Potato introduced widely a century earlier

Much of Europe did not accept the potato until the end of the Thirty Years War when underground crops were harder to find and destroy. As a result populations in Germany and Central Europe expanded notably. What if the potato were introduced successfully a century earlier from Peru? Would Spain or the Netherlands or Germany experience such population growth earlier and could this result in novel developments as a result? Or would a blight potentially cause a massive famine and early exodus to the New World?
 
For the blight it depends a bit on what kinds of potatoes. In South America there is a mind-boggling variety of them (love the little yellow ones) and having more variety would help a great deal against the blight.
 
The problem with introducing potatoes earlier than the 17th century is that the European varietals took along time to breed. They aren't the same as the Andean ones. The biggest difference is their circadian rhythm. Andean potatoes deal well with the european climate, but the length of sunshine in the summer here makes them grow like weeds, limiting the energy storage in their roots. You get fields overgrown with luxuriant greenery while tubers stay tiny. It wasn't until the 1600s that they had that under control. Of course, more interest could have boosted that effort a bit.

More importantly, though, even after the 30YW potatoes remained a niche crop in most of Europe. If they had become more widespread before 1700, that could have produced interesting effects down the road. The primary one I can think of is averting the French famines late in the reign of Louis XIV. They badly undermined royal authority and the war effort. With potatoes available, the effect could well be less severe. Probably not enough to win the War of the Spanish Succession, but perhaps good enough to not have the Sun King's funeral cortege stoned by his loving subjects.

I suppose effects in Eastern Europe could be huge, but I don't know enough about the demographics of seventeenth-century Russia and Poland to say how it would play out.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
I suppose effects in Eastern Europe could be huge, but I don't know enough about the demographics of seventeenth-century Russia and Poland to say how it would play out.

By around 1880, Poland and other central European countries had run out of farm land and the mass migration of Germans, Poles, Slavs, and Italians to Brazil, the USA, and other areas begin. If the potato was 100 years ahead of OTL, this mass migration starts earlier. Not 100 years, because we are not improving health care and sanitation, the other half of the population boom. These means the immigrants are arriving in the New World with 75 years less time for the natives to recover from disease. North and South America are a lot more white.

Now to the types of things we would likely see.

1) The area that is now the USA fills up a lot sooner. Either the USA accepts a lot of immigrants (a POD), and might end up with a mult-language country, or the USA will lose places like California which will be settled by Poles or Germans or Italians. The same hold true for areas like British and American Columbia. So the USA and Canada could be several ethnic states, or the USA could grow much faster and be larger. In either case, the Native Americans are even a smaller portion of the population.

2) Brazil and Argentina have the same dynamic, but I can't speculate on the details.

3) Enough whites make it to what is now South Africa to make it possible a white majority state. Better farming areas of Africa like Rwanda, lake Victoria area, NE Nigeria could also end up white. IOTL, the native population had time to grow to match the increasing food population. In this ATL, a situation where Uganda herders are swamped by Polish Farmers, and Uganda speaks Polish and is majority white ancestry is possible.

4) With higher food production and more settlers, I can see Manchuria not being a mix of Manchu and Chinese, but Manchu and Slav.

5) Major port cities like Singapore and Hong Kong could be almost all white. IOTL, they sucked in native labor to fill the labor needs. In this ATL, when these ports are built on almost empty islands, it could be filled by surplus population from Europe.

Now not all this would happen. But Europeans would be a much higher % of the world ancestry today, and there would be probably over 400 million more people of primarily European decent world wide. It is just where does the population overflow too. To a large extend IOTL, European technology increased the carry capacity of land, and African and Asians population increased. With this change, a lot more is absorbed by European, not African population. It would make a fascination TL.
 
By around 1880, Poland and other central European countries had run out of farm land and the mass migration of Germans, Poles, Slavs, and Italians to Brazil, the USA, and other areas begin. If the potato was 100 years ahead of OTL, this mass migration starts earlier. Not 100 years, because we are not improving health care and sanitation, the other half of the population boom. These means the immigrants are arriving in the New World with 75 years less time for the natives to recover from disease. North and South America are a lot more white.

