War" in met
ropolitan France after the rightist uprising of 6 February 1934, and the eruption of strikes
and anticolonial agitation in the empire after the advent of the Great Depression in 1931.
See: Frederick Cooper, Decolonization and African Society: The Labor Question in French
and British Africa (Cambridge, 1996); Donal Cruise O'Brien, The Mourides of Senegal: The
Political and Economic Organization of an Islamic Brotherhood (Oxford, 1971); Julian
Jackson, The Popular Front in France: Defending Democracy, 1934-1938 (Cambridge,
1990); and Herrick Chapman, State Capitalism and Working-Class Radicalism in the French
Aircraft Industry (Berkeley, Ca., 1991).

8. See, for example: Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London and New York, 1995);
Tony Chafer and Amanda Sackur, eds., French Colonial Empire and the Popular Front;
Hope and Disillusion (New York, 1999); Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender
and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest (New York, 1995); Gyan Prakash, ed., After Colo
nialism; Imperial Histories and Postcolonial Displacements (Princeton, N.J., 1995); Paul
Rabinow, French Modern; Kristin Ross, Fast Cars, Clean Bodies: Decolonization and the
Reordering of French Culture (Cambridge, Mass., 1996); Edward W. Said, Culture and
Imperialism (New York, 1994); Kathleen Wilson, The Sense of the People; Politics, Culture,
and Imperialism in England, 171S-1785 (Cambridge, 1998); Robert J. C. Young, Colonial
Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture, and Race (London and New York, 1995); Steven
Ungar and Tom Conley, eds., Identity Papers: Contested Nationhood in Twentieth-Century
France (Minneapolis, Minn., 1996); and Frederick Cooper and Ann Laura Stoler, "Between
Métropole and Colony: Rethinking a Research Agenda," in Tensions of Empire: Colonial
Cultures in a Bourgeois World, eds. Frederick Cooper and Ann Laura Stoler (Berkeley, Ca.,
1997), 1.

9. Tony Chafer and Amanda Sackur, "Introduction," in Chafer and Sackur, eds., French
Colonial Empire and the Popular Front, 2, 3.

10. CAOM, 1/Affaires Politiques (AP)/1638, letter from a deputy representing French India to
Prime Minister Edouard Daladier, 17 February 1925.

11. CAOM, l/AP/1638, proceedings of a meeting of the Conseil de Legislation Coloniale, 13

June 1928.

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48 The Historian

The French-educ
of power and ide
ratively, the Afr
sumed to be esse
self-definition of
work. However, t
removed from th
identity distinct
tion of knowing
viewpoint."13 T
opened spaces fo
ties or "tensions"
the relations of p
The imposition
and the struggles
African society b
who did not. Wit
only educationa
schools in Muslim
did not receive a
ultimately, citize
sition of the Fre
condemned to pe
received some sch
the colonial fram
its curriculum,
describes as a "bi

12. Edward Said's gr

edge about Europe
studies of this pro

13. V. Y. Mudimbe,
(Bloomington, Ind.

14. This is one spac

"strategic essential
in the context of h
Studies: Deconstruc
Essays in Cultural
process as use of th
him/herself. Tauss
1993), 8.

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Conflicted Missionaries 49

civil society and civil rights

guage of "community and
customary power pledged
Davidson, and others argue
education in the colonial con
colonial nation-states and im
ing mission, to be imposed
African societies, preparing
breakdown afflicting many
Much of the early work on
cerned with the problem of
problems of economic transf
independent states.17 This d
Bolibaugh, could be traced t
lack of resources devoted
peoples. Only in the last dec
sufficient capital and perso
school system in West Afric
own independent lives.18 Ot
the colonial school system an
deemed capable of attaining
finding reliable collaborator

15. Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen

Colonialism (Princeton, 1998),

16. For example, see Jean-Franço

lated by Mary Harper and Ch
1993); Partha Chatterjee, Nat
Discourse? (Minneapolis, Minn.
Davidson, The Black Man's Bur
1992); Hildi Hendrickson, ed.,
and Post Colonial Africa (Durh
Citizen and Subject; Achille M
Vulgarity in the Postcolon
Invention of Africa; and Craw
Perspective (New Haven, Conn

17. See Abdou Moumouni, L'Éd

Educational Development in G
1972); and Remi Clignet and P
Schools and Students in the Ivo

