Why Europeans failed to settle Tropical Africa

The climate, and the fact that colonialism didn't really grasp Africa until the second half of the 19th century. Europeans had been in the America's for hundreds of years by the time Europeans really considered Africa as a colonial venture (Not to say that the Dutch and Portugese hadn't, but not on the same scale as the colonisation of the America's. 

Well put Al-Jassas!

Originally posted by Parnell Well put Al-Jassas!

The Spanish faced the same problems in places like Panama - an entire Scottish colony was wiped out there in the 17th century due to the disease problem.

(BTW, I take your accusation of 'not being an expert' as some kind of complement... Never said I was an expert on any subject ever)

Yes, nobody deny there were problems in the settlement of the Americas. What people usually forgets is that not only Amerindians died in those pandemics of colonial time. Many Europeans died as well.

Originally posted by pinguin   (With respect to expertise, I was pointing to your "tropically" emotional disqualifications to myself in a forum about Ireland somewhere in this site )

Ah, but that was completely different Pinguin. You were trying to make the case that the Irish Famine was a genocide, without any comprehension of how retarded that assertion is

But thats for another day...

Originally posted by pinguin Originally posted by Parnell P.S- I would have thought the climate and 'Tropical Africa' where the same thing. Its certainly what I meant anyway. I fully realise more was holding Europeans back than mere irritating sunburn.   Malaria and other tropical diseases did. Perhaps those same diseases stoped other people from comming, as it could had happened with Arabs or Indonesians (from Madagascar)

Originally posted by Cryptic ... Another factor could be because the economic systems changed on a macro level. At the time of the colonization of the Americas, economic activity was centered on labor intensive agriculture. This activity had to be managed on site by large numbers of European settlers (especially in areas where large scale slavery was not feasible). Moving forward to Africa, economic activity had moved beyond labor internsive agricultuire to mechanized agriculture, manufacturing, and the large scale mining processing of raw materials. Better technology allowed these activites to be managed by a cadre of European adminsitrative personnel so large numbers of Europeans on site were no longer needed.  .

Hello Pinguin

South America was conquered in what? 50-60 years. It had as much population as europe when the Spanish came yet Pizzaro with a couple of hundred conquistadors ended the entire Inca empire.

Originally posted by Carcharodon Not the whole of Africa. The Italians could not counquer Ethiopia, in fact they actually got severely beaten in the battle of Adwa in 1896.

True, but the Italians were outnumbered by 80k and the Ethiopians had firearms and artillery guns. It would have been more surprising if they won. Also the Italians returned under Mussolini, and succeeded.

Concerning why Europeans settled more extensively in America than Africa one shouldn't ignore the importance of precedence. When the Spanish and Portuguese explored America it was considered a new world and its discovery bore great merit. The drive for exploration established settlement patterns for Europeans in America, all the while the population of Europe continued to expand beyond what the continent should support. It is not surprising that when large numbers of Europeans chose to emigrate, they did so along familiar routes rather than go off to an uncertain existence in Africa. From this POV it was not a question of where the Europeans were more able to settle, but rather of how the discovery of a new continent led to settlement patterns being established and exercised a gravitational pull on the European imagination.