 HISTORY OF CAMEROON
Cameroon was inhabited as far back as the very ancient times, as early as the prehistoric period. The many carved and polished stones objects found across the territory bear testimony of this. For instance, Makabai, a small village near Maroua, has one of the largest prehistoric sites in the world. The written testimony of those referred to as the civilized people of the time, that is, Egyptians, Carthaginians, Greeks and Romans, gives ample information about the people and civilizations that where present in Cameroon before the arrival of the European merchants in the sixteenth century.
From the days of antiquity, Cameroon was in contact with the Mediterranean world – Egypt, Fezzan, Libya and Chad. Cameroon exported ivory, panther skins, ostrich feathers, and natron, which the Egyptians used to embalm mummies. It imported pearls, bronze objects, salt and cloth.
Around the sixth century B.C., Hannon, a Carthaginian leader, reached the coast of Cameroon and discovered Mount Cameroon in eruption. He named it the “Charriot of the Gods”.
In 1472, the caravels of the Portuguesse Navigator Fernua do Pao anchored in the estuary of the Wouri, which he called Rio dos Camaroes (River of Prawns). The Portuguese “camaroes” was changed to “camarones” by the Spanich, to Kamerun by the Germans and to Cameroun by the French. The name Cameroon initially referred to the town of Douala, before becoming the name of the entire territory.
 THE POPULATION OF CAMEROON FROM THE PREHISTORIC PERIOD TO THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
It is believed that Cameroon was inhabited during the prehistoric period mainly by pygmies who are considered to be the real natives of the country. About 5 feet tall, they live on hunting and food-gathering. They are beginning to practise agriculture, which is obliging them to settle.
Around the tenth century, the Sao people from the North settled on the banks of Lake Chad and developed a great civilization; it can be seen through the remains of funeral urns, bronze objects and statuettes. They were tall black people.
During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the Saos were attacked by the Kanembus from neighbouring Bornu; they sought an alliance with the Massa people who had come from the East in the fifteenth century. This gave birth to a new ethnic group – the Kotokos. Today, some traces of Sao can be spotted here and there at Maroua, Mora, Bibemi and Pitoa.
The fifteenth century witnessed the migration of the Sudanese from Abyssunia and Eastem. Confederations of Bamileke chiefdoms sprang up in the South-West mountains during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Peul families settled in the Bornu and Baguirmi kingdoms. Idriss III, Emperor of Bornu, did not only send away the Saos but he also introduced Moslem law in Northern Cameroon and welcomed all the Peuls coming from the West (North Nigeria). They started a nomadic existence with their cattle in Diamaré. The Peuls gradually infiltrated the pagan population. By the end of the eighteenth century, a number of lamidats, namely Garoua, Rey and Bindir came into existence without a fight.
In the eighteenth century, the Bamum set up an autonomous kingdom whose greatest sovereigns were Mbwe-Mbwe and Njoya who succeeded to the throne toward the end of the nineteenth century. Njoya adopted Islam and invented a writing system known as shumon.
In 1805, Usuman Dan Fodio called on the Moslems to wage a holy war and charged Adama with the task of conquering Fumbina (Adamawa). At that time, Bantus from the Upper Nile region were spread across central and Southern Africa. The first migration wave reached Cameroon around the fifteenth century, with settlers for the central plateau up to the Sanaga. The second phase of Bantu migration reached Cameroon from the South in the seventeenth century. In subsequent waves, the Makas penetrated Cameroon in 1750 from the North East, and the Djems from the South East. The Fan-Beti settled in the centre-south and some of them reached northern Gabon and Equatorial Guinea during the next century. All these migratory movement came to an end with the European invasion.
EUROPEAN PENETRATION
The slave trade was started by the Portuguese in 1436. Within four centuries, Cameroon was deprived of thousands of its sons. On 10 June 1840, the kings of Douala – Bell and Akwa – signed the first contract with the British governement to prohibit the slave trade. The trade ended with the Anglo-Douala treaty of 29 April 1852. In 1841, Joseph Merrick, a black Baptist pastor from Jamaica, reached Fernado Po. He founded the Douala mission in 1943 and was joined in 1844 by Alfred Saker, an Englishman, and Joseph Jackson Fuller, another black from Jamaica.
The first American missionaries from the Presbyterian Church reached Batanga in 1879.
In 1889, German Catholic missionaries, known as the Pallotin Fathers settled at the mouth of the Sanaga river at Marienberg.
On 12 Jully 1884, Douala kings and chiefs signed an assistance treaty with the German government. Two days later, German sovereignty over Cameroon was proclaimed by Nachtigal, the Imperial Commissioner on the African coast. This event marked the end of the independence of Cameroon, which then had a total area of 792,000 km². From 1885 to 1907, the Germans faced stiff resistance by way of wars against the Lamido of Rey-Bouba, the Fulbés and the Bulus as well as the Bassa, Bakoko and Koka revolts. Two heroes of that resistance who deserve mention are Rudolf Douala Manga Bell, who was hanged in Douala on 7 August 1913, and Martin Paul Samba, who was shot at Ebolowa. The other rebellious tribal chiefs were replaced and the authority of fulbé chiefs was reinforced in the entire Northern part of the country.
During the First World War, French troops stationed in Chad Ubangi-Chari (Central Africa today), and Gabon, as well as British troops in Nigeria and Belgian troops in Nigeria and Belgian troops in the Congo attacked the German forces in Cameroon.
On 1 January 1916, a British column marched to Yaounde. On 7 January, a French column also reached Yaounde.