18. Moumouni, L'Éducation en A

in French West Africa, school e

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 50 The Historian

Clignet and Phili

outset to be a veh
enterprise with
insight into the
ization programs
an industrial so
"modern" (in th
ing relationships
those shifts were
Recent research
works, has begun
Paradise Kelly ar
neered a class o
Looking at scho
schools "formed a discrete cultural enclave where Frenchmen ... detached the
sons of indigenous elites from African society."20 While this certainly reflected an
early objective of French colonizers, particularly in the first decades of the twen
tieth century, my research suggests that by the 1930s the French had turned deci
sively against such an approach, viewing it as the source of much of their troubles.
Instead, even the indigenous elites were being sent back to school to be
(re)immersed in African society in an effort to deflect growing demands for citi
zenship and civil rights by French-educated Africans. This is reflected in the spon
sorship of Koranic schools throughout West Africa and the promotion of Islamic
education in Muslim areas as a means of preserving the terms of difference
between colonizers and colonized.21 That trend was not confined to French West
Africa, as Herman Lebovics found in the case of Indochina22 and Alf Andrew
Heggoy in Algeria for the same time period.23

19. Clignet and Foster, The Fortunate Few.

20. Gail Paradise Kelly, "Learning to be Marginal: Schooling in Interwar French West Africa,"
in French Colonial Education: Essays on Vietnam and West Africa, ed. David PL Kelly (New
York, 2000), 189, 190. See also Gail Paradise Kelly, "Colonialism, Indigenous Society, and
School Practices: French West Africa and Indochina, 1918-1938," in Education and the
Colonial Experience, ed. Philip G. Altbach and Gail Paradise Kelly (New York, 1991).

21. R. O. Lasisi, "French Colonialism and Islamic Education in West Africa, 1900-1939,"
Muslim Education Quarterly 12.3 (1995).

22. Lebovics, True France.

23. Alf Andrew Heggoy, "Colonial Education in Algeria: Assimilation and Reaction," in Altbach
and Kelly, eds., Education and the Colonial Experience.

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 Conflicted Missionaries 51

Furthermore, while the grad

sense of marginality with rega
that ambivalent position as a
within the colonial framework
In addition, since the schools w
few girls attending, the kind of
specific with strong misogynist
colonizers and colonized, highli
popular school campaign, then,
native conceptions of the self b
that laid claims to being "authe
albeit a particularly colonized n
sequently, with a look at what
tion of African society in the
In 1929 Jules Carde, Brévié's p
he described the "native chief"
relationship with the sujet pop
[even] in Senegal, where the co
culties inherent in the charac
managed to keep the authority
it." Carde observed that triba
évolués"—or French-educated
tives of the precolonial elite
Accordingly, one highly placed
our African colonies within the
disorganization of the tribes.
fighting."26
Carde's pronouncements signal an important shift in the relationship between
colonizers and colonized that masks the violence of the initial encounters between

24. Gender and feminism in Africa are only recently beginning to be studied as important fea
tures of colonial life and in the construction of postcolonial African societies. See Cheryl
Johnson-Odim, "Actions Louder than Words: The Historical Task of Defining Feminist Con
sciousness in Colonial West Africa," in Nation, Empire, Colony: Historicizing Gender and
Race, ed. Ruth Roach Pierson and Nupur Chaudhuri (Bloomington, Ind., 1998).

25. CAOM, l/AP/838, "Circulaire A/S du Commandement indigène," issued by Jules Carde,
governor general of AOF, 11 October 1929.

26. CAOM, l/AP/838, P.-C. Georges François, "Au sujet des chefferies noires en Afrique,"
Annales Coloniales, 2 October 1930. François was honorary governor of the colonies at
the time.

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 52 The Historian

the French and W

colonial policy wa
possible. Further
ciently adminis
French rulers s
French culture
exploitation of th
were instructed i
and business adm
tax collectors, cle
somewhat disin
responsible for th
jected the guilt
onto the educated
of the civilizing
forces in the colo
reinscribed the
African society f
African peoples; i
to become French.

