King of Kamerun 2

       “The people come to understand that wealth is not the fruit of labour but the result of organised, protected robbery. Rich people are no longer respectable people; they are nothing more than flesh eating animals, jackals and vultures which wallow in the people’s blood.”  – Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth

Prince Rudolf Duala Manga Bell was born in 1872 to King Auguste Manga Ndumbe Bell of Duala. His grandfather King Ndumbe Lobe Bell was  one of the signatories to the 1884 Duala Treaty. King Auguste was both a sovereign and a wealthy trader, dealing in timber, ivory, Cocoa and palm oil. As a prince of the Bell Royal Lineage, Rudolf led a life of privilege. He received his early education at a German government school in Duala before proceeding to Germany where he attended the Lycée Aalen in Ulm. King Auguste wanted his son to understand and learn the ways of the German colonialists whom he saw as partners in the development of Cameroon. The young prince’s education was funded by the German authorities, with the understanding that the Bell family and the Duala tribes would continue to support the German colonial administration. In Germany, a carefully chosen middle-class family was picked to foster the young prince and while in their care, he gained a passion for the German culture and later converted to Christianity. Prince Manga later studied law in Bonn, having become fluent in the German language.

 King Rudolf Manga Bell of Duala

 Prince Bell returned home to Cameroon in 1896, to learn the ropes of his father’s trading business and to take his rightful place as future king. However, the first order of business was to find a suitable spouse for himself. Emily Engone Dayas, the beautiful mixed race daughter of a German trader father and a Cameroonian mother won the young prince’s heart and they were soon married.  The Prince was formally employed as a civil servant, even though he was also a tribal high chief.

 On September 2 1908, Prince Manga became king upon the death of his father King Ndumbe Bell.  As the new ruler of Dualaland, King Manga Bell continued to support the German colonialists and was very passionate about the German culture. He travelled regularly to Germany during this time and in many ways considered himself a German citizen.

 About two years into his reign, King Manga Bell’s eyes began to gradually open to the unfairness of many of the Germans’ policies and practices. As someone close to the authorities and who felt he understood the Germans, he tried using diplomacy to persuade them to reconsider some of the policies that were detrimental to the wellbeing of their hosts. However to his shock, his attempts to advocate for the rights of his people were met with hostility by the Germans. Nevertheless, life in the colony continued fairly peacefully until 1910 when Theodore Seitz, the German Governor of Cameroon began to implement a controversial urban regeneration project. Under Seitz’s supervision, native Cameroonians were forced to give up their lands in the strategically situated Wouri region and relocated to segregated areas further inland. Exclusively European reservation areas and railway lines were to be established around the Duala region. Furthermore, the indigenous people were to be strictly restricted to their new districts and separated from the exclusively European government reservation area by a 1 km wide exclusion zone.   

      “The association of wealth with whites and poverty with blacks is not accidental. It is the nature of the imperialist relationship that enriches the metropolis at the expense of the colony i.e. it makes the whites richer and the blacks poorer.”  – Walter Rodney, The Groundings with My Brothers

 Understandably, King Manga Bell immediately rejected this plan on behalf of his people and took his protests to the home government in Germany.  He pointed out that the project was an Apartheid of sorts and directly violated the terms of the 1884 Treaty.

 To King Bell’s surprise, his protests were promptly dismissed by the German Government. However he refused to give up, and began to seek allies to support his cause. With the support of one such ally, German journalist Helmut Von Gellach who wrote several news stories in German papers that embarrassed the home government, the German colonial authorities temporarily suspended the project.

 After the initial general outcry, the German public soon lost interest in the issue and the temporary suspension order was lifted, allowing the relocation project to continue. Pushed to the wall, King Bell declared an all-out campaign of resistance against the Colonialists and began to seek allies to join the fight against them. In spite of the failure of his initial efforts to win support for his resistance movement, he eventually won the support of some of the other regions in Cameroon, as well as a few European and African countries. As the Resistance gained ground, protests and open rebellion were planned. Realising the sheer scale of the resistance, the Germans became desperate to quash it.

 In April 1914, Ibrahim Njoya, the Sultan of Bamum, a neighbouring region to Duala, leaked King Bell’s plans to the German colonial authorities and he was arrested.

 “You are hanging innocent blood. You kill me in vain. Damn the Germans! God, I beseech You; hear my last will, that Germans may never again set foot on this soil.” – King Manga Bell

 On May 10, 1914, the German authorities arrested King Bell and one of his personal aides, Ngoso Din and brought charges of high treason against them. After a rushed and highly pl trial, both were found guilty. King Manga Bell was condemned to death by hanging.

 On the evening of his execution, King Bell appealed to the German authorities for his chains to be temporarily removed to allow him bid his family farewell in a dignified manner. His request was granted and he was able to see his Queen and children one final time before he was taken to the gallows.

According to some historians, his last words were: “You are hanging innocent blood. You are killing me for nothing. The consequences will be much greater.”

More than a century after his death, King Rudolf is still celebrated for his heroic resistance to foreign suppression and marginalisation of his people. He is also regarded as a major figure in the fight for an independent Cameroon. Indeed, if his trial had only come a few weeks later, perhaps he wouldn’t have been executed since WWI ended just a few months afterwards and Germany was forced to give up their territories having lost the war.

“Profit should never come at the cost of human blood. Any government that places profit before people is pure evil.” – Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem