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Monneba, also spelled Moneba and other ways, (fl. c. 1630) was a local Duala leader on the Cameroon coast in the 1630s. Dutch sources from the 1660s say that Monneba ran a trading post on the Cameroons River (the Wouri) at the present location of Douala. His people dealt primarily in ivory, with some slaves. Modern scholars equate Monneba with a Duala ruler named Mulobe a Ewale or Mulabe a Ewale. Assuming this is true, he is the earliest Duala leader of whom we have corroboration in written sources. It is quite possible that Monneba/Mulobe was the ruler who set into motion the transformation of the Duala into a trading people and the most influential ethnic group in early Cameroonian history.〔Ardener and Ardener 362.〕 ==Monneba in European sources== Dutch sources from the early 17th century provide some insight into nascent European trade on the Cameroons River (Wouri) at the present site of Douala. Arnout Leers, probably drawing from writings by Samuel Blommaert in the 1630s, is the first writer to mention Monneba: Euro-Cameroon trade was in its infancy, and these customs duties indicate that Monneba's trading post was of lesser import than that of a leader called Samson (probably an Ibibio) on the Rio del Rey farther north.〔Austen and Derrick 17–18.〕 Rulers farther south in Gaboon (Gabon) received even more custom.〔Ardener 20–1.〕 Dutch maps from the 1650s clearly label Monneba's Village (''Monna Baes dorp'' ),〔Ardener 24.〕 located on the site of Belltown in Douala. The maps also place Monneba's name on the Dibamba River, which is called Monneba's Creek or Channel (''Monnebasa Gat'').〔Austen and Derrick 17.〕 O. Dapper writing in 1668 (also drawing from Blommaert) explains that by that date Samson had been driven out by "those of Ambo" (Ambas Bay) and Monneba had become the lead trader in the region: Dapper also describes Monneba's people: By this time, Dutch trade on the Guinea coast had been regularised, and ships carried detailed instructions for reaching the various trading posts, including Monneba's Village.〔Ardener 23.〕 Nevertheless, trade remained minimal and infrequent. As late as 1739, letters and ships' logs show that Dutch merchants on the Cameroon coast were trading almost solely with the Duala in their settlement on the Wouri, which they still referred to as "Monneba's Village".〔Austen and Derrick 19.〕 Trade was mostly in ivory, with some slaves.〔Austen and Derrick 23.〕 Monneba himself was still thought to be the ruler there, as Bardot wrote in 1732 (probably using Dapper as the source): "The lands opposite to the latter places, on the north of Rio Camerones, are inhabited by the Calbonges, . . . governed by a chief of their own tribe, called by them Moneba . . . ."〔Quoted in Ardener 15.〕 Not until King Joss in the late 1780s do European sources name another ruler from the Douala area.〔 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「Monneba」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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