Establishment of Adamawa Emirate and its Legacies in Northern Cameroon

Abstract

This paper traces the historical construction of identity in northern Cameroon from early state formations to the Fulani jihad of the nineteenth century. The ecological setting of the Lake Chad and Benue basins encouraged cross-cultural exchanges and the rise of polities such as Borno, Kanem, Mandara, and Kwararafa, which established networks of trade, diplomacy, and assimilation. The decisive transformation, however, came with the Fulani-led jihad of Uthman dan Fodio and the establishment of the Adamawa Emirate in 1809. Fulani pastoral mobility, Islamic scholarship, and institutional innovations fostered a multi-ethnic political system. Through Islamisation, the building of emirate structures, and economic practices like the rumde plantations, Fulani leadership consolidated a regional identity that transcended ethnic boundaries. Later, the Mahdist movement of Shaikh Hayatu Balda sought to radicalise and globalise Islam, but its ambitions were curtailed by European colonial expansion. Overall, identity construction in northern Cameroon emerges as a layered process shaped by ecology, state-building, and Islamic revivalism.