Emmanuel Mbah - Environment and Identity Politics in Colonial Africa: Fulani Migrations and Land Conflict

Emmanuel M. Mbah is Associate Professor of History and Director of Africa and African Diaspora Studies at the City University of New York, College of Staten Island, USA.

Series Editors: Toyin Falola and Roy Doron

1Dissent, Protest and Dispute in Africa

Edited by Emmanuel M. Mbah and Toyin Falola

2Environment and Identity Politics in Colonial Africa

Emmanuel M. Mbah

Emmanuel M. Mbah

First published 2017

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2017 Emmanuel M. Mbah

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ISBN: 978-1-138-23955-5 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-29417-9 (ebk)

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I am grateful to the following for making this book possible: The Research Foundation of the City University of New York for a generous award that funded the initial stages of the research; The Vice President for Academic Affairs/Provost and the President of the College of Staten Island for a spring 2016 fellowship leave that enabled the completion of the book; and to Augustine Ayuk, Calvin Holder, Toyin Falola and David Traboulay for carefully reading and suggesting minor revisions to the proofs before publication.

I also thank Emmerencia Anang Foncha, Denis Foncha, Guillian Aseck Leke and all my numerous contacts in Cameroon for their assistance during the field research process.

For my children Therese and Ryan Mbah, I thank you for being patient with me throughout the writing process. I accept complete responsibility for all errors in the book.

Emmanuel M. Mbah
City University of New York
College of Staten Island
September 27, 2016

This study examines emerging conflicts over land and identity created by a British colonial decision to allow Fulani pastoralists to settle with their cattle the Southern Cameroon grasslands of Bamenda when that region became part of a British mandate after the First World War. These conflicts hinged on a colonial economic policy geared toward making cattle the mainstay of the Bamenda region and led to undue tension between farmers and Fulani pastoralists especially when indigenous communities wrongly perceived the policy as pro-Fulani, implying favoritism for Fulani cattle owners over them. It started when British authorities decided to encourage the pastoral Fulani of their neighboring colony of Nigeria and some from French Cameroon to migrate with their cattle and settle parts of the grasslands of Bamenda. Cattle, British authorities calculated, would make better use of the temperate climate as well as the disease-free good pastures of the region and would provide revenue to the colonial administration in the form of cattle taxes. Within a few years of the arrival of the Fulani, environmental issues such as overgrazing, soil erosion from cattle trampling, the setting of bushfires for pasture renewal, deforestation resulting from the need of logs to construct cattle enclosures and other economic issues such as cattle destruction to crops belonging to indigenous farmers and ownership of the grazing ranges became veritable challenges to the British throughout their tenure in the region; these challenges have still not been resolved to this day.1

Economic, political and/or ethnic favoritism are common themes in the historiography of colonial Africa. They entail colonial preference and support for particular ethnic groups over others for economic, military, administrative and even racist reasons and the results were often devastating. During German colonial rule in Cameroon (18841916), for example, their support for Bali Nyonga over surrounding village-groups led to arbitrary demarcation of boundaries that have had serious repercussions on the region to this day.2 The French, during their tenure in the Ivory Coast, pursued an ethnic policy where favored groups were assigned particular territorial spaces for various reasons.3 Belgian support and preference for the Tutsi over the Hutu in Rwanda and Burundi and the consequences of that dispensation are common knowledge to historians of Africa. In a majority of cases where European colonizers favored groups in Africa, the notion of divide-and-rule was a significant factor in such decisions. That was, however, not the case with British preference for the pastoral Fulani in Southern Cameroon where the logic was simply economic. Preference for the Bororo (that is, pastoral) Fulani in anticipation of increased revenue from their cattle through taxation was what motivated the British to encourage these pastoralists to relocate, with their cattle, to the Bamenda ranges. Environmental problems and, of course, conflict between the Fulani and indigenous grassland communities of Southern Cameroon commenced not long after their arrival, although these became major concerns for British colonial authorities only during the interwar years, specifically from 1929 to 1939 and thereafter.