British Cameroon

British Cameroon or British Cameroons was a British Mandate territory in British West Africa, formed of Northern Cameroons and Southern Cameroons. Today, Northern Cameroons forms parts of the Borno, Adamawa, and Taraba states of Nigeria,[1] and the self-declared independent state of Southern Cameroons was renamed Ambazonia, the latter considered internationally to be part of Cameroon.[2]

"Cameroons" redirects here. For other uses, see Cameroon (disambiguation).
British Cameroon

1916–1961
StatusMandate of the United Kingdom
CapitalBuea
Common languagesEnglish (official)
Duaka, Oroko, Grassfields, Fula, Kanuri widely spoken
Religion
Christianity (southern area)
Islam (northern area)
Historical eraWorld War I
• Kamerun partitioned
July 20 1916
• Integration into Nigeria and Cameroon
October 1 1961
CurrencyBritish West Africa pound
ISO 3166 codeCM
Preceded by		Succeeded by
Kamerun
Nigeria
Cameroon
Today part of Cameroon
 Nigeria

History
Cameroon from 1901–1972
  German Kamerun
  British Cameroons
  French Cameroun
  Republic of Cameroon

The area of present-day Cameroon was claimed by Germany as a protectorate during the "Scramble for Africa" at the end of the 19th century. The German Empire named the territory Kamerun.

League of Nations Mandate

During the First World War, it was occupied by British, French and Belgian troops, and a later League of Nations Mandate to Great Britain and France by the League of Nations in 1922. The French mandate was known as Cameroun and the British territory was administered as two areas, Northern Cameroons and Southern Cameroons. Northern Cameroons consisted of two non-contiguous sections, divided by a point where the Nigerian and Cameroun borders met. In the 1930s, most of the white population consisted of Germans, which were interned in British camps starting in June 1940. The native population of 400,000 showed little interest in volunteering for the British forces; only 3,500 men did so.[3]

Trust territory

When the League of Nations ceased to exist in 1946, most of the mandate territories were reclassified as UN trust territories, henceforth administered through the UN Trusteeship Council. The object of trusteeship was to prepare the lands for eventual independence. The United Nations approved the Trusteeship Agreements for British Cameroons to be governed by Britain on 6 December 1946.

Independence

French Cameroun became independent, as Cameroun or Cameroon, in January 1960, and Nigeria was scheduled for independence later that same year, which raised question of what to do with the British territory. After some discussion (which had been going on since 1959), a plebiscite was agreed to and held on 11 February 1961. The Muslim-majority Northern area opted for union with Nigeria, and the Southern area voted to join Cameroon.[4]

Northern Cameroons became the Sardauna Province of Northern Nigeria[5] on 31 May 1961, while Southern Cameroons became West Cameroon, a constituent state of the Federal Republic of Cameroon, later that year on 1 October 1961.

Governors
Main article: List of colonial governors of Cameroon § British Cameroons
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See also
  • Postage stamps and postal history of British Cameroons

References
  1. El-Sudi, Ibrahim Tukur (2019-04-20). "The Nigerian States that Formed Parts of Northern Cameroons". PRNigeria News. Retrieved 2020-04-25.
  2. Njung, George N. (2019-12-01). "The British Cameroons Mandate Regime: The Roots of the Twenty-First-Century Political Crisis in Cameroon". The American Historical Review. 124 (5): 1715–1722. doi:10.1093/ahr/rhz1025. ISSN 0002-8762.
  3. I.C.B Dear, ed, The Oxford Companion to World War II (1995) p 163
  4. Nohlen, D, Krennerich, M & Thibaut, B (1999) Elections in Africa: A data handbook, p177 ISBN 0-19-829645-2
  5. Parties and Politics in Northern Nigeria, Routledge, 1968, page 155

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