Robert J. O’Neil’s book, Born Under the Gun, is published by a company that appears to be dedicated to religious literature, which is not always a guarantee of excellence in general for the topics we are interested in in this column.

As a result, we were pleasantly surprised by its author, who is an American Catholic priest, and an ex-missionary in British Cameroon. In the United States, he addresses an audience interested in religious topics, but supposedly unaware of anything about African history. Faced with this reality, O’Neil uses a free ranging informative approach to provide his readers with a wealth of data: 1^st: On the societies and congregations that evangelized before, during and after, the German colonization of Cameroon; 2^nd: On this colonization from 1884 tol914; 3^rd: On the conquest of the country by the Allies from 1914 to 1916, before defeat and the final exodus of German civilians, colonial troops and their most faithful African assistants. All this already represents 70 extremely detailed pages, before we discuss the main course, namely the internment of these tens of thousands of refugees by the (neutral) Spaniards of Rio Muni and Fernando Po or Poo. This justifies the appearance of the book in our presentation here.

Thanks to O’Neil we learn how the German soldiers organized on Fernando Poo their 5000-6000 askaris, their families and the thousands of Cameroonians who followed them, convinced as they were that Germany would recover its colonies.

Veritable German sores in a Spanish colony, these island camps are described as nurseries for unarmed soldiers being prepared for future revenge. And we finally understand why this somewhat obscure episode and of only secondary importance was of interest for a religious publisher: not only did the Germans keep their African soldiers under strict discipline, but a handful of German Catholic missionaries also found old flocks in their camps, (from areas where they had worked in Kamerun). They therefore created in their camps ready converts, some of whom would become catechists, who, upon their return to Cameroon in 1919, would dramatically increase conversions to Catholicism, much more massively than had been done by the earlier white missionaries, from 1884 to 1914.

Reading the text is sometimes difficult, but let us acknowledge that our author, who “mocks” postcolonial “fashionable” Africanism, has made a gigantic effort to find descendants of those African “expatriates” who explain to him the rise of German evangelization in an Iberian colony, all under the eye of the British. A new Christianity was born “under arms” and in a strange land! Not very ordinary, indeed.

Africana Studia no. 30, 2018, Universidade do Porto

Emmanuel Nuh Mbeh mhm, Mill Hill Newsletter,, 8^th February 2019

A Forgotten Page of Colonial History:

FR ROBERT O’NEIL mhm ON KAMERUN AND FERNANDO PO

A famous Cameroonian musician introduced one of his lyrics saying: les choses qui ce passent a Yaounde, a Douala; mais les phantomes sont temoignes.  The things happening in Bamenda and Buea, the ghosts are witnesses. 

It is clear that Fr O’Neil’s passion in these scripts was about the “ghosts” who are witnesses, the  poor souls/soldiers that were seemingly abandoned, sent home with no resources, no pension, no dignity except the million dollar faith of the sacraments and catechetical expertise.

This is another missionary outcry for the poor, for the missions in Cameroon, for (ex) soldiers, for the English speaking, for the Anawim Yahweh – the remnant that returned.

Born under the Gun echoes for me the sentiments of the South African legendary singer Lucky Dube, and the lyrics of Born to Suffer. Born Under the Gun underlines the history of the Cameroons and the suffering brought about by the First World War in the country. It also describes the Christian evangelization in and from the camps on the neighboring Island of Fernando Po, now known as Bioko under Equatorial Guinea whose capital is now Malabo.

Our hearts are moved with pity by those whose interviews figure in the Appendix. Our hearts are warmed by the faith, the passion and missionary impulse of the catechists, the ex-soldiers, the servants of the German soldiers who providentially learnt about the Gospel and when released and sent home, became teachers and transmitters of the faith in English speaking Cameroon.

The beauty of the candid writing of Fr O’Neil is that there is no temptation to lure or insinuate to be anachronistic.  We should never dig up the past to blame or scapegoat or throw stones or condescend to feel better and righteous about ourselves.

This is an insightful and inspirational book.

Fr Emmanuel Nuh Mbeh mhm

David Hammer, March 5, 2020, New York City

The book is extremely well written. The prose is clear, the language simple yet precise, the tone serious and occasionally eloquent. What I especially admire is that the book is free from jargon, either religious or academic….The subject matter is extremely interesting. It not only deals with the history of the Church’s missionary work in Cameroon, but the interaction and often rivalry between Catholic and Protestant missions…It is interesting that sometimes Christian identity prevailed over imperial rivalries….Related to the impact of Christianity, was the impact after their repatriation of indigenous Africans who had lived with Europeans for several years on Fernando Po. To me, the story of these men after they were released from Fernando Po was one of the most interesting in the book. The first appendix (oral testimonies of Cameroonians)  is interesting but a little frustrating. Although the sources mention a lot of names, they provide almost no characterization of the people they name. The second appendix was to me much more significant. The stories, though short, are captivating and again, very well written…. I especially liked the description of Padre Carlos, leaning over the prow of a ship as it cut through the water and seeing “startled flying fish… leaping into short flight before falling back into the sea.” …I think this appendix may have been the most exciting and satisfying part of the book.