WI Africa is 'the New World'

Morty Vicar

Banned
What if Africa was 'the new World' and in essence the continent became the modern USA? Its a bit of an AHC as well, but for the time being lets just say America is not 'discovered' by Christopher Columbus, the period of european colonisation of Africa happens as per OTL, the colonists eventually rebel against Britain (or whomever controls it). What differences would it make to orthodox US history?
 

Popvox

I guess in South Africa it's possible, no other climate (excluding the North) is suitable to large scale european colonisation.
 

NKVD

PRFU said:
What if Africa was 'the new World' and in essence the continent became the modern USA? Its a bit of an AHC as well, but for the time being lets just say America is not 'discovered' by Christopher Columbus, the period of european colonisation of Africa happens as per OTL, the colonists eventually rebel against Britain (or whomever controls it). What differences would it make to orthodox US history?
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It would in no way be like the USA. Even if you have a rebellion for the same reasons, you still have a pre-Enlightenment POD which may butterfly the era away entirely, and of course different leadership for that revolt.

And as Popvox said, South Africa is the only place where you could possibly have such a thing happening.

Also, whether or not it's possible for even a vague US analogue depends on whether or not the people of southern Africa already had some immunity to European diseases.
 

Morty Vicar

Banned
d32123 said:
So the American continent doesn't exist? :confused:
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Its possible, but I was just going with the idea that it wasn't known about at that time, which is why the view of the 'New World' in this ATL is applied to Africa, and consequently large scale migration from Eruope occurs.

Popvox said:
I guess in South Africa it's possible, no other climate (excluding the North) is suitable to large scale european colonisation.
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There are parallels there, the Boer war could be seen as the equivalent of a very late American revolutionary war I suppose. The regional argument I accept, but remember you don't necessarily have to colonise to conquer. Huge parts of the US and Canada are just wild expanses and desert, not to mention rainforests in brazil that are still largely undiscovered, yet claimed by european colonists.

MKN said:
It would in no way be like the USA. Even if you have a rebellion for the same reasons, you still have a pre-Enlightenment POD which may butterfly the era away entirely, and of course different leadership for that revolt.

And as Popvox said, South Africa is the only place where you could possibly have such a thing happening.

Also, whether or not it's possible for even a vague US analogue depends on whether or not the people of southern Africa already had some immunity to European diseases.
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There are diseases which europeans have treatments for and yet which still ravage Africa, disease is compounded by poverty, famine, and living in close quarters etc.
 

Moonstruck

What do you even mean "What if Africa was 'the new World' and in essence the continent became the modern USA?"? You cannot compare the two, and besides, there is just no way for the Americas to not be discovered. Even if everyone's favorite genocide-fan doesn't get there, someone else will, rather soon afterwards.

I know I'm probably sounding a wee bit pedantic here, but would people please try to put ASB where it belongs?
 

thekingsguard

I actually once saw a Timeline called 'Ferdinand looks South' or something like that, which had a timeline the Spanish conqeur masive swaths of Africa, Portugal settles the horn of Africa, Britain settle the Southern part which leads to the United States of Africa becoming independent. In contrast, the Americas are mostly left alone until a colinization rush in the 1800s.

Implausible as hell, by enjoyable TL. Wish I could find it again.
 

Flocculencio

Donor
The main problem is that unlike in the Americas, white people tended to die off pretty rapidly in subsaharan Africa
 

Strategos' Risk

MKN said:
And as Popvox said, South Africa is the only place where you could possibly have such a thing happening.
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What about East Africa? I always had the vague conception of it being temperate, but maybe that's just what the images of savannah do to me.
 

eschaton

WienerBlut said:
More like Yellow Fever, Malaria, and Schistosomiasis, etc.
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Also sleeping sickness. The human version was bad enough, although whites weren't really much more susceptible to it than Africans. However, a different variant which infects animals essentially ensures that horses are useless in the vast majority of Sub-Saharan Africa.

The average death rate for Europeans in West Africa was something on the order of 20% per year. Not the sort of thing which can allow for growing populations, which is the reason why the only places which saw white settlement were South Africa, a few offshore islands snagged by the Portuguese, and the highlands once they became feasible to reach (they weren't until the late 1800s for obvious reasons).
 

B_Munro

Hm. Early (16th century) settlement of the Cape by the Portuguese, early discovery and cultivation of cinchona by the Portuguese in Brazil, Portuguese easygoing attitudes towards intermarriage: Happy Shiny Multiracial Greater South Africa (at least as Happy Shiny as OTL Brazil) by 2011?

Bruce
 

eschaton

Strategos' Risk said:
What about East Africa? I always had the vague conception of it being temperate, but maybe that's just what the images of savannah do to me.
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The highlands are a great climate. Malaria and yellow fever aren't generally a problem, and the daily highs aren't that different from room temperature. That said, you generally have to travel several hundred miles inland to get there, and these areas have historically had the densest African populations for obvious reasons.
 

Morty Vicar

Banned
Moonstruck said:
What do you even mean "What if Africa was 'the new World' and in essence the continent became the modern USA?"? You cannot compare the two, and besides, there is just no way for the Americas to not be discovered. Even if everyone's favorite genocide-fan doesn't get there, someone else will, rather soon afterwards.

