French Cameroons

Cameroon, 1919–1960. Draft, not yet reviewed

French Cameroon, also known as the French Cameroons, was a French mandate territory in Central Africa. French Cameroon was created from the eastern part of the former German colony of Cameroon. Its status, from 1919, was that of a mandated territory of the League of Nations, later becoming a trust territory under the United Nations. French Cameroon became independent as the Republic of Cameroon in January 1960, and in October 1961 the southern part of British Cameroons joined it to form the Federal Republic of Cameroon.

Seat of power: Yaoundé

No rulers documented for this era yet.

Culture

• France enacted an assimilationist policy with the aim of having German presence forgotten, by teaching French on all of the territory and imposing French law.
• In 1940 French Cameroon rallied to Free France. Troops under General Philippe Leclerc landed at Douala, capturing it on 27 August.
• An insurrection headed by Ruben Um Nyobé and the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon erupted in 1955, strongly repressed by the French Fourth Republic. The conflict with the UPC lasted until the 1970s.
• In 1946 a Representative Assembly of French Cameroon was constituted.

Picture

Douala is the largest city in Cameroon and its economic capital.

Image: Olivier Charly1, CC BY-SA 4.0, file

Sources

• French Cameroon (Wikipedia)
• French Cameroons (Wikidata)
• About the picture (Wikipedia)

Text adapted from the Wikipedia articles listed as sources, CC BY-SA 4.0.