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You sure are full of 💩 Africa didn't help Europe says the American France still suck the hell out of it's ex-colonies they just took what they want You really need to stop saying it didn't help Europe cause your wrong from extracting the raw materials and resources to forced labors it all went overseas to build up whatever home country was colonizing the country
I’m surprised you didn’t mention anything about Ethiopia in this timeline. Historically they had more contact with European and Middle Eastern states which allowed them to purchase weapons and expand even in our time line. Without the colonial powers land locking Ethiopia they could dominate Red Sea trade similar to how the Auxumites had done thousands of years before.
@@fritoss3437 Egypt fighting Ethiopia would be extremely far from their power base. The mountainous terrain also makes invading hell. The result of the Ethiopian Egyptian War of 1874 would likely repeat
@@toobeast673well in this timeline islamic states are pretty well established and powerful in east africa so I could see Ethiopia being cornered and conquered with an alliance with between those states and egypt
@@VasilyMusic thanks! I don’t know you obviously, but I’ve yet to meet a Vasili (whichever way it’s spelt) that hasn’t been an absolute legend, and I’m sure you’re no exception - cheers
@@uydagcusdgfughfgsfggsifg753 Lol it's pronounced "Vah-see-leey", and frankly I'm impressed you've met other Vasilii's because even in my country it's not a very common name Btw you're the first person named uydagcusdgfug hfgsfggsifg that I've met in my life. That's quite a rare name too lol... Cheers bruv!
to be fair, the treaty of todisillas DID mean that all of africa belongs to portugal in terms of colonization, and they were one of the first to do so. the only reason they didnt take more land was because there was no real profit incentive.
@@grzegorzbrzeczyszykiewic3338 It was because they couldn't. They lost against Zimbabwean, Senegambian (including Mali) states and Kongo. So much so that they didn't try anything militarily when Bini stopped selling them slaves and the Ethiopians expelled them. Also, tropical diseases
Portugal agreeing to give up Africa so the smaller colonial powers could have a crumb of colony was an even bigger chad move. After all they still had all of Asia.
@@ikengaspirit3063 Portugal only went to war against Kongo once and Won. Those countries you mentioned never entered in war whit Portugal. Ethiopia fought whit Portugal not against it Can you source what you said? en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Portugal
@@KratosAurion7777 Good comment but I strongly disagree with the last part of it. Just as this excellent video showed. It is absolutely not necessarily because your country is controlling more territory that it is stronger. The more France keep Algeria the more France suicides herself. In fact you your comment reveal it itself, Algeria would be the winner at the end. France having algeria oil is nothing compared to the implacable demographic and religiou pression France would have suffered (even more than today !)(moreover France would probably not emphase nuclear energy with lots of oil).
European scramble for Africa is basicly "If we don't take it someone else will and they might possibly maybe find something worthwhile there and we can't have that."
Honestly though, if Europe didn't scramble for Africa; Arabic regions at the time would of definitely. While other African tribes may have eventually came to together. It was unlikely. On par with say France giving up all there power to merge with the british empire at the time, or perhaps the Austrian Empire merging with the Russian Empire. The arabs would of definitely enslaved them in there own homes. While the european powers at least had the decency of buying 90% of them from african warlords of the region. Arabs were casually stealing from the east & west coasts
@@icarusunited Arabs weren’t kidnapping anybody you low IQ joke they brought the Africans from East African black Muslim warlords who happily sold pagans for lolz. Arabs very very very rarely needed to raid or could get away with it. The only places in africa that were colonised by MENAS would be Sudan and Zanzibar the rest of the continent was far to powerful to be defeated by a couple yellow boys with turbans
Btw I would say the main reason how western Europeans conquered Africa so easily was diplomacy. Basically the whole "we help you against these other African tribes" loop hole, turning them into a vassal and then annexing them. And not keeping promises.
Kinda sounds like what happened to Lesotho. They teamed up with the British to beat the Dutch and got annexed against their will after defeating the Dutch.
Nah, in most of those places the Africans didn't even know white men were "ruling" over them. In the British colonies especially, they used very few administrators and left power largely with the chieftains
Strong Tribal Groups like the Igbo, the Tutsi, the Zulu, the Kikuyu etc. would trade at the coast and dominate other groups. This would mean they would have much larger territories and not be tied down to current national borders. Eventually large kingdoms and chiefdoms competent enough to contact groups outside of Africa would emerge and this would facilitate social change such as promotion of capitalism etc.
It would be incomplete and full of guesstimations. How do you measure If the Fulani jihad would've expanded east and reach the Blue Nile? Do you think that the Xhosa and Zulu would've joined and fused in a single political entity with borders and bureaucracy? Can you put that on a map? It's a dumb attempt. It would be like using that crappy Marvel movie Black Panther as a source, it doesn't take on account that that's not how people develop technological advances.
Well, that would take someone with a big and detailed Knowledge on pre-colonial African history which I don't think there are enough of for those simultaneously also highly interested in and involved in Alternate history to exist yet.
Yeah - this was essentially what I was interested in here as well. I'm also not sure about the idea that Britain does not intervene in World War I. The Germans are about to so completely disrupt the balance of Power in Europe and that was always (well almost always) why Britain intervened historically. Britain is not going to stand by while Germany takes most of the continent. It might actually be the trigger that stops the war. Germany being on the verge of winning in late 1906 or early 1907 but is also exhausted from what turns out to be such an awful and brutal type of war is basically told by Britain "All right you won - take some gains but keep it reasonable or we are entering the war against you". Germany gets another slice of France and all of Poland and the Baltic States. This had been how the wars where generally settled by Europeans between the Napoleonic Wars and the actual historical World War One.
A special shout-out to Ethiopia. That didn't let the scramble for Africa to happen in their territory until the italian invasion in world war 2 (but that doesn't count as a colonization).
And also shoutout to Morocco being the last African country to be colonized even though it's at the 2nd most strategic point of Africa after Egypt ( and also beating the sh*t out of the Spanish at Annual)
@@joundii3100, how exactly is Morocco the 2nd-most strategically vital territory in Africa after Egypt? Just curious, because I would think that if anything, South Africa would be the one to make that spot, being on one of the only two points in Africa where you can go from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean and all, but Im interested in what you have to say.
There's this myth, or at least an urban legend, that German chancellor Bismarck once met with an official, who advocated for a greater expansion of German colonialist endeavours. That official apprently folded out a map of Africa in front of Bismarck and started explaining where Germany should grab new land. Bismarck allegedly then took a map of the German empire off the wall, pointed to it and said: "This is my Africa." As in: I don't care about that other continent. I'm concerned with this nation first and foremost. Pretty cool, if true.
As a Victoria 2 player I have no idea what you guys are talking about. Never heard of the effective occupation cb. And going for China instead of Africa? But China requires AE to conquer whereas Africa is mostly free. So confused.
@@darken2417 It really doesn't, the whole point is that you can lock Chinese army on a island at the very bottom(Don't remember the name) and either siege them while it's stuck there or kill it. Chinese army being so huge and under tech that you can get the warscore without taking any land. And for example, there is a province with gold with almost the population of your country prior to annexation(depending on you who you play of course) located there. If you're not a great power that can boost up your economy with all the people paying taxes and the land itself bringing in profits. Perhaps it's not as effective in vanilla but still should have some benefits. China becomes a burden late game though when every farmer suddenly feels the urge to rise up all over the world
Yep, the Congo is MASSIVE. And as massive as it is unproductive and extremely difficult to explore. The Amazon is a Sunday stroll compared to the Congo. You also have the dilemma of having to think "Is it really worth demolishing thousands of hectares of almost virgin forest for some charcoal in the name of progress?"
@@sirjordancarter they didn't conquer all of it, bc they didn't have to to claim conquest. You do not understand geopolitics if you do not understand this
Like how "tiny Madagascar" is literally more than twice the size of Britain... Or how the (contiguous) USA is basically equal to just West Africa. The "true size" website is really helpful for visualizing it.
I might add something about Angola and Mozambique in this timeline, and the fact that without a scramble for Africa and a British ultimatum, Portugal would have probably expanded itself to make railroad connecting Maputo to Luanda and the mines. Also no British ultimatum would probably mean the Portuguese empire would probably still exist as a kleptocratic constitutional monarchy
I doubt the Portuguese would have any economic or political reason to expand their colonies until they would connect. It would make no sense to do so in a world that wasn't scrambling for Africa. The railroad would have no practical reason to exist as the goods that came from the Indian Ocean would just be shipped via the sea furthermore, and as he points out in the video, the center of Africa is a cesspool of diseases, further deterring the expansionistic endeavor. And as for the connectivity between colonies, neither was important enough that railroad connection was of necessity, and trade between them could easily be done via the ocean. But yeah, the kleptocracy, some things never change.
@@martim6828 Angola and Mozambique have natural resources vthat must be transported and naturally a rail road will be built to take those resources and in time east and west coast of Africa would have been united
I doubt it, yes the Portuguese empire could still exist as a monarchy, but it would end nearly exactly how it did in our timeline, war, independence of the colonies, Portuguese empire's death
@@akselamundsen2193 Advanced? No. Saintly and minding their own business? Now that's more like what I've heard people say. And they get all clammy when I bring up the prexisting slave trades.
@@gennericrapperalt2120 Because it dont agree with their opinion. They didnt even notice that alt history is literally fiction and tries to shit on the video on being "fantasy writing". Cpt. Obvious strikes again!
And they never wanted to let it go until the revolution war happend in 1954 which resulted to 1.5 million Algerians getting killed by the French between 1954 and 1962 " the independence"
@@sadeksama5057 That's called war. Welcome to the world my boy. And th FLN used to do terrorist attack on the civilians, like the Islamic State or Al-Qaida are doing today. Not great guy neither on the algerian side.
@@mr_bridou6507 lol are you seriously defending the France side here ? Even the US was against the occupation after ww2 And if the FLN didn't fight for their freedom algeria won't be liberated Just like if the founding fathers didn't fought for america freedom America would be apart of the Britain
Idk about the "no major resistence on the Europeans part" I could think of 4 instances of the top of my head which the europeans where incredibly brutal
Well single atrocity´s are not what this is about but more the sending of serious troops to suppress the unrest. Algeria i would think comes to mind as an exception but in general it seems we just simply packed and left after ww 2 whiteout a serious fight. Don´t really know what you mean, sure European nations at first obviously tried to prevent it but there where not many interventions and such to acutely keep power and it was more let happen. Also i would think this just means things after ww 2 in the new US world order where western society reformed.
@@kingoliever1 sure just ignore that most of western subseherean africa is still subservient economically and militarily to france. That the British waged a decades long war across eastern africa and other such actions. There was heavy resistance and this is why the French, Dutch and other such european powers still have holding accros the world. If the USSR and the USA weren't forcing them too give up there colonies they just weren't going too do it.
