Modern History
History
The Unfinished Reckoning: Colonial Debt and African Self-Reckoning
A reflection on a staged play about the Nso people's heritage held in German custody, this essay argues that restitution of colonized artifacts is not a distraction from 'real' problems but foundational to addressing them. The writer contends that colonial extraction persists in every contemporary crisis facing Cameroon and the continent.
The Execution of Rudolf Douala Manga Bell: A King's Stand Against Expropriation
On August 8, 1914, Rudolf Douala Manga Bell, the Paramount King of the Duala people, was executed by German colonial authorities after leading resistance to the expropriation of Duala lands. Working with the incorruptible patriot Ngoso Din, he mounted a legal and diplomatic campaign that briefly succeeded in suspending colonial funding—only to be condemned on fabricated charges of treason.
Kum'a Mbappe and the First Act of Resistance
In 1884, Kum'a Mbappe, King of Bonabéri, refused to sign a treaty with German colonial powers even as other Duala rulers capitulated. When the Germans hoisted their flag over Bonabéri, he famously rejected their authority in writing, setting off armed conflict that would last through December and establish a lineage of resistance in what would become Cameroon.
Women Inventors You Likely Did Not Know About
A celebratory catalogue of transformative inventions created by women—from the dishwasher to Kevlar to Monopoly—many of whom were denied patents, proper credit, or financial reward for their work. The post honors both the named innovators and the countless unnamed women whose contributions were erased by discriminatory laws and systems.
The Three Marthes: Women in the UPC's Anti-Colonial Struggle
This essay recovers the story of three women—Marthe Nyobe, Marthe Moumie, and Marthe Ouandie—the wives of the UPC's legendary male leaders, situating them as independent political actors rather than supporting figures. It argues that the UPC's commitment to women's participation through organizations like UDEFEC represented an exceptional and deliberate feminist politics within Cameroon's independence movement.
Ernest Ouandie: Fifty Years Since His Execution
On 15 January 1971, Ernest Ouandie, a founding vice-president of the UPC and leader of its armed resistance against the Ahidjo government, was executed by firing squad in Bafoussam. Having refused a presidential pardon, he faced death with deliberate composure, his life spanning the struggle for Cameroonian independence and the violent suppression that followed.
Rudolph Douala Manga Bell: A King's Last Stand
On August 8, 1914, Rudolph Douala Manga Bell, King of the Duala people, was executed by German colonial authorities for his legal resistance to the expropriation of Douala lands. Trained as a lawyer in Germany, he had petitioned the German parliament through his trusted adviser Ngoso Din, nearly succeeding in halting the colonial seizure before being arrested on fabricated charges of treason.
Ruben Um Nyobe: The Cost of Refusing Compromise
On September 13, 1958, Ruben Um Nyobe, founder of Cameroon's UPC independence party, was killed by French forces in a forest near Boumnyebel. The post traces his political trajectory from French-sponsored youth organizer to underground resistance leader, and the deliberate erasure of his memory that followed.
The Execution of Rudolf Douala Manga Bell: A Forgotten Reckoning
On August 8, 1914, the Paramount King of the Duala people and his collaborator were hanged by German colonial authorities for opposing the expropriation of Douala lands. The writer documents their legal resistance, the manufactured charges of treason, and the absence of any national commemoration of these deaths.
African Queens #4: Ndate Yalla Mbodj
A portrait of the last Lingeer (queen) of Waalo in 19th-century Senegal, who inherited power through a matriarchal system where royal women held legitimate authority, and spent her reign resisting French colonial incursion until her defeat and exile.
African Queens #1: Queen Nzinga
The writer profiles Queen Nzinga Mbande (c. 1583–1663), ruler of the Angolan kingdoms of Matamba and Ndongo, tracing her diplomatic missions, military campaigns against Portuguese colonizers, and eventual peace treaty. The piece centres her as a figure of statecraft and resistance whose legacy has been overshadowed in popular African historical discourse.
