WI Africa is 'the New World'

[Admiral Brown]

By what standard? Pretty much all of Africa was colonised, and yet to this day huge tracts of rainforest in South America have not even been unexplored, let alone conquered. Not to mention Africa at the time of colonisation was full of small tribes, wheras South America was ruled by a huge empire of mayans.

A few points:

a) The Mayan Empire was never "huge", by any standart (It wasn't even an empire, just a colection of city states, ...but let's leave that aside)

b) The Mayans lived in modern Guatemala and Southern Mexico (Chiapas and Yucatan). They occupied only a very small fraction of the America's landmasses

c) Their territory was in Central America (or in North America, according to your deffinition), North of the isthus of Panama, that is, not in South America

 

[Morty Vicar]

The Americas were suitable to colonization in such a large scale because not only there weren't diseas that affected colonists, but natives were particularly suceptible to Europea diseases. Eurasian diseas were responsible for decimating native American population, clearing the room for European settlers. Without them, colonizing permanently certain areas of the Americas would have been much harder, and might have only be possible only once Europeaans get late XIXth century technology.

Not to be too pessimistic, but disease wasn't the only thing that decimated native american populations.. And besides some might argue diseases were used intentionally in some cases, the same could have been done to Africa with, say, tuberculosis. I don't know much about the topic but there must be some equivalent, certainly african slaves died in the thousands from various diseases during transportation, and that was when (presumably) the slave traders didn't want them to die because they were a valuable resource.

 

[mrmandias]

Its hardly ASB, if South America was colonised by Europeans then there's no reason Africa can't be.

South America had lots less population, much fewer diseases, more ports, more navigable rivers, . . .

South America was actually easier to reach than good portions of the west coast of Africa. Beware, beware, the Bight of Benin, etc.

 

[Morty Vicar]

A few points:

a) The Mayan Empire was never "huge", by any standart (It wasn't even an empire, just a colection of city states, ...but let's leave that aside)

b) The Mayans lived in modern Guatemala and Southern Mexico (Chiapas and Yucatan). They occupied only a very small fraction of the America's landmasses

c) Their territory was in Central America (or in North America, according to your deffinition), North of the isthus of Panama, that is, not in South America

Inca Empire, my apologies. Estimated at 4 to 37 million people, covering an area of 2 million square km, compared to the largest subsaharan African Empire, the Songhai empire, which had about one and a half million kilometres.

 

[Morty Vicar]

South America had lots less population, much fewer diseases, more ports, more navigable rivers, . . .

South America was actually easier to reach than good portions of the west coast of Africa. Beware, beware, the Bight of Benin, etc.

Given the choice perhaps the colonial powers of the time would regard South America as an easier conquest, however in my initial post I suggested the possibility that NA was not discovered.

For most people commenting on the massive early die offs to European settlements inside of Africa I would point out that the vast majority of early European settlers died off do to disease and related conditions. The difference The largest population centers were considered hellish by the Europeans at the time (New England, large portions of Latin America, etc.). It is through centuries that they were able to build cities and men became accustomed to the terrain enough to move inward. There were massive problems to early colonization of America, while European colonization of Africa was done far differently. There wasn't a large effort to build purly European cities outside of the coasts, they just wanted to stick their name tag on the land. Experienced Europeans with native guides were highly successful and prolific in the region, there's absolutely no foundation to assume that Europe couldn't overcome the difficulties of Africa if given a couple centuries to build up tolerance in the region and head inward.

Note: I am aware that there were substantial differences, both in the type of disease and the conditions of the land. I just believe that it wouldn't be impossible and that it can be done if given a similar or slightly greater adjustment period with the Americas and a similar attitude. Europe had a great deal of history with Africa but it was never really colonial, it had to do with the slave trade or outposts to get to richer markets in the east. If Europe developed a mindset that Africa was actually important to be colonized then we could have a substantially different outcome from OTL.

