Monneba

Dutch sources from the 1660s say that Monneba ran a trading post on the Cameroons River (the Wouri) at the present location of Douala.

It is quite possible that Monneba/Mulobe was the ruler who set into motion the transformation of the Duala into a trading people and the most influential ethnic group in early Cameroonian history.

Dutch sources from the early 17th century provide some insight into nascent European trade on the Cameroons River (Wouri) at the present site of Douala.

Arnout Leers, probably drawing from writings by Samuel Blommaert in the 1630s, is the first writer to mention Monneba: There is little [to pay] at Rio Cameronis so the following should be noted, otherwise the Negros will make demands as unreasonable as they usually do.

[4] Dutch maps from the 1650s clearly label Monneba's Village (Monna Baes dorp [sic]),[5] located on the site of Belltown in Douala.

O. Dapper writing in 1668 (also drawing from Blommaert) explains that by that date Samson had been driven out by "those of Ambo" (Ambas Bay) and Monneba had become the lead trader in the region: .

The village where the headman has his residence, lies upon a height, which has a very tidy cover of natural vegetation, and it is taken to be the pleasantest spot in the whole bight.

As late as 1739, letters and ships' logs show that Dutch merchants on the Cameroon coast were trading almost solely with the Duala in their settlement on the Wouri, which they still referred to as "Monneba's Village".

[11] Monneba himself was still thought to be the ruler there, as Bardot wrote in 1732 (probably using Dapper as the source): "The lands opposite to the latter places, on the north of Rio Camerones, are inhabited by the Calbonges, .