The policies and discourse of Carde and his successor Jules Brévié completed
the transformation of France's mission civilisatrice inaugurated during the First
World War by AOF governor general Joost Van Vollenhoven. Appointed leader
of the West African federation in 1917 after a revolt against military conscrip
tion,29 Van Vollenhoven sought to reverse policies he thought directly contributed
to the uprising, in particular the introduction of principles "incompatible" with
African society. Relying upon the advice of ethnographers like Maurice Delafosse,
Van Vollenhoven issued a circular on 15 August 1917 "reestablishing" chief

27. Discussed in Andrew F. Clark, From Frontier to Backwater: Economy and Society in the
Upper Senegal Valley (West Africa), 1850-1920 (New York, 1999). See also Joe Lunn,
Memoirs of the Maelstrom: A Senegalese Oral History of the First World War (Portsmouth,
N.H., 1999).

28. Louis Hubert Gonsalve Lyautey, Paroles d'Action (Morocco, 1995), 23-24, 48.

29. In late 1915 and through much of the first half of 1916 the government general faced a
widespread rebellion in West Africa in response to its practice of forced recruitment for the
war effort. As many as three hundred thousand people were reported to be in a state of
revolt against French authority. See Lunn, Mémoires of the Maelstrom·, and Marc Michel,
L'Appel à L'Afrique; Contributions et réactions à l'effort de guerre en A.O.F. 1914-1919
(Paris, 1982).

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Conflicted Missionaries 53

taincies throughout AOF

upon "traditional" rulers
hoven and his successors p
tion of traditional gover
indigenous peoples and to
in West Africa. Colonial o
ernment" back to the Af
"legitimate" leaders to rep
demonstrating its respect
this policy would deflect
izenship, thereby lessenin
reform.31 Despite the sign
tion system, including cu
situation where the officia
its distinctiveness from th
the chieftaincy as the liai
Africa, while the school
culture and imbued with a
with the rights of French
between Europe and Afric
Further complicating m
appearances of "tradition"
character." According to
given] way to the administ
for orders decided upon in
obligations included tax
ment, and provision of (f
munity's representative to
were increased—although
wage payment structure f
control over its distributi

30. CAOM, l/AP/170, letter fr

tique de la colonie," 20 Dec
française (Paris, 1937), 205-

31. CAOM, l/AP/170, letter fr

tique de la colonie," 20 Dece

32. Jean Suret-Canale, French

(New York, 1971), 79.

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 54 The Historian

ing the realities

its obligations, D
replace the chief
sure to carry ou
local rulers increased after the war—as did their wealth—and resentment

mounted among the peasantry and conscript laborers against "traditional chiefs"
who appeared more like sentries for the colonial state than representatives of the
community. Those simmering discontents threatened to erupt when the world
wide economic depression reached Africa after 1931. As M. Chevanal of the
Chamber of Commerce in Senegal observed, "the patience of the blacks ... could
have its limit." Up to that point (1932), "our natives of AOF have supported
with fatalism the terrible situation induced by the economic crisis." However, a
time was fast approaching, he warned, when this "fatalism" would give way to
disaffection "exploited by certain agitators."34
When the full effect of the global economic crisis reached AOF, the hollowness
of chiefly authority and the lack of popular attachment to tribal leadership was
exposed in a wave of discontent. Strikes increased in frequency and intensity.35
More troubling, perhaps, was the growing exodus of rural workers from the
federation to neighboring British colonies and from the "bush" to the cities. These
migrations were so extensive that the government general reported a net loss
in total population for the federation of 100,000 in 1932 and a further
70,000 in 1933. This meant a decline in tax revenues as well as a drain of labor.
Also, it was a blow to French pride, since many Africans viewed the British
colonies of Gold Coast and Nigeria as places of refuge.36 The government general,
then, confronted a serious crisis at a time when it could not rely upon assistance
from the métropole, locked as it was after 1934 in its own cycle of domestic
turmoil.37

33. The authority to make and unmake indigenous leaders dated to the earliest days of the
federation and remained in effect until the 1950s, when that power was transferred to the
territorial assemblies. CAOM, l/AP/193, "Décret relatif à la création de communes mixtes
en Afrique Occidentale Française," 15 May 1912, signed by William Ponty, governor
general of AOF.

34. CAOM, l/AP/148, "Conseil de Gouvernement; session de Novembre 1932; procès-verbaux

des séances."

35. Cooper, Decolonization and African Society, 57, 92-104.

36. CAOM, CG/48, "Rapport politique et administrative" for AOF, end 1933.

37. See Jackson, The Popular Front in France·, and Chapman, State Capitalism and "Working
Class Radicalism in the French Aircraft Industry.