You're forgetting that the mass migration was also enabled by steamships, and the food production boom itself was also due to dryland agricultural practices bringing the temperate steppe of southeastern Europe and the Mediterranean littoral to a higher productivity level, and the widespread use of nirates and a hundred other things. The potato is not the root (heh) of everything.

If you have massive population surges before they can be siphoned off by steam ships you'll just see a depression of later population growth (see Ireland). Even if you doubled the outflow I wouldn't see anything like you're predicting either: They'd exceed the carrying capacity of the african highlands soon enough, and die off massively if disease management hasn't moved at the same pace, American westward expansion was not primarily driven by immigrants (who mostly went to the cities), but by the expansion of the existing rural american population, and again driven by improvements separate from the potato, I don't see what the difference would be for Brazil or Argentina both who had massive immigrant numbers anyway, and in the treaty ports native labour would still be cheaper than bringing people all the way from europe, especially since Europeans won't be keen on the local diet or climate.
 
The problem with introducing potatoes earlier than the 17th century is that the European varietals took along time to breed. They aren't the same as the Andean ones. The biggest difference is their circadian rhythm. Andean potatoes deal well with the european climate, but the length of sunshine in the summer here makes them grow like weeds, limiting the energy storage in their roots. You get fields overgrown with luxuriant greenery while tubers stay tiny. It wasn't until the 1600s that they had that under control. Of course, more interest could have boosted that effort a bit.

More importantly, though, even after the 30YW potatoes remained a niche crop in most of Europe. If they had become more widespread before 1700, that could have produced interesting effects down the road. The primary one I can think of is averting the French famines late in the reign of Louis XIV. They badly undermined royal authority and the war effort. With potatoes available, the effect could well be less severe. Probably not enough to win the War of the Spanish Succession, but perhaps good enough to not have the Sun King's funeral cortege stoned by his loving subjects.

I suppose effects in Eastern Europe could be huge, but I don't know enough about the demographics of seventeenth-century Russia and Poland to say how it would play out.

The French were stubborn with potatoes. They clung to their wheat, blights and all, despite various attempts to make the crop popular. It was viewed as a 'royal crop' by many because of the lengths that Louis XV and XVI went to promote it. It was eventually imposed from the bottom up by Louis XV's pharmacist who grew a plot of 50 acres outside Paris. He had it guarded and it basically caught the curiosity of the people who soon wanted the crop for themselves. From there, some peasants grew small crops of it, but wheat remained popular way until the 19th century, as evidenced by poor crop failures in 1816, where Louis XVIII's government, influenced by the great landowners, refused to lower tariffs on foodstuffs, resulting in hunger that was probably worse than 1789.

If it became possible to introduce it in 1700 though, it might help with French demography. I mean, it was already experiencing the boom that other countries would have to wait until the 19th century for, but it might give them a further boost in population down the line with a staple crop less susceptible to the weather.
 
Silly as it sounds, I would like to do a tour of Southern America, if just to try different potato varieties that never make it outside of the region

I would also imagine that if potatoes spread more quickly, earlier, then this may also mean greater use outside of Europe.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
You're forgetting that the mass migration was also enabled by steamships, and the food production boom itself was also due to dryland agricultural practices bringing the temperate steppe of southeastern Europe and the Mediterranean littoral to a higher productivity level, and the widespread use of nirates and a hundred other things. The potato is not the root (heh) of everything.

If you have massive population surges before they can be siphoned off by steam ships you'll just see a depression of later population growth (see Ireland). Even if you doubled the outflow I wouldn't see anything like you're predicting either: They'd exceed the carrying capacity of the african highlands soon enough, and die off massively if disease management hasn't moved at the same pace, American westward expansion was not primarily driven by immigrants (who mostly went to the cities), but by the expansion of the existing rural american population, and again driven by improvements separate from the potato, I don't see what the difference would be for Brazil or Argentina both who had massive immigrant numbers anyway, and in the treaty ports native labour would still be cheaper than bringing people all the way from europe, especially since Europeans won't be keen on the local diet or climate.