THANK YOU!! I'm glad someone sees it from my point of view, I thought I was going crazy there!

Why is it that we have to go through a full page of 'couldn't be done hurr' before anyone actually answers the topic with anything interesting?

 

[mrmandias]

Why is it that we have to go through a full page of 'couldn't be done hurr' before anyone actually answers the topic with anything interesting?

Because it probably couldn't be done?

Conventional wisdom is not always wrong. Certainly not in this case.

 

[Morty Vicar]

Because it probably couldn't be done?

Conventional wisdom is not always wrong. Certainly not in this case.

Agree to disagree? Move it to ASB if you must. Now if you've anything to contribute to this ATL please feel free to do so..

I have a proposal for a flag of the United States of Africa. Going by the premise that South Africa acts as a sort of equivalent to the thirteen colonies, and the second Boer war as a late revolutionary war, the colonists then gradually absorb other states. In this case North Africa is equivalent to South America, remaining largely under control of local Arab populations, as in SA with Spanish and Portugese settlers. Possibly the Gold Coast becomes an ATL Canada. I've no idea exactly how many states it would absorb, plus it was easier just to copy and paste the US flag's stars Anyway this is the result, based on the flag of the orange free state and South African Republic, with the green representing the latter, and stars added as states are absorbed.

 

[amphibulous]

Going by the premise that South Africa acts as a sort of equivalent to the thirteen colonies, and the second Boer war as a late revolutionary war, the colonists then gradually absorb other states

You can, but it will never be equivalent to the US. Beside the problems that people have already mentioned - notably disease of man and beast - Africa also has spectacularly poor soil. The ecological basis for a USA-alike state just isn't there. Settlers in Africa have two economically viable options in most areas. They can either dispossess the real owners and operate vast, very low productivity cattle farms (Rhodesia.) Or make them into slaves and dig up shiny rocks (South Africa.) There isn't anything for a US-sized settler population to do - unless they have a masochistic desire do dig holes in appalling conditions for starvation rations.

 

[amphibulous]

Given the choice perhaps the colonial powers of the time would regard South America as an easier conquest, however in my initial post I suggested the possibility that NA was not discovered.



THANK YOU!! I'm glad someone sees it from my point of view, I thought I was going crazy there!

Why is it that we have to go through a full page of 'couldn't be done hurr' before anyone actually answers the topic with anything interesting?

That would seem to be because you only find people's opinions "interesting" if they agree with you.

As for the post you responded to, it's considerably flawed. Countries like Argentina, in the temperate zone, have fairly "pure" old world descendend populations - but they never had an African style disease problem. Go to those countries in SA that are hotter and the populations are descended very largely from the original inhabitants - and imported Africans. For example, genetic studies show that almost all Brazilians have DNA from the original natives and/or Africans. Hybridizing for required genetic characteristics this way is many times faster than selecting for them, but its something that I doubt that a white settler population in Africa would have been very willing to do. (Which is a shame, as the genetic variety of humanity in Africa is probably the continent's greatest treasure.)

 

[Morty Vicar]

You can, but it will never be equivalent to the US. Beside the problems that people have already mentioned - notably disease of man and beast - Africa also has spectacularly poor soil. The ecological basis for a USA-alike state just isn't there. Settlers in Africa have two economically viable options in most areas. They can either dispossess the real owners and operate vast, very low productivity cattle farms (Rhodesia.) Or make them into slaves and dig up shiny rocks (South Africa.) There isn't anything for a US-sized settler population to do - unless they have a masochistic desire do dig holes in appalling conditions for starvation rations.

I don't know much about disease, or the history thereof, I grant you. But generally as the centuries progressed, living conditions, hygiene and medical understanding improved, and therefore the disease rate in Africa wouldn't be radically different from the US. I don't know if native Africans are immune to Malaria, for example, but if not they surely prove that its not fatal to an entire population? Especially, as with early America, there is an almost continuous influx of europeans to boost the population?