Ernest Ouandie and the Ghosts of the UPC: A Life in Resistance
The writer chronicles the life and execution of Ernest Ouandie, UPC vice-president and armed resistance leader against Ahmadou Ahidjo's government, from his birth in 1924 through his public execution on 15 January 1971. The account traces the UPC's suppression, the flight and exile of its leaders, and Ouandie's clandestine return to wage guerrilla war—ending with his capture through exhaustion and chance encounter near Loum.
Marthe Moumie: A Life in the Struggle
This post honours Marthe Moumie, a founding editor of Femme Camerounaise and militant for Cameroonian independence alongside her husband Felix. Arrested, exiled, imprisoned, and ultimately killed under disputed circumstances, she embodied the often-invisible sacrifice of women in anti-colonial movements.
The Emperor of Excess: Bokassa, France, and the Machinery of Impunity
This post chronicles the rise and fall of Jean-Bédel Bokassa, the self-proclaimed emperor of the Central African Empire whose fourteen-year reign combined spectacular brutality with dependent relationships to French power. Through the arc of his rule—from coup to coronation to exile to amnesty—the writer traces how authoritarian pathology and great-power complicity reinforce each other.
Ruben Um Nyobe: Sixty Years After
On the anniversary of Ruben Um Nyobe's assassination by French forces in 1958, Poise reflects on the life and legacy of the UPC founder—a charismatic trade unionist whose birth name meant 'speaker of the nation' and whose death by violence marked a turning point in Cameroon's colonial struggle.
African Queens #4: Ndate Yalla Mbodj
A portrait of the last Lingeer (queen) of Waalo in 19th-century Senegal, Ndate Yalla Mbodj led resistance against French colonial incursion from her ascension in 1846 until her exile and death in 1860. The piece situates her within a matriarchal Wolof tradition where women of royal blood held political legitimacy and military command, tracing her lineage to her mother Fatim Yammar and her son's eventual turn toward anti-colonial struggle.
African Queens #3: Pokou Awura of the Asante and the Founding of the Baoule
This essay traces the life and legacy of Queen Pokou Awura, an Asante noblewoman who, refusing integration into the Asante Confederacy, led her people westward into what is now Ivory Coast. According to legend, at the Komoe River she sacrificed her own son to secure safe passage, an act from which the Baoule people—now Ivory Coast's largest ethnic group—take their name and identity.
African Queens #2: Yaa Asantewaa
Yaa Asantewaa, Queen Mother of Ejisu in the Asante Empire, led armed resistance against British colonial demands in 1900, most notably when Governor Hodgson demanded the sacred Golden Stool. Her defiant speech galvanized the Asante people to wage a months-long siege that, though ultimately unsuccessful militarily, demonstrated the empire's refusal to submit to colonial rule.
African Queens #1: Queen Nzinga
This essay introduces Queen Nzinga Mbande, the 17th-century ruler of the Kingdoms of Matamba and Ndongo (present-day Angola), who resisted Portuguese colonial conquest through diplomacy and decades of military struggle. It traces her rise to power, her strategic alliances, and her reputation as a fierce military leader who continued fighting into her sixties.
The Butterfly Effect: One Man's Humiliation and History's Turn
A reflective retelling of a single December morning in 2010 Tunisia, when a street vendor named Basboosa was harassed and assaulted by police, leading him to a petrol station in an act of desperation. The post uses this vivid, granular narrative to illustrate how personal indignity, institutional contempt, and the absence of recourse can crystallize into consequential action.
Five Lessons From Dr. Martin Luther King
This reflective essay draws five practical lessons from Dr. King's life and leadership: the courage to ask "why not," the wisdom to adapt to changing circumstances, the power of indirect resistance over confrontation, the resilience to move forward through setbacks, and the moral clarity to distinguish just from unjust laws. Each lesson is grounded in a specific moment from King's struggle for civil rights.