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1. Historical Background
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Chapter One Historical Background In the fifth century BC, a Carthaginian sailor called Hanno navigated the West African coast as far as the Gulf of Guinea where he witnessed on the mainland a volcanic eruption from a high hill that would later be known as Cameroons Mountain or Fako Mountain. He was so dazzled by the awesome sight that he named the mountain, The Chariot of the Gods. But the mountain remained unknown to geographers until 1472 when it was “discovered” by the Portuguese navigator Fernao do Poo. For that “discovery” cartographers honoured the navigator by naming the mountain after him. Indeed, for most of the next four or five centuries the mountain would be known by Europeans and shown on their maps as Serra de Fernao do Poo.1 Between the seventeenth and early nineteenth century Europeans sailed to Ambas Bay in the Gulf of Guinea mainly to trade in slaves, in ivory, and in palm oil and kernels. This was well before the British Government, filled with righteousness about combating slavery that rose to a crescendo in the 1860s, ended the transatlantic slave trade along the West African coast. In the mid-nineteenth century, the Ambas Bay area, together with its hinterland, fell to the British thanks to the activities of a British Baptist missionary society. On 31 March 1843, a treaty abolishing the slave trade in return for a £1,200 subsidy was signed between Britain and Bimbia, a coastal chiefdom on the southern edge of Ambas Bay. ‘I, King William and all the chiefs of Bimbia,’ the treaty recited, ‘do solemnly promise to do away with the abominable inhuman and unchristian-like custom of sacrificing human lives on account of death of any of the chiefs, or on account of any of their superstitious practices.’2 The following year, Joseph Merrick, a black Jamaican missionary of the English Baptist Mission set himself up at Bimbia, establishing a school, learning Isubu the local language, and engaging in a lot of preaching.3 In 1853 Colonel Edward Nicolls, who had been the British Governor of the Island of Fernando Po from 1829-1834, obtained a voluntary cession from King William of Bimbia of all the lands from Bimbia to Rio del Rey. 2 Betrayal of Too Trusting a People Five years later, in August 1858, the Reverend Alfred Saker, head of an English Baptist mission community, moved from the Island of Fernando Po to Ambas Bay on the mainland opposite, after a visit to the place earlier in June.4 In the words of the missionaries and their followers, the place was ‘a land where freedom of conscience and civil liberty could be enjoyed.’ Alfred Saker named the place Victoria in honour of Queen Victoria who was the reigning British Monarch at the time. On 23 August 1858, he executed a sale-of-land agreement with King William of Bimbia who claimed jurisdiction over the area as part of his kingdom. The contract of sale is the prototype of many such contracts, also known as treaties of cession,5 concluded between European traders, missionaries or explorers and African rulers in the years immediately before and after the beginning of the European scramble for Africa. I, William, Chief and the known King of Isubu, and sole and lawful owner of a district contiguous to Isubu and known as ‘War Bay’ and ‘Ambas Bay’ and Islands belonging thereto, declare, and by this act do make known, that I this day make over and give unto Alfred Saker […] all my rights and title to the sovereignty and possession of the district therein specified […] a coastline beginning at War Bay […] continuing and embracing Fo’o Bay and thence onward to the highlands of Bobia (Bimbia) [sic] . Second, the interior line of this district shall be from the stream in War Bay onward N.E. […] to join another line N.E. from the highlands beyond Bobia (Bimbia) [sic]. Third, this district with all that appertains thereto […] I do this day make over and give unto Alfred Saker […] and his assigns forever for the consideration herewith annexed. And I do hereby acknowledge to have received this day a note of hand and demand for payment of the consideration […]6 The piece of land thus sold to Alfred Saker was about 16 kilometres long and 8 kilometres wide along Ambas Bay and it fetched King William goods worth about £2,000. Oddly enough, Alfred Saker bought from the same King William land in the same...