A Colonial Demarcation Process. Investigating the Formation of the British-German Border between Nigeria and Cameroon

In 1903 a complaint by a British official about “leaking German-Cameroonian borders” (Weiss 2000: 168) reached Garoua, the centre of German colonial administration in German-Adamawa, Cameroon. More complaints from the British Protectorate of Nigeria followed but German officials rejected the accusations although they were aware of the ongoing slavery and cross-border slave trade (ibid.: 167–172). Why did the colonial border...