American Congo effects on Africa as a whole?

OK i going to speak about the Elephant in the Living room. What about the Black USA ex-slaves? They have a lot of advantage in the colonization of the Congo By USA. to name a few
1.- Have a better resistance to the Tropical illness than the white population
2.- The could easily be "encouraged" to settle in the Colonial States
3.- There is a lot of Black educated population(first Black College founded in 1837) around 30% of the black population or 1.974.237 people (sources https://nces.ed.gov/naal/lit_history.asp / https://nces.ed.gov/naal/lit_history.asp) that were Dicoraged to work in the public services (correct me if i'm wrong)
4.- a lot of the population is Rural and know how to cultivate the land with low level technology,, in a climate similar to the congo
5.- They are black, are less obvious Invasors than White people
6.- As have better resistance to the illness they could be better in manned he fort and strong points
7- It´s could have a white colony in Katanga that could serve s capital of the colony and the rest of the country could be colonised with Black ex-slaves and this could be easily sold to the american South and as a Civilizing mission to the american north
9.- instead of the vicious circle of black prisoners being used as slave labor in the chain gangs, the "normal" punishment to a black criminal is being send to colonise the congo, a lot of the damaged done to he Afro-USA population was done with criminalization of the people to be used as "public slaves" labor
10.- Liberia it´s not a option in this point of the history at least not to the majority of the ex-slave population, that could be send to the congo
11.- if everything else fails, they could be better soldiers in africa than a principally white european one

Thoughts?
 
Well, on first glance, the Congo will probably have a better time of it than OTL; granted, a lot of it will still be bad but, hell, anything would be better than OTL Congo's fate...
 
An American Congo? Hmmmmm. Interesting idea.

Right off the top of my head - you are initially going to see an upswing in Yankee and African-American missionaries in the region. I could certainly see a few early Civil Rights leaders - DuBois and Garvey in particular - taking some interest in the territory. I would expect that there would be some African-American settlement in the region, but not a substantial number. What is more likely is that a few Black businessmen actually travel there to get involved in the ivory and, later, rubber businesses. This could have some major impacts on the African-American Middle Class and culture back in the United States.

Now, the US Congo will not be as brutal as Leopold's dystopian nightmare. The constant presence of Northern missionaries in the region is going to make sure that any human rights violations are immediately leaked to a, in not sympathetic, than certain sensationalistic press. That doesn't mean that everything is going to be all roses, either. I expect that work conditions in American Rubber plantations, though not nearly as bad as in OTL, aren't going to be great and the diseases which ravaged the Congo in OTL are still going to be a problem (though, likely, not nearly as bad. I believe that killed almost a third of the population in OTL).

Now, once the Rubber boom hits, American business is going to come swooping in to the Congo. I think that shipping the materials back to the US will be cost ineffective, and so you will actually see the birth of an industrial base in the Congo itself. This will, in the long term, prove to be a great thing, but is likely going to suck at first. *Leopoldville (Lincoln City?) is going to be a boomtown with some particularly nasty slums as poor workers from the countryside flock in for factory jobs. I suspect that the Congo is ruled by an appointed governor (probably an African-American appointee - especially when the GOP is in power). Its going to take time for the US to extend its control over the entirety of the territory so, I suspect, that representative government is fairly limited for the first few decades. I would also think that the US will try to recruit a territorial militia that is drawn heavily from the local population with maybe a core of US regulars and officers.

There is no way on God's Green Earth that the Congo will EVER be a state - even ignoring the ethnic makeup of the region, its on the other side of a large ocean, and has a huge indigenous population. Most likely the Republic of the Congo gets its independence in the 1950s, much as the Philippines did in OTL. It will probably end up as one of the more economically successful and - potentially - politically stable of the African nations, however, and a true regional power.

Anyway, just some thoughts of mine, based on what I know of the Congo during the period as well as the United States.
 
Thoughts?

I have to disagree with a few of those points.

While disease resistance would be higher in black settlers than in whites, it wouldn't be by very much. The vast majority of former slaves in America at that point had been living there for many generations, and their ancestors had not even come from that region to begin with. Look at the death rates among would-be black settlers in Liberia, and add in the fact that the Congo would probably be even deadlier. The government could have forced many more people to go there, since this would be a proper colony instead of a private enterprise, but it would essentially be a death sentence for most of the people sent. If the draconian government decided to "cull" the black population through ethnic cleansing, there would be cheaper ways to do it.

I also disagree with the notion that black settlers would not be seen as invaders like their white counterparts. Why would Congolese natives feel any kinship with someone who speaks a different language, worships a different god, follows a different culture, comes from a different ethnic group, and was born on a different continent, just because they have similar skin tones? If foreigners from an outside land come in and start taking your land from you, it doesn't matter what color they are. I would look at Liberia again, where the natives there rightfully saw the American blacks as invaders.

You could have something more successful in Katanga, but the region does still have problems. It's difficult to access without getting through the worst disease-ridden areas, and would be landlocked if it was separated from the rest of the Congo. The areas itself also suffered from diseases, it's just that it's healthier only in comparison to others parts of Africa. The US would probably neglect any area that doesn't produce rubber or something else of value, and still try to set up a puppet government it can unload most of the costs of governing onto. Your point about literacy there is actually really interesting, so I'm guessing the government would actually have a pool of educated people to form the new government with. So long as they stayed friendly with US businesses and mostly followed the US on foreign policy, they'd be given a lot of leeway on governing the country, which probably would have been to the Congo's benefit compared to OTL, though still not ideal.
 