Yes, there were other factors, but the potato will raise the population limit, and help the population not be crashed by wars. For example, a lot more Germans survive the 30 year war since the potato is harder to destroy in war. So the population recovers faster, and the absolute carry capacity is higher.

So lets take USA westward expansion, keeping the war outcomes the same. France could not settle what is now the state of Louisiana because people did not want to come in the early 1700. So they sent criminals and prostitutes. Literally, they emptied the jail. With a higher population in France, and more pressure, they would be a lot larger unemployed, landless class. These would have been sent. IOTL, they brought Germans, and there still is a limited population in the area. With Germany having some overpopulated areas a lot more people come. Now yes, lack of steam is an issue, to have a major German/French population in Louisiana and Arkansas does not take steam ships, and can be done with sail. Around 3 million were in the American colonies by the time of the revolutionary war. So there could easily be 1 million in the Louisiana purchase area, not the 10,000 or so of OTL. Now with this head start, the west is settle much faster.

And even if it is not popular, it would still be 100,000 or 10X more than OTL. So when the mass migrations out of Germany and Poland begin around 1800. not 1800, there are German speaking towns up and down the Mississippi, or at least German culture towns in the USA. As the USA citizens are beginning to cross into Ohio, Kentucky in mass, there are waves of Germans or Poles or French arriving in New Orleans in mass. Many of these will quickly moved to the excellent farming land in Iowa or Arkansas, where farming towns already exists. The center of the USA will settle faster. Now I used a butterfly net to who wins wars, but it is clear that population will soar.

Lets go to Uganda highlands. What you said is my point. Whites will arrive in numbers in the very early 1800's. The blacks will be herders. As the improvement in medicine and agricultural techniques arrive over the years, it will be whites eating the extra food, not blacks. This means that Poland will be like Hawaii with a native minority. The country will be majority white farmers (Pick a nationality) and a black population much closer to its 1800 level. Many of these countries population went up by 10 to 1 from 1850 to today, and almost all of this is blacks. What will happened here is the herders will still grow by 2 or 3 to 1. But Whites will be 70 to 80% of the population.

Yes, places like Brazil and Argentina will not be as impacted. The immigration will be sooner, and the country will be a bit higher white. These white immigrants will go to the most favorable land first which is places like California, Australia, South Africa, Argentina, and Brazil. Then as these fill ups, the bulk of the immigration will switch to places like the African highlands where disease will be hars.
 
Low levels of white immigration to Africa was not just a result of population or disease, it was also due to the resilience of the resident native populations, as opposed to say Australia or NZ.

For example, South Africa - so far as I recall, the initial area of settlement around the Cape had low numbers of indigenous settlement, but despite that, took sometime to colonise. As white settlement expanded inland, they came across much bigger and more capable indigenous Black groups, who were harder to disposses and with whom there were many small frontier wars. Like any coloniser, some luck was achieved in that the mid-late 19th century settlers took benefit from arriving around or after a big series of wars or conflicts between the Zulu and other indigenous tribes or groups.

Whereas in say NZ, the settlers were able to easily settle the South Island due to negligible indigenous settlement, but were not easily able to settle the North Island for another 30 years, until after we won a series of wars against the Maori.
 
Lets go to Uganda highlands. What you said is my point. Whites will arrive in numbers in the very early 1800's. The blacks will be herders.

I believe this statement is mistaken. The highland areas around Uganda and Rwanda were very agricultural going back hundreds of years, and created food surpluses that supported some of the most densely populated and complex kingdoms south of Ethiopia. Black people were highly numerous, and unlike the Maori or the Cape Khoisan they had iron weapons and the political centralization necessary to run military campaigns. These guys are not going to go down easily, especially since their territory is only reachable by traversing regions endemic with malaria.

