the protestant confederation of africa

in this timeline i wish to create a situation where th protestants are brutaly defeated in the religious war in europe but a large number of them get to africa to settle down and build a new empire.
 
I'll humor you. While the premise is somewhat unlikely, it's possible to pull it off. The Hapsburgs win the 30 Years War and brutally rule Germany, crushing religious and politicalk dissent with their various allies. With such a good position on the Dutch flank, the Dutch are also crushed by the combined forces of Spain-Austria. France, England, and Scandinavia still hold some Protestants but because of the force of Hapsburg arms they enact harsher laws on Protestants. Maybe France is brought into the Hapsburg fold. However, they secretly smuggle Protestants out of the Continent and use them to to attack the Hapsburg Spanish in their hegemony on the Americas and Indian Ocean. While I would think they would go to the Americas, perhaps the Spanish force them out. So the Protestants are forced to make South Africa their base. From South Africa they go north, and in various other directions. However, due to the nature of Africa in this period it is unlikely they go anywhere but Arica, except as traders who push out the Hapsburgs. An interesting world - Hapsburg Catholic hegmony on the European continent, but one nibbled at by Scandinavia, Ottomans, Poland, and Russia, while elsewhere Protestants fight Catholics for hegemony.
 

terence

Banned
I'll humor you. While the premise is somewhat unlikely, it's possible to pull it off. The Hapsburgs win the 30 Years War and brutally rule Germany, crushing religious and politicalk dissent with their various allies. With such a good position on the Dutch flank, the Dutch are also crushed by the combined forces of Spain-Austria. France, England, and Scandinavia still hold some Protestants but because of the force of Hapsburg arms they enact harsher laws on Protestants. Maybe France is brought into the Hapsburg fold. However, they secretly smuggle Protestants out of the Continent and use them to to attack the Hapsburg Spanish in their hegemony on the Americas and Indian Ocean. While I would think they would go to the Americas, perhaps the Spanish force them out. So the Protestants are forced to make South Africa their base. From South Africa they go north, and in various other directions. However, due to the nature of Africa in this period it is unlikely they go anywhere but Arica, except as traders who push out the Hapsburgs. An interesting world - Hapsburg Catholic hegmony on the European continent, but one nibbled at by Scandinavia, Ottomans, Poland, and Russia, while elsewhere Protestants fight Catholics for hegemony.

The French protestants (Heuguenots) DID go to the Americas, they set up a colony in Brazil--but it was destroyed by the Portugese, as was Dutch colony of New Holland.
There was also a ready-made colony Protestant colony in New Netherlands (New York) and the reason for its failure, like most of the other Dutch colonial Enterprises is that it was run as a business not a colony and refugees were not welcome. Maybe a mass Protestant diaspora could have changed that.
The main reason why Africa will not work as a base for a major power/empire/superpower (as I have mentioned in other posts) is that it is just totally unsuitable for the level of agriculture to support a large enough population, has no natural internal trade routes or significant local markets. In order to produce a realistic scenario, one has to monkey around with climates and the attractiveness of alternaive areas of settlement.
Here's a for instance. The healthiest place in Africa for a pre-20th Century European to land in Africa is at the Cape. It was first permanently manned ( I won't say settled) in 1652 some 30 years after New Netherlands, Massachusetts Bay and the other major N. American settlments.
One hundred years later the boundries of the Cape Colony were only a couple of hundred kilometres inland and supported less than 10,000 settlers, most of whom were no more than subsistance farmers. The Colony produced no exports bar wine and fresh vegetables for the ships on the long haul to the East Indies. There are no navigable rivers and to get more than 50km from the coast you have to climb serious mountains and then you are in the semi-desert of the Karoo with a thousand mile trek (wonder where that word came from) before you find any more suitable farming land. (That's why the Heuguenot wine farmers never went further than Paarl)
In North America, however, the Colonies were booming. Thanks to fertile ground they produced plenty of cash crops, traded inland with the Indians via the extensive river system and were building up local industry and were prepared to become independent just a few years later with a population in excess of 2 million.
 
The French protestants (Heuguenots) DID go to the Americas, they set up a colony in Brazil--but it was destroyed by the Portugese, as was Dutch colony of New Holland.
There was also a ready-made colony Protestant colony in New Netherlands (New York) and the reason for its failure, like most of the other Dutch colonial Enterprises is that it was run as a business not a colony and refugees were not welcome. Maybe a mass Protestant diaspora could have changed that.
The main reason why Africa will not work as a base for a major power/empire/superpower (as I have mentioned in other posts) is that it is just totally unsuitable for the level of agriculture to support a large enough population, has no natural internal trade routes or significant local markets. In order to produce a realistic scenario, one has to monkey around with climates and the attractiveness of alternaive areas of settlement.
Here's a for instance. The healthiest place in Africa for a pre-20th Century European to land in Africa is at the Cape. It was first permanently manned ( I won't say settled) in 1652 some 30 years after New Netherlands, Massachusetts Bay and the other major N. American settlments.
One hundred years later the boundries of the Cape Colony were only a couple of hundred kilometres inland and supported less than 10,000 settlers, most of whom were no more than subsistance farmers. The Colony produced no exports bar wine and fresh vegetables for the ships on the long haul to the East Indies. There are no navigable rivers and to get more than 50km from the coast you have to climb serious mountains and then you are in the semi-desert of the Karoo with a thousand mile trek (wonder where that word came from) before you find any more suitable farming land. (That's why the Heuguenot wine farmers never went further than Paarl)
In North America, however, the Colonies were booming. Thanks to fertile ground they produced plenty of cash crops, traded inland with the Indians via the extensive river system and were building up local industry and were prepared to become independent just a few years later with a population in excess of 2 million.
He's not asking for a superpower though, just a (large)confederation of Protestants in Africa, started by Europeans. I order to hold out against against the Hapsburgs it would have to have some military weight, but otherwise...
 

terence

Banned
He's not asking for a superpower though, just a (large)confederation of Protestants in Africa, started by Europeans. I order to hold out against against the Hapsburgs it would have to have some military weight, but otherwise...

Quite right. I just assumed that 'empire' meant 'Great Power/Superpower'. My error, after all there was Bokassa's Central African Empire that had as much power as a virgin's fart.
 

Makty

Banned
Read the British expeditions to western Africa in 1780's and this kind of plan is insane.
Nevermind that these religious wars were back in the 1600's. I can only see America or perhaps Urals / Siberia as an option.
 
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