A "West Africa Company" in 1800(ish) to rival the "East India Company"

Getting all of the European powers to agree to work with each other on this, and all of the African powers to honor it, and then getting all of the newly settled people to play ball, I think it's too much to work.

There's a reason the EIC was run by one company based out of one country. This WAC idea needs to be more narrow, run by a country/single entity and not a conglomeration of them.
 
Your point?:confused:

"Benin, Benin, the Bight of Benin. One man leaves where forty went in."

There's a reason that Africa remained unexploited until relatively late in the colonial game, and that's disease. Malaria and yellow fever were much more endemic than they were even in other tropical parts of the globe, and that's before you start getting into more exotic diseases like sleeping sickness and dengue fever. African states were, technologically, just as easy to push around as Indian ones... but all your men doing to pushing would tend to die pretty quickly so actual power projection was pretty much impossible.
 
"Benin, Benin, the Bight of Benin. One man leaves where forty went in."

There's a reason that Africa remained unexploited until relatively late in the colonial game, and that's disease. Malaria and yellow fever were much more endemic than they were even in other tropical parts of the globe, and that's before you start getting into more exotic diseases like sleeping sickness and dengue fever. African states were, technologically, just as easy to push around as Indian ones... but all your men doing to pushing would tend to die pretty quickly so actual power projection was pretty much impossible.


Note that I'm leaving most of Africa to the Africans. This isn't a pure colonial endevour but a semi-independent company intended to govern.

Most of the armies "colonizing" or "conquering" inner Africa would be composed of European trained and possibly commanded Africans. The petty bureacracy would be African (akin to the East India company which used Sepoys far more often than Europeans).

Africa was suitably divided that a centrally controlled army could play ethnic groups against one another and gain control in that manner.
 
The problem I see is that its difficult to get the ball rolling.

Its not minor tribes that they'll be dealing with. Much of West Africa had small but well organized states that were an insane pain in the ass to keep in check when you lack modern technology such as the machine gun or medicine. And then there's the Sahelian States that were no pushover, even after the Fulani Jihads. The British in Nigeria adopted the princely state method of control for a very long time for good reason.

This company isn't going to have firm control even with boots on the ground without full on government support, and that requires a 'Scramble for Africa' scenario, which would hurt any company that seeks to go the East India route. They'd also be short on recruits as up until the late 1800s the only areas really suitable for European settlement is the Sahel, and that was seen as marginal land at the time. You could speed up the settlement of the more tropical regions by introducing Quinine into there (that's been a malarial treatment since the days of the Inca) but still, its very difficult to get many immigrants in the region. Instead it'd be far more cheaper to higher natives to work in the bureaucracy or as soldiers, which has the benefit of being relatively common in pre-colonial Africa when migrating ethnic groups establish themselves as the new ruling class.

All in all, this will be a highly expensive affair and won't see suitable returns on the investment until much later, which will dissuade its growth. However, this can be somewhat mitigated by seeing the company do what most Europeans did in India during the 1700s: Small to medium sized areas under direct control (mostly trade posts and what not) with large amounts of vassal states.


Just what I was thinking.

There had to be a few profit makers (Mining, Cocoa, etc) to keep the ball rolling but for the most part the company must be self-sustaining.

Until effective medicines arrived, there would be no mass European immigration.
 
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