@@AnotherConscript What decade long battle the British had in Africa? While French influence in Africa today is just something totally different and sure not based on them whit there military occupying foreign lands. This rather has to do whit economics as African countries are generally poor and probably have some huge advantages when they also get help and a bit integrated into European systems. For example Africa gets basically a huge tariff deal gifted by the EU which allows them to tariff anything from Europe they want while also getting themselves to import whiteout tariffs in the EU. I really never seen anything where this claim that Europe exploits Africa is somehow is acutely true, like that we somehow steal there raw resources when buying them as the trade whit Africa is simply just a rather small part of our economy think just 10% of imports from outside the EU come from there which is simply not much whit 5 of our BIP % while they also get 10% of this money back as development aid. While this modern holdings simply have the right to vote for independence, there was recently some referendum where some French oversea territory decided to stay and there is a whole list on wiki whit them. I am also not really trying to deny European atrocities but from what i know this was just mostly before ww 2 and the only thing i really would know about is France in Algeria. What seems more to be the case that then as many nations where build on the idea of divided and conquer where going into chaos while we in many cases somehow where still involved but in the time after the second world war which i just referring to this where simply not the colonial conflicts from before about them keeping control but rather preventing civil wars. For example Israel would be the example i mean whit this where the Brits wanted to go rather sooner then later but had to deal whit being in the middle between fighting Jews and Arabs which both hated them. Or the South African bush war would be another example which sure was caused by the colonial legacy but the war reason was not colonialism.
As a South African I am always happy to see it when we get featured, especially in this detail. Just a note on the pronunciations. Natal is pronounced Nah-tal, not Nay-tal. Keep it up. I love your videos!
Dankie Stefan. Ek het ook in detail na hom geluister. Die man (Jay Girgis?) het beslis talent, maar sy vertolking van Geskiedenis is aweregs. Sy interpretasie is sy voorreg, en nie noodwendig die waarheid nie. Byvoorbeeld:"The Dutch/ Afrikaners is responsible for Apartheid"' Joe Slovo vd ANC en Europese Kommunis het ook uitgewys. Die Engels kielhaal die Afrikaners oor Rasseskeiding, terwyl die Engelse dit begin het...
This is very nice indeed. As a Sudanese person I will say the greatest benfit of colonial rule was creating a sense of solidarity that didn't really exist before helping form our contemporary nation states. Hell my country has a personal history with that (the brutal Mahdist uprising which united the nation against Turk-European rulers). One correction I would make there was even more profitable colonies in Africa but all of them were almost entirely British. Another would be I can't really understand the economic downturn you showed after the end of colonialism. Also lmao we did build many rail roads, bridges, roads since the British left I don't know where you got that part from. From what I know at least in my own country we we had vast economic growth unprecedented under British rule until the Socialists got in power. . I don't know where you got the railways part, my country has been expanding railroads since the 1960s, Hell we built a ton of high way roads thanks to American aid in the 70s. . It must also be said that colonial nations did in fact oppose letting go of their colonies but their hands were forced by being both physically destroyed by ww2 and the Global powers in the form of USA and USSR.
@@JcLazy1 our existence was a civil war lmao, still matter is hilariously irrevlant in contemporary Sudanese society. The civil war is treated as 'Security Hazzard' not a war with actual loses as much country side banditry and counter banditry. The exception to that is south sudan during the 90s, that one was our Vietnam. It got much better however with 2005 peace deal, and unfortunately separation it was. We still have many southerners in my city, lovely people!
@@lif3andthings763 nah nah bro, it's just misunderstandings that's all. Using a language of superiority when trying to make someone else understand is not good. If you want to make someone understand you try to explain to them. If they refuse to understand well truth doesn't care for my opinion nor anyone else's
@@lif3andthings763 it wouldn't. Africa was huge dude with a lot of labour. Europeans could invest into those machines or else they could just throw enough men at it to make it work but then black death happened which was exactly why had no other choice then do expensive 'gambling' into machines. This is the reason why, not just africa...india and china couldn't industrialise. All three were just huge.
In that timeline slavery wouldn't be 'the white man's guilt' and would still exist in Africa, as it still does today with more or less 10 millions estimated enslaved in our Africa, but would probably be twice to tenfold in that world.
@@penzorphallos3199 I mean, if you are going by UN definitions of Slavery, alot of that is still Western Run companies like Nestle that are running them.
@@ikengaspirit3063 even without considering corporate slaves, Africa is n'1. There's more house slaves in Africa right now, then there were slaves caught and shipped off to the Americas during the triangular slave trade in total.
The main thing that determines the success of nations are their economic policies. For a variety of reasons, most of Africa would be better of in this timeline then our own, albeit with some parts in the interior staying underdeveloped. African states were mostly decentralised empires and city states, which means that it is difficult to form hyper tyrannical governments like in much of the rest of the world. Without colonisation, the African states wouldn’t have nonsensical borders and would thus have less internal conflicts and civil wars, making business and the society stable. The hybridisation of Abrahamic Religions with native polytheistic religions means that strict religious fundamentalism is less likely in most of Sub-Saharan Africa. The Sahel has a long history of being united and will most likely reunite later on. Coastal West Africa was already quite advanced and had stable governments. The Ashanti Empire (which started as a federation of city states) for example reformed in the 1700s to have a meritocratic parliamentary system where the Kotoko Council would regulate the king’s decisions. The Igbo also had a semi-democratic government that guaranteed equal rights for citizens. Ethiopia was already a robust state and was more powerful than its neighbours. Without European colonies on its border, it would be able to expand. The states of the Swahili Coast were wealthy city states, which have a good track record in the industrialised world. Buganda and the African Great Lakes nations were states that also looked promising from East Africa. Central and parts of Southern Africa had many states like the Luba and the Rozvi Empire at were quite powerful and had trade connections with Portugal. The main problems that Africa faced were diseases, difficulty of transportation and slavery. The first two wouldn’t be a problem with medical technology and later roadways connecting the developed parts of the continent. Slavery would be a bigger issue but as technology diffuses into the continent, the economic problems of slavery would slowly make the practice go away. When the Atlantic Slave Trade ended, it hurt the economies of many coastal African nations, however, in the long run this would have decreased the amount of wars for slaves, kept the population growing and lead to more diverse economies later on. Africa in this timeline would probably be more like Southeast Asia, with a lot of both developed and undeveloped parts, but broadly be growing rapidly.
@@christiandauz3742 If they had that technology and governments didn’t ban it, then they could genuinely conquer the world, especially with the lower world population at the time. Over time, the technology would probably diffuse into the rest of the world and lead to everyone gaining independence, since you can’t effectively control the whole planet.
@@myagrimm4719 There’s a TH-camr called From Nothing who makes good videos about African history without being overly afro-nationalist. He focuses more on pre-European African history and less on stuff like slavery.
So trade wouldn't exist in this timeline? The outside world wouldn't want African resources & goods? I find it highly unlikely that railroads,etc. Won't make it to Africa.
Railroads were only created in Africa, because they were an interest to Europeans. All trade between Europe and Africa was practically only slavery up until colonisation. And Europe never bothered to push inwards, only maintaining costal trade hubs. Trade might exist, but it would be very slow and very gradual to have any actual impact on Africa. Colonialism forced administration and unification between tribes. Without it, Africa would be far more divided and far less developed. In fact conflict might have gotten more brutal, since guns would be imported from Europeans and the power gap between Natives with guns and Natives without guns would be extreme. Also, most of African resources couldn't be extracted by Africans, because they hadn't the technology to do so.
@@learningagain4094 not entirely true. Countries like Egypt, Ethiopia, Morocco and mali have existed for thousands of years. Egypt is extremely close to Europe and already had modern technology such as guns, the printing press and factories etc, while Ethiopia closely connected to Egypt and the oman sultanate could get technology by trading with them. It wouldn't take long until countries like Congo and Ghana pop up, the rest of Africa will still stay mostly tribalised until the 20th century. However the poverty and separate would be alot less due to less ethnic and tribal conflict due to messy borders created specifically by the French, British, Portuguese and Spanish.
it's been almost a year since this video. I hope you make more What If? scenarios in the future. I love the socio-political analysis videos, but I miss the what ifs
I love to see how the quality of videos is constantly raising as time goes by. Maybe some parts of Africa that are more stable could slowly industrialise, selling goods for European merchants, buying weapons to defend their lands, been open for foreign investment as fertilizers became cheaper and more available, etc.. One good point is that borders would make more sence and be mostly divided by culture.
well to industrialise/ have a reason to produce so much stuff they kind of need access to the ocean, so maybe the coastal people groups who arrange by culture and industrialise. those kingdoms may go on to colonise the interior.
Not that I don’t love the alternative history, but I would love to have a series. Break down the history of human interaction by region, illustrate it via map etc., and then describe macro level interactions now.
This video and subject were really well done, thank you. However, I was wondering if you could start linking at the bottom or at the end of the video putting some of the books you used to research? Some of these subjects are really interesting and I want to know more than (no offense) a cursory glance. You’ve done similarly for your historical misconceptions videos and I think it would be really neat to do here too! Cheers
You think this guy is actually researching shit? This is literally just some guy making up things that fit his world view. None of this is based on critical analysis.
@@lilemont9302 I'm not saying it's all bad, but there are some glaring problems. There were multiple brutal wars and military campaigns to supress African independence by France, Portugal and Britain. France still maintains economic hegemony over most of West Africa. He says that none of the colonies were profitable except the Congo. Zimbabwe was, as was Mali, Djibouti and the Swahili coast, to name a few.
The Ottomans, essentially. Albanians had immigrated, through the Ottoman Empire, to Egypt. Over centuries, a sizeable and powerful minority of Albanian governors, generals, mercenaries, etc, coalesced into their own dynasty. After kicking Napoleon out of Egypt, the Albanian soldiers forced the (dying) Ottoman Empire into accepting their rule over the territory. Eventually Western powers stepped in and checked the Khedivate dynasty in Egypt from truly taking off. Then a revolution in the 50's kicked out the last Albanian king, Farouk, and the rest of the Albanians largely fled back to Europe. The Ottomans had a habit of using slave soldiers from far flung corners of the Empire, but then freeing them and giving them political power after good service. Which is how the Albanian's originally got settled into Egypt.
Didn't the belgians literally invent the saying "Crimes against humanity". The british seemed to be the only European nation in history that treated African colonies in any decent way towards the end of it, perhaps this is why so many weller off Africans live in UK? Also it's crazy that polygamy & exploitation of natural African resources is still happening to this very day just in different ways than colonialism, it seems to be one of most abundant places of resources on the planet.
Britain treated their African colonies fairly well compared to countries like France, Spain and Portugal. A lot of African countries who were colonized by Britain aren’t as resentful as countries like Angola and the Congo
@@KalixtoKahlo Well, I am fine with the word I used, after all it was de jure Portuguese land, or does brutally colonizing something not make it yours?
@@martim6828 what! how in the world Portugal had right to own an African territory? Last time i checked the map Guiena-Bisau is located west of central Africa 11.8037° N, 15.1804° W
@@KalixtoKahlo So under that logic, countries can't have exclaves, for example, all the French islands scattered around the globe and French Guiana aren't rightfully French, or the Azores aren't rightfully Portuguese? Regardless, that is besides de point. What I am saying is that, just because a territory is far away, doesn't mean it can't belong to a faraway nation. The coastal parts of Guinea-Bissau had been under Portuguese rule since around the 1500s, the rest was later explored and settled over the 1800s; The Portuguese had, in guinea-Bissau, a permanent PORTUGUESE population inhabiting the region under Portuguese law, using Portuguese money and in a region in which (granted not everyone did) speak Portuguese. So what your telling me is that owning something for around 350 years (to be in line with the Berlin conference), whilst having a permanent population from the mainland living there not give you the right to say it is, rightfully, yours?
