ABSTRACT
The need for supplies of virgin forest engendered complex struggles over rights to land between local people, immigrant smallholders, and owners of large estates. The state attempted to arbitrate, but was usually weak in remote forested areas, and many land disputes have simmered on until our own day. Large landowners, often absentees, mostly obtained official concessions of ‘waste lands’, while immigrant smallholders sought accommodation with indigenous inhabitants. Some of the original forest dwellers suffered from ‘ethnic cleansing’, others were outnumbered by immigrant strangers, while yet others became the major local cocoa producers.