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 Conflicted Missionaries 55

In a familiar pattern, the col

source of their difficulties wit
rulers were doing. Africa nee
that structured African life.
calling for "a cultural renaiss
political structures already in
expected that the native would
more "willingly" accept Fre
Vollenhoven's earlier reforms
mission was to get the mass
chosen means for the inducem
and his cohorts sought to ach
system. First, they wanted to
rural elite to the urban évolu
schools to the peasants so that
place in the imperial order of
chiefs as their legitimate lead
general perceived it, was to r
a way as to prevent the for
the productive aptitude of t
"traditional" structures alre
concluded, did not understand
their own societies. As a resul
This unsettled feeling led the
"child" would toward its pare
of schools, instruction had to
one" than earlier attempts t
"Education," Charton insiste
experience" and must reinfor
the chiefs themselves had to be sent to school to learn about "African culture"

and the "ways of the ancestors."41 According to the government general, the

38. CAOM, CG/52, speech by Brévié, December 1935.

39. CAOM, CG/60, Political and Economic Report for AOF, 1931.

40. CAOM, CG/52, report by Inspector General Charton, "L'Enseignement et l'Education en

A.O.F.," 5 July 1936.

41. CAOM, l/AP/859, instructions sent by André Maginot, minister of colonies, to the gover
nors general of AOF, AEF, Togo, and Cameroon, "Administration Indigène," 9 October
1929.

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56 The Historian

precolonial elite w
held them becaus
"ethnic" or "trib
in the colonial bu
to be. That outco
deliberately trans
officials in the m
Africa. To overco
to be sent to "ru
ethnographic wor
lore and music."
Africans had to b
Significantly, it
ical and social ins
popular schools"
was not entirely
bringing educat
political necessity
nomic collapse, tr
region. Most sign
and what they m
in France and We
African and Fren
deeply embedded
predicated on the
thermore, within
it influenced Fre
wars" of the 1930
World War was t
the 1930s was for
a people—in this

42. CAOM, CG/52,

A.O.F.," 5 July 193

43. The "reindigeni

throughout the col
and fascist politic
French Fascism: T

44. Lebovics, True F

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Conflicted Missionaries 57

While representative of a cu
and the language of prevent
influences also served as a c
authority in West Africa.45
cles for the resuscitation of
istrators—as well as visib
universalist aspects of repu
French-educated elite for ci
French citizenship, the re
under the watchful gaze of
cials within the colonial hie
not ever attain the criteria
While all were technically e
cials' prevarication and man
have become fully culturally
French citizens out of the h
desired effect, the rural po
native activities: crafts, rur
tors." Particular emphasis
to preserve and renovate
cally designed to accentua
school building, "maisons
in "African ways" was con
strongly contribute^] to the
they protected] the characte
furnaces [in which] African
educated elite produced by
that graduates of the rural
race, but one that remain[e
the formal lessons, as well a
the government general orc
from France were recruited
feared the évolués would con
though the colonialists also

45. Ibid., 164-71.

46. CAOM, CG/52, report of In

A.O.F.," 5 July 1936.

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 58 The Historian

the urban educated elite at a time of severe economic crisis. Few évolués took
up the offer, fearing political isolation and being subject to the hated "native law
code," or indigénat. Consequently, a striking scene was created of French teach
ers leading African children in dances, viewed by older generations of Africans,
all with the purported purpose of instilling pride in African culture among the
subject peoples and reviving their "true" customs. More surprising, perhaps, is
the absence of any sense of awkwardness among French instructors or adminis
trators over their presumed authority to determine and transmit traditional
African culture for and to Africans. In fact, quite the opposite occurred as French
officials congratulated themselves on the results. A 1937 report produced for the
ministry of colonies maintained, "These celebrations demonstrate that our stu
dents observe and study native ways, that they remain in contact with their milieu,
that they understand it, [and] that they love it."47 The colonial administration
also constructed museums, replete with "salles d'ethnographie," in urban centers
like Dakar and Bamako to bring those populations into contact with the cultural
revivalism promoted in the bush. The museums displayed "representative" works
of art from across West Africa, textiles, and pictorial representations of "tradi
tional" African life.48 While these museums were designed to instruct indigenous
subjects in their own culture, they also fulfilled other didactic functions. The
content of the museums instructed the observer (both African subject and French
official) in the Otherness of African culture. The items demonstrated difference
and emphasized the importance of preserving difference. However, the arrange
ment of items and the very selection process also demonstrated sameness or com
monality among the African peoples. Samples were taken from a wide variety of
societies in West Africa, yet all were presented together, a unifying act that
reflected French proclivities to homogenize those they ruled into ossified cate
gories, but which also had unintended pedagogical results in promoting a vision
of African unity to those passing through the halls. This accidental consequence
opened a political door for the évolués to restake their claims to leadership of the
African masses and dovetailed with important shifts in their conceptions of them
selves as a social group. As instructive as the exhibitions were, however, for some
museumgoers they merely confirmed existing notions of African unity.
Indeed, even before the government general embraced the idea of the need for
a cultural renaissance in West Africa, groups of the French-educated African elite

