Adda Nkollo: Women's resistance in "German Cameroon" – Cameroon | Germany
Themed tours
Richard Tsogang Fossi, 2024
The stories of women who resisted colonial despotism and subjugation during German colonial rule in Cameroon from 1884 to 1916 are barely documented and are therefore often unknown. This unfamiliarity often leads to the idea that anti-colonial resistance was and is purely male.
In fact, however, there are occasional references to women in oral traditions: They helped their husbands escape forced labour by singing songs or giving speeches to warn them. Women also played leading roles in the resistance, as the case of Adda Nkollo shows. Adda Nkollo was a woman from Mvog-Ada who resisted the German colonial administration so successfully in 1907 that she was eventually banished.
Her story can help to question the widespread invisibility of female resistance fighters under colonialism and further document the history of resistance.
Contact:
Richard TSOGANG FOSSI, Technical University Berlin. Strasse des 17. Juni 150-152, Sekr. A 56 Bénédicte Savoy,/ Roam A-F 83. tsogangfossi(at)yahoo.fr / tsogang.fossi(at)tu-berlin.de, tel. +49 30 314-24307
Special Thanks:
I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the entire team of the research project Reverse History of Collections. Mapping Cameroon in German Museums, and neighbouring projects, all of which have been instrumental in shaping my postcolonial and decolonial views on colonial history, memory, and provenance research of the collections of cultural assets from colonial contexts.
This goes particularly to Bénédicte Savoy, Albert Gouaffo, Yann LeGall, Eyke Vonderau, Judith Rottenburg, Iñigo Salto Santamaría, Mikaél Assilkinga, Yrine Matchinda, Loice Tsogang, Dieu Ly Hoang, Aylin Birdem and Pia Meierkord for their diverse supports.
Special thanks also go to the Dekoloniale team, which seeks by all means to unearth silenced stories of marginalised people and to confront colonial legacies which still underpin many aspects of our lives today. I especially think of Christian Kopp and Mirja Memmen.
Further thanks go to Thomas Fues, Thomas Klinkert, Weertje Wilms, Andreas Mehler, Anika Becher, Margret Frenz for their contributions in making dialogs with the communities of origin possible. I am equally grateful to Serge Noukeu, Hanse Gilbert Mbeng Dang, Ebenezer Billé, Alain Belmond Sonyem, Hervé Ntone who supported this project with some iconographic materials.
References:
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Buchner, Max: Aurora colonialis. Bruchstücke eines Tagebuchs aus dem ersten Beginn unserer Kolonialpolitik, 1914.
Deutsches Kolonialblatt 12, 1901, S. 275; 14, 1903, S. 236-238; 18, 1907, S. 635ff.
Dominik, Hans: Kamerun. Sechs Kriegs- und Friedensjahre in deutschen Tropen, 1901.
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Pondi, Jean Emmanuel: (Re)découvrir Yaoundé ! Une fresque historique et diplomatique de la capitale camerounaise, 2012.
Riebe, Otto: Drei Jahre unter deutscher Flagge im Hinterland von Kamerun. Geschildert nach den Tagebuchblättern des Karl Hörhold, 1897.
Stoler, Ann Laura: Colonial Archives and the Arts of Governance, in: Archival Science 2 (2002), pp. 89-109.
Zenker, Georg: „Yaounde“, in: Mittheilungen von Forschungsreisenden und Gelehrten aus den deutschen Schutzgebieten, 1895, 36-69.
Stationen
“Cameroons” becomes “German”
Political situation and colonial realities
The role of women in pre-colonial society
Assassination attempt on Charles Atangana: Adda's brother is executed
The resistance of Adda Nkollo
Exile of Adda Nkollo
Approval of exile by the imperial government
Adda Nkollo – a forgotten heroine?