ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a social situation in which many problems typically associated with urbanization arise, without the existence of any single urban centre of important size. The interplay of demographic and sociological factors is interesting. The chapter discusses with the coastal area of the Southern Cameroons, which was in German hands from 1884 to 1914, although at Victoria there was a famous British missionary settlement from 1858 to 1887. The plantations began in 1885, on the coast, within a year of the establishment of the German protectorate, alienation of land being at first by purchase from the village-heads and elders. Generally speaking the highest proportions of married workers and the highest proportions of dependants in the plantation area occurred among workers from the areas which have had longest and closest contact with the plantation economy. Life in Victoria Division may have more in common with that in a new Copper belt town than has life in an old Yoruba town.
