Colonial Disruptions and Transformation of the Mbum Indigenous Justice System, 1902-1961

Humanities

The Mbum of the Bamenda Grassfields developed a coherent indigenous justice system rooted in customary norms and administered through diviners, soothsayers, the Fon, Ngwarong, and other regulatory institutions. While broader studies on colonialism in the Grassfields exist, scholarly attention has rarely focused on how foreign legal intrusion specifically reshaped judicial processes among the Mbum. This study examines the impact of German and British colonial legal policies on the structure, procedures, and authority of the Mbum justice system. It argues that colonial intervention, through the imposition of foreign courts, administrative practices, and new regulatory frameworks, fundamentally destabilized indigenous mechanisms, giving rise to a fractured yet enduring hybrid judicial order. Employing a qualitative historical approach, the research draws on semi-structured interviews with traditional authorities and titleholders, complemented by relevant secondary sources. The findings reveal that colonial rule eroded traditional institutions, marginalized customary adjudicators, and transformed pre-colonial legal procedures. The study concludes that this hybridized system not only disrupted Mbum jurisprudence during the colonial era but also generated legacies that continue to shape contemporary perceptions and practices of justice in Mbumland.

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