I made a pretty similar but much more optimistic timeline about Africa you should like even more (although my mic and editing weren't as good back then) Don't let the title fool you THIS ISN'T A TROLL I SWEAR! th-cam.com/video/1Pt5Xu8Ebbw/w-d-xo.html
Everything is Free. I mean if you can overcome the forces putting a price on something, that means your force can put the price to zero. In a lot of grocery stores, the only force preventing theft is personal shame. If you dont care about that, you can set the price to zero. No one will stop you from taking that shit. Likewise they equally dont give a rats ass if you pitch a tent an live in their parking lot. Just ready to leave once the force escalates to the police. Then you can promptly return. I mean, you take the whole grocery store if you can kill every cop and serviceman.
Having played conflict of nations, I can say for certain that it is crap compared to the other game by bytro (the devs of CoN and CoW) call of war, to me it always seems to be more polished
The scramble for Africa is happening again but most people don’t realise that.China has already given 300 billion dollars of loans to poor African nations and is establishing military bases in Djibouti and India is countering China by providing loans to other African nations and is establishing military bases in Mauritius. Japan is also doing the same. I guess history is repeating itself
Suggestions: -What if Ukraine became anarchist under Nestor Makhno? -What if the Pernambucan Revolution suceeded and established the 3rd republic in modern history?
@@marrymekatsuya he could if he became a strongman and abandoned almost everything that anarchism represented or if he aligned himself with the USSR(considering in this timeline someone who isn't as centralist as Stalin becomes leader,like Bhukarin) or other eastern european countries
Couple disagreements - The primary purpose was for economic reasons to maintain access and extraction to raw materials in their colonial areas - The decolonization process was brutal especially when it came to covert coups to prop up dictators and Portugal's wars against its former colonies and France/Algeria. There's couple more but those are the main disagreements
Hmm French colonization of Africa was very much Jules Ferry’s attempt to redirect the populace’s energy away from Alsace-Lorraine and avoid a war with Germany that France would definitely not win. I wonder if a general European war might have broken out earlier if the scramble had not happened
The French colonisation of Africa was a direct result of the suppression of the Barbary pirate kingdoms. It could have just as easily been Britain or the United States (as both were getting tired of repeatedly suppressing them).
@@Antonio-xq2hg im not arguing, you dont show anybody how to build a railroad is my point. People take years to learn construction right? WHY DOES EVERYTHING IN THE COMMENTS HAVE TO BE AN ARGUMENT TO YOU
So glad you've done this topic, I did the same topic a few months ago and as you're a massive inspiration for my channel I'd love to get some feedback, and maybe one day to do a collaboration! Keep up the great work and stay blessed!
@@johnl.7754 that’s true. Or maybe we could have a weird reverse scenario were once Europeans started to enter sub Saharan Africa the Africans start dying from diseases like the native Americans did. A pretty odd alternate history though.
Africa was much more populated than native America and had already had contact with diseases European had through contact with Arab traders. Europe entering Africa much earlier would be very interesting. Conquest would be MUCH harder without the maxim gun and repeating rifles and the like. That’s a very interesting scenario indeed.
"Africa wasn't claimed for economic reasons--well actually, it was, but the colonies lost money so it doesn't count." Yeah, sorry, that is pretty incoherent. It was claimed in competition with other European powers for the future prospect of wealth. Also, it probably isn't too wise to say that America was "anti-colonial". It's hard to get more colonial than 19th and early 20th century America. We just were colonial on our own continent, adjacent to established territories. We also practiced economic colonialism and military interventionism in Latin America and also East Asia. What, for example, is Commodore Perry's "Opening of Japan?" Or US Marines fighting against the Boxer Rebellion? Sure, we did oppose European-style political colonialism in our sphere of influence (the Monroe doctrine).
This gets into how you define colonialism versus straight up conquest. And neither of these are particularly moral, so don't take this as me saying "America did nothing wrong!" But the westward expansion generally isn't considered colonialism. Colony implies that an outside power takes over a region and harnesses their work force and economy to serve the colonial power. America didn't want the natives as a work force, they just wanted them gone so American citizens could have the land to work for themselves. So it's much more a case of conquest. A "colonial America" would have had plantations and ranches across the midwest where the only white people would have been the land owners and administrators, but all the workforce would have been native.
@@ressljs That’s a good point, wouldn’t that be considered settler colonialism, where the goal is to replace the original population with a new one of settlers?
@@jessetaran7116 There seems to be an impulse to use "colonialism" in the context of the Americas where it wouldn't be used elsewhere. Let's look at similar cases in history. The Saxons invaded Roman Britain and pushed out the Celts from what we now call England. The Arabs spread out over the middle east and now the lands they ruled are populated by Arabs rather than the people there before 600 AD (probably due more to assimilation rather than expelling the previous population). I've never heard those described as colonialism, just conquest. I can't help but think "settler colonialism" is just rebranding "invasion" or "conquest" because colonialism is a hot buzzword. And before anyone forgets my original argument and thinks this is an excuse for everything America did, invading and expelling natives is hardly a moral act. It's just not the same thing as colonialism and I think doing a switcheroo on the terminology just makes history harder to talk about and understand.
@@ressljs I think colonialism and conquest aren’t super rigid or distinct categories. The borders are fuzzy and sometimes they cross into each other. I’ve heard the Anglo-Saxon conquest and Arabization be referred to as colonialism (although you’re right that Arabization is mostly due to assimilation over the centuries, but could even that be considered colonialism?) I think conquest works for all the examples we talked about, but I wouldn’t rule out colonialism being a part of it as well. And I also agree that it can be a buzzword nowadays, and buzzwords can be irritating as hell sometimes. Idk when the term “settler colonialism” originated, but I’m almost certain it was in the 20th century. I’ll have to look into it
Good video, but one caveat. The Bantu people are not native to most of South Africa - they were pushed there by the British because they didn't want the Nederlanders, later Afrikaners, to have a majority presence in certain regions. But we, and the San people, were there before the blacks and the English. That's our land and if anyone wants it they'll have to pry it from our cold, dead hands.
the bantu we already going there long before britain was a thing they had left their homeland in 2000bc and were moving all across africa to reach south africa and even kenya.
@@Fu3g0.100 yea ikr it's pretty awesome. I like African cultures and civilizations and it's awesome to see them discussed with a historical lens rather than hoteps and racists screaming in tangents
@@quadeevans6484 This guy literally said the Europeans introduced cities and that the Egyptians conquered the Congo. Some of these comments show pretty clear bias.
@@quadeevans6484 I think it has to do with the apparent positive praise than the lack of toxicity. More or less would be the same, especially on a topic about Africa.
I will say there are a lot of historical inaccuracies in this video. Doesn’t mention the frequent battles off the Mozambican coast with the Portuguese or the prior more devastating Arab slave trade that stole faaaaar more Africans. Also you don’t mention Ethiopia which remained free and was never colonized. Or great Zimbabwe that not only fought back canon fire but actually repelled invaders before surrendering. I could literally go on talking about how it was not as easy as you think. Just that all of Africa is classified under Africa while Europe both changed history and had deaths spread out across Spain, Britain, Germany, etc… There is sooooo much more I’m leaving out but please redo this video cause it is so factually inaccurate. I’m African so I know this. Please do better research. I love your videos 💙
I agree that the video doesn’t involve most intricacies, and mostly just generalizes sub-Saharan Africa to the rest of the continent. One thing you said piqued my interest though. I can’t seem to find anything regarding Great Zimababwe and the way they fought back, most of what I found said they were crushed. Could you point me in the right direction or at least provide some keywords so I can find the battles you’re talking about?
I can't really see a world where this didn't happen given that the Americas had already been colonized years prior and Europe was still in the colonial mindset to get more power/prestige and resources to one up each other. For this to have happen, Europe would have never colonized at all to begin with.
However, you have to consider the people of the Americas’ were almost completely wiped out by Eurasian diseases that left only a few scattered tribes and multi-racial groups. When comparing Europe to Africa, it was the reverse because the Africans had developed relative tolerance to the same diseases Europeans experienced. Still, they also had developed tolerance to diseases that Europeans were unfamiliar with; thus, Europeans who had no level of tolerance or immunity to those diseases usually on mass when colonizing the interior of the African continent. That's why Europeans could only colonize the coasts, North-Eastern Africa, and Southern Africa because everywhere else was filled to the brim with extremely lethal diseases to Europeans that the tonic water made manageable. That's why the conditions in the Americas don’t apply to Africa by any measure. This is because foreign diseases would not wipe the Native African populations. That depopulation was the number one reason for quick and relatively easy European conquests of the Americas. For Africa, it would be the reverse and was for most of History Europeans died in mass from native African diseases. At the same time, the Native Africans would not lose the massive proportions of the native populations that native Americans lost from foreign diseases. Those deadly diseases made the conquest of Africa by Europeans significantly more difficult, if not impossible, in most areas for most of history, except in the regions of Africa I mentioned previously.
@@InquisitorXarius Open a damned book ffs. Most aboriginal population did not die. Most intermarried with european migrants, forming the vast mestizo population that forms a big % of the americas population now.
I'm now thinking there needs to be a list of how many scenarios ends up creating a Central Powers victory in WWI outcome. WWI Seems to be the biggest butterfly effect target
Anything that keeps Britain out of the war. Weaken Russia enough to either keep them out of WW1 or collapse relatively early on. Anything that weakens France enough. Strengthening the pan-German ties from the HRE while forming the German Empire. Strengthening Arab loyalty to the Ottoman Empire. Italy not allying itself with France. Italy's army not being so bad. Austria-Hungary's army not being so bad. Germany not pushing to become a naval power. Plenty of options to choose from.
6:28 The Germans colonized Togo, not Benin. EDIT: Also, Cameroon extended into modern-day Nigeria at one point. Just in the Northeastern part of Nigeria, though.
You're spoiling us, our little hearts can't take it. How well do you speak french? Can you read it fluently? If yes I would love for you to check out the Jour J series, it's from France and I don't know if it was ever translated.
Really wished you touched on what the outcomes would of the African empires and kingdoms How would Ethiopia turn out? How does Benin (Edo) fair on without British incursion? Do the Hausa extend into central Africa? Would the Ashanti try and push the British off the coast?
He should know better than to leave out the impact of their kingdoms and empires naturally rising and falling and how that would impact the people, economy, cultures, religion and the relationships they would eventually have with the rest of the world. It's fucked how he basically said that the entire continent would be stuck as hunter gatherers If Europeans didn't violate.
@@Cynoteeria yeah I doubt that very much 😭 hunter gatherer thing because when you crunch the numbers when colonial governments took population census most Africans would’ve been living under some sort city state governing entity. The fact is people don’t understand that to this day LARGE parts of the continent are uninhabitable for non nomadic settler development even with all those odds without connections from the outside world independent African communities did fairly well.
Africa is certainly a continent whose geopolitical situation I could stand to learn more about, particularly on local situations during the colonial era. Thank you for the thought-provoking video. Stay well out there everybody, and God bless you friends. :)
7:18 Congo Crisis Mau Mau Uprising (Borderline Genocide) Malagasy Uprising (50,000 people killed just for protests) Algerian War Cameroon Conflict Portuguese Colonial War Spanish Moroccoan War Egyptian Revolution etc.
