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50. The Kingdoms of the Cameroon Grassfields

The Bamum Kingdom during the Reign of King Njoya

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The Bamum kingdom, founded in the seventeenth century, is the biggest of the tiny Grassfields states. The reign of King Njoya, which began in 1887, was a crucial transitional period. Over fifteen years, this little kingdom was upset by the arrival of Islam and reformed Christianity, German, British and French colonisation, their administrations and merchants. King Njoya invented an original writing system but also innovated in architecture, cartography and pharmacopoeia and instituted major reforms. Exiled by the French colonial administration, he died in Yaoundé in 1933 and is still celebrated as a hero throughout Africa.

Alexandra Loumpet Galitzine

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