47. CAOM, CG/52, "L'Enseignement en Afrique Occidentale Française; L'Ecole Normale

William Ponty," Bulletin Présidence, 21 September 1937, author unknown.

48. CAOM, CG/52, "L'Institut de l'Afrique Noire," Bulletin AOF, 6 September 1937.

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Conflicted Missionaries 59

had begun to probe the "c

ings of political and literar
Dépêche Africaine, first
évolué journals in which
voiced. Its pages are consu
could work toward "the co
their ancestors." Essays ex
its rural roots, and abhor
societies.49 By the mid-193
that had once fought vigo
revolution, had adopted
promote the cause of Afr
Thus by the mid-1930s, t
were bent on the same obj
was fit to lead such a re
adamant that only the Fre
of tutor to benighted Afr
authentically traditional
vinced that only people dir
and the French were actin
The victory of the leftist
a novel solution to the d
ist prime minister, and h
ence of governors general
made two important decisi
native customs in the [Fre
cantly, this committee no
Bruhl, Henri Labouret, an
of the overseas adminis
included prominent évolué

49. CAOM, 5/SLOTFOM/2,

Africaine, August 1928. See a
for a new "élite indigène" to

50. CAOM, 5/SLOTFOM/21. Se

where the theme of cultural
achieved its clearest and deep

51. CAOM, CG/59, notice from

1937.

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 60 The Historian

among the Frenc

1920s he was active in militant évolué associations affiliated with the French
Communist Party and, by the 1930s, had founded the West African section of
the French Socialist Party (SFIO). In the process he developed a friendship with
Moutet and was regarded as a mentor by other West African évolués. The second
decision of the conference was to engage the French-educated elite directly in the
administration of the overseas territories. In its final statement, the conference
declared that all agreed with "the view that the natives must be admitted to col
laborate in the greatest measure possible in the administrative aspects of their
country." By natives the participants made it clear that they meant the "elite"
from both urban and rural centers. In this way the French-educated elite and the
traditional chiefs would be brought together as a single elite to assist France in
its mission.52

Explaining the new government's philosophy, Moutet declared that the indige
nous peoples were "free in the practice of their customs and in their evolution,
but federated together in Overseas France."53 The minister of colonies asserted,
"the man of the African and Madagascan bush, just like the man of the street in
European France, has the right to be judged according to one's tradition and one's
personality."54 Such a readjustment in the epistemological foundations of empire
entailed a double move by the Left: an acceptance of the concept of essential
cultural differences, and a commitment to maintain the empire, albeit on more
egalitarian terms. The name Moutet gave for this policy was "Republican Colo
nialism." Despite the prospect that some among the colonized population would
be able to participate in decisions affecting their lives, the proposed reforms did
not break with established practice, including working through "legitimate"
leaders, i.e., chiefs, and, consequently, continued to deflect indigenous aspirations
for citizenship by channeling the attainment of rights through "traditional" struc
tures rooted in "authentic" African culture.55
However, the French-educated elite reacted with hesitation, in particular to the
government's commitment to continue the rural popular school campaign. Many

52. CAOM, l/AP/179/1, "Conférence des Gouverneurs Généraux—voeux adoptés," convened

5 November 1936.

53. CAOM, 28/Papiers Moutet (PA)/1, "Politique Républicaine Coloniale," undated draft of a
speech, probably written in 1936.

54. CAOM, 28/PA/l, "Causerie de Monsieur Marius Moutet, Ministre de Colonies à Radio
Cité," "Sur le Comité d'Étude des Coutumes Indigènes," 1936.

55. CAOM, 28/PA/l, report from the ministry of colonies to the government general for AEF,
"Conférence des Gouverneurs généraux," 12 August 1936.

