Cameroon's Tycoon

by Esser, Max; Roschenthaler, Ute; Chilver, E. M.

• ISBN13: 9781571819888
• ISBN10: 1571819886
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-01-01
• Publisher: Berghahn Books

Summary

Max Esser was an adventurous young merchant banker, a Rhinelander, who became the first managing director of the largest German plantation company in Cameroon. This volume gives a vivid account of the antecedents and early stages as experienced and described by Esser. In 1896 he ventured, with the explorer Zintgraff, into the hinterland to seek the agreement of Zintgraff's old ally, the ruler of Bali, for the provision of laborers for his projected enterprise. The consequences, many optimistically unforeseen, are illustrated with the help of contemporary materials. Esser's account is preceded by a look at his and his family's connections, added to by an account of newspaper campaigns against him, and completed by an examination of his Cameroon collection, which he gave to the Linden Museum in Stuttgart.

Table of Contents

List of Maps and Illustrations	ix
Abbreviations	xii
Preface by the Editors	xiii
Editorial Note	xvi
Acknowledgements	xviii
Part I The Setting, Public and Private
Max Esser: His Life and Labours by Ute Roschenthaler	3	(28)
Key to Family Photographs	28	(3)
Part II Esser'S Travels
The Outward Voyage	31	(4)
Sao Thome and Principe	35	(8)
Cameroon - the Historical Background	43	(6)
Land and People in Cameroon	49	(8)
In Cameroon	57	(8)
The Expedition to Bali	65	(48)
Departure from Cameroon	113	(4)
Angola, and the Cunene Expedition	117	(8)
A Retrospective View	125	(8)
Part III Colonial Needs and Their Consequences: The Viewpoints Of Some Contemporary Observeers
The `Bali Road' and Baliburg in the Autumn of 1892: a Report on a Visit: Max von Stetten	133	(8)
A Complication: the Entry of the Gesellschaft Nordwest Kamerun, 1901-1903: Esser's Correspondence	141	(6)
A Parliamentary Visitation: Johannes Semler's Togo und Kamerun: Eindrucke und Momentaryfuahmen vou einem dentschen Abgeordneten, Leipzig, 1905	147	(6)
A Soldier's View of the Tasks of the Bamenda Military Station 1908: Hptm. Menzel	153	(6)
Labour Supply: a Shift of Modalities, 1913: Hptm. Adametz	159	(6)
Appendix I The `Esser Affair'	165	(6)
Appendix II The `Fetishes' and the Esser Collection at the Linden Museum, by Ute Roschenthaler	171	(14)
Maps	185	(4)
Select Bibliography	189	(12)
Index	201