Kpwe people

The Kpe ( Bakwiri ) are an ethnic group in south-west Cameroon. They belong to Kpe - Mboko group of the coastal Bantu. The number of speakers today the Kpe language is estimated at 32,200 ( Ethnologue 2005).

History

The traditional territories of the Kpe lie on the southeastern Cameroon mountain between the mongoose and Cape Dibundja. The early 1890s to their number amounted to 30,000, which were distributed to about 60 villages. Their social order was segmental. Since 1883 they stood in relation to the Swedish merchants Vilhelm Knut Knutson and George Wilhelm Valdau who established a flourishing trade in the region. 1885 concluded the journalist and explorer Hugo Zöller with several Kpe villages " protection contracts" and thus began the German occupation of the territory. 1891 and 1894 undertook the German colonial power, two military expeditions against the Kpe - Chief Kuva Likenye and brought the Kpe companies definitely under its suzerainty. At the site of the central location Gbea, which was destroyed by German troops in 1894, was a military post and the later the seat of government of the German colony, Buea.