The reconstruction of society: Understanding the indigenous response to French and British rule in Cameroun

Comparative Politics

Volumn 34, Issue 1, 2001, Pages 43-62

  Firmin Sellers, Kathryn ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0039192929     PISSN: 00104159     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/422414     Document Type: Article

References (75)

1. Germany first colonized Cameroun (then Kamerun) in 1884. Following World War I, German Kamerun was partitioned between Britain and France. The regions were administered first as mandates of the League of Nations and later as trustees of the United Nations. In 1959 the United Nations allowed the residents of the British Cameroons to choose between integration with Nigeria and reunification with francophone Cameroon. Southern Cameroon opted for reunification, while Northern Cameroon chose integration. British Southern Cameroon and French Cameroun subsequently became the states of West Cameroon and East Cameroun. In 1961 they agreed to form the federal republic of Cameroun. The federation endured until 1972, when a national referendum led to the creation of a unitary republic. In this article, 1 focus exclusively on French and British colonization. German colonization is certainly important in Cameroun's history. However, German colonization of the Bamiléké region was relatively late; and German institutions affected all Bamiléké kingdoms equally. To understand the interaction between colonial and indigenous institutions, it is more useful to focus on the differences between French and British rule.
2. "Civil Society as Global Actor: Promises and Pitfalls," Business World, July 17, 2000; "Fragile Stability Slowly Emerges in Cambodia," New York Times, June 25, 2000.
3. "Civil Society as Global Actor: Promises and Pitfalls," Business World, July 17, 2000; "Fragile Stability Slowly Emerges in Cambodia," New York Times, June 25, 2000.
4. Chris Allen, "Who Needs Civil Society?," Review of African Political Economy, 24 (1997), 329-38; Thomas Callaghy, The State-Society Struggle: Zaire in Comparative Perspective (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984); Donald Rothchild and Naomi Chazan, eds., Precarious Balance. State and Society in Africa (Boulder: Westview Press, 1988).
5. Chris Allen, "Who Needs Civil Society?," Review of African Political Economy, 24 (1997), 329-38; Thomas Callaghy, The State-Society Struggle: Zaire in Comparative Perspective (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984); Donald Rothchild and Naomi Chazan, eds., Precarious Balance. State and Society in Africa (Boulder: Westview Press, 1988).
6. Chris Allen, "Who Needs Civil Society?," Review of African Political Economy, 24 (1997), 329-38; Thomas Callaghy, The State-Society Struggle: Zaire in Comparative Perspective (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984); Donald Rothchild and Naomi Chazan, eds., Precarious Balance. State and Society in Africa (Boulder: Westview Press, 1988).
7. Arun Agrawal, "State Formation in Community Spaces: Control over Forests in the Kumaon Himalya, India," paper prepared for presentation at the Workshop on the Workshop 2, Bloomington, Indiana, June 9-13, 1999.
8. On the research design and methodology, see the Appendix.
9. Sue Crawford and Elinor Ostrom, "A Grammar of Institutions," American Political Science Review, 89 (1995), 583.
10. George Tsebelis, Nested Games: Rational Choice in Comparative Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990).
11. Armen Alchian and Harold Demsetz, "Production, Information Costs and Economic Organization," American Economic Review, 62 (1972), 777-95; D. Roderick Kiewiet and Mathew McCubbins, The Logic of Delegation: Congressional Parties and the Appropriations Process (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991).
12. Armen Alchian and Harold Demsetz, "Production, Information Costs and Economic Organization," American Economic Review, 62 (1972), 777-95; D. Roderick Kiewiet and Mathew McCubbins, The Logic of Delegation: Congressional Parties and the Appropriations Process (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991).
13. Shmuel Eisenstadt, "Social Institutions: The Concept," in D. L. Sills, ed., International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (New York: Macmillan, 1968); Thomas Ford Hault, Dictionary of Modern Sociology (Totowa: Littlefield, Adams, 1969); Samuel Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), as cited in David Soskice, Robert H. Bates, and David Epstein, "Ambition and Constraint: The Stabilizing Role of Institutions," Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, 8 (1992), 547-60.
14. Shmuel Eisenstadt, "Social Institutions: The Concept," in D. L. Sills, ed., International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (New York: Macmillan, 1968); Thomas Ford Hault, Dictionary of Modern Sociology (Totowa: Littlefield, Adams, 1969); Samuel Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), as cited in David Soskice, Robert H. Bates, and David Epstein, "Ambition and Constraint: The Stabilizing Role of Institutions," Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, 8 (1992), 547-60.
