My Shareway to the World

Comparative history of the making of some African States with that of Cameroon: A Synthesis

Historically and politically, the countries of Africa follow the same path in the constitution of their states.

We will illustrate this with some examples from the question asked by our compatriot Tasams Tasams in an exchange in the Facebook wall of Free Mola Njoh Litumbe, relative to the English crisis.

He asked what was Cameroon's name before the arrival of the Europeans and whether Cameroon had its own history like Ghana, Benin and other countries.

In the first place, we must situate the point, by making the difference between the Empire of Ghana whose memorable history comes to mind by default, with the Republic of Ghana (formerly Gold Coast ). Same with the Republic of Benin (formerly Dahomey) that should not be confuses with the Benin Empire.

Straightforward, it  must be said that the Republic of Ghana, Benin, Cameroon as well as Nigeria are "manufactures" of uropeans, British, French or Germans.

Just as the name of Cameroon comes from the Potugese (Rio dos Camaroes), the Gold Coast (lato sensu) originates from the British, then Ghana is due to the Europeans and Arabs who thus called the kingdom of  Wagadu (which has little to do with the present Ghana) by the name of the King, Ghana.

Similarly, the Kingdom of Benin, which is the Kingdom of the Edo, an ethnic group of coastal West Africa whose territory corresponds to the south-west of present-day Nigeria, is not to be confused with the Republic of Benin, which can be considered as part of the said kingdom.

And the name Benin is also a Portuguese pronunciation of the word UBinu which means capital, seat of the royalty, and which designated the capital Benin City.

As for Nigeria, its name is not authentic either, for if it derives from Niger, the eyhymology of this word is not precise, and the hypothesis advanced is either of a Portuguese origin "river of the blacks" Or Touaregs gher n gheren ("river of rivers").

Nigeria is also the making of the Royal Niger Company which is the foundation of its present state.

Historically, one can start from the ancient history of these peoples to arrive at the contemporary history with the constitution of the States from the 3rd century.

Indeed, after their departure from and around Egypt, the Empire of Ghana was created in the 3rd century, while most of the peoples of present-day Cameroon were in the Lake Chad Basin where some are involved in the Kanem-Bornou Kingdom  which reached its peak in the 16th century and dominated the North of Nigeria for more than 600 years.

The Empire of Ghana will be replaced, after reaching its apogee in the 10th century and initiated its decline in the XIth, by the Kingdom of Mali founded in XIIIè s.

The peoples of present-day Cameroon, who are not yet differentiated but can be grouped into large groups such as the Sow-Bakoko, Bassa, Ngala-Dwala (without bearing these names at the time) were meanwhile moving to the South for various reasons like the refusal of Islamization.

One can imagine that the peoples of West Africa, who have experienced more or less short-term migrations, have had to settle faster and quickly, then easily transposing the system and organizational structure Inherited from Egypt, whence without doubt the constitution of great empires.

Meanwhile, those of Cameroon as the three above quoted (who were at the migration fore front) that I take as an example for reasons that will be understood below, continue their migrations to reach a major center of fusion, brewing and irradiation in the erea of Nditam, the Mittel Kamerun in the Mbam-Sanaga savanna towards the XIII-XIVè s.

The Sow-Bakoko, Bassa (Mbene), proto Fang-Beti-Bulu, Mboum, Tikar will swarm from this region to not only constitute the "racial peoples" that are now known but to conquer the spaces they occupy at this moment up to the 19th century.

The mixing of these peoples on the migration routes will create the Grassfields and so on.

The Lions Mountains (Mount Cameroon mountain range) will constitute another center of irradiation, having taken some peoples or their fragments until East and towards South Africa.

The Bassa, Sow-Bakoko and Ngala (Douala, Bakweri, Batanga, Isubu, Mongo, Wovea, Bamboko, Balondo, Bakole, Pongo and Ewodi) migrations will arrive in the banks of Wouri from the 14th century onwards. Other Ngala (Bakossi, Abo, Balong, Bafoun, Bakaka, Mboh ...) will swarm around the Manengouba Mountains.

Those (“racial people”) who settle on the banks of the Wouri (Basaa, Bakoko, Douala) will constitute the “residential people” of the Sawa Sub-Nation.

