FARMER-GRAZER CONFLICTS IN THE SOUTHERN CAMEROON GRASSLANDS, 1916-1960.

In a memorandum prepared by the Civil Secretary’s Office at Enugu, the capital of the then Eastern Region of Nigeria, and forwarded to both the Commissioner of the Cameroons stationed in Buea and to the Resident of Bamenda Province stationed in Bamenda, the worries and fears of British colonial authorities towards a policy they initiated when they first took over their portion of the Cameroons in 1916, after the defeat of the Germans during the First World War, became clear. The main questions as summed up by the Civil Secretary’s Office in Article 17 of the Memorandum on Fulani Settlement in Bamenda Province were as follows:

(a) whether permanent settlement of the Fulani is to be
a recognized aim of policy?
(b) whether, if such policy is approved, such settlement
is to be approached by large-scale measures or by the
careful formulation and observation of small pilot schemes?
In either event which areas should be selected?
(c) whether there should be any substantial modification of
the present cattle tax system?
(d) whether there should be any acceleration of change in land
ownership and tenure, and if so in what direction?

These concerns became all the more preoccupying to British colonial authorities in the 1950s because of the unprecedented number of farmer-grazer disputes between Fulani pastoralists and indigenous Bamenda Grassland villages.

Administering their portion of the Cameroons as part of the Eastern Region of Nigeria, British colonial authorities decided in 1916, to introduce cattle grazing – which had been very successful in Northern Nigeria – into the Southern Cameroon Grasslands, to take advantage of the disease-free good pastures of the region. The British were equally interested in promoting mixed agriculture in the Cameroons. The introduction of cattle would not only provide meat, hides and skins, and manure to the inhabitants of Southern Cameroons, but would also constitute an important source of colonial revenue through cattle taxes, known as Jangali. The British were quite convinced that the vast mountainous grasslands of Bamenda would support large herds of cattle because of the relatively low population density of the area.

Based on such convictions, British colonial authorities encouraged the cattle Fulani of Northern Nigeria and those from French Cameroons to migrate to the Southern Cameroon Grasslands of Bamenda with their cattle. These migrations which began in 1916 were further encouraged between 1930 and 1950 as proceeds from cattle taxes increased. But as the cattle population increased, so too was destruction to crops by Fulani cattle, introducing a conflict between Fulani pastoralists and indigenous agriculturalists, as well as between individual Fulani cattle owners over pasturelands.

The problem of settling the cattle Fulani, the emerging land and farmer-grazer conflicts between the Fulani and indigenous communities in Bamenda, and the search for a Fulani identity in the Southern Cameroons became issues that pre-occupied British colonial authorities throughout their tenure in the region. It is the story of one of these emerging problems – the farmer-grazer and grazer-grazer conflicts that this essay seeks to investigate.

By Emmanuel M. Mbah, (Ph.D).
CUNY, College of Staten Island
Department of History
2800 Victory Boulevard
Building 2N, Room 215
Staten Island, NY 10314
Phone: 718-982-2875
Email: mbah@mail.csi.cuny.edu