00:24 Wrong, King Leopold II of Belgium colonised it, not Belgium, Belgium was forced to take it by the international community after King Leopold II's atrocities came to light.
Hey, once again chiming in. Just because the colonies didn't turn a profit doesn't mean they weren't expected to. Every colonial venture undertaken by the Europeans had turned a profit. You can't deny that underneath all of it, the air of exploitation was there. The desire. The gaucheness of overt exploitation after the ongoing political rights and abolitionist debates and heck, even the rise of socialism, meant that all the scramble could be justified on publicly was prestige. There was an ever present thought that the blocked off colonial region, now accessible, would provide endless boons. All the historical trends of their day showed this.
Also the argument that "the colonies mostly didn't turn a profit so profit wasn't their motive" is extremely bad thinking. You can go look up the charters of all of these companies, and listen to them laugh at you, if you like. They were all there to turn a profit. Or "facilitate trade" as the rhetoric of the day was. First: All of these colonies were intended to be long-term investments. This is, I understand, a very alien concept in modern capitalism. It used to be that people would sink a lot of money into something now, and expect to gain profit years, even decades later through accrual. No German alive in 1884 dreamed that establishing a colonial company over Tanganyika would see a single pfenning profit for anyone in 1885... and so no one was surprised when it didn't. In every case, no matter the chartering government, it was held that a big investment up front for subdual of the native peoples, construction of infrastructure, and creation of "civIlIzAtIoN" would turn a profit EVENTUALLY. Second, remember that most nations at the time still ordered their economies on mercantilist thought. strict objective monetary profit was rarely the point of trade. For an example, the Barbary Company, strictly speaking, lost money hand over fist. It traded high-quality British cloth in Morocco, mostly in exchange for Moroccan sugar. it short-sold the cloth and was charged exorbitant rates for the sugar, but since England had a surplus of cloth and absolutely no capability of producing sugar at home, it was still seen as a good deal. Third, I think you underestimate profitability. Consider France in west Africa. Here's a fun fact about France; it has absolutely no domestic gold production, yet it has the largest gold reserve in Europe. France also controlled Africa's largest gold-producing region for almost a century, and still maintains an economic stranglehold on its former colonial states - none of which have any governmental gold reserves. Why is that do you think? Correlation is not causation, I know, but I think a very strong inferral can be made that Malian and Mauritanian gold is going into French treasuries, and has been for over a century. This goes straight into state coffers instead of the general economy, so might not track as "profit."
I remember when the Asian man said all the Africans do is spend their money on beer. But suffice to say there are other tribal groups in Africa that barely drink alcohol or don’t even practice night life festivities. It’s important to have context and overview when viewing a topic as vast as Africa.
The things is. The circumstances for China and African countries are very different. China was like that a dew decades ago in its dark age. A country as large and rich in labor as China was bound to bounce back. China was also relatively spared from colonialism since Europeans would only hope to effectively control the population.
@@neinno8172 Well we have had pointless wars and rebellions in recent years as it is; No, I mean men need to have more balls in the Western world right now, then things will fix themselves.
@@kingarthur1217 No it was absolutely worse back them and going back to that times means you have a higher chance of dying in a war or war induced famine.
@@kingarthur1217 Not on that scale, no. What you're asking for, with the weaponry we find ourselves armed with in the modern world, entails catastrophe. Worth mentioning it was due to the amount of young men, not the quality.
@@neinno8172 No one wants a nuclear war. I hope to God every day for no nuclear war. I do mean that today’s men need to be better, not that we need more young males. The men we already have should get their act together (as well as women) and know THE TRUTH so that societal stability, prosperity and success is ensured.
I think you'd like this similar and more optimistic timeline. It's even more informative Don't let the title fool you THIS ISN'T A TROLL I SWEAR! th-cam.com/video/1Pt5Xu8Ebbw/w-d-xo.html
i always learned that europe started colonizing africa because germany unified then france went to war with germany to show that it was still the dominant force, lost, and to regain pride started colonizing africa and the other nations followed because france would have too much
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Cool
No
Hello greetings from Colombia
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You sure are full of 💩 Africa didn't help Europe says the American
France still suck the hell out of it's ex-colonies they just took what they want
You really need to stop saying it didn't help Europe cause your wrong from extracting the raw materials and resources to forced labors it all went overseas to build up whatever home country was colonizing the country
I’m surprised you didn’t mention anything about Ethiopia in this timeline. Historically they had more contact with European and Middle Eastern states which allowed them to purchase weapons and expand even in our time line. Without the colonial powers land locking Ethiopia they could dominate Red Sea trade similar to how the Auxumites had done thousands of years before.
Ethiopia would probably be crushed by Egypt
@@fritoss3437 Egypt fighting Ethiopia would be extremely far from their power base. The mountainous terrain also makes invading hell. The result of the Ethiopian Egyptian War of 1874 would likely repeat
@@toobeast673 This. If a much weaker ethiopia manage to beat back egypt then I don't see how they would lose now.
@@toobeast673 yeah but the ethiopian could not expend bc of egypt tho
@@toobeast673well in this timeline islamic states are pretty well established and powerful in east africa so I could see Ethiopia being cornered and conquered with an alliance with between those states and egypt
Damn, 2 releases in barely more than half a day? We’re spoilt
Gotta hand it to those Belgians tho, they really punched above their weight eh? Actually on 2nd thought, I think they have enough hands as-is
@@uydagcusdgfughfgsfggsifg753 I really like the way you talk dude
@@VasilyMusic thanks! I don’t know you obviously, but I’ve yet to meet a Vasili (whichever way it’s spelt) that hasn’t been an absolute legend, and I’m sure you’re no exception - cheers
@@uydagcusdgfughfgsfggsifg753 Lol it's pronounced "Vah-see-leey", and frankly I'm impressed you've met other Vasilii's because even in my country it's not a very common name
Btw you're the first person named uydagcusdgfug hfgsfggsifg that I've met in my life. That's quite a rare name too lol...
Cheers bruv!
That's a surprise, for sure, but a welcome one
2 videos in a day! I forgive your hiatus now (but fr if you needed to take a break you should absolutely do it)
Yes i was surprised too!
Bro, I thought I was busy because I had midterms, this Canadian is gettin' after it
Yeah I genuinely revise his videos from time to time because of the massive amount of information in them
We don't need another burntout nerd.
Portugal claiming the entire continent of Africa was a total chad move
to be fair, the treaty of todisillas DID mean that all of africa belongs to portugal in terms of colonization, and they were one of the first to do so. the only reason they didnt take more land was because there was no real profit incentive.
@@grzegorzbrzeczyszykiewic3338 It was because they couldn't. They lost against Zimbabwean, Senegambian (including Mali) states and Kongo.
So much so that they didn't try anything militarily when Bini stopped selling them slaves and the Ethiopians expelled them.
Also, tropical diseases
Portugal agreeing to give up Africa so the smaller colonial powers could have a crumb of colony was an even bigger chad move. After all they still had all of Asia.
I think Belgian actually getting an enormous swath of central Africa 70x its size was even more of a chad move
@@ikengaspirit3063 Portugal only went to war against Kongo once and Won. Those countries you mentioned never entered in war whit Portugal.
Ethiopia fought whit Portugal not against it
Can you source what you said?
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Portugal
"Algeria would still be part of France" you just triggered an entire nation and 10% of france :D
Cursed comment but true.
@@exaggeratedswaggerofablackteen Don't worry, Eric Zemmour will wear his favorite Napoleon Hat and conquer it back.
Algeria would probably be better off as part of France, tbh
@@scholaroftheworldalternatehist Not really, Better be ruled by an incompotent local tyrant, than even the most "benevolent" of outsiders.
@@KratosAurion7777 Good comment but I strongly disagree with the last part of it. Just as this excellent video showed. It is absolutely not necessarily because your country is controlling more territory that it is stronger. The more France keep Algeria the more France suicides herself. In fact you your comment reveal it itself, Algeria would be the winner at the end. France having algeria oil is nothing compared to the implacable demographic and religiou pression France would have suffered (even more than today !)(moreover France would probably not emphase nuclear energy with lots of oil).
European scramble for Africa is basicly "If we don't take it someone else will and they might possibly maybe find something worthwhile there and we can't have that."
Honestly though, if Europe didn't scramble for Africa; Arabic regions at the time would of definitely.
While other African tribes may have eventually came to together. It was unlikely.
On par with say France giving up all there power to merge with the british empire at the time, or perhaps the Austrian Empire merging with the Russian Empire.
The arabs would of definitely enslaved them in there own homes. While the european powers at least had the decency of buying 90% of them from african warlords of the region. Arabs were casually stealing from the east & west coasts
It's textbook realpolitik, literally Soviets and NATO did the same to each other
@@icarusunited Arabs weren’t kidnapping anybody you low IQ joke they brought the Africans from East African black Muslim warlords who happily sold pagans for lolz. Arabs very very very rarely needed to raid or could get away with it. The only places in africa that were colonised by MENAS would be Sudan and Zanzibar the rest of the continent was far to powerful to be defeated by a couple yellow boys with turbans
Ugh! Educated people getting all competitive
@@Hollywood2021 mmh ugh yikes sweetie
Btw I would say the main reason how western Europeans conquered Africa so easily was diplomacy. Basically the whole "we help you against these other African tribes" loop hole, turning them into a vassal and then annexing them. And not keeping promises.
Yes, many don’t know this.
They were only diplomatic with tribes that were big enough to barter with. The rest were just there
Basically how the British took over India
Kinda sounds like what happened to Lesotho. They teamed up with the British to beat the Dutch and got annexed against their will after defeating the Dutch.
Nah, in most of those places the Africans didn't even know white men were "ruling" over them. In the British colonies especially, they used very few administrators and left power largely with the chieftains
Strong Tribal Groups like the Igbo, the Tutsi, the Zulu, the Kikuyu etc. would trade at the coast and dominate other groups. This would mean they would have much larger territories and not be tied down to current national borders. Eventually large kingdoms and chiefdoms competent enough to contact groups outside of Africa would emerge and this would facilitate social change such as promotion of capitalism etc.
Some of these are more ethnic than tribal groupings.
@@ikengaspirit3063 quite right
Exactly
So why didn’t it happen the previous 100k years that Africans existed and Europeans didnt
@@jakesmall8875 why did humans not develop agriculture for the 2 million to 100,000 years of human existance then and not now.
Yooooo! I can’t believe we’re getting two in a day!
:D
:D
Second time now
He is inspired
It's because it's the end of the month meaning sponsorship deadlines lol
I’d love to see someone attempt to draw the complete African borders in this scenario.
It would be incomplete and full of guesstimations. How do you measure If the Fulani jihad would've expanded east and reach the Blue Nile? Do you think that the Xhosa and Zulu would've joined and fused in a single political entity with borders and bureaucracy? Can you put that on a map? It's a dumb attempt. It would be like using that crappy Marvel movie Black Panther as a source, it doesn't take on account that that's not how people develop technological advances.
@@SauloA333 Black Panther is a good move
@@SauloA333 Thats why i said it
Well, that would take someone with a big and detailed Knowledge on pre-colonial African history which I don't think there are enough of for those simultaneously also highly interested in and involved in Alternate history to exist yet.
