ABSTRACT
In the case of the Lobi in Burkina Faso, colonial police and army troops were the most important agents of pacification. Repression did not take place systematically or continuously but took the form of sporadic punitive expeditions. The resources deployed in terms of troops, goods and financial means were relatively limited, and there were no selective rewards granted to cooperative groups willing to cease warfare. The fierce resistance of the Lobi against the forced collection of taxes and recruitment of labour as well as against the imposition of foreign chiefs led to punitive expeditions by the French Army and to an intensification of hostility. Pacification eventually succeeded only because of attrition and the high costs of fighting that indigenous groups had to bear.
