# If Europeans had settled in Africa would they have done a better job than current Africans? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 25, 2016, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-europeans-had-settled-in-africa-would-they-have-done-a-better-job-than-current-africans/755648 "2016-05-25T12:10:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2016, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-europeans-had-settled-in-africa-would-they-have-done-a-better-job-than-current-africans/755648/21 "2016-05-26T01:03:07Z")
> [@Pearl\_Clutching\_Provocateur](#): > > I find it odd that people are so open to admitting that another group lacked the ability or maybe even courage to defend themselves as if military weakness were a badge of honor. Frankly, I’d be embarrassed if a handful Europeans could somehow conquer and subjugate millions of Africans. Say what you will about the Afghanis, you can kill them but you can’t tame them. I’m not seeing anyone in this thread presenting this as a “badge of honour”. Still, Pearl, it could be worse. If you’d be embarrassed to admit that you were descended from people who were militarily weak, think of the shame you’d feel if you had to admit that you were descended from people noted for their practice of invasion, enslavement, brutality, rape, theft and colonial exploitation. Say what you will about the Afghanis, but they never went in for that. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2016, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-europeans-had-settled-in-africa-would-they-have-done-a-better-job-than-current-africans/755648/22 "2016-05-26T01:10:01Z")
Fucking white people… Whatever problems Africa has, it’s not because it’s populated by Africans instead of Europeans. (I’d ask why anyone thinks this would be the explanation, but I already know…). Rather, to an overwhelming extent, it’s because of a tremendous history of Europeans being dicks to Africans. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2016, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-europeans-had-settled-in-africa-would-they-have-done-a-better-job-than-current-africans/755648/23 "2016-05-26T01:47:20Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > I’m not seeing anyone in this thread presenting this as a “badge of honour”. > > Still, Pearl, it could be worse. If you’d be embarrassed to admit that you were descended from people who were militarily weak, think of the shame you’d feel if you had to admit that you were descended from people noted for their practice of invasion, enslavement, brutality, rape, theft and colonial exploitation. Say what you will about the Afghanis, but they never went in for that. Most people alive today are descendants from at least one conquering type. > [@Indistinguishable](#): > > Fucking white people… > > Whatever problems Africa has, it’s not because it’s populated by Africans instead of Europeans. (I’d ask why anyone thinks this would be the explanation, but I already know…). Rather, to an overwhelming extent, it’s because of a tremendous history of Europeans being dicks to Africans. That’s a pretty broad brush. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2016, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-europeans-had-settled-in-africa-would-they-have-done-a-better-job-than-current-africans/755648/24 "2016-05-26T01:55:12Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Most people alive today are descendants from at least one conquering type. And from at least one conquered type. I’m not sure which will cause Pearl to feel the greater mortification. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2016, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-europeans-had-settled-in-africa-would-they-have-done-a-better-job-than-current-africans/755648/25 "2016-05-26T01:57:30Z")
Read _Guns, Germs and Steel_ ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2016, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-europeans-had-settled-in-africa-would-they-have-done-a-better-job-than-current-africans/755648/26 "2016-05-26T04:04:26Z")
> [@Pearl\_Clutching\_Provocateur](#): > > I find it odd that people are so open to admitting that another group lacked the ability or maybe even courage to defend themselves as if military weakness were a badge of honor. 😕 Africans didn’t defend themselves against colonial invaders? Sez who? They didn’t succeed in **defeating** their invaders, but AFAICT that was due more to, you know, spears versus cannon than to lack of ability or courage. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2016, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-europeans-had-settled-in-africa-would-they-have-done-a-better-job-than-current-africans/755648/27 "2016-05-26T04:36:17Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > Fucking white people… > > Whatever problems Africa has, it’s not because it’s populated by Africans instead of Europeans. (I’d ask why anyone thinks this would be the explanation, but I already know…). Rather, to an overwhelming extent, it’s because of a tremendous history of Europeans being dicks to Africans. I’d rephrase your first sentence to say “Whatever problems Africa has, it’s because it’s populated by Europeans and not just Africans.” ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2016, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-europeans-had-settled-in-africa-would-they-have-done-a-better-job-than-current-africans/755648/28 "2016-05-26T05:04:51Z")