Yeah - this was essentially what I was interested in here as well. I'm also not sure about the idea that Britain does not intervene in World War I. The Germans are about to so completely disrupt the balance of Power in Europe and that was always (well almost always) why Britain intervened historically. Britain is not going to stand by while Germany takes most of the continent. It might actually be the trigger that stops the war. Germany being on the verge of winning in late 1906 or early 1907 but is also exhausted from what turns out to be such an awful and brutal type of war is basically told by Britain "All right you won - take some gains but keep it reasonable or we are entering the war against you". Germany gets another slice of France and all of Poland and the Baltic States. This had been how the wars where generally settled by Europeans between the Napoleonic Wars and the actual historical World War One.
Basically, the cause of whole colonial era, was that European countries wanted their name to be bigger on the map
You just explained HOI4, EU IV and Victorian II.
@@tiagorodrigues179 Literally
yeah
Me in every map-based strategy game
So the entirety of the colonialism era... is a massive dick measuring contest in a nutshell?
A special shout-out to Ethiopia. That didn't let the scramble for Africa to happen in their territory until the italian invasion in world war 2 (but that doesn't count as a colonization).
Italy in Ethiopia was a pyrrhic victory
And also shoutout to Morocco being the last African country to be colonized even though it's at the 2nd most strategic point of Africa after Egypt ( and also beating the sh*t out of the Spanish at Annual)
@@joundii3100, how exactly is Morocco the 2nd-most strategically vital territory in Africa after Egypt? Just curious, because I would think that if anything, South Africa would be the one to make that spot, being on one of the only two points in Africa where you can go from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean and all, but Im interested in what you have to say.
@@occam7382 Well basically, Strait of Gibraltar.
@@joundii3100, ohhh, right. That makes so much more sense now. Thank you for reminding me about that. Now I know what you mean.
There's this myth, or at least an urban legend, that German chancellor Bismarck once met with an official, who advocated for a greater expansion of German colonialist endeavours.
That official apprently folded out a map of Africa in front of Bismarck and started explaining where Germany should grab new land.
Bismarck allegedly then took a map of the German empire off the wall, pointed to it and said: "This is my Africa." As in: I don't care about that other continent. I'm concerned with this nation first and foremost.
Pretty cool, if true.
yeah they genocided east european instead.
Blessed Bismark.
@@croixfadas two different germanys
Well it didn’t really matter in the end anyways bc Germany would go on to commit atrocities in East Africa
@@whitelightning2100 Wasn't it in Namibia that they genocided tribes ?
"What if Africa was never divided"
Me a Vic2 player: Well, those effective occupation casus bellis are really tempting you know?
Game: Disallows to invade/colonize Africa
Vicky 2 Players: Fine, _China_ it is.
As a Victoria 2 player I have no idea what you guys are talking about.
Never heard of the effective occupation cb. And going for China instead of Africa? But China requires AE to conquer whereas Africa is mostly free. So confused.
@@darken2417 You never went to war with China?
@@Ktotokroto
Hmm... Maybe that is my issue.
I assume it has special mechanics then, will have to check it out.
@@darken2417 It really doesn't, the whole point is that you can lock Chinese army on a island at the very bottom(Don't remember the name) and either siege them while it's stuck there or kill it. Chinese army being so huge and under tech that you can get the warscore without taking any land. And for example, there is a province with gold with almost the population of your country prior to annexation(depending on you who you play of course) located there. If you're not a great power that can boost up your economy with all the people paying taxes and the land itself bringing in profits. Perhaps it's not as effective in vanilla but still should have some benefits. China becomes a burden late game though when every farmer suddenly feels the urge to rise up all over the world
I don't think most people truly realize how vast Africa actually is.
Yep, the Congo is MASSIVE. And as massive as it is unproductive and extremely difficult to explore. The Amazon is a Sunday stroll compared to the Congo. You also have the dilemma of having to think "Is it really worth demolishing thousands of hectares of almost virgin forest for some charcoal in the name of progress?"
Good ol mercator projection
That just goes to show how epic our ancestors were for conquering it so easily
@@sirjordancarter they didn't conquer all of it, bc they didn't have to to claim conquest. You do not understand geopolitics if you do not understand this
Like how "tiny Madagascar" is literally more than twice the size of Britain... Or how the (contiguous) USA is basically equal to just West Africa.
The "true size" website is really helpful for visualizing it.
“The European discovery of the railroad”
You mean… construction of the railroad?
You mean... British inventing railways?
you men…
nope the brits literally discovered them in their natural habitat high up in the Scottish highlands.
@@jimpickins7900 Literally. Like that's literally where they mined the iron and got the lumber.
@@Byronic19134 dammit man trying to make a joke as if trains were naturally occurring and could be discovered
I might add something about Angola and Mozambique in this timeline, and the fact that without a scramble for Africa and a British ultimatum, Portugal would have probably expanded itself to make railroad connecting Maputo to Luanda and the mines. Also no British ultimatum would probably mean the Portuguese empire would probably still exist as a kleptocratic constitutional monarchy
I doubt the Portuguese would have any economic or political reason to expand their colonies until they would connect. It would make no sense to do so in a world that wasn't scrambling for Africa. The railroad would have no practical reason to exist as the goods that came from the Indian Ocean would just be shipped via the sea furthermore, and as he points out in the video, the center of Africa is a cesspool of diseases, further deterring the expansionistic endeavor.
And as for the connectivity between colonies, neither was important enough that railroad connection was of necessity, and trade between them could easily be done via the ocean.
But yeah, the kleptocracy, some things never change.
@@martim6828 Angola and Mozambique have natural resources vthat must be transported and naturally a rail road will be built to take those resources and in time east and west coast of Africa would have been united
I doubt it, yes the Portuguese empire could still exist as a monarchy, but it would end nearly exactly how it did in our timeline, war, independence of the colonies, Portuguese empire's death
I feel like Africa's development and colonialism is a touchy subject, so don't be surprised much if you get accusations of racism
How is it racism ?
Well I won't accuse him of racism. His own personal opinions aren't my problem.
@@JcLazy1 Anyone who dares having a different opinion than the Wokes, is a patriarchal racist homophobe.
Seems positive so far thankfully
@@akselamundsen2193 Advanced? No. Saintly and minding their own business? Now that's more like what I've heard people say. And they get all clammy when I bring up the prexisting slave trades.
This is going to be one of your most interesting alternate histories
love your channel
Imagine taking this garbage video seriously. This is just fantasy writing nonsense but it was worth a good laugh.
@@lawbringer9857 how is it garbage
@@gennericrapperalt2120 Because it dont agree with their opinion. They didnt even notice that alt history is literally fiction and tries to shit on the video on being "fantasy writing".
Cpt. Obvious strikes again!
@@gennericrapperalt2120 because he's a marxist and it conflicts with his ideology
France looking at Algeria: I don't need it. I don't need it. I don't need it.
...
France: I NEED IT!
And they never wanted to let it go until the revolution war happend in 1954 which resulted to 1.5 million Algerians getting killed by the French between 1954 and 1962 " the independence"
@@sadeksama5057 That's called war. Welcome to the world my boy. And th FLN used to do terrorist attack on the civilians, like the Islamic State or Al-Qaida are doing today. Not great guy neither on the algerian side.
@@mr_bridou6507 lol are you seriously defending the France side here ?
Even the US was against the occupation after ww2
And if the FLN didn't fight for their freedom algeria won't be liberated
Just like if the founding fathers didn't fought for america freedom America would be apart of the Britain
@@mr_bridou6507 bruh Algeria was definitely the good guy here
@North Sea Pirate hhhh France end slave trad 😂😂😂 😂😂😂
😂😂😂 Okay 😂😂 Okay 😂😂😂😂
End slave trade to start another
Good move 🙂🙂🙂
Idk about the "no major resistence on the Europeans part" I could think of 4 instances of the top of my head which the europeans where incredibly brutal
Well single atrocity´s are not what this is about but more the sending of serious troops to suppress the unrest. Algeria i would think comes to mind as an exception but in general it seems we just simply packed and left after ww 2 whiteout a serious fight.
Don´t really know what you mean, sure European nations at first obviously tried to prevent it but there where not many interventions and such to acutely keep power and it was more let happen. Also i would think this just means things after ww 2 in the new US world order where western society reformed.
@@kingoliever1 sure just ignore that most of western subseherean africa is still subservient economically and militarily to france. That the British waged a decades long war across eastern africa and other such actions. There was heavy resistance and this is why the French, Dutch and other such european powers still have holding accros the world. If the USSR and the USA weren't forcing them too give up there colonies they just weren't going too do it.
@@AnotherConscript What decade long battle the British had in Africa? While French influence in Africa today is just something totally different and sure not based on them whit there military occupying foreign lands. This rather has to do whit economics as African countries are generally poor and probably have some huge advantages when they also get help and a bit integrated into European systems. For example Africa gets basically a huge tariff deal gifted by the EU which allows them to tariff anything from Europe they want while also getting themselves to import whiteout tariffs in the EU. I really never seen anything where this claim that Europe exploits Africa is somehow is acutely true, like that we somehow steal there raw resources when buying them as the trade whit Africa is simply just a rather small part of our economy think just 10% of imports from outside the EU come from there which is simply not much whit 5 of our BIP % while they also get 10% of this money back as development aid.
While this modern holdings simply have the right to vote for independence, there was recently some referendum where some French oversea territory decided to stay and there is a whole list on wiki whit them.
I am also not really trying to deny European atrocities but from what i know this was just mostly before ww 2 and the only thing i really would know about is France in Algeria. What seems more to be the case that then as many nations where build on the idea of divided and conquer where going into chaos while we in many cases somehow where still involved but in the time after the second world war which i just referring to this where simply not the colonial conflicts from before about them keeping control but rather preventing civil wars. For example Israel would be the example i mean whit this where the Brits wanted to go rather sooner then later but had to deal whit being in the middle between fighting Jews and Arabs which both hated them. Or the South African bush war would be another example which sure was caused by the colonial legacy but the war reason was not colonialism.
@@kingoliever1 Im guessing he is talking about the north African military campaign against Italy? Which lasted for like 3 years
@@kingoliever1 The Mau Mau rebellion lasted nearly 10 years.
Europeans didn't "discover" the railroad. We invented it.
based.
Preach Partner
Based
The kangings have begun
"We" didn't do Jack. Ancesters through...
Who knew this would be his final what if
As a South African I am always happy to see it when we get featured, especially in this detail. Just a note on the pronunciations. Natal is pronounced Nah-tal, not Nay-tal. Keep it up. I love your videos!
Can you check out this similar timeline I made? I also talk a lot about South Africa th-cam.com/video/1Pt5Xu8Ebbw/w-d-xo.html
As a colonizer*
Dankie Stefan. Ek het ook in detail na hom geluister. Die man (Jay Girgis?) het beslis talent, maar sy vertolking van Geskiedenis is aweregs. Sy interpretasie is sy voorreg, en nie noodwendig die waarheid nie. Byvoorbeeld:"The Dutch/ Afrikaners is responsible for Apartheid"' Joe Slovo vd ANC en Europese Kommunis het ook uitgewys. Die Engels kielhaal die Afrikaners oor Rasseskeiding, terwyl die Engelse dit begin het...
@@flowerflower-mo6oc What?
@yo yo Thx Yo yo 4 reading, thinking, writhing and responding. A person has to understand and know History. Merci beaucoup.