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Around the time of the Congress of Berlin, the United States was deeply, violently racist, we're talking dozens of lynchings a year, and extreme hostility to its own black population. I'm profoundly skeptical that a United States in the Congo will be a significant improvement over Leopold. The United States would still be a foreign power moving into a region of indigenous rule, and it's going to do it as cheaply and with as little manpower as possible. That's a recipe for extreme brutality. American capitalism is not kind or enlightened in this era - look at the treatment of blacks in the south, of coal miners in company towns, of Irish in the slums, of Chinese railroad workers. The United States slaughtered a substantial fraction of the Filipino population during the insurrection. Look at the treatment of American Indians - wars, genocide and reservations.

During this era, we saw American occupations and regimes in Haiti, Dominican Republic, Phillipines, Central America and Cuba. The results were never ever pretty.
 
I agree with DValdron.

Also, for all the fact that Leopold was the worst of the colonists, he was hardly in a class of his own: rubber plantations in the French Congo were hardly any better than in the Free State. Will the very worst excesses be avoided? Yes. Without the need to make so much money so quickly, I doubt you'll ever see a United States Congo trade in human hands.

An American Congo would have been a different kind of evil, and probably have a lower death toll. There would be nothing benevolent about it, however.

It will still be brutal, it will still be exploitative, it will still be run with the intent of preventing the formation of an independent local economic base or intellectual class, because that's absolutely intrinsic to how African colonization worked.
 
Also, for all the fact that Leopold was the worst of the colonists, he was hardly in a class of his own: rubber plantations in the French Congo were hardly any better than in the Free State. Will the very worst excesses be avoided? Yes. Without the need to make so much money so quickly, I doubt you'll ever see a United States Congo trade in human hands.

Brazil's experience with the Rubber Trade was also pretty vile - human slavery reborn, very abusive, very deadly.

The implication is that it was the Rubber Trade, and the particular logistics, difficulties and rewards which seemed to encourage a systematic brutalisation.
 
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You know, I'm beginning to think that colonisation wasn't very nice at all!





Not that it'll stop people posting utopian stories about Imperial Federation or benevolent American empires until the board finally dies....
 
You guys are out of your minds if you think a 20th century American government will allow tens of millions of sub Saharan Africans to become full US citizens at once
 
Idk why people post this and realistically think a tropical disease hub like DRC would be desired, profitable and inhabitable to Americans.

I'm also forever tickled to see folks talk about the ease of black Americans leaving like most weren't completely opposed to migration.

The political climate was just not there for this.
 
The absolute best scenario is that the American Congo ends up like the Philippines and becomes a more or less stable yet still poor nation. This would mean a GDP of about 260 billion USD which would be the fourth highest in Africa behind Egypt, Nigeria, and South Africa, which essentially ensures Congo's status as a regional power.

Such a huge American colony in Africa also means the United States will likely annex Liberia as well due to the often precarious finances of the Liberian government.

Congo's main problem is that their water is undrinkable. Change that variable and the worst case scenario is that they're like Brazil.

The Congo River is polluted because of mining and agriculture. What incentive does the United States have to clean the river up? Especially since that would impact the main industries and economic value of the colony. And I don't buy in the slightest that a clean Congo river (plus tributaries) means the Congo will magically end up like Brazil.
 

Nephi

Banned
Yet, if Puerto Rico had become a state, they'd replace Florida as a place for vacations and retirement. Since they're not a state, they remain second class citizens.

Which just isn't right, not at all they're part of the US, and have twice now voted for statehood.
 
As a US possession it will fall under the same environmental regulations as the rest of the US when (or if) those are implemented.

Which might make it harder to implement such things in the US in general, of course. Also, if there's one consistent theme in American history, it's that passing a law and enforcing it are entirely different challenges. If we don't like a law, we try to fix it, but if that fails, we'll just ignore it and dare government to stop us.
 
As a US possession it will fall under the same environmental regulations as the rest of the US when (or if) those are implemented.

And water pollution was pretty horrible until the 70s, and I'd expect environmental concerns in the Congo to go hand in hand with an independence movement, although it will likely long since have been given independence as a US client.

Which might make it harder to implement such things in the US in general, of course. Also, if there's one consistent theme in American history, it's that passing a law and enforcing it are entirely different challenges. If we don't like a law, we try to fix it, but if that fails, we'll just ignore it and dare government to stop us.

You can always make the law apply to the 50 (or 48) States alone and not to any territories of the US. Look at all the abuses and mismanagement in the OTL territories of the US, like American Samoa, the Northern Marianas, Virgin Islands, etc.
 
So can anyone explain to me why the inmensely racist XIX century US would even consider the Congo as an state? They didn't even want its Centroamerican/Philipine colonies as states and they were much smaller; even Puerto Rico is not a full state today. Why, or how, would will they incorporate the Congo, which IIRC was one of the most populated subsaharan territories?

Best case would be a "light" occupation as the Philipines (which still was very brutal) and a slightly more developed Congo. Worst would be rampant capitalist explotation, a dozen little Leopolds instead of one. Probably somewhere in the middle, a lot more of the latter.

The Congo is BIG. Building infrastructure and extending administration is difficult even without the deep widesprad explotation of OTL. Even assuming a completely ASB humanitarian development it wouldn't reach first world status at independence. An US Congo would be interesting but far from benevolent and becoming a state(s) is nothing more than a ameriwank fantasy.
 
As a US possession it will fall under the same environmental regulations as the rest of the US when (or if) those are implemented.

Not a chance in hell. You only have to look at the exceptions or exclusions carved out for Indian Reservations or overseas territories to see that just didn't happen in OTL. It won't happen here.
 
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