IN most African farming systems, hired workers provide only a small part of the total labor devoted to agricultural production, even today. By and large, farm labor in Africa is still family labor. However, during and after the colonial period, many Africans also ran agrarian enterprises on a scale and in a nexus of social relations far removed from the traditional picture of the smallholder cultivating land with family labor. In Cameroon, Duala and Bamileke entrepreneurs mobilized and incorporated labor for cash crop production, a process that necessitated changes in existing social and political institutions. This article explores these economic activities in their cultural context. It aims to show how specific social and cultural systems together framed or determined entrepreneurial activities and to explain why specific ethnic groups enjoyed – at least for a certain period – disproportionate success in adapting to the opportunities of colonial life. Geographically, the paper concentrates on the Mungo region in the Cameroon littoral, part of the Cameroon ‘fertile crescent’ (Fig. I). Since the beginning of the twentieth century this thinly populated region has been one of the country's most important agricultural centers and, as a result, has attracted a large number of immigrants. Between the 1880s and 1950s, despite fundamental differences in the social and economic organization of their respective ethnic groups, first Duala and then Bamileke entrepreneurs emerged as leaders in the region's agricultural development.

This paper joins a growing number of studies which aim to refine our understanding of the historical dimensions of African entrepreneurship. In development studies this new interest stems from a concern about the weakness of African private enterprise and its contribution to poor economic performance. Many authors see African entrepreneurs not so much as individuals but as social classes which are analyzed in their socio-economic and political context.