History of Cameroun

Cet article supplements that on the Cameroun

Pre-colonial time

See also: pre-colonial History of Cameroun

The first inhabitants of the Cameroun were probably the Baka, also called Pygmies. They always live the forests of the provinces of the south and the east.

  • 1st millenium before J. - C.: the zone covering the south-west of L `current Cameroun and the south-east of Nigeria would have been the cradle of the people bantous.

African bases

The country becomes populated in the north of populations of Sudanese language (Tikar, Kirdi) and in the south of people of language bantous (Bamoun, Bafoussam, Bakoko, Bassa, Bamenda, Bakundu. .ect) .5e century a. J. - C. the Civilization Sao develops around the Lac Chad and will give rise to the kingdom of Kanem-Bornou. Besides that, people live in cheffery, the political power does not exceed the group of village. The bantous like the Sudaneses are divided into several people which do not cease d´ evolving/moving with their castes and their monarchical problem often give rise to again often antagonistic people. In north as in the south the private property is unknown as well as the concept d´état or d´état-nation (Thus it there aplusieurs cheffery bakoko). The inhabitants croyent in sorcery, the right made of the prisoners of war of the slaves often released after a certain time. The communication with far is done by the tom-tom. The north of the country is touched by l´islam as from the 11th century.

The colonial conquest

At the research of the road of the Indies Portuguese arrives on the coasts in 1472, astonished by the number of shrimps the navigator Fernando Póo baptizes the country “Rio back Camaroes” (l´estuaire of Wouri). About 1532 the draft of the Blacks is set up in particular thanks to the collaboration of Doualas.Les Europeans N ´y will however not found d´etablissment permanent like Luanda or St Louis because of the marshy, difficult d´accés and infested coasts malaria. Hunting with l´homme starts with l interior of the country, l´habitat of many population will be systematically destroyed. Progressively the country empties its inhabitants off-set towards the colonies British or Spanish d Americ or towards Brésil.Dans this parasitic spirit the culture of the country will not be able to develop. Europeans will set up racist and pseudo theories scientific (Kant, Hume, Voltaire) to legitimate this draft. At the XVIII éme century the pastors Peuls arrive or (Foulbe) come from the west and drive back Kirdis and them Massas plain of Diamaré, between Logone and Bénoué.ils Islamizes the palteaux ones of the sud.lor leader Ousmane daN Fodio sends its Adam warrior to Islamize the plates of the south, renamed Adamaoua. It is stopped by the Royaume Bamoun. Islamization of the Bamoun kingdom under the impulse of king Njoya. Njoya will remain famous for the alphabet made up of ideograms which it creates and for the chart of the country that it makes establish.

  • 16th century: accumulations of various populations in the grassfields of the west which will become the Bamileke ethnos group. Foundation of the Kingdom Bamoun.

  • 1827 : British exploration of the Cameronian coast and the Biafra

  • 1845: beginning of the evangelization by the Baptist Missionary Society of London
  • 1847: died of the lamido Adama; the capital of Adamaoua, Yola, is then on Bénoué. The kingdom bamoun, whose capital is located at Foumban, must fight against L `expansion peule.
  • 1868 : installation of German traders
  • 1884: Doualas sign a treaty of assistance with Germany, this one proclaims its sovereignty on the Kamerun
  • 1890: installation of the Societas Apostolus Catholici (evangelization)

Colonial time

See also: Colonial history of Cameroun

In 1845, missionaries British Baptists settled in Cameroun, which entered in fact the zone of influence of the Great Britain. But that did not last very a long time: in 1868 a German counter was open close to Douala by Woerman, a merchant of Hamburg.

The German Colonisation began in 1884 with the signature in July of a treaty between the king of Bell and Gustav Nachtigal. Protectorate extended from the Lac Chad in north with banks of the Sangha in south-east. The town of Buéa to the foot of the Mont Cameroun becomes the capital about it before being relieved with the profit of Douala in 1908. In 1911, a Franco-German agreement extended the German possessions to certain territories of the French equatorial Africa. After the First World War, during which Cameroun had been conquered by the Franco-British forces, the German colony was divided in two territories entrusted to the France (for the four fifths) and the remainder to the the United Kingdom by mandates of the Société of the Nations (SDN) in 1922.

French Cameroun joined in free France in August 1940. The majority of the Cameronian educated joined in free France, but some Cameronian German-speaking was stopped and convinced of intelligence with German. In 1945, it became a country under supervision of the UNO, which replaced the SDN. In spite of that, it became in 1946 a “territory associated” with the French Union.