In terms of the ecology you're right of course, the land is far less rich for agriculture, it would maybe be more comparable to modern day south and central america, ie comparatively poorer than the USA. In desert regions, whether they are in the southern US or in north Africa, there is almost nothing can be done to grow crops. However areas of thick jungle can (and have) been cleared to make arable land. On the subject of shiny rocks, yes gold and diamonds could feasibly have made the ATL USA relatively rich (and of course provided the equivalent of the 'gold rush' in OTL). There's no good reason people in this ATL aren't as evil and selfish as they were OTL, in other words slaves are there to dig holes in appaling conditions for starvation rations. What I tenetatively suggested earlier was a POD where NA is discovered, but imagined to be an endless savannah of rock and mud, populated by savages only fit for slavery, and too far from home for any serious attempts at colonisation, other than a few relgious nutters.

 

[Chirios]

It DID happen. But thanks for reitterating the point everyone else has made.

It happened when technology had advanced to the point where the Europeans could overcome the disadvantages of disease and when their military technology advantage was much larger than it was in 1450.

You mean guns?

Not just guns, but yes.

By what standard? Pretty much all of Africa was colonised, and yet to this day huge tracts of rainforest in South America have not even been unexplored, let alone conquered. Not to mention Africa at the time of colonisation was full of small tribes, wheras South America was ruled by a huge empire of mayans. Not to mention North Africa was pretty much a stones throw from Spain and Portugal, South America was months sailing across largely uncharted waters.

And huge tracts of the African rainforest haven't been explored. The Europeans basically randomly drew up lines and borders and then said that area was now "colonised", nobody knows for sure how many Pigmy tribes there are in the African rainforest for example.

The disease factor made colonising Africa pretty much untenable until the time that it occurred OTL. The exact method in which it occurred was variable. Consider South Africa. The Portuguese had a foothold in South Africa since 1450, but they weren't able to conquer South Africa because the existing city states were able to exert complete control over the gold supply. This state of affairs continued until the 1800's. Now, you could create a situation whereby Portugal managed to gain control of the gold supply, but you could never create a situation whereby Portugal was able to say, gain control of Lake Malawi, simply because the effects of disease wouldn't let them.

 

[eschaton]

Its hardly ASB, if South America was colonised by Europeans then there's no reason Africa can't be.

As others have said, there were several advantages in South America.

1. 90% of the native populations died off soon after contact due to Eurasian diseases like smallpox - which Africans are resistant to.
2. South America has a much larger temperate region - when considering both altitude and latitude - than Africa.
3. Few tropical diseases existed in South America prior to European discovery. Many, like Malaria, were later introduced, but due to the shorter human history in South America there were just less nasty things to die from overall.

Even southern parts of the US could be considered largely inhospitable, and
yet were still conquered.

They were all but vacant when discovered. Even then, the lowland swamps never saw much settlement for obvious reasons.

The same goes for areas of jungle in the East Indies, where there are still rumored to be cannibal tribes and undiscovered regions. And that's a lot further from Europe than Africa is.

This is a pretty salacious way to put it. I fail to see how it proves you point, given there was essentially no white settlement in New Guinea.

Besides the only region of Africa that was never a European colony at one time (and for a long time, in Angolas case in the 70's!) is Ethiopia.

And? There's a difference between a settler colony and a territorial possession. Britain held parts of India for a lot longer than Australia and New Zealand. It didn't mean that more than a handful of British people (colonial administrators all) ever bothered moving there.

The key is having one power rule over it, displace tribes (I admit the larger population of African tribes is a stumbling block to this ATL, and yet colonization and segregation comparable to US/ Native American relations was still 'achieved' by South Africa and Rhodesia) and then all you need is a certain discontent with the rule of that foreign power (as happened for instance in South Africa and Rhodesia whilst under British rule). Its not even necessary for America not to be discovered, as others have demonstrated. It might be ASB territory to suggest a reversed Atlantic slave trade for instance, given the less suitable conditions for crop cultivation in Africa, I'm not suggesting an exact USA replica, I'm more interested in the differences if anything.

