More colonies- better Portugal?

All of these are OTL numbers of settlers from Portugal that went elsewhere? I'm asking because OTL population of Portugal itself was 1,1 mil. in mid-1600s or 3,3 mil in mid-1700s with only 3,4 mil in mid-1800s...

Those numbers are for a possible timeline.

In reality the net loss of emigrants from Portugal was as follows (these numbers are according to Portuguese historian Vitorino Magalhães Godinho :
1415-1500 100,000
1500-1580 280,000
1580-1640 360,000
1640-1700 120,000
1700-1760 600,000

Portugal's population (excluding the Azores and Madeira)
1400 - 1 million
1527 - 1.1 million
1636 - 1.1 million
1732 - 2.1 million
1801 - 2.9 million

The numbers above are similar to the stagnation/growth experienced by France, the Netherlands, etc. The plague had an effect on Portugal, but unlike France, Portugal's low population growth tended to be attributed to mass emigration rather than war.

Most of the emigration before 1640 was actually directed to firstly Madeira and the Azores and Morocco in the 15th century. Africa and Asia during the 16th century with a small portion going to Brazil.

The emigration to the Indies was interesting, 90% of it was male, and many who settled married local women in Macau, Goa, Malaca, Ceylon, Timor etc forming the nucleus of creole communities that would last well into the 20th century. However, with just under half of the ships from the East returning to Portugal between 1500 and 1640, many of men perished because of diseases and to a lesser extent war.

Settler colonization of entire families and women had begun in the Azores, Madeira and Morocco during the 15th century. King João III had begun sending "orfãs do rei" (orphans of the king) as brides to Portuguese men in Ormuz, Goa, Malaca, and Macau. They would later be sent to Luanda, with the first contingent of them arriving in 1593.

By 1600 the Azores and Madeira were overpopulated and emigration from these islands to Brazil had begun in the mid-16th century. However, the first state-sponsored colonisation of families began in 1619 with 200 coupes from the Azores being sent to Maranhão. Until the late 18th century, thousands of settlers from the Azores arrived in Brazil this way, colonising Maranhão, Pará and later Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul.

However, if we look at the Portuguese immigration into Brazil, between 1500 and 1700 an estimated 100,000 Portuguese arrived and between 1700 and 1760 another 600,000. Between 1760 and 1800 perhaps another 100,000. However, the white population of Brazil only numbered around 900,000. This means that Brazil was similar to colonial Virginia in that natural population growth remained low due to high mortality. However, in southern Brazil the Azorean settlement of Santa Catarina (today's Florianópolis) between 1747-1756 of 6,000 settlers grew rapidly, at rates comparable to those found in other temperate areas. In the Northeast of Brazil, the negative growth rate of European population tended to resemble that found in the Caribbean, colonial South Carolina and Georgia.

South Africa in contrast had a natural growth rate of 2.7% per annum for its white population during the 18th century. This is similar to New France's and New England's. Generally speaking Europeans at that time moving to frontier societies tended to marry younger due to the availability of land and have more children. Also, because they to live on farms rather than villages, the spread of disease was mitigated.
 
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