HISTORY
The earliest inhabitants of Cameroon
were probably the Bakas (Pygmies). They still inhabit the forests
of the south and east provinces. Bantu speakers originating in
the Cameroonian highlands were among the first groups to move
out before other invaders. During the late 1770s and early 1800s,
the Fulani, a pastoral Islamic people of the western Sahel, conquered
most of what is now northern Cameroon, subjugating or displacing
its largely non-Muslim inhabitants.
Although the Portuguese arrived on
Cameroon's coast in the 1500s, malaria prevented significant European
settlement and conquest of the interior until the late 1870s,
when large supplies of the malaria suppressant, quinine, became
available. The early European presence in Cameroon was primarily
devoted to coastal trade and the acquisition of slaves. The northern
part of Cameroon was an important part of the Muslim slave trade
network. The slave trade was largely suppressed by the mid-l9th
century. Christian missions established a presence in the late
19th century and continue to play a role in Cameroonian life.
Beginning in 1884, all of present-day
Cameroon and parts of several of its neighbors became the German
colony of Kamerun, with a capital first at Buea and later at Yaounde.
After World War I, this colony was partitioned between Britain
and France under a June 28, 1919 League of Nations mandate. France
gained the larger geographical share, transferred outlying regions
to neighboring French colonies, and ruled the rest from Yaounde.
Britain's territory--a strip bordering Nigeria from the sea to
Lake Chad, with an equal population--was ruled from Lagos.
In 1955, the outlawed Union of the
Peoples of Cameroon (UPC), based largely among the Bamileke and
Bassa ethnic groups, began an armed struggle for independence
in French Cameroon. This rebellion continued, with diminishing
intensity, even after independence. Estimates of death from this
conflict vary from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands.
French Cameroon achieved independence
in 1960 as the Republic of Cameroon. The following year the largely
Muslim northern two-thirds of British Cameroon voted to join Nigeria;
the largely Christian southern third voted to join with the Republic
of Cameroon to form the Federal Republic of Cameroon. The formerly
French and British regions each maintained substantial autonomy.
Ahmadou Ahidjo, a French-educated Fulani, was chosen president
of the federation in 1961. Ahidjo, relying on a pervasive internal
security apparatus, outlawed all political parties but his own
in 1966. He successfully suppressed the UPC rebellion, capturing
the last important rebel leader in 1970. In 1972, a new constitution
replaced the federation with a unitary state.
Ahidjo resigned as President in 1982 and was constitutionally succeeded by his Prime Minister, Paul Biya, a career official from the Bulu-Beti ethnic group. Ahidjo later regretted his choice of successors, but his supporters failed to overthrow Biya in a 1984 coup. Biya won single-candidate elections in 1984 and 1988 and flawed multiparty elections in 1992 and 1997. His Cameroon People's Democratic Movement (CPDM) party held a sizeable majority in the legislature following 2002 elections--149 deputies out of a total of 180. Elections for the National Assembly and for local governments were held in July 2007. The ruling CPDM party continues to hold the majority.