I know I'm probably sounding a wee bit pedantic here, but would people please try to put ASB where it belongs?
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Its hardly ASB, if South America was colonised by Europeans then there's no reason Africa can't be. Even southern parts of the US could be considered largely inhospitable, and yet were still conquered. The same goes for areas of jungle in the East Indies, where there are still rumoured to be cannibal tribes and undiscovered regions. And thats a lot further from Europe than Africa is. Besides the only region of Africa that was never a European colony at one time (and for a long time, in Angolas case in the 70's!) is Ethiopia. The key is having one power rule over it, displace tribes (I admit the larger population of African tribes is a stumbling block to this ATL, and yet colonisation and segregation comparable to US/ Native American relations was still 'achieved' by South Africa and Rhodesia) and then all you need is a certain discontent with the rule of that foreign power (as happened for instance in South Africa and Rhodesia whilst under British rule). Its not even neccessary for America not to be discovered, as others have demonstrated. It might be ASB territory to suggest a reversed Atalntic slave trade for instance, given the less suitable conditions for crop cultivation in Africa, I'm not suggesing an exact USA replica, I'm more interested in the differences if anything.

Flocculencio said:
The main problem is that unlike in the Americas, white people tended to die off pretty rapidly in subsaharan Africa
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That would be a problem no doubt! However do you think its possible if the early immigrants settled in North Africa, and within a few generations became more acclimatised, then something like the 'gold rush' triggers a huge influx of population, it might be possible? I mean many Europeans died in the Americas too, particularly South America, but a continuous influx (bolstered by the slave trade admittedly) meant a steady population growth.
 

Chirios

PRFU said:
What if Africa was 'the new World' and in essence the continent became the modern USA?
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Wouldn't happen. The reason Africa was never explored was because of the prevalence of disease that neither the Europeans nor Arabs had ever at any point in their history been exposed to. Not to mention that for the vast majority of human history the Europeans did not have the overwhelming advantage they had in the 1800's.

Its hardly ASB, if South America was colonised by Europeans then there's no reason Africa can't be.
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It's a lot harder to colonise Africa than it is to colonise South America.
 

Morty Vicar

Banned
Chirios said:
Wouldn't happen. The reason Africa was never explored was because of the prevalence of disease that neither the Europeans nor Arabs had ever at any point in their history been exposed to.
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It DID happen. But thanks for reitterating the point everyone else has made.

afri1914.gif

Not to mention that for the vast majority of human history the Europeans did not have the overwhelming advantage they had in the 1800's.
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You mean guns?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_firearm#Firearms_in_the_West
English Privy Wardrobe accounts list "ribaldis," a type of cannon, in the 1340s, and siege guns were used by the English at Calais in 1346.
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It's a lot harder to colonise Africa than it is to colonise South America.
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By what standard? Pretty much all of Africa was colonised, and yet to this day huge tracts of rainforest in South America have not even been unexplored, let alone conquered. Not to mention Africa at the time of colonisation was full of small tribes, wheras South America was ruled by a huge empire of mayans. Not to mention North Africa was pretty much a stones throw from Spain and Portugal, South America was months sailing across largely uncharted waters.
 

Admiral Brown

PRFU said:
Its hardly ASB, if South America was colonised by Europeans then there's no reason Africa can't be. Even southern parts of the US could be considered largely inhospitable, and yet were still conquered. The same goes for areas of jungle in the East Indies, where there are still rumoured to be cannibal tribes and undiscovered regions. And thats a lot further from Europe than Africa is. Besides the only region of Africa that was never a European colony at one time (and for a long time, in Angolas case in the 70's!) is Ethiopia. The key is having one power rule over it, displace tribes (I admit the larger population of African tribes is a stumbling block to this ATL, and yet colonisation and segregation comparable to US/ Native American relations was still 'achieved' by South Africa and Rhodesia) and then all you need is a certain discontent with the rule of that foreign power (as happened for instance in South Africa and Rhodesia whilst under British rule). Its not even neccessary for America not to be discovered, as others have demonstrated. It might be ASB territory to suggest a reversed Atalntic slave trade for instance, given the less suitable conditions for crop cultivation in Africa, I'm not suggesing an exact USA replica, I'm more interested in the differences if anything.



That would be a problem no doubt! However do you think its possible if the early immigrants settled in North Africa, and within a few generations became more acclimatised, then something like the 'gold rush' triggers a huge influx of population, it might be possible? I mean many Europeans died in the Americas too, particularly South America, but a continuous influx (bolstered by the slave trade admittedly) meant a steady population growth.
Click to expand...

The Americas were suitable to colonization in such a large scale because not only there weren't diseas that affected colonists, but natives were particularly suceptible to Europea diseases. Eurasian diseas were responsible for decimating native American population, clearing the room for European settlers. Without them, colonizing permanently certain areas of the Americas would have been much harder, and might have only be possible only once Europeaans get late XIXth century technology.
 

scholar

Banned
For most people commenting on the massive early die offs to European settlements inside of Africa I would point out that the vast majority of early European settlers died off do to disease and related conditions. The difference The largest population centers were considered hellish by the Europeans at the time (New England, large portions of Latin America, etc.). It is through centuries that they were able to build cities and men became accustomed to the terrain enough to move inward. There were massive problems to early colonization of America, while European colonization of Africa was done far differently. There wasn't a large effort to build purly European cities outside of the coasts, they just wanted to stick their name tag on the land. Experienced Europeans with native guides were highly successful and prolific in the region, there's absolutely no foundation to assume that Europe couldn't overcome the difficulties of Africa if given a couple centuries to build up tolerance in the region and head inward.

Note: I am aware that there were substantial differences, both in the type of disease and the conditions of the land. I just believe that it wouldn't be impossible and that it can be done if given a similar or slightly greater adjustment period with the Americas and a similar attitude. Europe had a great deal of history with Africa but it was never really colonial, it had to do with the slave trade or outposts to get to richer markets in the east. If Europe developed a mindset that Africa was actually important to be colonized then we could have a substantially different outcome from OTL.
 
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