I think the "best" you could see outside of the temperate parts of South Afriva is some more Angola-like analogues, where the population is Christianized, most people shift over to a European language, and there is a mixed-race minority. A true "white" state is probably only possible in South Africa, and there only if it stuck to the Western Cape and didn't expand into areas with large farming populations already.

That would be a problem no doubt! However do you think its possible if the early immigrants settled in North Africa, and within a few generations became more acclimatised, then something like the 'gold rush' triggers a huge influx of population, it might be possible? I mean many Europeans died in the Americas too, particularly South America, but a continuous influx (bolstered by the slave trade admittedly) meant a steady population growth.

This is totally wrong dude. First, genetics don't work that way - resistance to Malaria and the like don't build up after only a few generations. Secondly, white migration to Latin America didn't take off until the late 19th century. Before this, in much of the region, there were far more blacks than white.

 

[Morty Vicar]

That would seem to be because you only find people's opinions "interesting" if they agree with you.

I think you missed my point, my original post (I assume the majority of posts on AH) was posing an AH, asking what differences there would be, perhaps even speculating a history or culture. I know its possible, I've seen it happen elsewhere on here, with arguably less plausible scenarios. However its a moot point as I've already conceeded that this topic can be moved by the moderators to ASB if they see fit. Its not whether or not people agree with me, what I find interesting is alternate history, not what I find on here 90% of the time 'this can't happen because x'. I'm happy to acknowledge disease would have been a far greater factor in the ATL USA, but to just dismiss the entire TL on the basis (sorry, disease) is a bit irritating. This is maybe the third thread I've made where something like this happens.

As for the post you responded to, it's considerably flawed. Countries like Argentina, in the temperate zone, have fairly "pure" old world descendend populations - but they never had an African style disease problem. Go to those countries in SA that are hotter and the populations are descended very largely from the original inhabitants - and imported Africans. For example, genetic studies show that almost all Brazilians have DNA from the original natives and/or Africans. Hybridizing for required genetic characteristics this way is many times faster than selecting for them, but its something that I doubt that a white settler population in Africa would have been very willing to do. (Which is a shame, as the genetic variety of humanity in Africa is probably the continent's greatest treasure.)

Disease in Africa has much to do with living conditions, tribal customs etc. Even the primitive European medecines of the time undeniably helped both Africans and Native Americans with disease control. So yes disease would have been a far greater factor in the ATL USA but it doesn't render it impossible.

 

[eschaton]

For most people commenting on the massive early die offs to European settlements inside of Africa I would point out that the vast majority of early European settlers died off do to disease and related conditions. The difference The largest population centers were considered hellish by the Europeans at the time (New England, large portions of Latin America, etc.). It is through centuries that they were able to build cities and men became accustomed to the terrain enough to move inward. There were massive problems to early colonization of America, while European colonization of Africa was done far differently. There wasn't a large effort to build purely European cities outside of the coasts, they just wanted to stick their name tag on the land. Experienced Europeans with native guides were highly successful and prolific in the region, there's absolutely no foundation to assume that Europe couldn't overcome the difficulties of Africa if given a couple centuries to build up tolerance in the region and head inward.

I'm not sure where you get off saying New England was thought of as hellish. The winters were far worse than England, yes, but once people were adequately provisioned for them, they bore no special challenges to people of European descent, because they were no worse than those of Scandinavia or Eastern Europe.

More generally, as I said above, it's indeed possible Europeans could have left a heavier footprint in their colonization of Africa. But it's just impossible to imagine mass migration of Europeans, to the point where they become the majority anywhere. No matter how many migrate, Africans will be better suited for the climate, and will have their own populations grow at a faster rate. And before someone mentions genocide, it would be pretty much impossible to do in the era we're talking about regardless, as the army itself would be dying off at nearly the rate it was slaughtering.

