Could it be possible that in the 20th Century that waves of European immigrants could settle in various African colonies like Namibia, South Africa, Algeria, Rhodesia, and Kenya? What would have to require for this to happen? Could large white majorities be formed in the colonies? And what would happen to the indigenous Africans? What else could we see happen?
Assuming you're talking about sub-Saharan Africa, my take is that would have been possible, but the POD would probably need to be in the 19th Century.
I've read a lot of other threads on the prospects of settler colonies in Africa in the past, and the conclusion I've come to is that several ingredients are required for feasibility.
- Large source of potential settlers
This is the most important factor - a nation in Europe that has a large population, undergoing strong population growth or demographic transition through industrialisation, equating to a sizeable population surplus which net overseas emigration partly relieves the home government of the pressures of managing. There are only a few viable candidates for this imo
- Great Britain/Ireland - the obvious candidate, between 1600 and 1950 something like 20 million people emigrated from the British Isles (Ferguson). The main problem, touched on by others, is that their emigration is already divided between the other settler colonies of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand (also brain drain to USA, but this is an issue for all the European powers). This leaves little left over for less appealing or developed prospects in Africa. My own opinion is they may have been able to get Southern Rhodesia to South African levels or more if they had redirected settlers from Northern Rhodesia and Kenya from late 19thC, but it would still have ended badly once majority rule loomed and the Europeans didn't want to relinquish power
- France - large ethnically homogeneous population but slow growth in the 19th Century resulting in minimal surplus labour looking for places to go. There is also a line of thought, at least on this board, that the French culturally or economically or for whatever reason were less inclined to migration than the British. Lastly, they are attempting essentially a form of settlement project in Algeria, so they don't have enough left over to sponsor sub-Saharan colonies.
- Italy - large and rapidly growing population that historically produced enormous outflow in the 19thC, but political unification didn't come until the 1860s. After that, there was an eventual focus on a project in Libya as a model colony. There is also a question of whether they would have the financial or economic resources available for levels of investment that could ultimately succeed in creating a non-resource extracting settler colony that was suitable to European standards of living by the 20th Century, amongst other investment priorities at home.
- Russia - huge and growing population. Key problems are the amounts of land yet to be opened up for intensive settlement in Siberia that are closer, and Russia's limited access to sea lanes required for supply and protection. Also a limited economic and financial base for such an expensive undertaking and would've had to be underwritten by financiers in London or Paris
- Germany - large population undergoing rapid growth and high rates of economic and capital growth. The downsides are the political situation that delayed unification until 1870, the reasonably prosperous circumstances at home dampening immigration (except to the USA), and a government that once unified, focused narrowly on European interests (Bismarck's disinterest in colonies is well known). But with a suitable POD, I'd say Germany was the leading candidate for waves of emigration that could've produced what we'd regard as a settler society in Africa.
2. National Priority/Will
Why go somewhere with no roads, houses, trains, electricity, hospitals, schools, jobs, theatres, police or army to prevent native raids, etc when you could go live in the Lower East Side where all of this actually exists? The answer is you wouldn't - so all of this needs establishing in a colony, and you wouldn't be able to leave all of it to the market to sort out. This factor is important because, unless there is actually a concerted belief and effort in the need for sustaining such a project, the option of the USA will seem too appealing in contrast especially early on.
There would be minimum needs and expectations that settlers would have for a colony through its early years and probably well into its adolescence - things like subsidised migration, immigrant hotels, land grants, cheap loans, railways, a heavy garrison presence and a low risk of ambush or lawlessness, clean drinking water, and so on. This would certainly be expensive and not necessarily a positive ROI by most conventional metrics as the focus in such a colony wouldn't be in exploiting native labour for resource extraction and quick profits, but on making a settler community appear attractive to Europeans.
So somehow, you need the government and elites to agree that a colony is a worthwhile national project. There are many possibilities; it could be the monarch's vanity project, a strategic desire to curtail US industrial growth by depriving them of a source of migration, 19thC notions of nationalism branching out, etc. But once there is a need, it paves the way for sinking funds major funds into the colony that might not be seen again.
This is key for Germany. OTL they didnt really give a shit about their colonies, and the budget was tiny. OTOH, the Kaiser's battleship programme was an enormously expensive exercise that was deemed in the national interest. All they have to do is think that settlement is as important as the naval arms race, and the money required for all of this will be there...