What if the Knights Templar never fell?
What if the Raid on Harper's Ferry was successful?
That second one is basically impossible, there would need to be insane divine intervention for John Brown to succeed in his noble endeavors
@@imperators_8700 Alien space bats
They never fell they formed Switzerland
oooooooooo knights templar would be dope
This is very nice indeed. As a Sudanese person I will say the greatest benfit of colonial rule was creating a sense of solidarity that didn't really exist before helping form our contemporary nation states.
Hell my country has a personal history with that (the brutal Mahdist uprising which united the nation against Turk-European rulers).
One correction I would make there was even more profitable colonies in Africa but all of them were almost entirely British.
Another would be I can't really understand the economic downturn you showed after the end of colonialism.
Also lmao we did build many rail roads, bridges, roads since the British left I don't know where you got that part from.
From what I know at least in my own country we we had vast economic growth unprecedented under British rule until the Socialists got in power.
.
I don't know where you got the railways part, my country has been expanding railroads since the 1960s,
Hell we built a ton of high way roads thanks to American aid in the 70s.
.
It must also be said that colonial nations did in fact oppose letting go of their colonies but their hands were forced by being both physically destroyed by ww2 and the Global powers in the form of USA and USSR.
You guys just had a civil war a few years ago.
@@JcLazy1 our existence was a civil war lmao, still matter is hilariously irrevlant in contemporary Sudanese society. The civil war is treated as 'Security Hazzard' not a war with actual loses as much country side banditry and counter banditry.
The exception to that is south sudan during the 90s, that one was our Vietnam.
It got much better however with 2005 peace deal, and unfortunately separation it was.
We still have many southerners in my city, lovely people!
@@ahmedmuawia2447 They don’t understand anything about Africa. Most people in the comments think they are less intelligent and unable to modernize.
@@lif3andthings763 nah nah bro, it's just misunderstandings that's all. Using a language of superiority when trying to make someone else understand is not good.
If you want to make someone understand you try to explain to them. If they refuse to understand well truth doesn't care for my opinion nor anyone else's
@@lif3andthings763 it wouldn't. Africa was huge dude with a lot of labour. Europeans could invest into those machines or else they could just throw enough men at it to make it work but then black death happened which was exactly why had no other choice then do expensive 'gambling' into machines. This is the reason why, not just africa...india and china couldn't industrialise. All three were just huge.
In that timeline slavery wouldn't be 'the white man's guilt' and would still exist in Africa, as it still does today with more or less 10 millions estimated enslaved in our Africa, but would probably be twice to tenfold in that world.
Probably, but I'm curious as to where you got the estimation of that number from.
@@cavaugnsharkey2699 UN
Stfu lol and we blame Africans too trust we do
@@penzorphallos3199 I mean, if you are going by UN definitions of Slavery, alot of that is still Western Run companies like Nestle that are running them.
@@ikengaspirit3063 even without considering corporate slaves, Africa is n'1. There's more house slaves in Africa right now, then there were slaves caught and shipped off to the Americas during the triangular slave trade in total.
The main thing that determines the success of nations are their economic policies. For a variety of reasons, most of Africa would be better of in this timeline then our own, albeit with some parts in the interior staying underdeveloped.
African states were mostly decentralised empires and city states, which means that it is difficult to form hyper tyrannical governments like in much of the rest of the world. Without colonisation, the African states wouldn’t have nonsensical borders and would thus have less internal conflicts and civil wars, making business and the society stable. The hybridisation of Abrahamic Religions with native polytheistic religions means that strict religious fundamentalism is less likely in most of Sub-Saharan Africa.
The Sahel has a long history of being united and will most likely reunite later on. Coastal West Africa was already quite advanced and had stable governments. The Ashanti Empire (which started as a federation of city states) for example reformed in the 1700s to have a meritocratic parliamentary system where the Kotoko Council would regulate the king’s decisions. The Igbo also had a semi-democratic government that guaranteed equal rights for citizens.
Ethiopia was already a robust state and was more powerful than its neighbours. Without European colonies on its border, it would be able to expand. The states of the Swahili Coast were wealthy city states, which have a good track record in the industrialised world. Buganda and the African Great Lakes nations were states that also looked promising from East Africa.
Central and parts of Southern Africa had many states like the Luba and the Rozvi Empire at were quite powerful and had trade connections with Portugal.
The main problems that Africa faced were diseases, difficulty of transportation and slavery. The first two wouldn’t be a problem with medical technology and later roadways connecting the developed parts of the continent. Slavery would be a bigger issue but as technology diffuses into the continent, the economic problems of slavery would slowly make the practice go away. When the Atlantic Slave Trade ended, it hurt the economies of many coastal African nations, however, in the long run this would have decreased the amount of wars for slaves, kept the population growing and lead to more diverse economies later on.
Africa in this timeline would probably be more like Southeast Asia, with a lot of both developed and undeveloped parts, but broadly be growing rapidly.
What if a Time-traveler Industrialized Ancient Sumeria and Egypt?
@@christiandauz3742 If they had that technology and governments didn’t ban it, then they could genuinely conquer the world, especially with the lower world population at the time. Over time, the technology would probably diffuse into the rest of the world and lead to everyone gaining independence, since you can’t effectively control the whole planet.
You seem to have a pretty nuanced view, do you have any video suggestions to watch about African history and development?
@@gatuarhin
Wouldn't the Sumerians and Egyptians assimilate everyone?
@@myagrimm4719 There’s a TH-camr called From Nothing who makes good videos about African history without being overly afro-nationalist. He focuses more on pre-European African history and less on stuff like slavery.
So trade wouldn't exist in this timeline? The outside world wouldn't want African resources & goods? I find it highly unlikely that railroads,etc. Won't make it to Africa.
Railroads were only created in Africa, because they were an interest to Europeans.
All trade between Europe and Africa was practically only slavery up until colonisation. And Europe never bothered to push inwards, only maintaining costal trade hubs.
Trade might exist, but it would be very slow and very gradual to have any actual impact on Africa. Colonialism forced administration and unification between tribes. Without it, Africa would be far more divided and far less developed. In fact conflict might have gotten more brutal, since guns would be imported from Europeans and the power gap between Natives with guns and Natives without guns would be extreme.
Also, most of African resources couldn't be extracted by Africans, because they hadn't the technology to do so.
@@learningagain4094 but then again. Eithopia and Egypt could possible spread the technology through conquest.
@@learningagain4094 not entirely true. Countries like Egypt, Ethiopia, Morocco and mali have existed for thousands of years.
Egypt is extremely close to Europe and already had modern technology such as guns, the printing press and factories etc, while Ethiopia closely connected to Egypt and the oman sultanate could get technology by trading with them.
It wouldn't take long until countries like Congo and Ghana pop up, the rest of Africa will still stay mostly tribalised until the 20th century. However the poverty and separate would be alot less due to less ethnic and tribal conflict due to messy borders created specifically by the French, British, Portuguese and Spanish.
Two videos, one geopolitics and another alt history, not even 15 hours apart? Man I can get used to this one-two punch
it's been almost a year since this video. I hope you make more What If? scenarios in the future. I love the socio-political analysis videos, but I miss the what ifs
I love to see how the quality of videos is constantly raising as time goes by.
Maybe some parts of Africa that are more stable could slowly industrialise, selling goods for European merchants, buying weapons to defend their lands, been open for foreign investment as fertilizers became cheaper and more available, etc..
One good point is that borders would make more sence and be mostly divided by culture.
well to industrialise/ have a reason to produce so much stuff they kind of need access to the ocean, so maybe the coastal people groups who arrange by culture and industrialise. those kingdoms may go on to colonise the interior.
Not that I don’t love the alternative history, but I would love to have a series. Break down the history of human interaction by region, illustrate it via map etc., and then describe macro level interactions now.
Remember when whatifalthist made what if alternate histories?
In my time zone it's 2 releases in 1 day! I'm honoured you exist
Me two days ago: “Tell me, how am I supposed to live without you~?”
Me today: “This is getting out of hand! Now there are TWO of them!”
Something that kept bothering was that Guinea Bissau was shown under Spanish rule, but it reality it was under Portuguese rule.
this is the last actual althistory video
This video and subject were really well done, thank you. However, I was wondering if you could start linking at the bottom or at the end of the video putting some of the books you used to research? Some of these subjects are really interesting and I want to know more than (no offense) a cursory glance. You’ve done similarly for your historical misconceptions videos and I think it would be really neat to do here too! Cheers
You think this guy is actually researching shit? This is literally just some guy making up things that fit his world view. None of this is based on critical analysis.
@@paxchap1254 I'm sure you could do a much better critical analysis oh armchair historian
@@paxchap1254 Proof?
@@lilemont9302 I'm not saying it's all bad, but there are some glaring problems. There were multiple brutal wars and military campaigns to supress African independence by France, Portugal and Britain. France still maintains economic hegemony over most of West Africa. He says that none of the colonies were profitable except the Congo. Zimbabwe was, as was Mali, Djibouti and the Swahili coast, to name a few.
"Egypt was ruled by a dynasty of Albanain origin"
Im sorry, you cant just gloss over that like its not a meme statement
The Ottomans, essentially. Albanians had immigrated, through the Ottoman Empire, to Egypt. Over centuries, a sizeable and powerful minority of Albanian governors, generals, mercenaries, etc, coalesced into their own dynasty. After kicking Napoleon out of Egypt, the Albanian soldiers forced the (dying) Ottoman Empire into accepting their rule over the territory. Eventually Western powers stepped in and checked the Khedivate dynasty in Egypt from truly taking off.
Then a revolution in the 50's kicked out the last Albanian king, Farouk, and the rest of the Albanians largely fled back to Europe.
The Ottomans had a habit of using slave soldiers from far flung corners of the Empire, but then freeing them and giving them political power after good service. Which is how the Albanian's originally got settled into Egypt.
@@duncanlutz3698 When’s the last time An Egyptian ruled Egypt? Arabs, Albanians, British, Turks, Romans, Greeks, Persians, etc
@@Qwerty-yp3jq The Bronze Age.
@@aceambling7685 it was 338 BC before the Persians became back and then the Greeks
@@Qwerty-yp3jq egyptian arabs are originally egyptian they just speak Arabic.
Didn't the belgians literally invent the saying "Crimes against humanity". The british seemed to be the only European nation in history that treated African colonies in any decent way towards the end of it, perhaps this is why so many weller off Africans live in UK?
Also it's crazy that polygamy & exploitation of natural African resources is still happening to this very day just in different ways than colonialism, it seems to be one of most abundant places of resources on the planet.
Yeah, the bongs were cringe
Britain treated their African colonies fairly well compared to countries like France, Spain and Portugal. A lot of African countries who were colonized by Britain aren’t as resentful as countries like Angola and the Congo
well off? what? nigeria is a shithole, malawi is a shithole, sudan is a shithole etc etc
Indeed, the Brits just committed a genocide against the boers
Their treatment was awful too, don't be delusional.
Theres a reason why former british empire colonies are more advanced than former iberian/french colonies
Great video, just want to point out that in the map that shows at 6:32, Guinea-Bissau belongs to the Portuguese, and not to the Spanish.
Yep, he confused it with Güinea Ecuatorial territory.
the word " belongs" is soo abhorrent! wish you would have said "was brutaly colonized" ...
