International records / Foreign Relations of the United States

The British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs ( Curzon ) to the American Ambassador ( Harvey )

at to allow free access to those parts to Christian missionaries would be fatal to the requirements of good government, even if not to those of public order. For instance, in the north of the Cameroons, as in the neighbouring British Protectorate of Nigeria, the native States are Moslem States, which, in the case of the Fulani States, owe their origin to a militant religious movement. Their law, their taxation and their social system are based on the Koran. The British policy has been and is to rule the country through the native administrations and to give these as much local autonomy as poss…