> [@Pearl\_Clutching\_Provocateur](#): > > I find it odd that people are so open to admitting that another group lacked the ability or maybe even courage to defend themselves as if military weakness were a badge of honor. Frankly, I’d be embarrassed if a handful Europeans could somehow conquer and subjugate millions of Africans. Say what you will about the Afghanis, you can kill them but you can’t tame them. _Whatever happens, we have got, the Maxim gun, and they have not._ And I am curious from which great civilization you have descended that has never been conquered. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2016, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-europeans-had-settled-in-africa-would-they-have-done-a-better-job-than-current-africans/755648/29 "2016-05-26T09:34:38Z")
> [@GlowingDarkness](#): > > Let say for a moment that when European settlers arrived they killed of many tribes and mated with the rest. Leaving few pure native Africans. it is a fine fantasy from the Tarzan movies. What do they do when they have to fight as they did the organized states… > [@](#): > > Instead of extracting resources however, they decided to start a colony like they did in the US. Thousands of people came to West Africa’s coastline. They established themselves their and created small towns. The N. Europeans would die like they actually did in the real history, when establishing the trading posts, from the malaria, etc. And until the end of the 19th century, the 1890s, they do not have the technology to defeat the African states ranged against them. This is the actual real history for the West Africa - sorry the Tarzan movies are not documentaries. > [@Pearl\_Clutching\_Provocateur](#): > > I find it odd that people are so open to admitting that another group lacked the ability or maybe even courage to defend themselves as if military weakness were a badge of honor. Frankly, I’d be embarrassed if a handful Europeans could somehow conquer and subjugate millions of Africans. Say what you will about the Afghanis, you can kill them but you can’t tame them. I would be more embarrassed to write complete nonsense based on gross ignorance and outdated badly informed racial stereotypes. Of course none of this has any thing to do with actual African history… > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > A difficult hypothetical. Euros were able to eliminate most of the indigenous population of the Americas because contagious diseases did most of the killing for them. But there was not much Euros could have brought to Africa that the locals’ immune systems would not have shrugged off. Not could, did. There was always disease exchange (via population) between the sub-saharan africa and the mediterranean world. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2016, 9:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-europeans-had-settled-in-africa-would-they-have-done-a-better-job-than-current-africans/755648/30 "2016-05-26T09:44:18Z")
this reminds me of a thread from years ago that was about an article that said Africa was worse off among other things after independence than it was before it …that was a shitstorm ill never forget… ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2016, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-europeans-had-settled-in-africa-would-they-have-done-a-better-job-than-current-africans/755648/31 "2016-05-26T10:30:44Z")
There’s another complicating factor in the OP’s assumptions. Africa had its own colonists. It’s a huge continent which had many different societies, some of which became expansive kingdoms and empires. Europeans fighting Zulus in South Africa were two invading groups of colonists fighting over who should have the land of the previous inhabitants, for example. ---
**Author:** ![Anna1982](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b77776/32.png) [@Anna1982](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anna1982)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2016, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-europeans-had-settled-in-africa-would-they-have-done-a-better-job-than-current-africans/755648/32 "2016-05-26T11:01:03Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Most African colonialism was due to 19th century Great Power rivalries, it occurred \*after \* most of the settler colonies had gone out of fashion. > > Certainly there were places where European settled in large numbers, like Algeria and S Africa, where you saw a ruling elite emerge on racial lines. > > If Europeans had settled heavily on the W African coast than I suspect that it would have been more like Latin America, where you have countries being of variously racial makeups ranging from heavily kixed to heavily Euro. * * * Thanks for sharing mate ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2016, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-europeans-had-settled-in-africa-would-they-have-done-a-better-job-than-current-africans/755648/33 "2016-05-26T11:08:10Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Certainly there were places where European settled in large numbers, like Algeria and S Africa, where you saw a ruling elite emerge on racial lines. the division in the Algerian case was not racial, the majority of the algerians are not different in color or “race” from the franco-Italian settlers (the majority of the pieds noirs were actually of the Italian origin). the division in this case was religious, the non-catholic were essentially excluded, although later the assimilated (who adopted the French culture) Jewish were partially permitted to ascend. Partially. