Effects on decolonization, if more people immigrate to colonial Africa.

BlondieBC

Banned
How would Africa look linguistically? In my limited understanding, I would think that British Africa looks like Peru and Bolivia linguistically, while French, Italian, German and Portuguese Sub Sahara Africa look like Mexico and Brazil linguistically. What would be the situations of the Natives? Would Africa be comparable to Latin America in terms of culture mixing?

I think former French Africa is a good guide. English as trade language plus you speak your tribal language and maybe a few others.

Not sure on culture mixing. A lot of that is how much intermarriage of races is tolerated or encouraged.
 
I think former French Africa is a good guide. English as trade language plus you speak your tribal language and maybe a few others.

Not sure on culture mixing. A lot of that is how much intermarriage of races is tolerated or encouraged.
What colonial power was the most tolerating of intermarriage? Also don't you mean French as a trade language,?
 

Wallet

Banned
In 1914, 38% of the world either lived in Europe or had European ancestry (living in the Western hemisphere, Australia, South Africa, Russian Far-East etc). 38 million would die, mostly from Europe. Another 70 million would die in WW2. Millions more in the holocaust and Communist purges. France lost a quarter of its young men in WW1 alone.

Avoid WW1 and have a peaceful 20th century. Europe will be filled to the brim with people. By 1950 ATL, millions will need to migrate. We are talking 300-500 million extra people. The United States had strict immigrant laws and quotas until 1965, so other locations are needed.

Italians flood to Libya. The French flood into Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia. The British flood to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa (these countries get large numbers from all European countries). The Dutch flood into South Africa. Kenya get smaller but significant numbers of British immigrants. The Germans flood into Namibia and Tanzania.Millions of Jews and Russians would flood Palestine.

You have the potential for several white majority or south African demographics like countries all over Africa.

Assuming with a large increase of the white population, plus no WW1, the Europeans keep their colonies and form federations with them. This would allow easy movement from one part of the Empire to another. I can see many Indians coming from India for cheap labor to work the mines and farms, but later settleing.

Assuming the Ottomans still collsepse as OTL and the British and French carve out the Middle East, then Arabs would get the chance to work and sell in Africa.

What about this?
 
In 1914, 38% of the world either lived in Europe or had European ancestry (living in the Western hemisphere, Australia, South Africa, Russian Far-East etc). 38 million would die, mostly from Europe. Another 70 million would die in WW2. Millions more in the holocaust and Communist purges. France lost a quarter of its young men in WW1 alone.

Avoid WW1 and have a peaceful 20th century. Europe will be filled to the brim with people. By 1950 ATL, millions will need to migrate. We are talking 300-500 million extra people. The United States had strict immigrant laws and quotas until 1965, so other locations are needed.

Italians flood to Libya. The French flood into Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia. The British flood to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa (these countries get large numbers from all European countries). The Dutch flood into South Africa. Kenya get smaller but significant numbers of British immigrants. The Germans flood into Namibia and Tanzania.Millions of Jews and Russians would flood Palestine.

You have the potential for several white majority or south African demographics like countries all over Africa.

Assuming with a large increase of the white population, plus no WW1, the Europeans keep their colonies and form federations with them. This would allow easy movement from one part of the Empire to another. I can see many Indians coming from India for cheap labor to work the mines and farms, but later settleing.

Assuming the Ottomans still collsepse as OTL and the British and French carve out the Middle East, then Arabs would get the chance to work and sell in Africa.

What about this?
The Ottomans wouldn't collapse without world war I, and also I am not expecting white majorities, which would take smaller countries or genocide, but just colonies with a large minority of various immigrants. Also, I think Russia made a point of restricting emigration abroad, as they seemed to want to fulfill Siberia.
 
One of the issues worth remembering is that immigrants also care about infrastructure - most immigrants to the US went to the East Coast cities where there were well paying jobs and good infrastructure. Had African cities existed with similar levels of development before WW2, I am fairly sure the African colonies would attract more immigrants from the ME, Europe and India.

