"Kamerun/Cameroon: Letters and Reports in 1914, part I"

136 documents originating with the Mission's Local Executive Committee or its members. (E-2.42 contains letters and reports from the individual stations, E-2.43 the Quarterly and Annual Reports for 1914); Till the outbreak of the First World War the main topic in this correspondence (aside from the continuing correspondence about difficulties in relationships with the Catholic mission, and reports on the beginning of work in Cameroon by the Gossner Mission) is the rising tension between the Colonial authorities and the Duala people. The missionaries attempt to mediate. The crisis comes with the arrest of Manga Bell and Pastor Modi Pin (see No. 121). See especially Vöhringer's letter (No. 61) and Hecklinger's letter (No. 73) - Hecklinger had the Position of the "Eingeborenenpfleger" i.e. the official task to represent the interests of indigenous people in conversations with the Government. See also No. 82, where Lutz (p. 23) mentions messages from the Grassfields about Rudolf Bell's plans against the Colonial Government; No. 48: a sketch-map showing land the Basel Mission plans to buy around the doctor's house in Duala; No. 72: Lutz on the idea of founding a seminary in the Basa area (See also No. 106); No. 77: Oettli in Basel to Governor Ebermaier on areas of Catholic and Protestant influence; No. 87: Minutes of a discussion in the German parliament on the planned resettlements in Duala; No. 103: Lutz (p.3) pleads strongly for a stop to the import of liquor for the whole of West Africa. See also E-2.40,260; The following letters and reports are dated after the outbreak of war; No. 123: an announcement by the German troops that they are taking over the schoolrooms and the church in Deidodorf as a military hospital; No. 127: in a telegramme Governor Ebermaier exempts the missionaries from military Service in Cameroon; No. 128: the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the USA assures the Basel Mission of their readiness to forward letters and money to Basel missionaries in Cameroon, which is now occupied by British troops; Nos. 129-131: petitions to the Commander of the British troops for the protection of all missionaries and of mission property; No. 132: confidential report from Oettli in Basel to friends and relatives of the Basel missionaries in Cameroon on the events in Cameroon and the fate of the missionaries; At the end of this volume (No. 136) is a bound a report on a journey through Cameroon in the early part of 1913 by G. Josenhans, a Basel missionary from the Gold Coast

1914

1914

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