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Viewing articles tagged '1899'
Viewing articles tagged '1899'
2 articles
The French arrive, 1876–1929
We let the French in. Most of our villages received them, between 1891 and 1899, as men who had come alone, who promised protection against the Lao and Siamese raiders from the west, and who had just taken the coast from the power that had taken it from us. The reasoning was not naive, and for a while it held. What we got over the next thirty ye...
Roads, taxes and forced labor, 1899–1945
In 1899 the tribute our villages had paid every three years in wax, horn and ivory was abolished and replaced by a tax in cash, on people who did not use cash. Three years later came the days: ten a year of unpaid work on the roads, rising to fifteen, and eight to ten more spent walking to the worksite and back. A man who could not find the mone...
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