Economic Exploitation and Development

Behind cultural imperialism lay economic extraction. The Banque de l'Indochine, established in 1875, became the empire's financial nerve center. Its ornate Paris headquarters symbolized colonial wealth flowing to the metropole. Shareholders earned dividends from Vietnamese rice paddies and Cambodian rubber plantations without considering laborers' conditions.

The colonial economy created some genuine development. Railroads connected previously isolated regions. Ports modernized to handle increased trade. Hospitals and schools, however inadequate, introduced modern medicine and education. Saigon and Dakar became sophisticated cities with electric lights, tramways, and theaters.

But development served metropolitan interests. Railroads transported raw materials to ports, not people between villages. Schools produced clerks for colonial administration, not independent thinkers. Hospitals primarily treated Europeans and essential indigenous personnel. Infrastructure investment concentrated in settler areas or resource extraction zones.

Women's economic roles in colonies differed from metropolitan patterns. In West Africa, market women controlled significant commerce despite French attempts to impose male commercial dominance. In Indochina, women worked in factories and plantations in numbers unimaginable in France. Colonial economies inadvertently created spaces for female economic power.

The myth of colonial profitability persisted despite evidence. Most colonies cost more to administer and defend than they returned in profits. But specific interests—trading companies, settlers, military contractors—profited enormously. Their political influence maintained imperial policies benefiting few at many's expense.