Colonialism to Nationalism: The Articulation of Dominance

In 1884, Cameroon became a German protectorate. Aided by the Bamum, the Germans finally brought Nso' under military control in 1906 after a two-month punitive expedition. In 1915, upon defeating German forces in the area, the British took over the colonial administration of western Cameroon. Both Germany and Britain followed a policy of Indirect Rule (see Ben Jua's paper in this volume). The colonial administration in many ways supported the political authority of the Fon Nso' and by being blind to the political roles played by women reinforced male power. This was the case until the very end of their stay when a few statutory women were given a place in customary courts.

Boys, but not girls, were educated in the colonial classrooms to assume roles first in colonial, and later in national political institutions. Wage labour and cash crops were male activities. The introduction of coffee in the 1940s gave men a source of income. Men took responsibility for the purchase of the few goods which required cash. Women remained responsible for provisioning the household with food; they did not begin trading substantially in the market. Women's farming became somewhat analogous to housework in the West: necessary, but largely invisible, as a social good.

After the Second World War, Cameroonian nationalist movements emerged throughout the Grassfields. In Nso' the Fon remained the legitimate ruler. He and not the new elites controlled the popular vote for national and local office. Nobody was more aware of this and of the interdependence it created between them and the Fon than the new Nso' elites. While their national identities were constructed in the colonial classrooms, their individual identities were equally constructed as Lamnso' speakers, as citizens of Nso' - with all this entailed. They did not give up their primary identity with Nso'. In the 1960s, upon independence, the Fon of Nso', aware of the need to keep the new elite loyal to local political institutions, opened up access to titles through outright purchase. Adroit manipulation of the title system enabled new elite men to graft new relations of domination onto the existing hierarchy.

A significant means of accumulation today, then, is a local power base that secures access to the State (Kofele-Kale 1987), to wages and salaries and to national and international development networks. A direct link to the national bureaucracy facilitates returns on investments such as houses rented out to civil servants. Access to national land grants in turn provides surety on loans and the means for speculation. Investment in local networks requires a significant amount of investment in symbolic capital. Hence the ongoing importance of the title system and hegemony of male title holders. With the intensification of the marketplace and the growth of a national bureaucracy and the State, male power has been further entrenched.