Human lorries: carriers in the British Southern Cameroon’s economy and re-ordering of road communications, 1916 – c.1955

Abstract

Britain took over one fifth of German Cameroon following the First World War. Like her predecessor, Germany, one of the first challenges she faced was how to improve and speed up the transportation of private and public goods in a territory where modern forms of transport was nil. She did this according to her whims and caprices. Carriers were enlisted to bear the burden. This ‘professional corps’ during the period of British colonial administration had long existed on the continent before the colonial encounter but coming under the employment of a European country now made them different in the society. This article looks at the crucial role of the carriers in the development of modern road communication networks in the territory by exploring the archival records in the Buea National Archives of Cameroon. It also explores how the carriers symbolised the beginnings of a middle class in the eyes of their kith and kin. Colonial reports of the carriers showed their extra-ordinary physical strength and also the difficulties and challenges which they faced and negotiated such as distances, peaks to ascend and descend, flooded streams and their astounding commitments to carry imperial goods from place to place. Clouded in these colonial reports, lay a history of regulations and governmentality of the carriers, a story of the making of modern road communication network and a middle class. This entails an effort to rationalise the system, which involved ensuring the regularity of the supply of carriers and the enforcement of contracts. This essay aims at understanding the logic of these changes and the implications of these regulations in modern day Northwest and Southwest regions of Cameroon.