@@KalixtoKahlo Well, I am fine with the word I used, after all it was de jure Portuguese land, or does brutally colonizing something not make it yours?
@@martim6828 what! how in the world Portugal had right to own an African territory? Last time i checked the map Guiena-Bisau is located west of central Africa
11.8037° N, 15.1804° W
@@KalixtoKahlo So under that logic, countries can't have exclaves, for example, all the French islands scattered around the globe and French Guiana aren't rightfully French, or the Azores aren't rightfully Portuguese? Regardless, that is besides de point.
What I am saying is that, just because a territory is far away, doesn't mean it can't belong to a faraway nation. The coastal parts of Guinea-Bissau had been under Portuguese rule since around the 1500s, the rest was later explored and settled over the 1800s; The Portuguese had, in guinea-Bissau, a permanent PORTUGUESE population inhabiting the region under Portuguese law, using Portuguese money and in a region in which (granted not everyone did) speak Portuguese.
So what your telling me is that owning something for around 350 years (to be in line with the Berlin conference), whilst having a permanent population from the mainland living there not give you the right to say it is, rightfully, yours?
By far, one of your best videos IMO.
I made a pretty similar but much more optimistic timeline about Africa you should like even more (although my mic and editing weren't as good back then) Don't let the title fool you THIS ISN'T A TROLL I SWEAR! th-cam.com/video/1Pt5Xu8Ebbw/w-d-xo.html
Nope horribly researched and he provides no sources once again.
@@lif3andthings763 Point out your criticisms
@@lif3andthings763 true
243 days since the last alternate history video. Give it up for day 243.
Africa: *Exists*
Europe: Well, it's free real estate.
That and America.
Everything is Free.
I mean if you can overcome the forces putting a price on something, that means your force can put the price to zero.
In a lot of grocery stores, the only force preventing theft is personal shame. If you dont care about that, you can set the price to zero. No one will stop you from taking that shit.
Likewise they equally dont give a rats ass if you pitch a tent an live in their parking lot. Just ready to leave once the force escalates to the police. Then you can promptly return.
I mean, you take the whole grocery store if you can kill every cop and serviceman.
@@ericcartmann very true.... IN FACT i will do that right now.
@@ericcartmann ok.
@@ericcartmann to be fair that does sound accurate
Congrats on almost 300k, you deserve all the subs
Having played conflict of nations, I can say for certain that it is crap compared to the other game by bytro (the devs of CoN and CoW) call of war, to me it always seems to be more polished
What other game did they make ? Wanna play them.
@@exaggeratedswaggerofablackteen they made Call of War, which is a WWII startegtly game in the same vein as conflict of nations
So would you say that it's a a CoN? ;)
@@Neion8 nice
The scramble for Africa is happening again but most people don’t realise that.China has already given 300 billion dollars of loans to poor African nations and is establishing military bases in Djibouti and India is countering China by providing loans to other African nations and is establishing military bases in Mauritius. Japan is also doing the same. I guess history is repeating itself
it never stopped, decolonization was just a simple trick to cover up the exploitation of africa
@@Jack-oj7dq it's just what happens when you are bottom of the food chain
Literally everyone has a base Djibouti. The fuck is your point? France and the Us has bases all over Africa.
2 vids in a day and an African alternate history video!! Big W
W?
Suggestions:
-What if Ukraine became anarchist under Nestor Makhno?
-What if the Pernambucan Revolution suceeded and established the 3rd republic in modern history?
how can a place be anarchist if it has a leader when the word anarchy means 'no ruler'
@@sirsurnamethefirstofhisnam7986 Are you seriously expecting coherence from a goverment led by ancoms?
Ukraine would have been fucked by the soviets or other ukrainians, i don't think makhno would have lasted very long
@@marrymekatsuya he could if he became a strongman and abandoned almost everything that anarchism represented or if he aligned himself with the USSR(considering in this timeline someone who isn't as centralist as Stalin becomes leader,like Bhukarin) or other eastern european countries
This is the last “What if” alt hist I have seen. Damn, two years ago.
yep, miss when he did those videos
Couple disagreements
- The primary purpose was for economic reasons to maintain access and extraction to raw materials in their colonial areas
- The decolonization process was brutal especially when it came to covert coups to prop up dictators and Portugal's wars against its former colonies and France/Algeria.
There's couple more but those are the main disagreements
Hmm French colonization of Africa was very much Jules Ferry’s attempt to redirect the populace’s energy away from Alsace-Lorraine and avoid a war with Germany that France would definitely not win. I wonder if a general European war might have broken out earlier if the scramble had not happened
The French colonisation of Africa was a direct result of the suppression of the Barbary pirate kingdoms. It could have just as easily been Britain or the United States (as both were getting tired of repeatedly suppressing them).
Hell yeah two videos in one day!!
Europeans din't build any railroads, Indians and Africans built the railroads, Europeans just cracked the whip
I personally dont understand how people with no knowledge on how to build, build railroads across the entire continent.
@@BuiltSimilarG the europeans told them how to build the railroad, the europeans did not build the railroads. what is ur point
@@Antonio-xq2hg im not arguing, you dont show anybody how to build a railroad is my point. People take years to learn construction right? WHY DOES EVERYTHING IN THE COMMENTS HAVE TO BE AN ARGUMENT TO YOU
14:29 shows the Mountains of Kong. They were drawn on most 19th century maps of Africa, but never existed.
So glad you've done this topic, I did the same topic a few months ago and as you're a massive inspiration for my channel I'd love to get some feedback, and maybe one day to do a collaboration! Keep up the great work and stay blessed!
I just hope our Mother Africa can someday live in its own peace that it decides for itself. Too many world powers delight in its chaos.
Hey,this topic Is closer my heart coz am an African,from Kenya.
For some reason the contrast between the rockin' music and that old ship always gets me.
It's 100% golden age TH-cam and I love it.
Another alternate history to look at: What if disease weren’t a factor and Europeans were able to colonise Africa much earlier
If disease weren’t a factor then Africa might have been more developed and proven harder to conquer.
@@johnl.7754 that’s true. Or maybe we could have a weird reverse scenario were once Europeans started to enter sub Saharan Africa the Africans start dying from diseases like the native Americans did. A pretty odd alternate history though.
Africa was much more populated than native America and had already had contact with diseases European had through contact with Arab traders.
Europe entering Africa much earlier would be very interesting. Conquest would be MUCH harder without the maxim gun and repeating rifles and the like.
That’s a very interesting scenario indeed.
@@markm2092 There would be no conquest.
@@lif3andthings763 some would. Minor gains probably on the coast and the like.
Great video, appreciation from South Africa.
Can you do an alternate history video explaining what would happen if Wawa didn't explode across the Mid-Atlantic region?
Dark times
Appalachia and the Piedmont would descend into cannibalism.
"Africa wasn't claimed for economic reasons--well actually, it was, but the colonies lost money so it doesn't count." Yeah, sorry, that is pretty incoherent. It was claimed in competition with other European powers for the future prospect of wealth. Also, it probably isn't too wise to say that America was "anti-colonial". It's hard to get more colonial than 19th and early 20th century America. We just were colonial on our own continent, adjacent to established territories. We also practiced economic colonialism and military interventionism in Latin America and also East Asia. What, for example, is Commodore Perry's "Opening of Japan?" Or US Marines fighting against the Boxer Rebellion? Sure, we did oppose European-style political colonialism in our sphere of influence (the Monroe doctrine).
Plus the westward expansion and colonization of the indigenous peoples.
This gets into how you define colonialism versus straight up conquest. And neither of these are particularly moral, so don't take this as me saying "America did nothing wrong!" But the westward expansion generally isn't considered colonialism. Colony implies that an outside power takes over a region and harnesses their work force and economy to serve the colonial power. America didn't want the natives as a work force, they just wanted them gone so American citizens could have the land to work for themselves. So it's much more a case of conquest. A "colonial America" would have had plantations and ranches across the midwest where the only white people would have been the land owners and administrators, but all the workforce would have been native.
@@ressljs That’s a good point, wouldn’t that be considered settler colonialism, where the goal is to replace the original population with a new one of settlers?
@@jessetaran7116 There seems to be an impulse to use "colonialism" in the context of the Americas where it wouldn't be used elsewhere. Let's look at similar cases in history. The Saxons invaded Roman Britain and pushed out the Celts from what we now call England. The Arabs spread out over the middle east and now the lands they ruled are populated by Arabs rather than the people there before 600 AD (probably due more to assimilation rather than expelling the previous population). I've never heard those described as colonialism, just conquest. I can't help but think "settler colonialism" is just rebranding "invasion" or "conquest" because colonialism is a hot buzzword. And before anyone forgets my original argument and thinks this is an excuse for everything America did, invading and expelling natives is hardly a moral act. It's just not the same thing as colonialism and I think doing a switcheroo on the terminology just makes history harder to talk about and understand.
@@ressljs I think colonialism and conquest aren’t super rigid or distinct categories. The borders are fuzzy and sometimes they cross into each other. I’ve heard the Anglo-Saxon conquest and Arabization be referred to as colonialism (although you’re right that Arabization is mostly due to assimilation over the centuries, but could even that be considered colonialism?) I think conquest works for all the examples we talked about, but I wouldn’t rule out colonialism being a part of it as well. And I also agree that it can be a buzzword nowadays, and buzzwords can be irritating as hell sometimes. Idk when the term “settler colonialism” originated, but I’m almost certain it was in the 20th century. I’ll have to look into it
The last,,What if" video in this channel
Yep, I just noticed that too. Wish he’d make more of these
Good video, but one caveat. The Bantu people are not native to most of South Africa - they were pushed there by the British because they didn't want the Nederlanders, later Afrikaners, to have a majority presence in certain regions. But we, and the San people, were there before the blacks and the English.
That's our land and if anyone wants it they'll have to pry it from our cold, dead hands.
@@FlaviusConstantinus306 No thanks to you I do Engelsman.
the bantu we already going there long before britain was a thing they had left their homeland in 2000bc and were moving all across africa to reach south africa and even kenya.
@@abdiabdi3225 And yet even in Gauteng and nearly everything west and south of it we showed up first.
@@lionelhutz-attorneyatlaw4443 The groups in south Africa regularly migrated but Bantu's have been there since 2000 BCE
I hope this comments section is full of interesting discussion and not toxicity unlike other videos on Africa
Lmao read the comments it's amazing. I think it's because the people here are more respectful
@@Fu3g0.100 yea ikr it's pretty awesome. I like African cultures and civilizations and it's awesome to see them discussed with a historical lens rather than hoteps and racists screaming in tangents
@@quadeevans6484 This guy literally said the Europeans introduced cities and that the Egyptians conquered the Congo. Some of these comments show pretty clear bias.
@@lif3andthings763 dont gemme wrong there is biased but i think that this comments section is infinitely more civil than some of the other ones
@@quadeevans6484 I think it has to do with the apparent positive praise than the lack of toxicity. More or less would be the same, especially on a topic about Africa.
