The area of present-day Cameroon was claimed by
Germany as a
protectorate during the "
Scramble for Africa" at the end of the 19th century. The
German Empire named the territory
Kamerun. During World War I, French and British troops invaded the German colony Kamerun (Present day Cameroon) and decided to divide the German colony into two regions. One of the regions would be French administered (
French Cameroon) and the other would be British administered (British Cameroons).
Trust territory When the
League of Nations ceased to exist in 1946, most of the mandate territories were reclassified as
United Nations trust territories, henceforth administered through the
United Nations Trusteeship Council. The object of trusteeship was to prepare the lands for eventual independence. The United Nations approved the Trusteeship Agreements for British Cameroons to be governed by Britain on 6 December 1946.
Colonial legacy Under colonial rule, Cameroons was ruled on the basis of indirect rule which allowed natives to execute judicial and executive decisions. The British in Cameroons used indirect rule because it meant that Cameroonians would comply willingly rather than having to coercively force compliance. This was important because it gave citizens of British Cameroons autonomy and helped to establish “a greater vitality of local political institutions in West Cameroon”. In British Cameroons, European immigrants were subject to the laws of their home country while natives of Cameroons were held to customary law which was typically overseen by British administrators. Secondary education was largely the work of missionaries such as St. Joseph College which opened in Sasse, Buea, in 1939. French Cameroun became independent, as Cameroun or Cameroon, on 1 January 1960, and Nigeria was scheduled for independence later that same year, which raised the question of what to do with the British territory. As colonizers of Nigeria, the British desired for the two to be united. After some discussion (which had been going on since 1959), a
UN-administered plebiscite was agreed to and held on 11 February 1961. The Muslim-majority Northern Area opted for union with Nigeria, and the Southern Area voted to join Cameroon. No option was given for British Cameroonian independence. The driving force for the unification of east and south Cameroon was Ahmadou Ahidjo and the Kamerun National Democratic Party (KNDP) as the French were not concerned because southern Cameroon did not align with the French community established. Northern Cameroons became the
Sardauna Province of
Northern Nigeria on 1 June 1961, while Southern Cameroons became
West Cameroon, a constituent state of the
Federal Republic of Cameroon, later that year on 1 October 1961. The separatist
Ambazonia movement seeks to create an independent state out of the Cameroonian portion of British Cameroons, arguing that its Anglophone population is persecuted by the Francophone population of the rest of Cameroon. ==Governors==