In 1948, Ruben Um Nyobe founded the Union of the populations of Cameroun (UPC), a nationalist movement. UPC was prohibited after the riots of Douala in May 1955. Sought by the police force, of the militants of UPC take refuge in the forests, where they formed maquis, or in close British Cameroun. The French authorities repressed these events, while carrying out in particular arbitrary arrests.

The insurrection began in country Bassa in the night of the 18 to the December 19th 1956: several tens of hostile personalities in UPC were assassinated or removed, of the bridges, the phone lines and other infrastructures were sabotaged. Units of the Cameronian Garde repressed these events violently what involved the rallying of the peasants to the maquis. The troops withdrew in March 1957.

In same time, the idea of the independence of Cameroun progressed in metropolis.

The territorial Parliament was elected by the vote for all and with a single college for the first time in December 1956, and Me Bida formed the first self government in May 1957; it was replaced by Ahmadou Ahidjo in February 1958.

Independence

See also: History of the independence of Cameroun

French Cameroun acquired its Indépendance on January 1st 1960 and became the Republic of Cameroun. The following year, the British colony was divided into two after a Référendum of self-determination. North, mainly Moslem, chooses to integrate the Nigeria. As for the South, mainly Christian, it chooses to join the Republic of Cameroun to train the Federal republic of Cameroun. The first president of Cameroun was Ahmadou Ahidjo - Moslem Peul of the North - which was Prime Minister since 1958.

At the time of its accession to independence, in 1960, Cameroun had obtained a Constitution with pluralist vocation which envisaged the multi-party system. In spite of the popularity of the U.P.C. in the country, its legal branch obtained only 8 seats in the new National Assembly and remained subjected to the police annoyances of the government of Ahidjo, the new president. This one finishes, six years later, by founding a mode of sole party in French ex-Cameroun, the multi-party system remaining in force in English ex-Cameroun until in 1972.

Cameroun of Ahmadou Ahidjo continues the fight against the UPC and its armed wing, ALNK. It makes from the agreements of defense with France. A civil war forces ensanglanta the Bamiléké country. On the whole, the governmental repression, assisted by France, made at least several tens of thousands of deaths. According to the pilot of French helicopter, max Bardet, it would have been made a true genocide in bamiléké country (more than 300.000 dead). According to other sources, the total population in bamiléké country did not reach the 300.000 inhabitants. The books of Cameronian history speak only about “a hard repression”. No independent survey was made on these events to determine the reality of the facts and the number of victims. The Cameronian writer Mongo Beti estimated that the fork ranged between 60.000 and 400.000 dead.

Contemporary time

See also: Modern history of Cameroun

In 1972, the federal republic was replaced by a unit State. Ahmadou Ahidjo gained the elections of 1975 and 1980. It is only in November 1982 which he resigned for “health reasons” (coup d'etat) and was replaced by his former Prime Minister, Paul Biya - Christian of the South. Ahidjo regretted its choice later on, and, following a Coup d'etat missed on behalf of its partisans, it was constrained with the exile in 1983.

This palace revolution put thus fine at a mode which a high-ranking magistrate reproached thereafter the “hypertrophy of the executive power, reinforced by the invading monopartism, and atrophies of all the counterweights, not to say very short absence of counterweight”.

President Biya then tries to cure gradually the evils bequeathed by his predecessor by completely renewing the executives and the structures of the sole party, renamed in 1985 democratic Rassemblement of the Cameronian people. He will even succeed in rejoining some opponents “of the interior there”. The opening will be also marked at the time of the municipal elections of October 1987, pluralist within the framework of the sole party. A few months later, Biya is re-elected president, while the near total of the deputies are beaten by newcomers at the time of the legislative ones.

Nevertheless, of the confrontations violent one to Yaounde had put at the catches students and police officers as of December 1987 and, the economic situation worsening, of new social disturbances burst starting from 1989. December 3rd, 1990, the National Assembly adopts a series of laws intended to control the creation of new parties, whereas the Constitution envisaged the integral multi-party system explicitly. Several parties “close to the capacity” are thus made recognize without problems, but the majority of the opposition parties, in the country or in exile, refuse to guarantee this “multi-party system under control”.

references

Historical polemics

According to certain historians, the Hannon Carthaginian would have reached the Mont Cameroun which he would have baptized the “tank of the Gods”. Other historians reject this theory asserting that there is no trace of its passage in Cameroun and that the material conditions of the time would not have allowed him forwarding such a distant from Carthage.

External bonds

  • History of Cameroun on the site of the embassy of France in Cameroun
  • History of Cameroun - University of Laval (Canada)
  • Site of UNESCO: the Bamiléké question during the democratic opening in Cameroun: return of a debate occulted
  • Brice Nitcheu President of the International Coordination of Poola' has - French military Countryside in country Bamileke

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