WI: White majority in South Africa

I've read on an article that the Dutch were the first ones to bring slaves to the Americas, most precisely to Jamestown. I've been thinking, would the Dutch see slavery as a potencial market and maybe start a full scale colonization of Africa, in order to gather 'resources'. If they encouraged some sort of African hunting, to sell the captured Africans to British and even Dutch colonies in America altogether with a more intense colonization of South Africa I don't see why this couldn't happen. The question is, how would the expressive Afrikaner majority react when they themselves conquered by the British? And what would pan-African figures think about a European-White majority country in Africa?

Rascallite said:

I've read on an article that the Dutch were the first ones to bring slaves to the Americas, most precisely to Jamestown. I've been thinking, would the Dutch see slavery as a potencial market and maybe start a full scale colonization of Africa, in order to gather 'resources'. If they encouraged some sort of African hunting, to sell the captured Africans to British and even Dutch colonies in America altogether with a more intense colonization of South Africa I don't see why this couldn't happen. The question is, how would the expressive Afrikaner majority react when they themselves conquered by the British? And what would pan-African figures think about a European-White majority country in Africa?

Click to expand...

Colonization can't work like that, it's not a matter of just deciding on full-scale colonization. Without some massive factor on their side like the Spanish in the Americas had, colonists cannot displace the local population in an area with settled agriculture. Lands inhabited by settled agriculturalists are already at or near their maximum carrying capacity, there's no room for colonists. The Bantu tribes in South Africa had already pushed the original hunter-gatherers into more marginal areas. The only way to make even more room would be mass slaughter, and even if that were possible with 17th century weapons, (which aren't as effective against native armies as you might think) literally one African would have to be killed for every white colonist that arrived. It just isn't possible.

It really needs some sort of biological infection to be brought by European settlers which has a devastating effect on the African populace.

Similar to what happened in the Americans.

or maybe South Africa smaller,just the cape bit?

Milo said:

or maybe South Africa smaller,just the cape bit?

Click to expand...

This ia a map of the languages in SA by municipality in 2001. Blue is an Afrikaans majority, light blue an Af. plurality.

I was under the understanding that the Bantu were not yet in South Africa when the Dutch arrived and that the Voortrekers met then as the moved north.

That means nothing racially. Quite a few Colored speak Afrikaans too. And quite a few Whites are English speakers.
Retreat To The Cape was always seen as a possible Apartheid option in the 1970s to retain a White majority in at least some of South Africa.
One thing though. The Afrikaner supported immigration restrictions in the 20th Century out of fear that they would be submerged in a sea of white "uitlanders". In doing so, they ensured that they would be a minority when it came to African people.

Here is a racial map of South Africa from 1970. As you can see, the Afrikaans-speaking areas in the map in the previous post correspond almost exactly to the Coloured-majority areas here. Whites appear to only have held majorities in and around urban areas.

I'd imagine you would need gold and diamonds to be discovered in the 1700s to prompt the Dutch to care more about populating South Africa.

Portuguese settlement from 1490, after discovery by Dias could lead to a white majority due to steady settlement plus natural increase in population. Of course a more organized society would lead to a larger black and mixed race population too.

Sevarics said:

I'd imagine you would need gold and diamonds to be discovered in the 1700s to prompt the Dutch to care more about populating South Africa.

Click to expand...

A path I took in An Alternate History of the Netherlands (do I sound like a broken record yet?) is that when the Boers fled from VOC tyranny in the mid 18th Century, they eventually integrated a little with some of the natives. Not enough white woman in the Cape, so little choice there. Boer might actually be a misleading term in my case, since these Boers were at least semi-pastorial along with being farmers.