15. Shmuel Eisenstadt, "Social Institutions: The Concept," in D. L. Sills, ed., International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (New York: Macmillan, 1968); Thomas Ford Hault, Dictionary of Modern Sociology (Totowa: Littlefield, Adams, 1969); Samuel Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), as cited in David Soskice, Robert H. Bates, and David Epstein, "Ambition and Constraint: The Stabilizing Role of Institutions," Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, 8 (1992), 547-60.
16. Shmuel Eisenstadt, "Social Institutions: The Concept," in D. L. Sills, ed., International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (New York: Macmillan, 1968); Thomas Ford Hault, Dictionary of Modern Sociology (Totowa: Littlefield, Adams, 1969); Samuel Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), as cited in David Soskice, Robert H. Bates, and David Epstein, "Ambition and Constraint: The Stabilizing Role of Institutions," Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, 8 (1992), 547-60.
17. Soskice, Bates, and Epstein.
18. Jean Louis Dongmo, Le dynamisme Bamiléké: La maîtrise de l'espace agraire (Yaoundé: University of Yaoundé, 1981).
19. Descriptions of African indigenous institutions are most often written in the ethnographic present. I deliberately eschew this choice in order to emphasize the distinction between Bamiléké society in this time period and the Bamiléké society constructed following colonization.
20. Jean Hurault, La structure sociale des Bamiléké (Paris: Mouton, 1960), pp. 23-35.
21. Dongmo, pp. 50-53.
22. Paul Njochi Nkwi, Elements for a History of the Western Grassfields (Yaoundé: University of Yaoundé, 1982), p. 57. See also Miriam Goheen, Men Own the Fields, Women Own the Crops (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996); Michael Rowlands, "Power and Order in Precolonial West-Central Africa," in E. Brumfiel and T. Earle, eds., Specialization. Exchange and Complex Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 52-63; Claude Tardits, Contributions à l'étude des populations Bamiléké de l'ouest Cameroun (Paris: Editions Leveraut, 1960).
23. Paul Njochi Nkwi, Elements for a History of the Western Grassfields (Yaoundé: University of Yaoundé, 1982), p. 57. See also Miriam Goheen, Men Own the Fields, Women Own the Crops (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996); Michael Rowlands, "Power and Order in Precolonial West-Central Africa," in E. Brumfiel and T. Earle, eds., Specialization. Exchange and Complex Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 52-63; Claude Tardits, Contributions à l'étude des populations Bamiléké de l'ouest Cameroun (Paris: Editions Leveraut, 1960).
24. Paul Njochi Nkwi, Elements for a History of the Western Grassfields (Yaoundé: University of Yaoundé, 1982), p. 57. See also Miriam Goheen, Men Own the Fields, Women Own the Crops (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996); Michael Rowlands, "Power and Order in Precolonial West-Central Africa," in E. Brumfiel and T. Earle, eds., Specialization. Exchange and Complex Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 52-63; Claude Tardits, Contributions à l'étude des populations Bamiléké de l'ouest Cameroun (Paris: Editions Leveraut, 1960).
25. Paul Njochi Nkwi, Elements for a History of the Western Grassfields (Yaoundé: University of Yaoundé, 1982), p. 57. See also Miriam Goheen, Men Own the Fields, Women Own the Crops (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996); Michael Rowlands, "Power and Order in Precolonial West-Central Africa," in E. Brumfiel and T. Earle, eds., Specialization. Exchange and Complex Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 52-63; Claude Tardits, Contributions à l'étude des populations Bamiléké de l'ouest Cameroun (Paris: Editions Leveraut, 1960).
26. E. M. Chilver and Phyllis Kaberry, "From Tribute to Tax in a Tikar Chiefdom," Africa, 30 (1), 1-19.
27. Fofou, "Les chefferies de la région des Bamboutos de 1919 à 1945," Mémoire pour l'obtention du diplôme d'études supérieures en histoire, University of Yaounde I (1977); Jean Pierre Fogui, L'intégration politique au Cameroun (Paris: Librarie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence, 1990); Tardits; but see Hurault.
28. Fofou, "Les chefferies de la région des Bamboutos de 1919 à 1945," Mémoire pour l'obtention du diplôme d'études supérieures en histoire, University of Yaounde I (1977); Jean Pierre Fogui, L'intégration politique au Cameroun (Paris: Librarie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence, 1990); Tardits; but see Hurault.
29. Cyprian Fisy and Mitzi Goheen, "Power and the Quest for Recognition: Neotraditional Titles among the New Elite in Nso', Cameroon," Africa, 68 (1998), 338.
30. J. C. Barbier, Essai de définition de la chefferie en pays Bamiléké (Yaoundé: ORSTOM, 1977), p. 12.
31. Hurault; Dongmo.
32. Nkwi.
33. Goheen.
34. Rowlands.
35. Chilver and Kaberry.
36. Barbier, p. 29.
37. J. P. Warnier, Développement et hiérarchies dans le Bamenda précolonial (Cameroun) (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1985), p. 222.
38. Michael Crowder, West Africa under Colonial Rule (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1968).
39. Merran McCullough, Margaret Littlewood, and I. Dugast, The Peoples of the Central Cameroons (London: International African Institute, 1954), p. 88.
40. Jane Guyer, "Head Tax, Social Structure and Rural Incomes in Cameroun, 1922-1937," Cahiers d'Études Africaines, 20 (1980), 312.
