raharris1973
Gone Fishin'
While not quite as popular as the “pin the Zion in Eurasia” game of alternate Israels, this group has seen speculations on alternate locations for Liberia.
Proposed alternatives to Liberia’s historical location discussed at one time or another have included Namibia (as in Decades of Darkness) Gabon, Senegal, Madagascar and coastal Mauritania.
In most cases, the intent in the scenario is to wank the ATL Liberia so that it attracts mass migration from America, ends up with a greater proportion of its population as freedmen (as opposed to the historic 5-10% of Liberia’s population vs. 90-95% indigenous) and has a greater geopolitical role on the continent. The biggest problem with wanking Liberia in these ways is seen as tropical disease, to which African-Americans had lost immunity from in less than a generation.
One location I had not seen considered as an alternate location for Liberia, or for its British-ruled twin freedmen’s colony Sierra Leone, is South Africa.
South Africa seems to me to be a much healthier environment for people born and raised in America compared with tropical Africa, yet is not a barren dessert like Mauritania and Namibia.
In this thread I’d like to discuss its suitability as a place where a freedmen’s colony could far outperform historic Liberia and Sierra Leone, separating the factors into two main baskets.
Basket # 1 is its agricultural, climatological, logistical, economic and medical suitability for settlement of African Americans (and possibly Afro-Caribbeans).
With its Mediterranean climate, southern Africa seems less unhealthy than anywhere in the sub-saharan savanna or jungle belts (Sierra Leone, Gabon, Liberia, Senegal, Madagascar), the Caribbean, and probably even the southern United States.
At the same time, southern Africa has agricultural potential, unlike the Namibian and Mauritanian deserts.
On the other hand, the mix of crops African-American would be familiar with might not do as well in southern Africa as in western Africa.
An economic/logistic factor making southern Africa less attractive than sites in western Africa is the greater sailing distance from North America and the Caribbean. Sailing to the Cape perhaps involves traveling twice as many nautical miles as going to Freetown or Monrovia. Now in the age of sail, I don’t know if this equates to about twice the number of sailing days or not. Is anybody familiar with the prevailing winds currents and how that effect comparative sailing time?
On the other hand, the cargos that could be picked up in southern Africa could be at least as interesting and valuable as the cargoes picked up in western Africa.
Basket # 2 is the political and military prospects for such a settler community to get established and survive. Here southern Africa is a less permissive environment than western Africa. Before 1815, the Cape territory is Dutch, after that time it is British. The Cape Boers are formidable opponents to potential colonists, more so than west Africans. The Khoisan people are probably not as formidable as west Africans, but as you move to the far east of the Cape and Natal you run into the Xhosa and the Zulu who are progressively tougher.
So politically, any freedmen’s settlement would have to be British endorsed to stand a chance in southern Africa. This would make a southern African analogue to Freetown Sierra Leone more likely than an analogue to Liberia. Under the right political circumstances though, Britain may tolerate a colonization of American freedmen in the early 19th century in southern Africa, and much of the eastern Cape had not been settled by whites yet.
So, granting that the Cape provides a better climate and assuming a modus vivendi or actual agreement could be worked out politically with Britain, a greater share of freedmen colonists would survive and their population should grow from natural increase.
Would the healthier climate have attracted more freedmen colonists than OTL Liberia and Sierra Leone? It might have, but I honestly don’t know if anyone who was otherwise interested in migrating to Africa was deterred by disease. Disease effects were not well understood, and the colonization societies did not expect things to be as bad as they were.
With greater survival rates, and possibly greater inmigration, I wonder what proportion of the eastern Cape or Natal’s population might be freedmen or their descendants.
Proposed alternatives to Liberia’s historical location discussed at one time or another have included Namibia (as in Decades of Darkness) Gabon, Senegal, Madagascar and coastal Mauritania.
In most cases, the intent in the scenario is to wank the ATL Liberia so that it attracts mass migration from America, ends up with a greater proportion of its population as freedmen (as opposed to the historic 5-10% of Liberia’s population vs. 90-95% indigenous) and has a greater geopolitical role on the continent. The biggest problem with wanking Liberia in these ways is seen as tropical disease, to which African-Americans had lost immunity from in less than a generation.
One location I had not seen considered as an alternate location for Liberia, or for its British-ruled twin freedmen’s colony Sierra Leone, is South Africa.
South Africa seems to me to be a much healthier environment for people born and raised in America compared with tropical Africa, yet is not a barren dessert like Mauritania and Namibia.
In this thread I’d like to discuss its suitability as a place where a freedmen’s colony could far outperform historic Liberia and Sierra Leone, separating the factors into two main baskets.
Basket # 1 is its agricultural, climatological, logistical, economic and medical suitability for settlement of African Americans (and possibly Afro-Caribbeans).
With its Mediterranean climate, southern Africa seems less unhealthy than anywhere in the sub-saharan savanna or jungle belts (Sierra Leone, Gabon, Liberia, Senegal, Madagascar), the Caribbean, and probably even the southern United States.
At the same time, southern Africa has agricultural potential, unlike the Namibian and Mauritanian deserts.
On the other hand, the mix of crops African-American would be familiar with might not do as well in southern Africa as in western Africa.
An economic/logistic factor making southern Africa less attractive than sites in western Africa is the greater sailing distance from North America and the Caribbean. Sailing to the Cape perhaps involves traveling twice as many nautical miles as going to Freetown or Monrovia. Now in the age of sail, I don’t know if this equates to about twice the number of sailing days or not. Is anybody familiar with the prevailing winds currents and how that effect comparative sailing time?
On the other hand, the cargos that could be picked up in southern Africa could be at least as interesting and valuable as the cargoes picked up in western Africa.
Basket # 2 is the political and military prospects for such a settler community to get established and survive. Here southern Africa is a less permissive environment than western Africa. Before 1815, the Cape territory is Dutch, after that time it is British. The Cape Boers are formidable opponents to potential colonists, more so than west Africans. The Khoisan people are probably not as formidable as west Africans, but as you move to the far east of the Cape and Natal you run into the Xhosa and the Zulu who are progressively tougher.
So politically, any freedmen’s settlement would have to be British endorsed to stand a chance in southern Africa. This would make a southern African analogue to Freetown Sierra Leone more likely than an analogue to Liberia. Under the right political circumstances though, Britain may tolerate a colonization of American freedmen in the early 19th century in southern Africa, and much of the eastern Cape had not been settled by whites yet.
So, granting that the Cape provides a better climate and assuming a modus vivendi or actual agreement could be worked out politically with Britain, a greater share of freedmen colonists would survive and their population should grow from natural increase.
Would the healthier climate have attracted more freedmen colonists than OTL Liberia and Sierra Leone? It might have, but I honestly don’t know if anyone who was otherwise interested in migrating to Africa was deterred by disease. Disease effects were not well understood, and the colonization societies did not expect things to be as bad as they were.
With greater survival rates, and possibly greater inmigration, I wonder what proportion of the eastern Cape or Natal’s population might be freedmen or their descendants.
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