3. Climate and Geography
Remember that game of Victoria 2 when you annexed Panama as the USA to build the canal, and within 5 years the place was majority American? In real life holding a place 5 minutes from the equator and investing lots of money wont lead to an immigration boom! European settlement on a large scale is only really possible in areas with reasonable climate and comparative lack of endemic disease. In order, the best places in Africa are as follows:
- South Africa - developed a large white population for a reason. The north and west Cape has a Mediterranean climate, and the Oranje and Gauteng are largely temperate and dry. North of Johannesburg it tends to get a little hot but still not too humid and definitely workable. Eastern Cape and Natal are a little bit humid outside of winter, but still workable as their winters are mild and pleasant. Malaria is essentially absent as is tsetse fly. If there was an ideal place in S-S Africa for a colony, this is it.
- Zimbabwe/S. Rhodesia- a lot of potential. While some of the northern and western areas get a touch too hot, large parts have mild and pleasant springlike climates with relatively low humidity - similar to south eastern and central Queensland in drier season. Tsetse is largely absent and although malaria is endemic, I'm not sure if this is a climate issue or a vector control issue given the state of Zimbabwe's government in the last couple of decades. Either way, the European population grew to around 300,000 OTL
- Namibia - large parts are blisteringly hot in the summer and even in winter the temperatures typically stay in a temperate band. However, it is very dry with little rainfall or humidity (to the extent that it could actually causes water issues for a large enough colony) and clear skies. Windhoek and the major coastal towns are conducive to settlement mainly due to the warmth being manageable and little to no malaria or tsetse. The main issue is that its far too arid for large scale agricultural development
- Angola - not as promising as suggested in some previous threads, imo but still OK - the elevated plateau starting about 50KMs from the coastline between the Namib Desert and the Cuanza River are the best bits with relatively mild and low humidity climate, but very uneven relief and topography means there are lots of pockets of scorching valleys, etc. The coastline is honestly not so appealing to 19th Century settlers as it's quite humid and hot most of the year - I'd say Namibe/Mocamedes is fairly pleasant by today's standards and could work in 19thC, but Luanda has a similar profile to Honolulu minus the nice beaches, which will be a struggle before a/c is invented.
- Mozambique - Southern Mozambique isn't terrible- Maputo is basically a less hot and less stuffy version of Luanda - overall not too different to Durban. In the central west, it rises to the mountain chain that forms the border with Zimbabwe where some of the coolest parts of subsaharan Africa are. Everything North of Beira is basically too hot and humid for Europeans, although the white beaches and clear water probably make it an underdeveloped tourist destination OTL - could probably end up like Cancun or something in proximity to a large white colony.
- Zambia - parts of the Northeast, Copperbelt, and the ridge along where Lusaka is are probably acceptable to Europeans but getting a little too hot and humid for too much of the year, imo. Main drawback is how far into the African hinterland it is, when combined with less attractive climate I'd say it would at best be a frontier province attached to somewhere more agreeable like Rhodesia.
- Botswana - could be higher up here but essentially its Namibia 2.0 - warm to hot year round, scarce rainfall that would limit cropping and even livestock. But endemic illness is largely absent. Could be majority European due to low native population. Would probably need to be connected to another one of these areas for sea access, in so doing it would be more like an 'outback' province with a white majority but also large native presence like the NT
- Malawi - mentioned in past threads and the climate is a winner, with high elevation leading to springlike temperatures year round, but apparently was densely populated with natives even in the 19th Century, and it's inland. So, probably not the basis for a strong colony.
- Kenya - highlands are quite pleasant but outside of that its scorching hot year round due to equatorial proximity. There could never be a large white colony here, imo. Malaria and other diseases are endemic
4. Critical Mass
The importance of compounding growth means that in order to ensure a white community exists by the 20th Century with equal demographic footing to natives (which would prevent an exodus during decolonisation or shift to responsible government as the 20th century brings more enlightened notions of racial equality), a large number of whites would already need to be there by the end of the 19th.
Otherwise, if the community fails to grow sufficiently large relative to the native population, then in time the fears of uprising and guerrilla movements would probably force a disintegration and flight as observed in Algeria, Angola, Rhodesia, and to a lesser extent South Africa. Once the community grows large enough, the push factors (population surplus, government investment in sponsoring passage, investing in infrastructure, etc) will be overtaken by self-perpetuating pull factors (growth of private-sector money-making opportunities).
