Why did it take so long to colonize Africa?

[Leifmk]

You know the stories about european deseases spreading in the americas and wiping out large parts of the native population ?
With Africa it was kind of the opposite. Western Africa was particularly known as the White Man's Grave because during the 17th century more than half of the european colonists died during their first year after arrival from malaria, yellow fever and other indigenous deseases. Only in the late 19th century people figured out manyof these deseases were transmitted by mosquitoes, and how to prevent them from spreading.
Without the advent of modern medicine Africa would never have been colonized.

Yah.

"Beware, beware the Bight of Benin. One comes out where fifty went in!" and so on.

 

[Xpl]

My educated guess is that the majority of the west coast of Africa (the bit they would have found first) is very infertile and not worth settling. And as we know from the Boer War and the aggression the tribes such as the Zulu's showed, it was hard to colonize South Africa, which happens to have the most valuable minerals in the world. I guess the Newfoundland was more important at the time.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Because the natives in Africa retained the ability to thoroughly kick European butt in battle until the turn of the 20th century.

My educated guess is that the majority of the west coast of Africa (the bit they would have found first) is very infertile and not worth settling.

Which is why it was both the first settled and already densely populated, right?

And as we know from the Boer War and the aggression the tribes such as the Zulu's showed, it was hard to colonize South Africa, which happens to have the most valuable minerals in the world. I guess the Newfoundland was more important at the time.

Or because there was no opposition in Newfoundland. Path of least resistance and all...

 

[Xpl]

Which is why it was both the first settled and already densely populated, right?

Well French settlers sort of just started in the north and worked down south. But if you look at today's geography you can tell the west coast isn't very fertile compared to the east.

Or because there was no opposition in Newfoundland. Path of least resistance and all...

Arguably the Native Americans did put up some resistance.

 

[innonimatu]

Because the natives in Africa retained the ability to thoroughly kick European butt in battle until the turn of the 20th century.

No, nor really. Europeans just learned not to send large armies there because all the soldiers eventually died from disease, even if they managed to survive long enough to fight and win one battle. If not for disease, the larger polities in Africa would have been conquered (conquistador-style) long before the 19th century. It wouldn't be a cakewalk, but it'd be a matter of a few decades. The advantage wasn't just firearms, it was also steel weapons and armor.

Some portions of the continent were still conquered despite that: after the newcomers gained a foothold they learned to start using african mercenaries, much like in America with the indian allies of colonial powers. But this negated their technological advantage, thus that warfare by proxy didn't gain much land.

 

[Tee Kay]

Well French settlers sort of just started in the north and worked down south. But if you look at today's geography you can tell the west coast isn't very fertile compared to the east.

Not really.

Arguably the Native Americans did put up some resistance.

Harder to do that when your people are dying wholesale from smallpox.

No, nor really. Europeans just learned not to send large armies there because all the soldiers eventually died from disease, even if they managed to survive long enough to fight and win one battle. If not for disease, the larger polities in Africa would have been conquered (conquistador-style) long before the 19th century. It wouldn't be a cakewalk, but it'd be a matter of a few decades. The advantage wasn't just firearms, it was also steel weapons and armor.

Also, Moroccan Conquest of Songhai. Not really European, but still...

 

[amadeus]

Mitigate the disagreements produced by an already-extant race to plant same by calling a conference which saw its purpose expand from a relatively limited bailiwick to formal and informal agreements that helped to neutralize a potential area of serious conflict?

NO!!! They took a big blank map of Africa and drew lines on it and that's where all the colonial powers went.

 

[Xpl]

NO!!! They took a big blank map of Africa and drew lines on it and that's where all the colonial powers went.

^this, is what really happened.

 

[GoodGame]

How about arguing that North American trade furs were more lucrative industry and easier to attain than anything similar on the African continent?

 

[sophie]

^this, is what really happened.

You do realize he was joking, right?

 

[Xpl]

You do realize he was joking, right?

In contrast, you do realize I was joking, right?

 

[sophie]

In contrast, you do realize I was joking, right?

Ummm, no because your joke didn't make any sense.

 

[Verbose]

How about arguing that North American trade furs were more lucrative industry and easier to attain than anything similar on the African continent?

More lucrative than slaves for mining and growing sugar cane in the New World? Surely not...

Besides, the actual trapping end of that fur trade was upheld by the North American natives themselves, trading it for all kinds of European manufacture. Which was why by 1640 we got the phenomenon of the "Beaver Wars".

The west African states got into large scale slaving because the Europeans hove into view with this tremendous new demand for labout to exploit stuff what they had found in the New World, and so were sucked into a European dominated globale trade network. Something similar happaned to the native Americans along the N Am east coast, as European demand for fur allowed them to enter into the same trade network, at another end. Again a huge surge in demand made in Europe radically changing the baseline for traditional trapping. Afaik in neither case was large scale settlement necessarily involved, at least not in the 17th c.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

No, nor really. Europeans just learned not to send large armies there because all the soldiers eventually died from disease, even if they managed to survive long enough to fight and win one battle. If not for disease, the larger polities in Africa would have been conquered (conquistador-style) long before the 19th century. It wouldn't be a cakewalk, but it'd be a matter of a few decades. The advantage wasn't just firearms, it was also steel weapons and armor.

Some portions of the continent were still conquered despite that: after the newcomers gained a foothold they learned to start using african mercenaries, much like in America with the indian allies of colonial powers. But this negated their technological advantage, thus that warfare by proxy didn't gain much land.

Many African polities did have steel, and were able to obtain firearms sometimes (and some without were still able to best them!). As a general rule, the Europeans only won when they were able to keep the natives at rifle's range. If in the course of battle they found themselves in melee, it could be safely concluded that they had gone about things wrongly.

 

[Karalysia]

Kanem Bornu received guns from the Ottoman Empire.

 

[innonimatu]

Many African polities did have steel, and were able to obtain firearms sometimes (and some without were still able to best them!). As a general rule, the Europeans only won when they were able to keep the natives at rifle's range. If in the course of battle they found themselves in melee, it could be safely concluded that they had gone about things wrongly.

No, a few did had steel, but most did not. They occasionally managed to buy weapons (even cannons) from europeans, and could repair some components, but not produce the whole thing (especially the barrel). Numbers would allow them to win against small european armies whose soldiers were weakened by local diseases, but numbers alone do not guarantee victory even in a melee battle, as Pizarro's conquistadores showed dramatically in the Andes.

 

[Tee Kay]

Kanem Bornu received guns from the Ottoman Empire.

Adal too.

 

[Luckymoose]

Well French settlers sort of just started in the north and worked down south. But if you look at today's geography you can tell the west coast isn't very fertile compared to the east.

West Africa is extremely fertile and resource rich.

 

[Xpl]

West Africa is extremely fertile and resource rich.

Okay I'm very bad at Geography..

 

[Louis XXIV]

Disease. Natives. Trade ports. Unessential.

This about sums it up. The places that were colonized were the most profitable. A resting spot on the way to China and slave ports. The Mediterranean coast line was next most profitable and that had to be taken from the Ottomans. The rest of the continent seemed to be motivated more by prestige than for actual colonial gain, although the harvesting of rubber and diamonds were certainly profitable.