Recent content by Marc

Descent is significantly different from identification. If just the former, there are a number of possibilities, including at least one historical: the Byzantine ruler, Leo IV the Khazar. An emperor that identifies culturally as Jewish? ASB.

Thanks for the correction. I briefly had wondered at the timing as I typed it, but was being, apparently, too reliant on my notes. While I'm not a great fan of the Carlylian approach to history - The Great Man, etc. - Gaitán's assassination is an ironic argument in favor of it. Not that he...

Given the time frame - the mid 17th century to say the early 18th - I wonder about how much either the British or the French would want to make the commitment to establish a supply station on the Cape, not to mention a full colony. Capital investment isn't often considered in retrospect, but it...

Ah, I certainly didn't mean indefinitely. However, given the ephemeral nature of life, something I am much more acutely aware of, having a generation or so without being killed by the Dutch is what I would consider a very good thing. How quickly another European power makes a play is unclear; I...

Yes, it might derail their East Asian ambitions. Or rather more specifically the ambitions of the Dutch East India Company, close but not quite the same thing. Then, they might be more serious about Mauritius, or even Madagascar? On the other hand, it's very, very, good for the Khoisan, who...

I imagine that one of the other Atlantic European states would. However, South African would be a country sans the Afrikaners, and hence very different.

Dutch East India Company in 1651 created a way station at the Cape under the command of Johan Anthoniszoon van Riebeeck. This simple, but certainly profound supposing is what happens if turns out to be a failure? In 1654 for example, the station came close to starving out. I'm sure there are...

Not sure if that would be the case. Keep in mind that malaria, the worse of the tropical diseases in the West African region, was spreading through the Roman Empire by the 1st Century CE. (In fact it was known to occur in the Mediterranean as far back 600 BCE). Regardless, disease shouldn't be...

You're not factoring either the ratio of slave to owners, or the treatment thereof.

I think my original comment still sands given the original supposing: Anyway the American Deep South could have demographics to that of late 1700s Haiti. Not enough Africans could be brought over.

Really? I am more than open to reading citations that support that counter argument. I usually rely on the Encyclopedia of Slave Resistance and Rebellion which is considered rather good on data.

They couldn't import enough slaves to make up for the death toll. Some estimates are that 1 in 5 Africans were sent to Haiti - to keep the numbers up. Most profitable, most lethal colony.

Thanks. While it's very understandable that most of our interests tend to be euro-centrist, Latin America does offers a whole host of rich history to explore and speculate about - much of what I am providing in brief was unknown to me before I started to undertake this small writing project.

I was just having some fun for the amusement of some of the Netherlanders out there. Substitute English, French, or Spanish, or what have you. Brazil was too defenseless and yet attractive enough to make one of the burgeoning Atlantic imperial states take it over.

Dutch becomes the language of Rio...