If those cities had rail lines extending into the hinterlands, allowing farmers to cheaply move their crops to the urban markets, then again, you'd see increased immigration to the areas around the railroads (just like you did in the US and other settler colonies).

It would be an interesting Africa... In most colonies, white settlers actually destabilized the colonies. So more immigrants from Europe could lead to a much more restless Africa and possibly an earlier decolonization. Indian and Arab immigration, on the other hand, I think would likely have more positive impacts on the colonies themselves, though their status as middle-men will mean they are looked down on the white rulers and by the blacks at the bottom of the pyramid. Nonetheless, Indian immigrants were very important in the economic and political development of Africa. Across British Africa, for example, Indians would form a key role in building up political institutions in the colonies and in leading movements for decolonization and the construction of countries out of the arbitrary amalgamations of local peoples that were the colonies.

fasquardon
 
I would like to see some evidence & models behind the idea that there might be 500 million extra whites compared to OTL.
I wont deny that Germany and Central Europe in particular will be more populated than OTL. Russia could also boom as communism is avoided. Still 500M is excessive to me.

France doesnt have the demographics to "flood" Algeria with settlers. French population growth was stagnant before WW1 and remained so after WW1. At best we could expect TTL France to have 45M inhabitants by 1940 instead of the 40M of OTL minus Alsace Lorraine.
These 5M can stay at home if the French economy and agriculture are modernised.

As for 10% to 20% of natives assimilating each generation. It wont happen unless citizenship is made far more available. No war actually lessen the push for reforms, why? No veterans ...
 
You will never get an Africa that is majority immigrant. You can use any of series of POD's that will give you an immigrant dominated country. For example, if you give Germany early enough control of a colony with a good climate (Angola, Rhodesia, etc) and internal support in Germany for funding said colony, you will divert a decent percent of Germanic migration to this colony. And if small enough and especially if avoid WW1, you can get a much more Germanic African nation.

In agreement I do not see any "white" majority in Africa, at best you get larger European minorities in select countries, if those filter further out from the cities and big planation farm system then you get a better shot at multi-ethnic experiences that hopefully mitigate the tragic racism Europeans all too often fell into. It appears the Germans were rather active in studying tropical disease, a legacy we still benefit from, so perhaps they might have set their science to disease control, treatment and reduction such that disease was no longer the biggest hurdle. But I agree that migration would track to familiar climes until later in the century. Only after air-conditioning does it seem folks chase the sun.

Looking at Germany's experiences, they settled most heavily in Namibia and committed genocide against the natives, yet elsewhere they built schools and acted better than other powers in improving the native situation. All the African possessions were net losers in terms of cash flow and the migrant population was quite low. It seems Germans had less draw to colonialism and after the blood shed in Namibia there was popular opinion towards becoming much better stewards. From this I might argue that Germany had the most to gain in transitioning its colonies to independence and favorable trade rather than direct control, so they might have opened the door to de-colonization despite avoiding WW1 or WW2. Sadly it was the very worst of behavior that did seem to change Germany's course, an evolution cut short by WW1 and the grab by other powers who had every incentive to profit from the spoils. Perhaps that is the lost opportunity. German industry had incentive to open markets, I can see Germany evolving to pursue de-colonization as its avowed policy, and that makes them bedfellows with the USA economically and the USSR ideologically.
 
I've seen this idea discussed several times before, it's difficult to get a majority European descended population African state on a large scale, given all the limitations set out above and the demographic changes inflicted by the World Wars. The best places for European settlement were South Africa, Rhodesia and parts of Kenya, but even there there were significant barriers, the Afrikaners weren't keen on further immigration from Britain, one of the first actions of the National Party government after 1948 was to sell the fleet of liners that the Smuts Government had planned to bring in migrants from Europe. If you wanted to move to Rhodesia the authorities charged you something like £4,000 to do so which was serious money back then.

