This piece is adapted from Fr. Jean Luc's reflection in Engelbert Mveng and Cameroon’s Historiography.

It revisits the enduring significance of one of Cameroon’s most formidable intellectual architects, providing both foundation and provocation. As we honor Mveng’s legacy, we engage not merely with the past but with the living questions his work continues to pose for African scholarship. To read Fr. Jean-Luc's original article click [HERE]

In April 1995, as scholars gathered in Aix-en-Provence (southern France) to discuss the future of historical research in Central Africa, one name was conspicuously absent from the roster: Engelbert Mveng. The irony was bitter, the symposium, co-organized by Cameroonian universities he had helped shape, proceeded without acknowledging the man who had trained many of its participants. Worse still, just days before the event, Mveng had been brutally murdered in Yaoundé. Yet no eulogy was spoken, no moment of silence observed. The omission felt deliberate. An erasure that spoke volumes about the politics of memory in postcolonial academia.

From Seminary to Scholarship: The Making of a Historian

Born in 1930 in Enam-Ngal, Mveng’s intellectual journey began in the Catholic mission schools of colonial Cameroon. His early formation in the Jesuit tradition took him to Belgium and France, where he honed his philosophical and historical training. But unlike many African intellectuals of his generation, Mveng did not remain content with European frameworks. Upon returning home, he embarked on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, documenting the oral histories and artistic traditions of the Grassfields, Bamileke, and Bamun peoples.

His 1963 essay Cameroonian Art marked a turning point. While ostensibly about aesthetics, the piece quietly dismantled Eurocentric timelines by suggesting that Cameroonian interactions with the Mediterranean world predated Portuguese explorers by nearly two millennia. This argument, drawn from classical sources like Hanno the Carthaginian and Herodotus, became the foundation for his later thesis: that Africa’s past had been systematically excluded from global history not due to absence of evidence, but through scholarly neglect.

Writing the Nation into Being

Mveng’s History of Cameroon (1963) was more than a textbook, it was an act of intellectual sovereignty. Written while teaching high school in Douala, the book wove together German colonial archives, Fulani chronicles, and Bantu oral traditions into a cohesive narrative. Its classroom origins were telling: Mveng understood that national identity is forged through pedagogy. Alongside collaborator Beling-Nkoumba, he produced Cameroon’s first standardized history manual, ensuring generations of students would encounter their past through an African lens.

The work was not without critics. Elridge Mohamadou, then an emerging historian, accused Mveng of overemphasizing southern Christianized and Cameroon’s Bantu societies at the expense of northern groups. Yet a closer reading reveals surprising balance: 45 discussed northern societies, 8 covered the Bamun, 13 were on the Bantu, 20 on coastal peoples, and 11 on the Bamileke. Mveng never publicly rebutted the critique, but the second edition (1984)subtly incorporated Mohamadou’s own research, demonstrating a scholar more committed to dialogue than polemics.

The Unfinished Project

Mveng’s later works took an increasingly philosophical turn, exploring what he called "anthropological historiography" the idea that African history must center African conceptions of humanity. This vision extended beyond academia: as coordinator of the 1966 Dakar the First Festival of Black Arts, he helped redefine how Africa represented itself culturally. His final written words, in the 1984 preface to History of Cameroon, read less like a conclusion than a provocation:

“If there’s one land where the tribes of this tribal Africa are destined to live without borders, without discrimination and without hatred, it’s our land. This is why violence is ‘unnatural’ here more than anywhere else. And no doubt, if the peoples of the world flock to the cradle of this newborn Cameroon, it’s because they’ve come to look to us for the example of a multiple, united world. This preface to the history of Cameroon could only end with words of peace, since this is the motto of our country: ‘Peace, Work, Country,’ we say to it with the Christmas angels: Peace on this earth and on its men of good will. END,” Mveng, Histoire du Cameroun (1984), p. 500.

Thirty years after his unsolved murder, these lines resonate with tragic prescience. As Cameroon fractures along linguistic and regional lines, Mveng’s insistence on history as a unifying force feels urgently relevant. His silencing at Aix-en-Provence may have been politically expedient, but his true legacy lies in the questions he forced open: Who controls historical narrative? What does it mean to decolonize knowledge? And how does a nation remember its architects while still building their vision?

The answers, like Mveng’s work, remain unfinished.

Fr. Engelbert Mveng, SJ (1930–1995): The Scholar-Artist Who Bridged Africa and the World

Born on May 9, 1930, Fr. Engelbert Mveng was a polymath whose work as a Jesuit priest, historian, theologian, and artist redefined African intellectual and spiritual expression. His academic pursuits spanning anthropology, history, and theology were inseparable from his artistic vision, which translated Africa’s spiritual heritage into a universal language.

Mveng’s art emerged from the depths of African tradition yet resonated across continents. His works became part of the global Christian patrimony, adorning sacred spaces with a distinctly African theological aesthetic. Among his most renowned pieces are:

- The Stations of the Cross and Resurrection at Hekima College Chapel, Nairobi

- Our Lady of Africa in the Basilica of the Annunciation, Nazareth

- A monumental mural of angelic history at Holy Angels Church, Chicago

Through these works, Mveng achieved what few had before: articulating Christian universalism through African visual theology, making tangible the continent’s spiritual contributions to global faith traditions.

His life was cut short on April 22, 1995, when he was assassinated in Yaoundé under circumstances that remain unresolved to date. Yet his legacy endures. A testament to the power of art and scholarship to transcend borders, and a challenge to future generations to continue his work of cultural and spiritual dialogue.

For more on Jesuit History in Africa, visit the Jesuit Historical Institute in Africa website [HERE]