Bertoua

Bertoua lies in eastern Cameroon, where the forested hills of Gbaya country give way to savanna and the rim of the Congo basin. Streams drain the plateau, and the rainfall and red soils suit cassava, maize, plantains and forest gardens. Clearings opened along the paths that crossed the country toward the Adamawa highlands and the eastern frontier.

Gbaya communities had organized this land through clan villages, shifting cultivation and hunting for centuries before the nineteenth century. Forest supplied game, honey, timber and medicinal plants, while smiths and weavers kept local markets supplied. From the early nineteenth century, Gbaya clans came under heavy pressure from the Fulbe states of Adamawa, whose slave raids carried many captives away. Some clans accepted Fulbe overlordship, while others moved deeper into the forest to escape the raiders.