As the improvement in medicine and agricultural techniques arrive over the years, it will be whites eating the extra food, not blacks.

IOTL, black Africans in this region adopted potato agriculture. I see no reason that they wouldn't do it ITTL, and have their population grow. While whites might hoard the best medical knowledge for themselves, they will give medicines to the people they colonized, if for no other reason than to keep their potential slaves/indentured laborers healthy-and just like OTL, this will cause a population explosion among the Africans

This means that Uganda will be like Hawaii with a native minority.

There is one way that Uganda could end up like Hawaii, and that would be through the presence of planter settlers growing large coffee or tea plantations which are manned by a majority non-white workforce. The temptation for white settlers to get rich by setting up large plantations will exist ITTL as IOTL, and as per OTL it will prevent white settlement from becoming dense as whites will be demanding large cash plantations instead of small farms. If these plantations are successful, the white settlers will get money and with that education-two major factors in ensuring low birth rates.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Low levels of white immigration to Africa was not just a result of population or disease, it was also due to the resilience of the resident native populations, as opposed to say Australia or NZ.

For example, South Africa - so far as I recall, the initial area of settlement around the Cape had low numbers of indigenous settlement, but despite that, took sometime to colonise. As white settlement expanded inland, they came across much bigger and more capable indigenous Black groups, who were harder to disposses and with whom there were many small frontier wars. Like any coloniser, some luck was achieved in that the mid-late 19th century settlers took benefit from arriving around or after a big series of wars or conflicts between the Zulu and other indigenous tribes or groups.

Whereas in say NZ, the settlers were able to easily settle the South Island due to negligible indigenous settlement, but were not easily able to settle the North Island for another 30 years, until after we won a series of wars against the Maori.

I am not saying it will like the USA or Australia, where the natives were replaced in mass. It will be more like Mexico.

South Africa is a good example. As the Dutch were pushing east from Cape Town, the Zulu were pushing SW into South Africa. IOTL, South Africa is about 16% white. Given a lot more immigration, this could easily be majority white. Rhodesia was less than 3% white, with this change it could easily be near South Africa level in OTL. These dramatic demographic changes would radically change Africa. And there can be local butterflies that would actually make one or two regions less white.

Now I am not saying there would be no wars, or the Whites would behave better. But take your Maori war, and then double or triple the rate of White migration. Most likely it ends much faster and with greater defeats of the Maori. I don't know enough NZ history to say for sure, but it is hard to see a lot larger white population slowing expansion.
 

Thande

Donor
Well, as mentioned above, there are reasons why this couldn't happen. But if you handwave those and just say "it did", then the effects would indeed be interesting. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth would get a big demographic boost, for a start, which might help them in centuries to come. So would Bohemia, which might change the balance of power in the wars of religion. Ireland would naturally get its massive boost earlier, though the question arises as to whether Britain would also be adopting potatoes earlier and more enthusiastically in TTL, meaning the relative increase might not be as much as you'd think. Still, if you ignore butterflies it might produce enough of a demographic surge that Ireland can successfully achieve more-or-less independence during the English Civil War or an analogous conflict.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
I believe this statement is mistaken. The highland areas around Uganda and Rwanda were very agricultural going back hundreds of years, and created food surpluses that supported some of the most densely populated and complex kingdoms south of Ethiopia. Black people were highly numerous, and unlike the Maori or the Cape Khoisan they had iron weapons and the political centralization necessary to run military campaigns. These guys are not going to go down easily, especially since their territory is only reachable by traversing regions endemic with malaria.



IOTL, black Africans in this region adopted potato agriculture. I see no reason that they wouldn't do it ITTL, and have their population grow. While whites might hoard the best medical knowledge for themselves, they will give medicines to the people they colonized, if for no other reason than to keep their potential slaves/indentured laborers healthy-and just like OTL, this will cause a population explosion among the Africans



There is one way that Uganda could end up like Hawaii, and that would be through the presence of planter settlers growing large coffee or tea plantations which are manned by a majority non-white workforce. The temptation for white settlers to get rich by setting up large plantations will exist ITTL as IOTL, and as per OTL it will prevent white settlement from becoming dense as whites will be demanding large cash plantations instead of small farms. If these plantations are successful, the white settlers will get money and with that education-two major factors in ensuring low birth rates.