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 Conflicted Missionaries 61

évolués viewed the rural

hostile rural communities
Moreover, the governme
schools to enhance the pr
the political aspirations of
command of "traditional" rulers where the educated elite would be

welcomed as "French," with citizenship rights. In particular, the supporter

Lamine Guèye in the West African SFIO, along with his main political rivals,
supported the Senegalese representative to the French Chamber of Dep
Galandou Diouf, still embraced an older French republican discourse that pr
the fundamental unity and equality of humanity and emphasized notions o
versal rights. While Diouf's commitment to the expansion of citizenship am
West Africans was dubious, Guèye was a dedicated assimilationist. Guèy
heartened by the support he received from the Popular Front during the M
1936 electoral campaign, which included tours by Moutet throughout the F
Communes of Senegal on his behalf, and believed that the leftist coali
triumph opened the prospect for achievement of long-sought improvement
the lives of West Africans.56 Consequently, the Blum government's decisio
embrace the rural popular schools as well as the rhetoric of essential cultur
ferences disappointed many évolués.s?
To allay those concerns, the Popular Front called an International Congres
the Cultural Evolution of Colonial Peoples, convened in 1937. The congress w
construed as a means of easing the level of conflict in the colonies by invit
the French-educated elite to present their perspective on conditions in Afr
articulate what they held to be the needs of the colonized populations,
operate in determining "native policy." Furthermore, the congress afforde
opportunity for Paris and Dakar to expose and exacerbate differences amon

56. CAOM, l/AP/539/6, "Police et Sûreté de la Circonscription de Dakar et Dépendenda

Rapport Annuel Année 1937." The Four Communes of Senegal—Dakar, Gorée, St. Lo
and Rufisque—were unique spaces in the French colonial empire. As early as the revo
of 1789, the residents of the towns had been granted French citizenship. By 1889 they
also been granted the right to elect one representative to the French Chamber of Depu
An African, Blaise Diagne, won that post for the first time in 1914, and retained th
tion until his death in 1934. Diouf succeeded him and held the post until the Vich
ernment abolished it in 1940. I have written elsewhere on the relationship between
and the French Popular Front. James E. Genova, "The Empire Within: The Colonial P
Front in France, 1934-1938," Alternatives 26.2 (May 2001).

57. For more on the Popular Front's commitment to the cultural praxis of differen
Lebovics, True France; Shanny Peer, France on Display: Peasants, Provincials, and Fo
in the 1937 World's Fair (Albany, N.Y., 1998); and Elizabeth Ezra, "Colonialism Expo
Miss France DOutre-mer 1937," in Ungar and Conley, eds., Identity Papers.

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62 The Historian

politically active
nial government
tionship with th
The rural popul
general, exposed
ily in France and
ing distance betw
the separate com
life. While the F
rural popular sch
Africa felt inten
the advent of th
of the chiefs, bu
the bush, where
each other and s
in France, howev
with the rural p
tural authenticit
convinced that t
latter was the Se
associates, in wh
Négritude movem
La Dépêche Afr
by a schoolteach
Kouyaté. As dis
educated elite ha
the works of eth
ceived of themse
peoples, but were
rural population
invasion of Ethio
up within this m
of the extraparli
évolués, then, we
of Republican Co

58. Congrès Interna

(Paris, 1938), 10-1

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 Conflicted Missionaries 63

and cultural life of West

Senghor's group shared the
policy.59
Senghor attracted the attention of the colonial ministry after he convened a
conference on 4 September 1937 in Dakar on "The Cultural Problem in French
West Africa." At that gathering, Senghor spoke extensively about the need for a
revival of African culture and the responsibility intellectuals from the federation
had in that endeavor.60 Those themes converged with the rhetoric and policies of
the new governor general, Marcel de Coppet, a socialist appointed by the Popular
Front government, who invited Senghor to convene the conference. De Coppet
was committed to the policies of social reform espoused by the Popular Front
and embodied in its policy of Republican Colonialism. Fie sought to alleviate the
distress of the African people through modifications in the labor code and an
extension of rights to workers employed by French companies. De Coppet was
also a strong critic of forced labor, widely practiced in French West Africa, and
sponsored the growth of pro-Popular Front political clubs in the federation. The
cornerstone of this approach, however, was still an insistence on the importance
of cultural differences and the value of preserving "traditional" ways of life. Con
sequently, while political support was granted to Guèye as a fellow socialist, de
Coppet promoted the perspectives of Senghor and his associates.61
After the West African conference, Moutet invited Senghor to address the same
themes in Paris. Unlike the West African conference, which was overwhelmingly
attended by évolués in the coastal cities of Senegal, the audience at the gathering
in Paris included mostly officials of the colonial ministry, academics, and metro
politan politicians. In Paris, Senghor chose as his subject the rural popular
schools. Senghor focused on two points: why some among the French-educated
elite opposed the program, and his reasons for supporting it. According to
Senghor, most of the opposition to the rural popular schools derived from a deep
seated suspicion of the government general's motives for encouraging the évolués
to become teachers "in the bush." When Dakar approached them to take posi
tions as instructors at the rural schools, they were presented as places where those
with school diplomas could find work when none existed in the cities. Senghor

