Where would they come from?WI from 1900 to end of WW2 the European migration to Rhodesia was 20 times larger than otl?
Where would they come from?
I've always wondered how successful a settler colony in Africa outside of South Africa could be, drawing away colonists from Latin America and/or the United States. Personally, I think that if you got harsher American immigration laws earlier, coupled with more instability in Latin America (perhaps a more repressive, imperialistic United States which could solve both points), you *might* be able to get more people to consider South Africa but its not going to be more desirable place in terms of climate and native population.
Actually the Zimbabwe plateau has a humid subtropic / hot Mediterranean summer climate, like Italy, also despite having little immigration it quickly became the bread basket of africa, and combine that with the cheap price of land people could easily have become rich from the settling there, but as you say America, South Africa and Latin American countries were more popular.but its not going to be more desirable place in terms of climate and native population.
So how would the colony look like if they weren't so strict about their immigration laws.The problem is not on getting people who want to move, it's getting the Rhodesians to accept them.
So how would the colony look like if they weren't so strict about their immigration laws.
Interesting so a african country with a white majority. If the large European immigration occurs that may stop the immigration of africans from the surrounding states.I'm trying to find the exact figures of how many European immigrants they were.
I found this "Between 1921-1961 Southern Rhodesia took in 248,150 white immigrants, during the same period 152,100 white people emigrated, meaning net migration was only 96,050".
But a) 1921-1961 is not the same as 1900-1945 and immigration probably was much larger in 1945-1961 than it would be from 1900-1921 and b) white does not equal European, a lot of those white immigrants would be Boers from South Africa.
But ok lets use that 248,150 figure as a ball point. And assume white emigration remains high as well.
20 times that would be about 5 million people arriving over 45 years. So about 110,000 a year albeit with 60,000 a year emigrating.
That's a lot.
The African population of Rhodesia in 1901 was only 500,000 and even by 1951 it was only 2,170,000 (and 45% of those Africans were immigrants from elsewhere in Africa e.g Nyassaland).
The lifestyle of the Southern Rhodesians relied on blacks outnumbering whites, that's how you got house servants and farm workers. Without that, the system is different. The economy is different (it would have to provide consumer goods and diverse away from tobacco farming for instance).
It would be a very different country and I don't see why anyone in charge would want that.
Also a Rhodesia that's economically diverse could have knock on effects of South Africa, since it would be a potential market for it's goods.