One idea I've seen on here requires a pre 1900 PoD and it involves the Voortrek never happening. For this to happen I think you need the Dutch population of the Cape to be significantly larger, the VOC wasn't keen on having a settler colony so you need to overcome that. If the colony is strong enough then it might be able to resist the British and remain independent, with further immigration from Europe over the following decades then much of modern day Western Cape Province might be a majority European state today.

Assuming decolonisation still happens due to a rise in African Nationalism then this state may well be seen as illegitimate and some may call for its destruction, so you could have an Israel/Northern Ireland type conflict in Southern Africa.

That's the best scenario I can think of to create such a state, to get one on a larger scale you're going to need full on ethnic cleansing and genocide.
 
I saw a blog post by a South African economic historian who saidthat if the Dutch East India company had decided to encourage European labourers rather than slaves to come to the Cape Colony things could have been very different. Obviously it was cheaper to bring in slaves rather than Europeans who you would have to pay decent wages.

I'm on my phone but when I'm back at my computer I'll look for the post.
 
I would like to see some evidence & models behind the idea that there might be 500 million extra whites compared to OTL.
I wont deny that Germany and Central Europe in particular will be more populated than OTL. Russia could also boom as communism is avoided. Still 500M is excessive to me.

France doesnt have the demographics to "flood" Algeria with settlers. French population growth was stagnant before WW1 and remained so after WW1. At best we could expect TTL France to have 45M inhabitants by 1940 instead of the 40M of OTL minus Alsace Lorraine.
These 5M can stay at home if the French economy and agriculture are modernised.

As for 10% to 20% of natives assimilating each generation. It wont happen unless citizenship is made far more available. No war actually lessen the push for reforms, why? No veterans ...

France did not flood Algeria with many French OTL. A large share, possibly even a slim majority, of pieds noirs were of Italian, Spanish, even Maltese descent.

Would there necessarily be more French migrants to Algeria if the metropolitan French population was ~15% larger and probably substantially younger? I suspect that, given the model of settlement in Algeria and the underlying economics, that immigration was as high as it could go. The origins of European immigrants to Algeria came from all over the northwest of the Mediterranean basin, the arc extending from Spain in the west up through Languedoc and Provence down through Italy to Malta. That entire region saw strong population growth throughout the French presence in Algeria, and--with the exception of the French territories--equally saw very substantial emigration, the very large majority of which did not go to Algeria.

What is the connection between slightly stronger population growth in metropolitan France and the increased attractiveness of Algeria as a destination for migrants? Why would you necessarily get more Europeans in metropolitan France and Algeria, without changing Algeria significantly? You might get more French migrants to Algeria, but these migrants might in turn displace non-French European immigrants: OTL France was concerned about the population balance in North Africa's colonial populations. You'd be more likely to get larger cities in metropolitan France and more French emigrants: Argentina would be a much likelier destination than Algeria, I'd think.
 
You would need something that literally force people to move from Europe, remember, what make people to immigrate is search for new chances to grow, safer lives or simply survival or necessity.

Maybe Environmental Exhaustion on Europe? That would force immigration to Africa.
 
You would need something that literally force people to move from Europe, remember, what make people to immigrate is search for new chances to grow, safer lives or simply survival or necessity.

Maybe Environmental Exhaustion on Europe? That would force immigration to Africa.
It's not just immigrants from Europe, but also from the Middle East , East Asia and South Asia, that I am talking about. How would they affect decolonization , since they add to the numbers of immigrants and immigrant descended peoples. I don't get why everybody is solely talking about European immigrants. I actually mentioned Arabs, East Asians, and Indians in the beginning.
 
It's not just immigrants from Europe, but also from the Middle East , East Asia and South Asia, that I am talking about. How would they affect decolonization , since they add to the numbers of immigrants and immigrant descended peoples. I don't get why everybody is solely talking about European immigrants. I actually mentioned Arabs, East Asians, and Indians in the beginning.

Because people are used to people asking about more white immigration to Africa.

I think it is really interesting to think about what Africa might look like with a 10% or larger Indian minority or an Arab minority extending even into West and Central Africa...

fasquardon
 
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