The Germans withdrew towards the south and took refuge in Spanish Guinea, taking along with them Charles Atangana and Nanga Eboko, among others. On 20 February 1916, German captain Von Raben, who had been besieged at Mora, surrendered. That was the last episode in the Cameroon campaign (1914-16). |
THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS AND THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE
On 29 June 1919, Germany gave up all its rights over Cameroon by ratifying the treaty of Versailles, whose Article 119 states that: “Germany gives over to the main allied and associated powers all its rights and deeds on its overseas possessions”.
On 10 July 1919, France and England established a border to separate Cameroon and administered the country on behalf of the League of Nations; this was the beginning of the unprecedented system of mandated territories.
Socially, two interesting and complementary events occurred during that period: first, the institution of the right of citizenship which began in 1917, was made official by a decree of 4 October 1924 and abolished after the 1944 Brazzaville Conference ; and then the founding, on 18 December 1944, of the Union des Syndicats Conféférés du Cameroun (association of confederation trade unions of Cameroon) ( USCC), which was affiliated to the French CGT, and which was not only the first Cameroonian trade union but also the first very influential extra-customary element, with Alphonse Ndounokong as its secretary-general and Charles Assale and Ruben Um Nyobe as assistant secretaries general.
From 1939 to 1946,Cameroon, in response to General de Gaulle’s call participated in the Second World War.
After the war, the UNO granted trusteeship over Cameroon to France and England.
Thereafter, by a French decree of 25 October 1946, the Assemblée Représentative du Cameroun (Cameroun Representative Assembly) (ARCAM) was set up. It had a total number of 50 members who were divided into two sections: 18 Frenchmen and 32 Cameroonians elected by two separate colleges.
In 1952, ARCAM was replaced by the Assemblée Territoriale du Cameroun (Cameroun Territorial Assembly) (ATCAM), which comprised 50 Members elected by a broad based electoral body. ATCAM had more extensive powers.
Another Assembly, the Cameroon Legislative Assembly (ALCAM) was elected by universal suffrage and by a single college on 23 December 1956. The Assembly met for the first time on 10 May 1957 and chose the national symbols: the flag, the anthem and the motto. On 24 October 1958, ALCAM formally proclaimed the desire of the people of Cameroon to accede to full independence on 1 January 1960.
On 11 May 1957, André Marie Mbida was elected Prime Minister of the State of Cameroon by the legislative Assembly. On 18 February 1958, M. André Marie Mbida gave up his post of Prime Minister to M. Ahmadou Ahidjo.
On 13 September 1958, Um Nyobe, one of the architects of Cameroon independence and the Secretary General of the Union of the Populations of Cameroon, was killed around Boumnyebel in the forest of Sanaga Maritime Division where he was in the maquis. From 1 January 1959 to 1 January 1960, Cameroon was under home rule. On 12 March 1959, the Trusteeship Commission of the United Nations General Assembly voted by 56 votes against 9 with 16 abstentions to repeal the Trusteeship agreement.
INDEPENDENT CAMEROON
On 1 January 1960, the part of Cameroon under French trusteeship acceded to hard-earned independence under the name: République du Cameroun. The country was immediately admitted into the UN. On 21 February 1960, a draft Constitution was subjected to a popular referendum and adopted by 797,4987 votes against 531,075.
On 5 May 1960, Ahmadou Ahidjo was elected President of the Republic.
On 16 May, Charles Assale was asked to form the government. British Cameroon, which formed a House of Assembly in 1954 but remained fully under the administration of the Nigerian Federation, decided by plebiscite on 7 November 1959 to remain a trust territory. The UNO decided on a plebiscite, which took place on 11 February 1961. In the plebiscite, the Southern part of the territory under British administration, led by Prime Minister John Ngu Foncha, voted by an overwhelming majority of 233,571 votes against 97,741 for independence and union with the Cameroon Republic.
In the Northern part of Cameroon under British mandate, 60% of the votes were in favour of remaining with Nigeria. However, this result was subject to numerous debates and protests. On 1 June 1961, Northern Cameroon joined Nigeria. On 1 October 1961 the Southern part of the territory under British mandate known as West Cameroon and the Cameroon Republic reunified under the name of Federal Republic of Cameroon.
Eleven years after reunification, this same will to unite was expressed during the referendum of 20 May 1972 (3,217,056 votes against 158), which marked the end of the Federal Republic and the birth of the United Republic of Cameroon.
THE NEW DEAL ERA
On 6 November 1982, in accordance with the Constitution, Paul Biya, who had been Prime Minister since 1975, became President of the Republic upon the resignation of Ahmadou Ahidjo on 4 November. This change, which at the beginning was considered as a model of power transfer in Africa, later on met with enormous difficulties because of the former president’s desire to return to power after he had given it up freely.
This is how on 22 August 1983 the new Head of State announced a plot organized by supporters of the former president against the security of the State. The majority of Cameroonians took side with the new Deal.
M. Admadou Ahidjo, while abroad, was forced to resign from the post of chairman of the Party, which he had continued to occupy. An extraordinary congress convened in Yaounde on 14 September 1983 elected Paul Biya National Chairman of the Cameroon National Union (CN) and thus put an end to the bicephalous situation which had developed between the State and the party.
The last incident of the political crisis occurred in April 1984 with the rebellion of certain elements of the Republican Guard. But the rest of the army remained loyal and crushed the rebellion (6 and 7 April).
On 30 November 1989, the former Head of State of Cameroon, Ahmadou Ahidjo, died in Dakar, Senegal. |
