African colonization question

I was thinking about possibly rebooting one of my timelines and am currently brainstorming about the world, specifically colonization. I was wondering about the colonization of Africa. With a POD in the 17th century, is it possible for large parts of Africa (I am think of for example the Sahara desert) to remain uncolonized (or even claimed) in the early 20th century, even if large parts of Asia and the America's are colonized?
 
Or just with better things to do than take nonprofitable colonies.
That was what i was thinking.If France controls India (which I was planning), I think France would not bother with the large part of Africa it got OTL. So my question is, who would care about it and is able to actualy control it (even if for example Belgium would want it, I doubt it would be able to control all of French Africa).

So that leads to the question, if France isn't interested in large swats of useless Africa, would other European countries bother to colonize it, or would they just leave it alone? Also what parts of Africa are worth colonizing?
 

Pangur

Donor
/SNIP

So that leads to the question, if France isn't interested in large swats of useless Africa, would other European countries bother to colonize it, or would they just leave it alone?

I think the answer is most certainly yes

Also what parts of Africa are worth colonizing?

Quite a bit actually.It would be easier to work out the opposite and even there with what we know today the deserts are of intrest
 
Yes. IOTL the European drive inland didn't really start on a large, international scale (i.e. leaving aside a few localised anomalies, e.g the Boer 'trekkers') until Leopold II's creation of the 'Congo Free State'. Butterfly-away Leopold, or give him different plans instead, and no CFS could well mean no Berlin Conference and the European powers bascially continuing to limit their activities in sub-Saharan Africa (other than the Cape) to trading posts -- and alliances with local tribes -- along the coasts.
 
Yes. IOTL the European drive inland didn't really start on a large, international scale (i.e. leaving aside a few localised anomalies, e.g the Boer 'trekkers') until Leopold II's creation of the 'Congo Free State'. Butterfly-away Leopold, or give him different plans instead, and no CFS could well mean no Berlin Conference and the European powers bascially continuing to limit their activities in sub-Saharan Africa (other than the Cape) to trading posts -- and alliances with local tribes -- along the coasts.

It would certainly help in keeping the whole continent being divvied up and provide less reason for the European empires to drive into the Congo and areas near it, but it certainly would'nt lead to no larger colonization elsewhere; by the time of the Berlin Conference their was a good deal of colonization going on in West Africa and in many ways it was the primary area of colonization for the Europeans, so even if the Congo remains a mixture of smaller colonies, protectorates and allied native states (in the furthest interior), West Africa, like South and East Africa (south of the Horn of Africa) are still going to be colonized as they were seen as useful and good colonization places by Europe.
 
It would certainly help in keeping the whole continent being divvied up and provide less reason for the European empires to drive into the Congo and areas near it, but it certainly would'nt lead to no larger colonization elsewhere; by the time of the Berlin Conference their was a good deal of colonization going on in West Africa and in many ways it was the primary area of colonization for the Europeans, so even if the Congo remains a mixture of smaller colonies, protectorates and allied native states (in the furthest interior), West Africa, like South and East Africa (south of the Horn of Africa) are still going to be colonized as they were seen as useful and good colonization places by Europe.

But "let's paint as much of the map ____ as possible." might not exist in this atmosphere. More than it ever did, that is.
 
That was what i was thinking.If France controls India (which I was planning), I think France would not bother with the large part of Africa it got OTL.

I'm not sure about this. Algeria was a pretty natural place for the French to expand, and gave them a settler colony (which India would not be). At the other end of the landmass, coastal West Africa is pretty valuable - the Ivory Coast is the world's leading producer of cocoa, for instance. France might still want to conquer the lands in the interior just to provide a link between the two.
 
I'm not sure about this. Algeria was a pretty natural place for the French to expand, and gave them a settler colony (which India would not be). At the other end of the landmass, coastal West Africa is pretty valuable - the Ivory Coast is the world's leading producer of cocoa, for instance. France might still want to conquer the lands in the interior just to provide a link between the two.
??? Given that France never had an effective link between Algeria and her west African colonies, iOTL, going out to conquer intervening territory doesn't seem particularly useful. Politically, maybe, you can show a map with large chunks of 'your' colour, but practically, not so much. IMO.
 
I see Imperialism basicaly as a part of a expansion of accumulated capital from Industry development. Direct colonization existed only on a territory that lacked infrastructure to perpetrate the Core-Periphery System. That's why, for instance, Latin America was never re-colonized "strictu sensu". However, if we analyse Africa before colonization what we see is mostly tribal - or a little bit more complex - societies that can't reproduce Capitalism, even from a peripheral role (a.k.a. export raw materials and buy industrial goods). Of course there were some particular spots that signified more than that and were "fated" to be colonized (India, The Cape Area, North Africa, etc.) because of its strategic values or because of "random" political events.

So, if we want a free Africa, we need only one thing: (Nation) States. To transform tribal societies into modern States is pretty hard, but, if we have a little more of an indirect colonization (White Rajahs? Nicer Leopold?) and some more conflicts in Europe it wouldn't be impossible.
 
??? Given that France never had an effective link between Algeria and her west African colonies, iOTL, going out to conquer intervening territory doesn't seem particularly useful. Politically, maybe, you can show a map with large chunks of 'your' colour, but practically, not so much. IMO.

I suppose that is true, but as long as France possessed the land in between them, they couldn't be threatened by another country. Having that land arguably gave them a sense of security.
 
My idea for Africa in (lets say) 1920 would be more or less this:

The Netherlands still owns the Cape colony. It has grown bigger, but without a major Boer Trek not as bog as OTL South Africa.

Britain, which still has important Asian colonies (although a large part of Indiais French), owns Natal and Madagascar as half way stations (kind of a British variant of the Dutch Cape Colony). It also owns East Africa (Kenya and Tanzania).

Portugal owns Mozambique and Angola and managed to connect both. It also owns (part) of the Congo.

West Africa is divided by various European nations. France has the Ivory Coast and Senegal. There exists a Dutch Gold Coast, Danish Gold Coast, a British Colony, and Spain and Portugal owns part of it. Mostly these colonies are the result of former trading post (usualy for buying slaves, although that doesn't happen anymore in 1920).

North Africa is French, but mainly to garantuee safe passage from France through the Suez Canal to French India. So it only focusses on the North African seacoast, not the inland. Egypt is a French protectorate, not a colony).

The rest of Africa is basicly colonist free. Too much work, for too little to gain.

As I said I am still thinking about it, everything can change. My question is just how reasonable is this scenario.
 
The details would need to be worked out, but in broad strokes it's reasonable. What's there to take? Working through native states for other resources is pretty plausible, IMO.
 
If the Ottoman Empire remained more viable a lot to Eastern Africa could have been saved. The old Ottoman Trade Empire in that area never relied on direct control.
 
The details would need to be worked out, but in broad strokes it's reasonable. What's there to take? Working through native states for other resources is pretty plausible, IMO.
My plan is to write a timeline that focusses on the Netherlands, but I do want to know how the rest of the world looks like. If for example the Netherlands and lets say France go to war in the 20th century*, I do need to know what colonies France has (and what colonies French and Dutch allies have)

I do want it to be different from OTL, as I will add some butterflies (Dutch Cape Colony for example). So I am now thinking of ideas how the world would/could look like without going into too much details. It must be reasonably different.

*Not saying that war would happen, it is just a random example.
 
Top