“There’s fool’s gold—pyrite—and then there’s fool’s gold—gold owned by idiots willing to trade it for worthless dollars.
”
― Jarod Kintz, This Book Has No Title

“The trouble with a mask is it never changes”  — Charles Bukowski

One of the central pillars of colonisation was tax. The European powers did not want Africa to be a drain on their treasuries, and they wanted the colonies to pay their own way. They also wanted people to enter into the cash economy. Taxation was a way of driving people into working for money.

The competence of a French colonial official might often be measured by how much tax he was able to collect. This could be in the form of a poll tax or a tax on homes. For the ordinary people, especially those who were not earning money through labour or selling goods, taxation was an intolerable burden. Resentment turned to anger in many parts of Africa.

more at Tax and Trade Wars via BBC

Similar

• Why Britain attempted to Tax American Colonists
• 14 African Countries Forced by France to Pay Colonial Tax