Mass Asian (particularly Indian) Emigration from Asia to Africa - 1763 to 1947

[Alt History Buff]

Just as it sounds.

Say colonial Europe wanted a more reliable labor force in West African mines, South African farmsteads, East Africa whatever....

European did not emigrate to Africa in force except to South Africa. Between disease, the tsetsy fly and powerful native tribes, labor could be problematic.

What if there was an earlier effort to hire contractor labor from Asia (India/China/Indochina/etc) to help settle these areas?

How would this work? Larger scale contracted "Coolie" labor?

More Afro-Asian offspring? What areas may become Asian-dominant?

How would a massive Asian population affect the eventual African independence movements?

Would Africa become one big "South Africa" with a three-tiered social order?

Would the ethnic alliances between Asians spread across Africa provide more of a reason to eliminate African balkanization, or even stay within the European colonial Empires?

Let the thoughts flow...

 

[ZhugeLiang]

For most countries, it means that there's going to be much less Afro-Asiatic friendship, like the fun at Bandung. This is cause there's likely to be many African nations that will expel and persecute their African minorities, much like how Malaysia persecuted its Chinese minority.

 

[ZhugeLiang]

For most countries, it means that there's going to be much less Afro-Asiatic friendship, like the fun at Bandung. This is cause there's likely to be many African nations that will expel and persecute their Asian minorities, much like how Malaysia persecuted its Chinese minority.

 

[Alt History Buff]

For most countries, it means that there's going to be much less Afro-Asiatic friendship, like the fun at Bandung. This is cause there's likely to be many African nations that will expel and persecute their Asian minorities, much like how Malaysia persecuted its Chinese minority.

I agree, this will likely be true when the African nations receive full independence. In virtually every case, such minority suppression and expulsion harmed the interests to the newly independent country but that never stopped them from doing it.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Why on earth would Chinese coolies imported all the way from Asia be considered 'better' than local Africans?

Asians were considered 'better' in the New World, because the locals died like flies when exposed to Old World disease. But Africans are more suited to Africa than Asians are (they've already been exposed to the local diseases, if nothing else). ???

 

[Tyr]

OTL much? ,,,,,,,,

 

[Julius Vogel]

Why on earth would Chinese coolies imported all the way from Asia be considered 'better' than local Africans?

Asians were considered 'better' in the New World, because the locals died like flies when exposed to Old World disease. But Africans are more suited to Africa than Asians are (they've already been exposed to the local diseases, if nothing else). ???

There were quite a few Chinese in Africa at times, for various projects. I imagine many of them were caught by the anti Chinese rules about permanent settlement that arose in the late 19th-early 20th century.

 

[Alt History Buff]

Why on earth would Chinese coolies imported all the way from Asia be considered 'better' than local Africans?

Asians were considered 'better' in the New World, because the locals died like flies when exposed to Old World disease. But Africans are more suited to Africa than Asians are (they've already been exposed to the local diseases, if nothing else). ???

I never used the term "better" but in many areas the native African population often did not possess the interest or skills for certain modern trades. See South Africa.

I want to extend this to larger parts of Africa without restriction.

I do not kniw if Asians were any more susceptible than Africans to native disease.

 

[Alt History Buff]

There were quite a few Chinese in Africa at times, for various projects. I imagine many of them were caught by the anti Chinese rules about permanent settlement that arose in the late 19th-early 20th century.

My idea exactly. Asians were more sophisticated in many technical, medicinal and commerce areas than many of the interior plains tribes.

 

[Alt History Buff]

There were quite a few Chinese in Africa at times, for various projects. I imagine many of them were caught by the anti Chinese rules about permanent settlement that arose in the late 19th-early 20th century.

I know there were restrictions. Is there a place to research this?

 

[Julius Vogel]

I know there were restrictions. Is there a place to research this?

Wikipedia probably.

It is an interesting topic really. I don't know a lot about it but I've touched upon it in NZ and South Africa. Any British colony that was British settler dominated seemed to end up with such restrictions as a consensus seemed to form locally that the country was for white British migrants and Chinese or Indians moving within the Empire were a threat.

 

[ZhugeLiang]

For most countries, it means that there's going to be much less Afro-Asiatic friendship, like the fun at Bandung. This is cause there's likely to be many African nations that will expel and persecute their Asian minorities, much like how Malaysia persecuted its Chinese minority.

For most countries, it means that there's going to be much less Afro-Asiatic friendship, like the fun at Bandung. This is cause there's likely to be many African nations that will expel and persecute their African minorities, much like how Malaysia persecuted its Chinese minority.

Oops, I didn't realize I had a double post. How do I fix this?