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Charles Atangana (c. 1880 – 1 September 1943), also known by his birth name, Ntsama, and his German name, Karl, was the paramount chief of the Ewondo and Bane ethnic groups during much of the colonial period in Cameroon. Although from an unremarkable background, Atangana's loyalty and friendship with colonial priests and administrators secured him successively more prominent posts in the colonial government. He proved himself an intelligent and diplomatic administrator and an eager collaborator, and he was eventually named paramount chief of two Beti-Pahuin subgroups, the Ewondo and Bane peoples.〔Quinn, "Rain Forest", 98.〕 His loyalty and acquiescence to the German Empire was unquestioning, and he even accompanied the Germans on their escape from Africa in World War I. After a brief stay in Europe, Atangana returned to his homeland in Cameroon, which by then was a League of Nations mandate territory under the administration of the French Third Republic. The French doubted his loyalties at first, but Atangana served them with the same ardour he had shown the Germans and regained his post as paramount chief. During the remainder of his life, he oversaw the Westernisation of his subjects and the improvement of his domains despite the erosion of his powers due to French policies and unrest among his people. He never advocated resistance to the European powers, preferring to embrace European civilisation and technology as a means of personal enrichment and in the service of African interests.〔 After his death in 1943, Atangana was largely forgotten. However, since Cameroon's independence in 1960, Cameroonian scholars have rediscovered his story. ==Early life== Ntsama Atangana was born sometime between 1876 and 1885 in Mvolyé, a small village in what is today Yaoundé, Cameroon.〔Sources disagree on Atangana's year and place of birth. Ahanda says c. 1883 in Yaoundé; DeLancey and DeLancey, p. 34, say 1885 in Mvoly ; Ngoh, 349, says c. 1882 and gives no birthplace; Nde says c. 1876 in Ongola (an early Beti name for Yaoundé); Quinn, "Atangana", 485, and Quinn, "Rain Forest", 90, say c. 1880 and give no place of birth.〕 His parents gave him the drum name "He who is known by the nations".〔Quinn, "Atangana", 486.〕 He was the eleventh of twelve children born to Essomba Atangana, a headman of the Mvog Atemenge sublineage of the Ewondo ethnic group. Essomba Atangana was one of thousands of minor Beti leaders living between the Sanaga and Nyong rivers, each charged with providing for his compound and the extended family and slaves who lived there.〔Quinn, "Rain Forest", 90.〕 His father died when Ntsama Atangana was about six years old.〔 Little is known about Atangana's childhood. Like other Beti boys, he would have learned to fish, hunt, and trap, and would have memorised his family's genealogy and folk wisdom. Explorers from the German Empire appeared near his village in 1887 in search of a direct route to the ivory trade in the savannas to the north.〔 They had claimed Beti lands as part of their Kamerun colony in 1884, and by February 1889 they had established a permanent base in the area, which they named Jaunde after the local people. The Ewondo opposed the foreigners at first, although Atangana was probably not yet old enough to participate in the fighting. After the defeat of Omgba Bissogo in 1895 and others like it, Ewondo resistance waned.〔 The Germans randomly appointed chiefs and mayors to serve under them, and took local youths to perform menial tasks;〔Quinn, "Atangana", 487.〕 Atangana was among them, sent by his uncle to be a houseboy.〔Ahanda says this occurred in 1896, but this conflicts with other sources.〕 Ewondo who learned German were highly favoured in the early days of the colonial regime.〔 Station commander Hans Dominik sent four such individuals to attend the mission school of the German Pallottine Fathers in Kribi, a settlement on the coast.〔Quinn, "Atangana", 487, says this happened in 1895; Ngoh, 349, and Ahanda say 1896; Nde says 1897.〕 There, Atangana learned German language, history, and geography; mathematics; and Roman Catholicism.〔 Father Heinrich Vieter especially liked the boy,〔Nde.〕 and Atangana became the first Ewondo baptised a Roman Catholic;〔 he took the Christian name Karl.〔 Atangana's schooling had just ended when members of the Bulu ethnic group, one closely related to the Ewondo, invaded Kribi and sacked the school and church in 1899. Atangana waited out the revolt in Douala with the Fathers until the colonial militia defeated the rebels the following year.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Charles Atangana」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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