59. I treat this process and episode at length elsewhere. Genova, "The Empire Within,"
Alternatives.

60. CAOM, CG/52, "Le Problème culturel en AOF; conference faite à Dakar le 4 septembre
1937 par M. Senghor, professeur au Lycée du Tours."

61. For a discussion of the policies and discourse of Marcel de Coppet see Cooper, Decolo
nization and African Society, 73-80.

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64 The Historian

asserted that thi

unemployment f
tions' urban cent
general having la
economic policy o
colonial administ
of unemploymen
as instruments o
was responsible f
behind the new e
At the outset, Da
respect for the c
measure as a new
restrict their pos
were conceived a
against the colon
Senghor, thoug
serve the cultura
that the new sch
These [institution
[the basis for] a
ment of moral an
presented an oppo
with people in ru
ests of the indig
spoke to the nece
of life in the fed
ical rights since
tive policy, and
respect." Finally
reform colonial
Africans in the g

62. Leopold Sédar

Populaire," in Cong
September 1937, 4
to the ministry o
populaire," 26 Oct

63. Senghor, "La Ré

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 Conflicted Missionaries 65

popular schools to be achieved, n

institutions like chieftaincy, att
become "French," and alleviati
masses.64

Senghor's intervention in the debate over the use and organization of the rural
popular schools both challenged the French presumption to knowledge about the
"African" and undermined the government general's attempt to preserve French
imperial authority. The Négritude poet insisted that only those who had come
from the indigenous society could truly lead the cultural renaissance envisioned
by the government general. That position was commonplace among the French
educated elite from West Africa that had settled in France during the 1930s.
Organizations like the Rassemblement Colonial, the West African Students'
Organization, and the Ligue pour la Défense de la Race Nègre all claimed the
necessity for the resurrection of African culture as a precondition for national
independence. The challenges to colonial rule emanating from those trained in
French schools, therefore, would not be muted by a shift in curriculum or a diver
sion from training an urban elite to engendering a rural elite. In fact, the rural
popular school program had the contrary effect, furnishing a context wherein
France's authority to speak on behalf of "Africans" and to direct African society
could be seriously questioned, even more so than its earlier claims to be spread
ing a "superior" French civilization to those desirous of liberation from tradi
tion. While Senghor did not doubt that French administrators could properly
represent "France" to the indigenous peoples of West Africa, he denied their
ability to fully comprehend the "mentality" and "traditions" of local societies.
Thus, the Négritude poet and his associates seized an opening created by the colo
nial administration to reposition the évolués as indispensable to France's mission
overseas while at the same time undermining the legitimacy of continued French
rule in the federation.

While the Popular Front held sway in France, increasing numbers of évolués
took Senghor at his word and took up posts as teachers in the "bush" and thereby
participated in the formation of new identities for French West Africans. The
demise of the leftist coalition in 1938, however, and a consequent return to earlier
policies of hostility toward the French-educated elite, although not a rejection of
the cultural essentialism by then generally shared across the political spectrum,
cut short their efforts at reconfiguring colonial identities. The fall of Blum's

64. CAOM, CG/52, letter from Senghor to the government general for AOF, "La Résistance de
la Bourgeoisie Sénégalaise à l'école rurale populaire," 26 October 1937.

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66 The Historian

government (and
the end of the
toward preparat
France was occup
instituted a brut
ing the right to
In conclusion, th
contested power
Education in such
students or prov
certain kinds of
onizer and colon
societies concern
among the subjec
response to the r
ing visions of A
évolués by the F
gle for political
rural/urban divi
constructions of
locale by the 194
citizenship right
speak on behalf
enabled its own p
humanist perspe

65. CAOM, l/AP/63

government, "Aff
1941.

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