European Contact

The Portuguese were the leading shipbuilders and navigators thanks to the extraordinary mind and skill of Henry the Navigator. His vision of a naval academy in Cape St. Vincent in southern Portugal would allow the exploration and expansion of trade routes to India around the western coast of Africa and later on would search for Prester John the fabled Christian priest king of Ethiopia, Henry believed that together they would be able to outflank and eventually conquer Islam in East Africa.1

Henry the Navigator.

Portugal’s expanding overseas empire would need laborers for their sugar plantations. At first locals were used but resistance and disease would decimate the local populations. As settlements grew along the west coast of Africa they became known for the commodity that was most supplied from that area such as “the Grain Coast, Ivory Coast, Slave Coast and the Gold Coast”. The Portuguese would trade with the Akan people for their gold but they did not have proper means of exchange at first with the Akan. Eventually they discovered that slaves were needed for clearing the forest and agriculture needs for the expanding of their territories.2

Gold and Slave coast.

The search for slaves along the Slave Coast would lead Portuguese sailors such as Fernando Po to the coast of Cameroon in 1472. Here at the Wouri River in Douala they discovered so many shrimps that they decided to call it Rio dos Camaroes which translate to River of Shrimps in Portuguese. This influence was mostly limited to coastal areas as diseases such as malaria halted any expansion inland. 

The Wouri River

The Wouri River

Portuguese influence would diminish and would be replaced by the German Empire that was looking to expand its influence in Africa. By 1880 the country and some of the neighboring countries would become the German colony of Kamerun. Explorer Gustav Nachtigal arrived in 1884 to the coastal port city of Douala which to this day is the largest and wealthiest of the districts of Cameroon.3 With the defeat of Germany in WWI Cameroon the League of Nations would partition the country into British Cameroons and the French half known as French Cameroun. Eventually the southern part of the British area would join with the newly founded republic of Cameroon and the northern areas joining Nigeria.

The lasting negative effects of the slave trade not only across the Atlantic but as well as through the interior of Africa due to European growth and need for a labor force for their colonies devastated families and traditional way of life for Africans all over the continent. One hopeful outcome is the spread of Christianity in Cameroon where nearly fifty percent are Christian and half of those being Catholic due to Portugal’s intervention and the rest being Protestant.   Muslims account for about twenty percent of the population but this is mostly in the northern part of country.

Muslim and Arab Influence

Muslim Mosque.

Islam came to the northern and central halves of Cameroon via conquest, trade and immigration from north and northwest Africa.4 The most prominent group to enter the region was the Fulani peoples which followed the teachings of Usman dan Fodio, an Islamic mystic which encouraged jihad against the non Muslim natives of the land. Although the jihad did result in some significant gains for the Fulani, their reign was not long and Islam did not spread south it did maintain a stable base in the north. 

Reference

 1.  Reader, John. “Africa: A Biography of the Continent. (Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., NY, 1998), 330.

 2.  Reader, John. “Africa: A Biography of the Continent. (Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., NY, 1998), 342.

 3.  Cameroon. History, German Kamerun. Accessed June 16, 2016, http://www.britannica.com/place/Cameroon/German-Kamerun-1884-1916

 4.  Cameroon. People, Religion. Accessed June 16, 2016, http://www.britannica.com/place/Cameroon/Cultural-life