Uganda might be mistaken, but I am correct on Rwanda and Burundi. I have looked at the population dynamic of Nigeria, Kamerun, Angola, and German East Africa in detail. In Kamerun, I have done looked in much more detail. But there could be something about Uganda that makes it a lot different than just across the border.

Yes, in places the area was densely populated for the time and places were farming based. But in each of the countries, the population has move at least 5 to 1 over a century. And yes, disease is an issue. But you are getting lost in the details. Large area of Africa that are now farmland were herding land or hunter gather land in 1850. What happens is not so much the native farmers are expelled or killed, even though this will happen some, it is the new land will be settled and first farmed by whites. Even in Uganda/Kenya, a lot of what is farmed now was grazing land back then, and would be white.

Let me get to Kamerun, which I am most familiar with. In 1910, it under 3 million natives and under 3 thousand whites. Now it has more than 10 million, and produces a food surplus. With a much higher European outflow, the ratio might be more like 600,000 whites and 3 million blacks in 1910, and the country goes from being a pretty pure black only country to a mixed race area like South Africa. Now this sounds like a big change, but if immigration to Kamerun had started in numbers by 1885, this is quite achievable. 10K-30K per year for a few decades changes everything. Yes in 1885, it might be only 1K per year, but if by 1900 it is up to 20K per year, the numbers work. If immigration starts earlier, such as 1850, then by 1910, Kamerun might be a majority white country. They key is this, IOTL, as food production and medical techniques improved the carry capacity of the land, native population increased to take the vast majority of the gain outside of parts of South Africa. In a situation where there is a large surplus of farmers in Europe that starts around 1810, not 1880, this is taken up by whites. Now yes, Argentina is filled up long before Kamerun. But after 40-70 years of heavy white immigration to South America, the immigration will go to other places like Angola, Kamerun or the Uganda Highlands. I can't say which countries would be chose, but this type of event would happen. And the one of the major agricultural area of Kamerun is not a malaria zone.
 
Ireland would naturally get its massive boost earlier, though the question arises as to whether Britain would also be adopting potatoes earlier and more enthusiastically in TTL, meaning the relative increase might not be as much as you'd think. Still, if you ignore butterflies it might produce enough of a demographic surge that Ireland can successfully achieve more-or-less independence during the English Civil War or an analogous conflict.

To get onto a serious point on Ireland in this scenario. Ireland's soil is pretty bad, which is why untill potatoes were introduced the island had a relatively low population compared with our western neighbour. Britain however has very good soil in various areas, so whilst potato farming may be generally more popular then OTL, I don't think it will have a particularly huge effect on population numbers.

As for earlier "independence", unless these potatoes are capable of spreading a sense of national-interest and a willingness to unite behind a cause without putting your own interests first, I don't think it'll happen.
 

Thande

Donor
As for earlier "independence", unless these potatoes are capable of spreading a sense of national-interest and a willingness to unite behind a cause without putting your own interests first, I don't think it'll happen.

Heh, good point, but that might actually be true to some extent--earlier potatoes = richer and more valuable Ireland = England installs more centralised national institutions in Dublin (like how Henry VIII was considering in OTL) to better govern it (i.e. make more money out of it) = years later these institutions provide a framework for Irish Catholic Confederation-type revolutionaries to take over and theoretically control the whole country rather than be subject to the usual lack of unity. It's a possibility, at least.
 
Heh, good point, but that might actually be true to some extent--earlier potatoes = richer and more valuable Ireland = England installs more centralised national institutions in Dublin (like how Henry VIII was considering in OTL) to better govern it (i.e. make more money out of it) = years later these institutions provide a framework for Irish Catholic Confederation-type revolutionaries to take over and theoretically control the whole country rather than be subject to the usual lack of unity. It's a possibility, at least.

