The colonial critic Mpondo Akwa [c. 1871 - c. 1914] – Germany | Cameroon
Life stories
Gisela Ewe, 2024
Mpondo (also spelt Mpundu or Mpundo) Akwa was born around 1879 and came from an upper-class Douala family from the coast of Cameroon. He spent many years of his life in the German Empire. His father had initially sent him to Paderborn for schooling. Later, he increasingly became a protagonist and mouthpiece for the Douala's criticism of the German colonial system. Whilst trying to build a life for himself in Germany, he made contacts with German journalists and lawyers and addressed petitions to the Reichstag.
This form of protest against German colonial rule in Cameroon not only provoked opposition from German colonial actors, but also led to attempts to denigrate Mpondo Akwa as a person. However, he knew how to defend himself against this. The trials of Akwa and his lawyer Moses Levi in Altona and Hamburg were spectacular, in which they publicly exposed German colonial rule and Akwa confidently stood his ground.
As a result of Akwa's public activities, a number of key sources have been preserved in contemporary newspapers as well as in German and Cameroonian archives. The wordings of the Akwa's petitions were published as a printed matter by the German Reichstag. The discovery of Moses Levi's plea in his estate, published by Leonard Harding in 2000, is outstanding. Ralph Austen and Andreas Eckert have also conducted significant research into the Akwa resistance. However, there are no genuinely autobiographical texts by Akwa himself.
Contact: Gisela.ewe@gmx.de
References:
Aitken, Robbie / Rosenhaft, Eve: Black Germany. The making and unmaking of a diaspora community 1884-1960, 2013.
Austen, Ralph A./ Derrick, Jonathan: Middlemen of the Cameroons Rivers. The Douala and their hinterland 1600-1960, 1999.
Austen, Ralph A.: Cameroonians in Wilhelminian Innenpolitik: Grande Histoire and Petite Histoire, in: Ndumbe, Alexandre Kum’a (Éd.): L’Afrique et l’Allemagne de la colonisation a la cooperation 1884-1986, 1986, p. 204-226.
Eckert, Andreas: Die Duala und die Kolonialmächte. Eine Untersuchung zu Widerstand, Protest und Protonationalismus in Kamerun vor dem Zweiten Weltkrieg, 1991.
Eckert, Andreas: „Der beleidigte N*prinz“. Mpundu Akwa und die Deutschen, in: Etudes Germano-Africaines No. 91, 1991, S. 32-38.
Gomsu, Joseph: Colonisation et organisation sociale: les chefs traditionnels du Sud-Cameroun pendant la période coloniale allemande (1884-1914), 1982.
Harding, Leonhard (Hrsg.): Mpundu Akwa. Der Fall des Prinzen von Kamerun – Das neuentdeckte Plädoyer von Dr. M. Levi, 2000.
Meyomesse, Enoh: La condamnation de Dika Akwa le 6 décembre 1905 à 9 ans de prison par les Allemands, 2022.
Michels, Stefanie: Mpondo Akwa aus Kamerun in der (Hamburger) Öffentlichkeit, in: Zimmerer, Jürgen / Todzi, Kim (Hrsg.): Hamburg: Tor zur kolonialen Welt, 2021, S. 385 – 399.
Ndumbe, Kum‘a: Das deutsche Kaiserreich in Kamerun, 2007.
Nyada, Germain: Mpondo Akwa Nya Bonambela (1875-1914) or how to shape colonial amnesia, 2022. https://djiboul.org/wp-content...
Oguntoye, Katharina: Eine afro-deutsche Geschichte. Zur Lebenssituation von Afrikanern und Afro-Deutschen in Deutschland von 1884 bis 1950, 1997.
Stoecker, Helmuth (Hrsg.): Kamerun unter deutscher Kolonialherrschaft, Studien Band 2, 1968.
Informationswebseite zu Kamerun
Gunkel, Christoph: „Verdammt seien die Deutschen“ (2021), last accessed 26.12.2024
Nichelmann, Pinia: Mpondo Akwa in Paderborn (2023), last accessed 26.12.2024
Staatsarchiv Hamburg, 132-1 I/ 3606 Auskunft an das Reichs-Kolonialamt über die in Hamburg erscheinende Zeitschrift "Elolombe ya Kamerun/Sonne von Kamerun"
Staatsarchiv Hamburg, 111-1/97458 Polizeiliche Ausweisungen
Staatsarchiv Hamburg 331-3_19322 Zeitschrift "Elolombe ya Kamerun“ (Sonne von Kamerun)
Staatsarchiv Hamburg 720-1/2/ 233-17=01/1902.00.00.1 König Deido und Prinz Akwa aus Kamerun
Staatsarchiv Hamburg 741-4/4373 Meldekartei Altona
Bundesarchiv Berlin R 175-I/93 Sherif Haussah und Bipare.- Petition der Akwa-Häuptlinge
Bundesarchiv Berlin R 175-I/37 Angelegenheiten der Häuptlinge, Bd. 1
Stationen
German colonial rule in Cameroon
Attending school in Paderborn
As an interpreter for the German colonial government in Cameroon
Douala delegations in Germany
Petition addressed to the German Reichstag
Trial at the Altona Regional Court
Mpondo Akwa as plaintiff
Elolombe Ya Kamerun – Sun of Cameroon
Judicial murder of Mpondo Akwa?