Basically, absent some ASBish plague which wipes Sub-Saharan Africa clean, just ain't gonna happen.

 

[Morty Vicar]

It happened when technology had advanced to the point where the Europeans could overcome the disadvantages of disease and when their military technology advantage was much larger than it was in 1450.

Which diseases could they cure/ prevent in the 1800's and not in the 1400's out of curiosity? I ask because I don't knwo that much about disease as I've admitted previously. By the way you'll probably accuse me of backtracking here but I didn't necesasarily specify any exact date, in fact iirc I suggested the possibility of the Boer War being the equivalent of the American War of Independence, more than a century later in fact.

And huge tracts of the African rainforest haven't been explored. The Europeans basically randomly drew up lines and borders and then said that area was now "colonised", nobody knows for sure how many Pigmy tribes there are in the African rainforest for example.

For sure. The same was true in the USA where huge areas of land were claimed that had little more than a set of bootprints to show any Europeans had even entered the region.

The disease factor made colonising Africa pretty much untenable until the time that it occurred OTL. The exact method in which it occurred was variable. Consider South Africa. The Portuguese had a foothold in South Africa since 1450, but they weren't able to conquer South Africa because the existing city states were able to exert complete control over the gold supply. This state of affairs continued until the 1800's. Now, you could create a situation whereby Portugal managed to gain control of the gold supply, but you could never create a situation whereby Portugal was able to say, gain control of Lake Malawi, simply because the effects of disease wouldn't let them.

Yes we've done the subject of disease to death (no pun intended) and although I disagree with the assertion based on those aforementioned colonists alone, not to mention many explorers such as Mungo Park, semitic immigrant communities in Africa etc I have conceeded the debate simply because I'm not that interested in epidemiology.

 

[Morty Vicar]

As others have said, there were several advantages in South America.

1. 90% of the native populations died off soon after contact due to Eurasian diseases like smallpox - which Africans are resistant to.
2. South America has a much larger temperate region - when considering both altitude and latitude - than Africa.
3. Few tropical diseases existed in South America prior to European discovery. Many, like Malaria, were later introduced, but due to the shorter human history in South America there were just less nasty things to die from overall.

1. There are other diseases, that with a higher and denser european immigrant population (and possibly some manner of germ warfare as alleged in early US history) could possibly become widespread, as disease is wont. But again its not my area, so I bow to your authority on this matter.
2. Surely an advantage to the european population, even those from the extremes of Scandinavia and the mediteranian? Or have I missed something?
3. Again I'm throwing the towel in on this one, lets just accept that it impossible for any european population to survive between the sahara and cape town, move this topic to ASB and discuss it as an interesting but completely and utterly impossible scenario.

They were all but vacant when discovered. Even then, the lowland swamps never saw much settlement for obvious reasons.

The same could be true in Africa, there are large expanses of desert very sparsely popluated by nomadic tribes, yet still colonised by Arabs and Berbers.

This is a pretty salacious way to put it. I fail to see how it proves you point, given there was essentially no white settlement in New Guinea.

Salacious
1. Appealing to or stimulating sexual desire; lascivious.
2. Lustful; bawdy.

Wait, what?! No my point was about inhospitable regions, I could equally have mentioned Australia and New Zealand. There were European settlers in New Guinea and Indonesia though, much of WW2 was fought around the east indies. And about half the population descends from East asian populations (possibly from Taiwan) who you could say were as 'foreign' to the region as Europeans were to Africa.

And? There's a difference between a settler colony and a territorial possession. Britain held parts of India for a lot longer than Australia and New Zealand. It didn't mean that more than a handful of British people (colonial administrators all) ever bothered moving there.

Exactly. If european people had migrated to Africa in droves as they did to the Americas, and to a lesser extent Australia and New Zealand, then there's no reason why the history of the USA (in relation to Native Americans) could not have happened to Africans.