True, though a remote one. If Ireland is richer it means that the middle/upper-classes (land-owning planters, anglicised chieftains, Anglo-Irish aristocracy etc) will be more likely to stick with Britain as the chief money-maker, and as lower-class activism against the elite is a much more Protestant thing in this time, Ireland could well become a bread basket and manpower pool for Royalists in an English Civil War analogue.

But on the flipside, if when trying to establish these institutions for better Irish government the Bitish decide to make it a more exclusively English-speaking, Protestant club, they could piss off an awful lot of the native nobility.
 
Yes, in places the area was densely populated for the time and places were farming based. But in each of the countries, the population has move at least 5 to 1 over a century.

The fact that the native population made this leap does not mean a European settler population could. See below.

And yes, disease is an issue. But you are getting lost in the details.

This is not a detail. This is why no nation in West Africa ever had the white population of Kenya, let alone South Africa. A population boom in Europe will not make the malarial zones any more easy to settle. Disease matters a lot in the history of Africa.

Large area of Africa that are now farmland were herding land or hunter gather land in 1850. What happens is not so much the native farmers are expelled or killed, even though this will happen some, it is the new land will be settled and first farmed by whites. Even in Uganda/Kenya, a lot of what is farmed now was grazing land back then, and would be white.

Source? I can definitely believe that a lot of unfarmed land in Africa (particularly South Africa) became farmed by Europeans recently, but the Bantu expansion had spread farming to pretty much all corners of Africa before the modern era, and the transatlantic trade had actually enriched their selection of crops and triggered a population boom. In addition, according to John Reader's "Africa: A biography of a continent" OTL's colonization rush was made easier by an extended period of drought. An earlier move towards colonization may be facing societies in their prime, not societies weakened by climate disaster. Just like the Kikuyu in Kenya, whites will have to evict large numbers of black farmers if they want to settle in substantial numbers in the tropics.

But after 40-70 years of heavy white immigration to South America, the immigration will go to other places like Angola, Kamerun or the Uganda Highlands. I can't say which countries would be chose, but this type of event would happen. And the one of the major agricultural area of Kamerun is not a malaria zone.

There are still areas in the Americas that are very sparsely settled. These continents can take a lot of European settlers, and if there is a larger population in Europe ITTL, it will simply result in a larger population in the temperate Americas ITTL. The Americas and Australia are much more pleasant places to colonize than Africa, and an early population boom does not change the factors that created the results of colonization IOTL, it just accentuates them.

Perhaps you're right that Cameroon could develop a larger white minority-but once again, the urge to create plantation settlements could lower their population. In addition, just because one part of Cameroon has the most commercial agriculture doesn't mean the rest of Cameroon won't support relatively large subsistence farming communities that will be quite happy to make their would be colonizer's lives a misery.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
The fact that the native population made this leap does not mean a European settler population could. See below.



This is not a detail. This is why no nation in West Africa ever had the white population of Kenya, let alone South Africa. A population boom in Europe will not make the malarial zones any more easy to settle. Disease matters a lot in the history of Africa.



Source? I can definitely believe that a lot of unfarmed land in Africa (particularly South Africa) became farmed by Europeans recently, but the Bantu expansion had spread farming to pretty much all corners of Africa before the modern era, and the transatlantic trade had actually enriched their selection of crops and triggered a population boom. In addition, according to John Reader's "Africa: A biography of a continent" OTL's colonization rush was made easier by an extended period of drought. An earlier move towards colonization may be facing societies in their prime, not societies weakened by climate disaster. Just like the Kikuyu in Kenya, whites will have to evict large numbers of black farmers if they want to settle in substantial numbers in the tropics.



There are still areas in the Americas that are very sparsely settled. These continents can take a lot of European settlers, and if there is a larger population in Europe ITTL, it will simply result in a larger population in the temperate Americas ITTL. The Americas and Australia are much more pleasant places to colonize than Africa, and an early population boom does not change the factors that created the results of colonization IOTL, it just accentuates them.