I will say there are a lot of historical inaccuracies in this video. Doesn’t mention the frequent battles off the Mozambican coast with the Portuguese or the prior more devastating Arab slave trade that stole faaaaar more Africans. Also you don’t mention Ethiopia which remained free and was never colonized. Or great Zimbabwe that not only fought back canon fire but actually repelled invaders before surrendering. I could literally go on talking about how it was not as easy as you think. Just that all of Africa is classified under Africa while Europe both changed history and had deaths spread out across Spain, Britain, Germany, etc…
There is sooooo much more I’m leaving out but please redo this video cause it is so factually inaccurate. I’m African so I know this. Please do better research. I love your videos 💙
I agree that the video doesn’t involve most intricacies, and mostly just generalizes sub-Saharan Africa to the rest of the continent. One thing you said piqued my interest though. I can’t seem to find anything regarding Great Zimababwe and the way they fought back, most of what I found said they were crushed. Could you point me in the right direction or at least provide some keywords so I can find the battles you’re talking about?
I can't really see a world where this didn't happen given that the Americas had already been colonized years prior and Europe was still in the colonial mindset to get more power/prestige and resources to one up each other.
For this to have happen, Europe would have never colonized at all to begin with.
However, you have to consider the people of the Americas’ were almost completely wiped out by Eurasian diseases that left only a few scattered tribes and multi-racial groups. When comparing Europe to Africa, it was the reverse because the Africans had developed relative tolerance to the same diseases Europeans experienced. Still, they also had developed tolerance to diseases that Europeans were unfamiliar with; thus, Europeans who had no level of tolerance or immunity to those diseases usually on mass when colonizing the interior of the African continent. That's why Europeans could only colonize the coasts, North-Eastern Africa, and Southern Africa because everywhere else was filled to the brim with extremely lethal diseases to Europeans that the tonic water made manageable.
That's why the conditions in the Americas don’t apply to Africa by any measure. This is because foreign diseases would not wipe the Native African populations. That depopulation was the number one reason for quick and relatively easy European conquests of the Americas. For Africa, it would be the reverse and was for most of History Europeans died in mass from native African diseases. At the same time, the Native Africans would not lose the massive proportions of the native populations that native Americans lost from foreign diseases. Those deadly diseases made the conquest of Africa by Europeans significantly more difficult, if not impossible, in most areas for most of history, except in the regions of Africa I mentioned previously.
Wish ghangis khan had colonized Europe
@@archiij1707 you wouldn't be alive nor have any internet to write your hateful vomit on.
@@InquisitorXarius Open a damned book ffs. Most aboriginal population did not die. Most intermarried with european migrants, forming the vast mestizo population that forms a big % of the americas population now.
@@jbertucci eh neither would you, but doesn't sound sweet does it.
I'm now thinking there needs to be a list of how many scenarios ends up creating a Central Powers victory in WWI outcome. WWI Seems to be the biggest butterfly effect target
Anything that keeps Britain out of the war. Weaken Russia enough to either keep them out of WW1 or collapse relatively early on. Anything that weakens France enough. Strengthening the pan-German ties from the HRE while forming the German Empire. Strengthening Arab loyalty to the Ottoman Empire. Italy not allying itself with France. Italy's army not being so bad. Austria-Hungary's army not being so bad. Germany not pushing to become a naval power. Plenty of options to choose from.
Germany fought better in WWI, & only lost because it turned into a war of attrition & they ran out of resources first.
Me normally when someone is sponsored: frantically skips
Me when Whatifalthist is sponsored: It is... acceptable
6:28 The Germans colonized Togo, not Benin.
EDIT: Also, Cameroon extended into modern-day Nigeria at one point. Just in the Northeastern part of Nigeria, though.
You're spoiling us, our little hearts can't take it.
How well do you speak french? Can you read it fluently? If yes I would love for you to check out the Jour J series, it's from France and I don't know if it was ever translated.
Really wished you touched on what the outcomes would of the African empires and kingdoms How would Ethiopia turn out? How does Benin (Edo) fair on without British incursion? Do the Hausa extend into central Africa? Would the Ashanti try and push the British off the coast?
Yeah wished that too. He only talked how the scramble of Africa didn't benefit Europeans. Nothing else.
Ethiopia will be nothing without European powers
@@kalenooc4938 in terms of conquest? or there role in the 20th century? or the borders of ethiopia being a reaction to colonialism?
He should know better than to leave out the impact of their kingdoms and empires naturally rising and falling and how that would impact the people, economy, cultures, religion and the relationships they would eventually have with the rest of the world. It's fucked how he basically said that the entire continent would be stuck as hunter gatherers If Europeans didn't violate.
@@Cynoteeria yeah I doubt that very much 😭 hunter gatherer thing because when you crunch the numbers when colonial governments took population census most Africans would’ve been living under some sort city state governing entity. The fact is people don’t understand that to this day LARGE parts of the continent are uninhabitable for non nomadic settler development even with all those odds without connections from the outside world independent African communities did fairly well.
This is one of the greatest channels i know
Whaddaya think about my channel? Inspired mainly by whatifalthist himself
Horrible video.
"America, a country that is usually anti colonial."
Phllipines, Puerto Rico, and Guam: "You were saying."
@Danny Tallmadge They dont have a choice it's either that or starve
@Danny Tallmadge it's generally anticolonial when colonialism is against its interests otherwise it's very colonial lol
😂😂😂 what?
@6:55 As an Indian it feels wierd to see that the Europeans conquered like a third of Africa just to secure their route to India.
India was incredibly valuable, it makes sense
Africa is certainly a continent whose geopolitical situation I could stand to learn more about, particularly on local situations during the colonial era. Thank you for the thought-provoking video.
Stay well out there everybody, and God bless you friends. :)
Two videos in one day?!? What a treat!!
I absolutely love this channel but man you gotta get a better microphone. Keep up the great work!
What if Germany stayed with China as an ally instead of Japan?
I'm working on a timeline where Just that happens. Subscribe and stay tuned
Japan would just beat china since germany wouldnt send troops there but maybe USA wouldnt join the war
Time to make this a reality in Vicky II
Japan would fuck China up, Germany even weaker
What if Japan from WW2 and modern Japan, switched places in time? I'm curious what both Japans would do.
7:18
Congo Crisis
Mau Mau Uprising (Borderline Genocide)
Malagasy Uprising (50,000 people killed just for protests)
Algerian War
Cameroon Conflict
Portuguese Colonial War
Spanish Moroccoan War
Egyptian Revolution
etc.
The Italian colonies labelled as FOMO I'm dead
00:24 Wrong, King Leopold II of Belgium colonised it, not Belgium, Belgium was forced to take it by the international community after King Leopold II's atrocities came to light.
they were not forced to they forced him to relinquish the land as they thought that he was to evil and inept.
Thanks for the great content it looks like your channel is growing a lot and I hope it never stops congratulations
Whatifalthist be like: What if a post 2 videos on 2 consecutive days and nothing for a month
2 videos In one day is really a privilege.
Man we're so lucky, having 2 videos in 2 days
I feel this completely glossed over one of the biggest colonial powers in Africa, present before the struggle for Africa, Portugal.
The establishment of the Portuguese colonies happened before the scramble for Africa.
@@blkgardner exactly.
Hey, once again chiming in. Just because the colonies didn't turn a profit doesn't mean they weren't expected to.
Every colonial venture undertaken by the Europeans had turned a profit. You can't deny that underneath all of it, the air of exploitation was there. The desire. The gaucheness of overt exploitation after the ongoing political rights and abolitionist debates and heck, even the rise of socialism, meant that all the scramble could be justified on publicly was prestige.
There was an ever present thought that the blocked off colonial region, now accessible, would provide endless boons. All the historical trends of their day showed this.
Two videos in one week. You're on fire.
Also the argument that "the colonies mostly didn't turn a profit so profit wasn't their motive" is extremely bad thinking. You can go look up the charters of all of these companies, and listen to them laugh at you, if you like. They were all there to turn a profit. Or "facilitate trade" as the rhetoric of the day was.
First: All of these colonies were intended to be long-term investments. This is, I understand, a very alien concept in modern capitalism. It used to be that people would sink a lot of money into something now, and expect to gain profit years, even decades later through accrual. No German alive in 1884 dreamed that establishing a colonial company over Tanganyika would see a single pfenning profit for anyone in 1885... and so no one was surprised when it didn't. In every case, no matter the chartering government, it was held that a big investment up front for subdual of the native peoples, construction of infrastructure, and creation of "civIlIzAtIoN" would turn a profit EVENTUALLY.
Second, remember that most nations at the time still ordered their economies on mercantilist thought. strict objective monetary profit was rarely the point of trade. For an example, the Barbary Company, strictly speaking, lost money hand over fist. It traded high-quality British cloth in Morocco, mostly in exchange for Moroccan sugar. it short-sold the cloth and was charged exorbitant rates for the sugar, but since England had a surplus of cloth and absolutely no capability of producing sugar at home, it was still seen as a good deal.
Third, I think you underestimate profitability. Consider France in west Africa. Here's a fun fact about France; it has absolutely no domestic gold production, yet it has the largest gold reserve in Europe. France also controlled Africa's largest gold-producing region for almost a century, and still maintains an economic stranglehold on its former colonial states - none of which have any governmental gold reserves. Why is that do you think? Correlation is not causation, I know, but I think a very strong inferral can be made that Malian and Mauritanian gold is going into French treasuries, and has been for over a century. This goes straight into state coffers instead of the general economy, so might not track as "profit."
bruh 2 uploads this is like an Eid and Christmas crossover
Documentary "empire of dust" is the first thing it comes to my mind
I remember when the Asian man said all the Africans do is spend their money on beer.
But suffice to say there are other tribal groups in Africa that barely drink alcohol or don’t even practice night life festivities.
It’s important to have context and overview when viewing a topic as vast as Africa.
The things is. The circumstances for China and African countries are very different. China was like that a dew decades ago in its dark age. A country as large and rich in labor as China was bound to bounce back. China was also relatively spared from colonialism since Europeans would only hope to effectively control the population.
@@lif3andthings763 not only that but China was United in ethnicity and history. Their nation wasn’t artificial
I wish we could borrow some of that testosterone from the 1890s and brought it here so that we could function properly as a society.
Pointless wars, rebellions and carnage, exactly what we need
@@neinno8172 Well we have had pointless wars and rebellions in recent years as it is; No, I mean men need to have more balls in the Western world right now, then things will fix themselves.
@@kingarthur1217 No it was absolutely worse back them and going back to that times means you have a higher chance of dying in a war or war induced famine.
@@kingarthur1217 Not on that scale, no. What you're asking for, with the weaponry we find ourselves armed with in the modern world, entails catastrophe.
Worth mentioning it was due to the amount of young men, not the quality.
@@neinno8172 No one wants a nuclear war. I hope to God every day for no nuclear war. I do mean that today’s men need to be better, not that we need more young males. The men we already have should get their act together (as well as women) and know THE TRUTH so that societal stability, prosperity and success is ensured.
Thank you for informative content!
I think you'd like this similar and more optimistic timeline. It's even more informative Don't let the title fool you THIS ISN'T A TROLL I SWEAR! th-cam.com/video/1Pt5Xu8Ebbw/w-d-xo.html
Horribly researched and once again he provides no sources and only talks about Africa at the end.
i always learned that europe started colonizing africa because germany unified then france went to war with germany to show that it was still the dominant force, lost, and to regain pride started colonizing africa and the other nations followed because france would have too much
TWO Whatifalthist videos AND a Kraut video all in one day? Too good to be true.
I like you.
Omg I was Always trying to get a video like this thank you this solved a big debate between me and my friends