This image, which was used as the title image for an issue of the weekly magazine Illustrirte Zeitung, shows the hoisting of the German flag over the colony of Cameroon on July 14, 1884. This ceremony followed the signing of “protection treaties” between leaders of the Duálá people and a German delegation. The person shown hoisting the flag is most likely Gustav Nachtigal, a German diplomat who had been appointed Imperial Commissioner for the West Coast of Africa in order to secure areas of strategic importance for German trade as so-called protectorates. He had arrived on board a German navy gunboat, which accounts for the presence of several sailors in this scene. German merchants had traded with Cameroon since the mid-nineteenth century, importing products such as rubber, palm oil, bananas, coconuts, peanuts, and ivory. In return, they exported tobacco, alcohol, and cheap manufactured goods to West Africa.