British Cameroons

British Cameroons
British Cameroons
1922–1961
	Flag Coat of arms
	Anthem: God Save the King/Queen
Status	Mandate of the United Kingdom
Capital	Buea
Common languages	English (official); Duaka, Oroko, Grassfields, Fula, Kanuri widely spoken
Religion	Christianity (southern area); Islam (northern area)
Historical era	World War I
• Kamerun partitioned	July 20 1922
• Integration into Nigeria and Cameroon	October 1 1961
Currency	British West Africa pound
ISO 3166 code	CM
Preceded by	Succeeded by
	Kamerun
Nigeria
Cameroon
Today part of	Cameroon; Nigeria

British Cameroons was a British Mandate territory in British West Africa. Today, the territory forms parts of Northern Nigeria in West Africa and Cameroon in Central Africa.

History

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.

League of Nations Mandate

During World War I, 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 with Nazi sympathies^{[citation needed]}; they 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.^[1]

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.^[2]

Northern Cameroons became the Sardauna Province of Northern Nigeria^[3] 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

References

^ I.C.B Dear, ed, The Oxford Companion to World War II (1995) p 163
^ Nohlen, D, Krennerich, M & Thibaut, B (1999) Elections in Africa: A data handbook, p177 ISBN 0-19-829645-2
^ Parties and Politics in Northern Nigeria, Routlege, 1968, page 155

External links

Media related to British Cameroons at Wikimedia Commons

[1] I.C.B Dear, ed, The Oxford Companion to World War II (1995) p 163

[2] Nohlen, D, Krennerich, M & Thibaut, B (1999) Elections in Africa: A data handbook, p177 ISBN 0-19-829645-2

[3] Parties and Politics in Northern Nigeria, Routlege, 1968, page 155

[1]

[2]

[3]

v t e Mandates of the League of Nations (1919–1946)
Class A	Palestine Transjordan Syria and Lebanon Mesopotamia not enacted
Class B	Ruanda-Urundi Tanganyika British Cameroons French Cameroons British Togoland French Togoland
Class C	New Guinea Nauru South Seas Mandate South West Africa Western Samoa
See also: United Nations Trust Territories (post-1946)