Other sub-nations, a group of racial peoples that have produced residential peoples on the basis of co-location and integration, have also been established within the country, such as:

- the Bushmen sub-Nation: Maka, Baya, Kaka peoples;

- the Nanga Sub-Nation: Beti, Boulou, Badouma peoples;

- The Grassfield sub-nation: Tikar people, Ndobo-Bamileke, Mandjara.

These 4 sub-nations had seven entities (7):

- the Kingdom of the Kambongo (Ngala-Douala)

- the Kingdom of the Logodip-Sow (Bakoko)

- the Bassa Confederation

- the Nanga Confederation

- the Wankono (Maka)

- the M'bassa Confederation (Bamileke)

- the Tika with the Bamoun and Nso double kingdom, the Tikar chiefdoms.

All these kingdoms were linked by trade ties and were organized in such a way that "each of the peoples involved in the system plays its full part in it by controlling a specific field which allows it to exercise a share of total sovereignty:

-          the Bassa were concerned with rural production and priestly questions;

-          the Sow-bakoko were in charge of the central administration;

-          the Ngala-Mini-é or Toukourou and the Mandjara (Bamoun, Bafia-Bakpak, Nsow) dealt with military matters and the circulation of money;

-          the Beti and Badouma were in charge of the public security and the trails and country of the hinterland;

-          the Bandobo (Bamileke) were engaged in internal trade;

-          the Ngala-Bamale of the estuary was in charge of diplomacy, foreign trade and initiatory education.

 The city of Douala served as the locomotive and "capital of all these countries", where each local state had a permanent delegation through a Poliarch:

- the representative of the Bassa country had his residence at the present Akwa-North;

- the representative of the kingdom of Bali-Tchamba resided in Bali (Douala);

- the representative of the Bamoun kingdom was the deputy King of the outside,  Ngwanyi-Mfon ma Yeyap, the prince of the kingdom who can not return to the country until his King brother is absent; he also resided in Akwa North;

- the representative of the Logdip-Sow resided at Ndogkoti;

 - the representative of the Wankomo residing at Bonaberi.

The chief of the coast, in turn, sent whole tribes to the hinterland to play the role of amrgraviate, which is called "chefferies du sel" (Fongwak in Bamileke).

Traveling Cheifs were constantly circulating from the interior to the coast, and consuls (Nkam) or merchant-judges from the coast to the interior.

  Administrative governance was ensured by brotherhoods like the sons of the leopard brotherhoods , Mungi in the Douala, Nge in the Sow, Ngil in the Fang-Beti, Mwingu in the bamoun and Tikar, and Ke'gwi in the Bamileke.

Military governance was ensured by the brotherhood of Lion Mbwe or Egbe according to the regions.

Governance of justice, commerce and navigation was provided by the crocodilemen men brotherhood, the ebasènjon or Obasi.

The panther-skinned priests brotherhood, the Ngwa, dealt with religious questions, sciences and agriculture.

Thus was constituted and organized the Old Cameroon proto-nation, whose parallel was the Fombina or New Cameroon proto-nation  in the northern part of the country.

This organization in state confederation and decentralization above the kingdoms as well as in dual countries are characteristics of the Negro-African political entities, reproduced from an original model inherited from ancient Egypt.

Thus we have the same configuration of seven states among the Yoruba-Odo, the Hausa Bokoi confederacy, the Hausa Banza Bakwai confederacy in Nigeria, the Nigerian-Chadian empire, the Akan confederation, the Tekrur empire in West Africa.

The Europeans settlers therefore arrived at the moment when the Cameroonian nation was in the making from these two proto-nations, and stopped their evolution by encompassing them in a territory that intersected the racial peoples.

Unlike the Kingdom of Dahomey which was constituted as a territorial and political whole with the absorption of the States of Allada and Ouidah by the State of Abomey following wars of conquests, Old Cameroon did not arrive to a great kingdom because the Douala who assumed the hegemony did not want to subdue the other kingdoms.

What would have been the evolution if the Germans had not intervened? No one can guess.

Anthropologically, Cameroon is therefore not a German manufacture, all its peoples from North to South being related to varying degrees, near or far, having mixed or even merged.

The Douala, for example, are of the same stock as the Foulbes.

But territorially, Cameroon as a country is a work of the Germans.

This is a long history of Cameroonian people settlement and the State formation that i've tried to make short.