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2016, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-europeans-had-settled-in-africa-would-they-have-done-a-better-job-than-current-africans/755648/34 "2016-05-26T11:38:43Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > There’s another complicating factor in the OP’s assumptions. Africa had its own colonists. It’s a huge continent which had many different societies, some of which became expansive kingdoms and empires. Europeans fighting Zulus in South Africa were two invading groups of colonists fighting over who should have the land of the previous inhabitants, for example. No. There’s a fundamental misunderstanding at work here - there’s a difference between conquest/replacement, as the Bantus did, and colonialism, which is what the Europeans did. Both sucky for the indigenes, but not the same thing. One is a _volkswanderung_, the other is a system of benefit to the metropole. Also, there were 500 years between the waves of settlement, this is like complaining about the Romans displacing the Britons - after all, the Celts were as much invaders of Britain as the Italians were … ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2016, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-europeans-had-settled-in-africa-would-they-have-done-a-better-job-than-current-africans/755648/35 "2016-05-26T15:09:46Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > No. There’s a fundamental misunderstanding at work here - there’s a difference between conquest/replacement, as the Bantus did, and colonialism, which is what the Europeans did. Both sucky for the indigenes, but not the same thing. One is a _volkswanderung_, the other is a system of benefit to the metropole. > > Also, there were 500 years between the waves of settlement, this is like complaining about the Romans displacing the Britons - after all, the Celts were as much invaders of Britain as the Italians were … So you say that the Boers weren’t colonists? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2016, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-europeans-had-settled-in-africa-would-they-have-done-a-better-job-than-current-africans/755648/36 "2016-05-26T15:10:43Z")
No, that the Bantus (Zulus in **PatrickLondon** ’s post) weren’t. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2016, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-europeans-had-settled-in-africa-would-they-have-done-a-better-job-than-current-africans/755648/37 "2016-05-26T15:17:03Z")
Jared Diamond thinks local factors and historic circumstances provide the acceptable explanation for why things are as they are. If he is right, the history of sub-saharan africa will change as geographic barriers are diminished in significance and diseases are conquered. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2016, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-europeans-had-settled-in-africa-would-they-have-done-a-better-job-than-current-africans/755648/38 "2016-05-26T15:20:53Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > So you say that the Boers weren’t colonists? No, they very much were colonists. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2016, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-europeans-had-settled-in-africa-would-they-have-done-a-better-job-than-current-africans/755648/39 "2016-05-26T15:51:20Z")
> [@Pearl\_Clutching\_Provocateur](#): > > I find it odd that people are so open to admitting that another group lacked the ability or maybe even courage to defend themselves as if military weakness were a badge of honor. Frankly, I’d be embarrassed if a handful Europeans could somehow conquer and subjugate millions of Africans. Say what you will about the Afghanis, you can kill them but you can’t tame them. This wins the prize for the most racist & ignorant post in response to a racist & ignorant OP. Hardly a surprise, given PCP’s posting history. And there’s lots of competition here. Plus some decent posters who are too kind… Colonialism does not benefit the colonized. Ever. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2016, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-europeans-had-settled-in-africa-would-they-have-done-a-better-job-than-current-africans/755648/40 "2016-05-26T16:08:54Z")
> [@GlowingDarkness](#): > > Let say for a moment that when European settlers arrived they killed of many tribes and mated with the rest. Leaving few pure native Africans. … You start with a premise like this and ask whether it would be better this way??? I’m sure if the Nazis had succeeded in wiping out every last Jew it would have been “better” for the Nazis. What was your point again? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-europeans-had-settled-in-africa-would-they-have-done-a-better-job-than-current-africans/755648.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-europeans-had-settled-in-africa-would-they-have-done-a-better-job-than-current-africans/755648.md?page=3)