41. Frederick Cooper, Decolonization and African Society (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 151.
42. Fogui; Victor T. Levine, From Mandate to Independence (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964), p. 103.
43. Interview with male dignitary, Babété, March 16, 1997.
44. Elizabeth Chilver, "Native Administration in West Central Cameroons, 1902-1954," in Kenneth Robinson and Frederick Madden, eds., Essays in Imperial Government (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1963), pp. 100-8.
45. Warnier, p. 244.
46. Kathryn Firmin-Sellers, The Transformation of Property Rights in the Gold Coast (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Anne Phillips, The Enigma of Colonialism: British Policy in West Africa (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989); Inez Sutton, "Law, Chieftaincy and Conflict in Colonial Ghana: The Ada Case," African Affairs, 83 (1984), 52.
47. Kathryn Firmin-Sellers, The Transformation of Property Rights in the Gold Coast (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Anne Phillips, The Enigma of Colonialism: British Policy in West Africa (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989); Inez Sutton, "Law, Chieftaincy and Conflict in Colonial Ghana: The Ada Case," African Affairs, 83 (1984), 52.
48. Kathryn Firmin-Sellers, The Transformation of Property Rights in the Gold Coast (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Anne Phillips, The Enigma of Colonialism: British Policy in West Africa (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989); Inez Sutton, "Law, Chieftaincy and Conflict in Colonial Ghana: The Ada Case," African Affairs, 83 (1984), 52.
49. Guyer, pp. 310-13.
50. Contrôle des chefs, Archives Provinciales du Province de l'Quest, 1 AC 276/0, Bamiléké (Région), Activité des chefferies Bamiléké.
51. Interview with seven dignitaries, Babété, March 16, 1997; interview with male dignitary, Babété, March 27, 1997; interview with male dignitary, Babété, March 31, 1997.
52. Contrôle des chefs, Archives Provinciales du Province de l'Ouest, 1 AC 276/0, Bamiléké (Région), Activité des chefferies Bamiléké.
53. Rapports politiques mensuels, Bamiléké (Région), Archives Provinciales du Province de l'Ouest, 1 AC 274/0.
54. Ibid.
55. Richard Joseph, Radical Nationalism in Cameroon: Social Origins of the UPC Rebellion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977).
56. David Gardinier, Cameroon: United Nations Challenge to French Policy (London: Oxford University Press, 1963), pp. 92-93.
57. Achille Mbembe, La naissance du maquis dans le Sud-Cameroun, 1920-1960 (Paris: Karthala, 1996), pp. 255-61,
58. Margaret Roberts, "Political Prospects for the Cameroun," World Today (July 1960), 308, cited in Gardinier. See also Engelbert Mveng, Histoire du Cameroun, vol. 2 (Yaoundé: Editions CEPER, 1985), pp. 202-3.
59. Margaret Roberts, "Political Prospects for the Cameroun," World Today (July 1960), 308, cited in Gardinier. See also Engelbert Mveng, Histoire du Cameroun, vol. 2 (Yaoundé: Editions CEPER, 1985), pp. 202-3.
60. Interview with male dignitary, Babété, April 1, 1997; interview with male dignitary, Babété, April 2, 1997; interview with government official, Mbouda, April 18, 1997.
61. Interview with male dignitary, Babété, March 14, 1997.
62. Mveng, p. 202.
63. Interview with elderly male, Akum, May 28, 1997; Cameroon National Archives, Buéa, Da (1932) 1, Bamenda Division Quarterly Reports.
64. Interview with elderly male, Akum, May 28, 1997. See also Chilver and Kayberry.
65. Minutes of Prime Minister's meeting with the fons, councilors of Wum, April 21, 1965, Bamenda Provincial Archives, NW/Ha.1952/1, Chiefs Conference, General Correspondence; interview with male dignitary, Akum, June 2, 1997; interview with male dignitary, Akum, June 3, 1997.
66. It is important to note that these initiatives were unique to anglophone West Cameroon. With the federation of West and East Cameroon in 1959, each state retained control over both local administration and the judicial system. Even with the creation of a unitary state in 1972, some aspects of local governance, including local courts, are not yet uniform.
67. Interview with male dignitary, June 2, 1997; interview with male dignitary, Akum, June 3, 1997.
68. Minute from legal adviser of West Cameroon Government to Secretariat General for the Interior, May 13, 1971, Bamenda Provincial Archives, NW/Ia/a.193/1, Traditional Councils, Policy.
69. Informal discussion with Akum resident, Akum, May 29, 1997.
70. Letter from Chia Boma and twenty-six others to the Vice President and Prime Minister, September 22, 1971, Bamenda Provincial Archives, NW/Hb.1971/1, Chieftaincy Disputes, Santa-Akum, 1971; petition from Santa Village Council to the Prime Minister, Buéa, Cameroun National Archives, Buéa, Ib (1963) 1, Chieftaincy Disputes, Bamenda Division; interview with male dignitary, Akum, May 20, 1997; Akum Traditional Council (Quifor) Court Record Books, 1995-1996.
71. Interview with male dignitary, May 20, 22, 1997.
72. Interview with male dignitary, Akum, May 30, 1997.
73. Interview with male dignitary, Akum, May 30, 1997, interview with male dignitary, Santa, May 31, 1997.
74. Adam Przeworksi and Henry Teune, The Logic of Comparative Social Enquiry (London: Wiley, 1970).
75. William Miles, Hausaland Divided (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994).