Multiple Loyalties: The “Woermann Complex,” Global Trade, and Colonialism in Cameroon in the Age of Empire

Hardly any other name is as closely associated with the German Annexation of Cameroon as Adolph Woermann and the Hamburg based company C. Woermann, which had been trading in West Africa since the mid-19th century, establishing stations in Cameroon from 1868. C. Woermann became the nucleus of a network that included an extensive trading business, plantation companies, large-scale investments and an important shipping business.

In July 1883, the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce called on the German government to acquire colonies in West Africa, based on a memorandum by Adolph Woermann. A year later, representatives of his company and his competitors Jantzen & Thormählen negotiated secession treaties with local African authorities, and this formed the basis of the colonial annexation of Cameroon.

German companies in Cameroon were confronted with partly conflicting loyalties. Although the annexation took place at their request and through their initiative, the interests of the colonial state and of economic actors were not congruent. German merchants had to deal with claims of loyalty from the colonial state, corporate loyalty and local African concepts of loyalty. The so-called "trust system" and the possible or prevented access to trading zones were repeatedly stumbling blocks for loyalty discussions between European traders, their African business partners and the colonial administration.

Based on material from the German colonial archives, company papers, publications, and memoirs by (former) Woermann employees, the paper investigates the question of who (or what) German merchants were loyal to and how they used and exploited loyalty. It examines the extent to which German merchants were loyal to the colonial state, shareholders, African business partners and employees, how developments within the colony affected these loyalties; and how (il)loyalties shaped the broad features of colonial policy and administration in Cameroon.