Kamerun becomes Cameroon
During the First World War 1914 to 1918 Germany was defeated in Cameroon in 1915 by a combined force of British, French and Belgian troops. The British and French thereafter established a joint administration of the territory (condominium) for a few months, and then partitioned it. The British took a smaller Western band with the Mountain range forming a natural frontier between her sector and the larger eastern French sector. The British sector was disjointed by the Benue Valley thus providing Nothern British Cameroon and Southern Cameroons.
Cameroonians were henceforth subjected to two other types of colonial experiences with problems of adaptation to new languages: French and English respectively; new attitudes and cultures. This was a new start all over again.
While British ruled their sector of Cameroon as part of Nigeria to which they attached it for administrative convenience, the French ruled the French Cameroun as an entity after carving out of it that part which she had earlier ceded, under pressure, to Germany in 1911 in exchange for German hands-off in Morocco where France wished to have a free hand. At the end of the war, the newly formed League of Nations confirmed the partition of Cameroon and awarded the sectors as Mandates to the British and French respectively in 1922.
During the Second World War, 1938-1945, Germany tried to recover her colonies of which Cameroon was one. But her defeat in the War and the creation of a new world organization, the United Nations, he League of Nation’s mandate was transformed to the United Nations Trusteeship by which the trusteeship powers were obliged to develop the territories for eventual self-determination.
French Cameroun was first ruled without participation of the people, directly by French administrators. This was the principle of direct rule whereby the French regarded their civilization as superior to any African civilization, let alone that of Cameroon. This assumption produced the policies of paternalism and assimilation which characterized the whole French colonial system. By these policies, Cameroonians and colonized peoples in general had to be treated somewhat as immature, tender, and ignorant and therefore progressively to be turned into Frenchmen. This was ‘Direct Rule’ which however, did not ever hope to be able to transform all French colonized peoples into the ‘evolues’ and therefore on the threshold of full French citizenship. Education through which French culture, in all its aspects, had to be imbibed was to play a paramount role in this process. But at what pace and at what cost.
At fist, the French Cameroonians were represented in the French parliament by Frenchmen of whom the most notable was Dr. Aujoulat Louis-Paul. But political consciousness developed gradually through tribel and youth organizations, basically cultural in approach at first but gradually became poilitically inclined with changing times. With time, policies of assimilation were modified and Cameroonians went to the French national assembly. Later on a Cameroonian Assembly was finally set up.
On its part British Cameroons as ruled as a part of Nigeria. Southern British Cameroons was attached to the eastern region and Northen Britsih Cameroons was attached to the Northern region of Nigeria. Indirect rule was the basis of administration using African traditional rulers. This supported, reinforced and encouraged chiefdoms with only sparing and discrete supervision by a few British administrative officers. The traditional was thus less disrupted. With the coming of representative governments, British Cameroons sent parliamentarians to lagos, Enugu and kaduna.