CAMEROON

Area: 183,569 square miles

Population: 17,340,702 (2006 estimate)

Capital: Yaoundé

Languages: 24 major African language groups; French and English (both official)

Religions: Traditional (40%), Christian (40%), Islam (20%)

Literacy: 79% (2003 estimate)

Life Expectancy: 45 years

Industry: Agricultural and food processing, textiles, metallurgy, chemicals, petroleum, lumber

Export Crops: Coffee, cocoa, cotton, sugar, tobacco, rubber, palm oil

Food Crops: Rice, corn, millet, sorghum, potatoes

The region known as Cameroon today has been inhabited as long as 50,000 years ago. Between 2000 and 3000 years ago, Bantu-speaking people, who were agriculturalists and iron workers, began migrating from the area known today as eastern Nigeria-western Cameroon into Central Africa, Eastern Africa, and Southern Africa. This migration took place gradually over centuries and accounts for the wide dispersion of Bantu-speaking people over much of sub-Saharan Africa today.

Commerce brought Arab and Islamic influences to northern Cameroon in the 10th century C.E. These influences were broadened and strengthened by the invasion by the Massa people in the 16th century and the subsequent rise of the Kotoko kingdom as well as by the immigration of the Fulani people into the region.

In the 1480s Portuguese explorers sailed into the estuaries of present-day Cameroon (spelled Cameroun in French). While fishing there, they hauled up large quantities of prawns, the Portuguese word for which is camarões. Accordingly, they named the area Rio dos Camarões, or “River of Prawns,” which the British later Anglicized to Cameroons.

For the next three centuries Cameroon was a major source of slaves for the New World. The Portuguese dominated the slave trade at first, but were superseded over time by the Dutch, British, French, and finally the Americans. Following the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in the early 1800s, trade developed in alternative commodities such as ivory and rubber, and the export of palm oil and kernels.

During the European Scramble for Africa in the late 19th century, the Germans beat the British to a claim of the Cameroons by seizing the region as a German colony. In July 1884, Cameroon was formally declared a German protectorate. The Duala people resisted German rule and were later joined by the Bafut, Kpe, Bulu, and others. The Germans’ superior weaponry and divide-and-rule tactics quelled the uprisings, although parts of the interior remained outside of effective German control until 1910. In 1914 the German colonial government executed two of the most prominent resistance leaders, Chief Rudolph Douala Manga Bell and Martin-Paul Samba.

After Germany was defeated in World War I (1914-1918), the League of Nations divided Cameroon between France and Britain, giving the French a mandate over 80% of the territory and the British a mandate over 20% (the area adjacent to Nigeria). Linguistic and economic differences soon developed between the French and British mandates [renegotiated as Trusteeship Territories after World War II (1939-1945)], though both economies depended on agricultural exports such as coffee. Britain invested little in Cameroon, making it a marginal province of their colony in Nigeria. France, on the other hand, considered Cameroun one of its model colonies and invested money and resources in education, health care, and the infrastructure. Economic development in both territories occurred in the fertile south rather than the remote and arid north.

Following World War II, African agitation for independence increased. Nationalists in Cameroun formed the Union des Populations du Cameroun (UPC), which called for complete independence as well as reunification of the two Cameroons. French Cameroun became an independent country in 1960 with the British-administered West Cameroons entering into a federation with the new republic in 1961. In 1972 the two countries merged into the United Republic of Cameroon. Ahmadou Ahidjo, the first president of independent Cameroon, ruled for 22 years. In spite of his authoritarian rule, he devoted much energy to building the economy of his country and worked to bring peace between rival factions in the predominantly Muslim north and the predominantly Christian south. In November 1982, Mr. Ahidjo resigned the presidency and handed over power to his Prime Minister and longtime associate, Paul Biya.

Under President Biya’s rule, the country’s economic and political systems declined. Official corruption, ethnic favoritism, and administrative incompetence were rife. Mr. Biya and his top advisors, selected from the President’s southern Beti ethnic group, grew rich while the economy foundered. In the early 1990s the Cameroonian people demanded a multiparty political system and free democratic elections. Widespread civil disobedience and public demonstrations pressured Mr. Biya to hold presidential elections in October 1992. Despite reports of election fraud, Mr. Biya was declared the winner. Supporters of the opposition protested the outcome by holding nationwide marches, strikes, and civil disobedience. With millions of Cameroonians staying away from the polls, Mr. Biya was re-elected to another seven-year term as president in October 1997. In October 2004, Mr. Biya won a new seven-year term with more than 70% of the vote. Opposition parties once again alleged widespread fraud.

Agriculture is the backbone of the nation's economy, contributing 24% to the GNP, with cocoa and coffee the dominant crops. Agricultural production, particularly of maize and rice, has expanded, making the country self-sufficient in foodstuffs. In 1973 oil reserves were discovered, with the first exports following in 1978. In the late 1990s, exports in oil, timber, and coffee increased and with it Cameroon’s relative economic prosperity. In 1994 and 1996 Cameroon and Nigeria fought over the disputed, oil-rich Bakassi peninsula. An international court awarded sovereignty of the area to Cameroon in 2002, although Nigeria did not withdraw its troops until 2006.

Some 200 ethnic groups speaking 80 languages live in Cameroon. Located in West Central Africa, Cameroon is bordered by Lake Chad on the north, by Chad and the Central African Republic on the east, by Congo, Gabon, and Equatorial Guinea on the south, and by Nigeria on the west. The low, coastal plain in the south with its tropical rain forests is separated from the dry, rolling savanna of the north by a transitional central plateau

SOURCES:

Appiah, Kwame Anthony and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., ed. Microsoft Encarta Africana: Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Black History and Culture. Microsoft Corporation, 1999.

“Cameroon,” BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/country_profiles/1042937.stm, 2007.

“Cameroon,” Lycos Network: http://infoplease.lycos.com/ipa/A0107382.html, 2007.

French, Howard W. “Outcome of Cameroon Vote: Fear of the Future,” New York Times, October 14, 1997.

Ngome, Victor Epie. "Cameroon: Things Fall Apart," Focus on Africa, Vol. 4, No. 1, January-March 1993, 29-32.

Oliver, Roland, and Michael Crowder. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.

Vandercook, John W. "The French Mandate of Cameroun," National Geographic Magazine, Vol. LIX, No. 2, February 1931, 225-260.

Compiled by Mary Holmström and updated in February 2007.

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