Perhaps you're right that Cameroon could develop a larger white minority-but once again, the urge to create plantation settlements could lower their population. In addition, just because one part of Cameroon has the most commercial agriculture doesn't mean the rest of Cameroon won't support relatively large subsistence farming communities that will be quite happy to make their would be colonizer's lives a misery.

White populations did grow in Malaria zone in the 1800's. For example, Louisiana. Yes people who have been long exposed to malaria for generations have some extra resistance. Second, not all of Africa is a Malaria zone. While Malaria is an issue, it is not an unsolvable issue.

Ok. Lets take Kenya. Population now 38M. Population in 1950 6M. Probably under 1M in 1850. Now this 37M reflects increase of the carrying capacity of the land, largely due to western agricultural and medical technology. With heavy white inflow to Kenya, Kenya could easily be 3/4 white by 1950. If you look at the link below, it shows how the population increased as technology improved.


http://www.populstat.info/Africa/kenyac.htm


I have read hundreds of sources on Africa. I understand you have a source you like, but it is not going to convenience me the primary sources I read are wrong. Yes, they may have been a drought, that weaken Kenya, but it was not a continent wide drought. If Kenya had happened to be strong, the white outflow would have gone to another area such as Angola, South Africa, Kamerun etc.

The areas not settle in the USA by 1890 were largely useless land with 1890 technology. A lot of the land is still unsettled. Here is the key point, with much higher European population outflow, the USA, Australia, and other good regions are settle much earlier, probably 1850 or before. The continuing outflow will then go to the next most suitable location such as Uganda Highlands, Angola Highlands, etc. The white of the 1850-1910 time frame had much better military technology, and the will to use it to conquer lands. Yes the Zulu might have had an ok showing against the British/Dutch in a few battles, but they lost the war. The inevitable result of a technologicially superior ethnic group willing to take land by military force is that they take the land. This will be added even more by the fact that much of the land that is now prime farm land is only useful as grazing land by the natives. Kenya is a prime example, where it carries 20 times the population of about a century ago. The whites will simply come in, drive the black herders off the land, and begin to farm it with a technological toolkit that is superior to the natives.
 
I am not saying it will like the USA or Australia, where the natives were replaced in mass. It will be more like Mexico.

South Africa is a good example. As the Dutch were pushing east from Cape Town, the Zulu were pushing SW into South Africa. IOTL, South Africa is about 16% white. Given a lot more immigration, this could easily be majority white. Rhodesia was less than 3% white, with this change it could easily be near South Africa level in OTL. These dramatic demographic changes would radically change Africa. And there can be local butterflies that would actually make one or two regions less white.

Now I am not saying there would be no wars, or the Whites would behave better. But take your Maori war, and then double or triple the rate of White migration. Most likely it ends much faster and with greater defeats of the Maori. I don't know enough NZ history to say for sure, but it is hard to see a lot larger white population slowing expansion.


Immigration is about more than excess population that wishes to migrate. Australia, NZ and SA are all rather far away in pre steam or flight days and very few migrants actually wanted to make the trip, even with substantial assistance or coercion by the Imperial or colonial governments. I don't see that changing in your scenario.

Then, assuming you can get these people to immigrate in the numbers you want, what exactly are they going to do when they arrive? Historically most of the settler countries suffered drastic boom/bust swings and migrants proved very willing to migrate onwards, even after decades of residence in one place, even noting the difficulty or cost of relocation. There was also a reasonable amount of migrants returning to Europe either after failure or sucess. This was apparently more true for settler/colonies that were closer to Europe, like the Americas.

The Imperial and colonial governments did not have a lot of money or coercive power during OTL. They couldn't really afford to conquor, settle then develop the settler colonies much faster than what they did IOTL. They certainly did not have the power to force transportation of hundreds of thousands of people across the world. Assuming they did, who pays for the housing, roads, etc?
 
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