The more appealing the natural factor endowments, the faster the startup phase will be accelerated into the self-sustaining growth phase in a positive feedback loop (more on this in a moment).
5. Other helpful things
- Medicine - earlier large scale cultivation of the bark which quinine comes from or earlier synthesis would help assuage fears of malaria. This is possible by mid nineteenth century, and the knowledge or quinine is there, it just requires willpower of government to do it and subsidise the distriubtion in a public health program for settlers
- AC - John Gorrie invented a crude air conditioner in the 1840s for his patients, so with some luck this might be commercialised earlier than when industrial refrigeration took off for transport of beef in the 1880s. If the concept is being applied to consumer usage from the beginning, then perhaps a/c in public venues like theatres and dance halls and civic buildings might parlay into retail units before the 20th century. This would help greatly speed up settlement as uncomfortable summer days could be mitigated with climate control. My guess is large, refrigerator size units for households would probably be doable by the mid-19th century technology, the trickiest part probably would be the machine tools needed for the pistons of the compressor unit, but they were mass producing cylinders for revolvers by this point so probably could be done. These early a/c would be inefficient and power hungry as all get-out and noisy too, but anyway...
- between these two, most of the objections of settlers around climate and public health could be addressed.
So what does all this mean? IMO the best chance for your AHC is with an earlier unified Germany taking possession of one or more of the areas described above from the mid 19th Century (e.g. an 1848 POD). Now, what might that look like?
Well, if we take Australia as an example of what an African settler colony might be capable of accepting, as there are many climate similarities, the amount of annual assisted migration in the 19th century was as follows:
- 1831–1860 18,268
- 1861–1900 10,087
The key here is that Australia had a gold rush between 1851 and 1861, where the net migration was approximately 60,000 people p/a. But at least we can see, that a developing colony in this time period and far from Europe can attract a floor of 10k per year after about 50 years of settlement.
Therefore, I'm going to assume that similar growth rates for a German colony that includes, at a minimum, the areas along the Orange and north of the Vaal to include the Witwatersrand reefs.
Below is how I calculated the yearly immigration rate and natural population increase in simple terms.
1850: 1000 total (founding)
1850-1860: +5000 p/a, 1.25% natural increase
1860-1870: +50000 p/a, 1.25% natural increase (gold rush)
1870-1880: +12500 p/a, 1.25% natural increase
1880-1890: +15000 p/a, 1.35% natural increase
1890-1900 +17500 p/a, 1.45% natural increase
1900-1910: +20000 p/a, 1.55% natural increase (roughly equivalent to Australia)
1910-1915 +25000 p/a, 1.55% natural increase
1915-1925: +30000 p/a, 1.65% natural increase
1925-1940: +40000 p/a, 1.45% natural increase
After that, +10K and -.1% natural increase each decade to simulate declining TFR and faster means of travel.
Overall, it seems like these figures are sustainable in the context of Germany's massive and growing population, so long as investment and the goldfields are factors which are present.
By the end of the 20th century, such a colony growing along this trajectory would have a population of 13.5 million Europeans. For simplicity I'm assuming Germany has no demographic disasters which could slow down migration such as world wars, pandemics, etc.
Now, compare against the native populations of some of these places I mentioned in the mid nineteenth and early 20th centuries.
Therefore, if a German colony comprised SAR, Nambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana, for instance, it might reach a rough crossover point in terms of Europeans equalling the native population by about 1915.
Note that these are probably quite unreliable figures but the best I can find. I'm also not sure how the Mfecane plays into the population of the mid-19th C, as in many of these areas there was widespread devastation and depopulation.
Of course needless to say, at the very least, any ATL like this would involve a great deal of disruption and displacement to native peoples even under a best case such as peaceful negotiation with tribal leaders. At worst, from a humanitarian point of view there would be conflict between colonial governments and organised tribes who resist displacement, along with deliberate and forceful policies of control where the writ of colonial authority runs (which I am not advocating).
The exact manner in which this happens is impossible to predict, but probably some form of divide and rule would eventuate rather than simply a maniacal slaughter. It would be impossible to control such a colony without native collaboration and mutual benefits, so one or more tribes is likely to end up as a privileged status role probably to do with keeping all the other tribes in line. Others are likely to do worse and be marginalised.
