Introduction

Effective occupation of British Cameroon by British authority required a form of governance with which the Cameroonians would comply willingly, rather than coercively. This imperative led to the indigenization of the colonial state through the adoption of the system of indirect rule. The post-colonial state, too, embraced indirect rule, albeit in a modified form. A corollary of this process of colonial and post-colonial state construction has been a redefinition of power relations at state level. It has also had significant repercussions at the material level. This paper is a study of indirect rule in the North-West Province of Cameroon. The present analysis adopts a multidisciplinary approach focusing on questions of political economy, which complements E.M. Chilver's analysis of indirect rule in the same region between 1902 and 1954 (1963).