Why are there so few colonists in Africa?

In my American History classes, the only major colonies in Africa I have laerned about are South Africa, Algeria, and Egypt? Why were there no Pilgrims that went to Africa? Would weaker Moslem technology sent to African princes via Timbuktu enable more successful colonies? Could there have ever been more colonists, because thats where all of the potential slaves are? And could you make a POD and TL for it?

I have a few ideas: New plague brought by Europeans decimates African population, Guns of the Powhatan, or the Sahara is temporarily untransverseable for merchants.

numberone said:

In my American History classes, the only major colonies in Africa I have laerned about are South Africa, Algeria, and Egypt? Why were there no Pilgrims that went to Africa? Would weaker Moslem technology sent to African princes via Timbuktu enable more successful colonies? Could there have ever been more colonists, because thats where all of the potential slaves are? And could you make a POD and TL for it?

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The tropical climate and the tropical diseases were the main reason why the numbers of European colonists were negligible in most parts of Africa.

Consequently, you'll need developments that are a lot more radical than different political developments in Africa in order to get large numbers of European colonists to settle permanently in the tropical parts of Africa.

numberone said:

I have a few ideas: New plague brought by Europeans decimates African population, Guns of the Powhatan, or the Sahara is temporarily untransverseable for merchants.

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The first of those ideas might just work, allthough it is rather close to ASB.
The latter also seems rather ASB to me, as I can't imagine how the Sahara could become untransversable without ASB-ish developments.

As for the "Guns of the Powhatan"-idea - it sounds interesting, do tell more...

Immunological phenotypes of the paleo-asian indigenous population was inferior to that of Eurasians due to both the PA originating from fewer ancestors (=less diversity) and not being continually evolved by being exposed to diseases. Hence, they died as flies while Europeans only got some weird veneral diseases in the "exchange".

Africans, however are a completely different story. There is a reason african slaves were brough in to replace the dying indians in the carribean and elsewhere. Genetically diverse as no others on the planet, and evolving in a nasty tropical stew of disease does that.

This, the nasty climate* and the tropical diseases were reasons enough to keep Europeans out of Africa, except the very sparsely populateds south African region, which also has a much better climate and much less tropical diseases.

* Where do you find significant populations of white people today that you wouldn't yesterday?

Southern south America, northern north America, Australia, far-eastern Asia and and to a lesser degree southern Africa. All these have few or no tropical diseases as well as a climate that would not be completely out of place in Europe.

To put it simply, we are not built for the tropics. Africans are, with the bantu-populations present in south Africa arriving only 50-100 years earlier than Europeans, depending on source and not "developed" to that environment since the original inhabitants were the physically much different Khoisan-peoples.

In theory, most of the south-African dry climate zone could've been colonized by whites, but incursions into the tropics requires modern medicine... And killing of the native would require un-modern ideology/culture.

The boers were too few to establish a powerful enough state to do something even remotely along the line of the American independence, thus they came under the rule of an European power. Had they been more from the beginning things might've been different though I havent seen any even remotely realistic scenario based on this pretext. Would be interesting though to see the Brits get routed and Rhodes getting what he deserved...!

Jomazi said:

Southern south America, northern north America, Australia, far-eastern Asia and and to a lesser degree southern Africa. All these have few or no tropical diseases as well as a climate that would not be completely out of place in Europe.

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And of the listed places, northern North America is the easiest to reach, a straight hop across the Atlantic and you are in a new world. No balmy doldroons of the Equator or either of the Capes with their storms to negotiate.

The reason can be summed up in one word, maleria. Until Europeans discovered a way to treat the illness, colonists would only drop like flies. Even much of the slave trade was done by inland tribes; the whites stayed along the coast due to fear of tropical disease.

Jomazi said:

Immunological phenotypes of the paleo-asian indigenous population was inferior to that of Eurasians due to both the PA originating from fewer ancestors (=less diversity) and not being continually evolved by being exposed to diseases. Hence, they died as flies while Europeans only got some weird veneral diseases in the "exchange".

Africans, however are a completely different story. There is a reason african slaves were brough in to replace the dying indians in the carribean and elsewhere. Genetically diverse as no others on the planet, and evolving in a nasty tropical stew of disease does that.

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Indeed - and add to that that pretty much all diseases found in Europe, were also found in Africa.

Diseases like smallpox were relatively common in West Africa, and as a result, the Africans any more vulnerable to the European diseases than the Europeans themselves were.

a989chris said:

The reason can be summed up in one word, maleria. Until Europeans discovered a way to treat the illness, colonists would only drop like flies. Even much of the slave trade was done by inland tribes; the whites stayed along the coast due to fear of tropical disease.

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I partially disagree here - at that point, malaria was relatively common in most of Europe as well, and there were a lot more tropical diseases that were threatening European colonists.

Furthermore, one of the main reasons why the Europeans mainly relied on the locals to sell them slaves, was convenience - there were large and well-developed kingdoms and empires on the western coast of Africa, and many of those thrived on slave trade with the Europeans.

Tropical diseases and the fact that Europeans don't do so well in a humid tropical climate in general certainly were good reasons for the Europeans to refrain from spending more time in Africa than they needed to, but the fact remains that buying slaves in African states was simply a much more efficient way to get a lot of slaves than organizing slave raids.