I think the "best" you could see outside of the temperate parts of South Afriva is some more Angola-like analogues, where the population is Christianized, most people shift over to a European language, and there is a mixed-race minority. A true "white" state is probably only possible in South Africa, and there only if it stuck to the Western Cape and didn't expand into areas with large farming populations already.

My problem with this ATL is that the population in Africa is too dense to compeltely overrun them as happend in N America. I really can't envisage farming areas as any sort of a problem, even in the modern era white farmers control parts of zimbabwe and south africa.

This is totally wrong dude. First, genetics don't work that way - resistance to Malaria and the like don't build up after only a few generations. Secondly, white migration to Latin America didn't take off until the late 19th century. Before this, in much of the region, there were far more blacks than white.

I'm done with the disease argument, I'm not entirely convinced every european who sets foot in Africa automatically dies of malaria but that aside the scramble for Africa also takes place in the late 19th century. I think I mentioned already I'm happy to adjust the timeline, I mentioned the Boer wars as a rough later equivalent to the American war of Independence, POD being the Boers winning presumably.

 

[mrmandias]

Africa also has a much greater and more effective variety of human parasites than other continents do, which tends to drag down local human populations, especially in the past.

And the local flora and fauna are much more resistant to human hunting and eradication, possibly because of coevolution.

 

[Tobit]

For the most part PRFU, Portugal treated the Africa much as their "New World." Many people think that they simply traded at the coasts for slaves, but there were places of inland settlement and Portuguese towns did pop up in many places in West Africa. The Gambia river was one such region, the area has a an almost Mediterranean climate and there it has plains and arable land all accessible by the river. Angola was another region where there were good harbors, and agricultural areas for settlement. Intermarriage with locals (who unlike the US Indians didn't die of disease) was much more prevalent, so later European colonizers such as the Dutch, English and French saw as strictly African peoples were actually mixed settlements of Portuguese and Africans.

Another point though is that the currents make travel to Brazil and the Americas very easy, and almost any civilization that has a large profit seeking fleet of merchant/colonizers would likely wind up discovering the Americas. Portuguese discovery of Brazil occured at just about the same time as their traveling down towards Angola and the Cape of Goodhope. Part of the easyness of the Triangle Trade was that the currents greatly aided it. It's important to realize that the Oceans aren't just a big vast blueness where sailors can just sail in straight lines to their destination, currents were essentially rivers for Sailors. South Africa is not only far away by sheer distance but also by sailing time. Even the Americas were a long distance for Governments in Europe to realize their wealth and the usefulness of their land. If a colony is in danger and needs help from the mother land than it is basically on its own.

 

[SenatorChickpea]

Perhaps you should read Thomas Pakenham's The Scramble For Africa. It's a good popular history of how and why european powers divided up the continent- and why it took them so long to do so.

I mean, no offense but if you keep saying that you don't know anything about the history of disease but that you're still going to dismiss the arguments of people who do, you might not end up with a plausible timeline.

There's also the fact that your premise has slightly ugly undertones you might want to consider- you can't simply transplant European colonisation of North America to Southern Africa and still expect to see the same type of society emerge. Doing so strips away the agency of a whole bunch of people- Indians, africans- both in Africa and North America- and indeed Europeans themselves.

I mean, if you study the history of the Boer States and the early US you'll find that despite the fact they're on seperate continents, in seperate climates, have a different cultural make up, different technology, different geopolitical system, different religion and completely different neighbours, they shockingly still manage to be absolutely nothing alike.

Now, I do think it's good to see more timelines based around Africa. You're obviously enthusiastic- that's good. But you really need to read up more about this vast area of history and geography before you can begin sketching a timeline.

 

[eliphas8]

Inca Empire, my apologies. Estimated at 4 to 37 million people, covering an area of 2 million square km, compared to the largest subsaharan African Empire, the Songhai empire, which had about one and a half million kilometres.

A shadow of its former self by this point beset by near constant civil war when the Europeans came, it was fairly easy to conquer them and then convert them to Christianity.