Why didn't the Portuguese settle South Africa if they got there before anyone else? were they stupid? Portuguese South Africa would make a lot of sense since it's surrounded by Portuguese speaking countries and close to Brazil
Why didn't the Portuguese settle South Africa if they got there before anyone else? were they stupid?
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Idk, but whenever I play an EU4 campaign as Portugal I always colonise South Africa. Think it´s one of the missions actually. To be honest I colonise South Africa regardless of who I play as. It´s a good way to steer trade from all your Indian trade companies into Europe.
it's pointless since South Africa's trade only goes to Ivory Coast. So no matter who owns it, it will always go to Ivory Coast
From Ivory Coast you can funnel into Sevile and Genoa tho. Ivory Coast isn´t an end node.
Portuguese had a better angle in my opinion. Just conquer a port city and use those as a base to corner local markets. Other nations focused on the idea of "land=good" mentality, where as the Portuguese had monetary gain as the goal from the jump.
>Other nations focused on the idea of "land=good" mentality, where as the Portuguese had monetary gain as the goal from the jump.
Well they would have benefited from the enormous mineral reserves in South Africa
Spices could be turned into gold
>Why didn't the Portuguese settle South Africa if they got there before anyone else? were they stupid?
They tried but were chased away by the Khoisan in the Cape.
Because the Portuguese tend to settle/colonized places that are good for trade, like strategic ports or hub settelements where the nearby locals traded valuable goods.
West African Kangdoms traded in gold & slaves & ivory. What do the residents of South Africa have in the 1500s? Fucking cows?
>What do the residents of South Africa have in the 1500s? Fucking cows?
A harbor in Cape Town where commercial vessels on their way to Asia could stop over and resupply. Its the main reason the Dutch VOC sent contracted white workers there in 1652. Boers are the descendants of those early Dutch settlers.
Joao already had way too many ports where they could resupply AND trade. Another stopover in the Cape is irrelevant for them.
The Dutch only did that coz they had no other place available on the route eastwards.
>Joao already had way too many ports where they could resupply AND trade.
Where in Southern Africa were these Portuguese resupply ports?
>Another stopover in the Cape is irrelevant for them.
Apparently it wasnt to Vasco De Gama and Francisco D'Almeida.
>The Dutch only did that coz they had no other place available on the route eastwards
The harbors in the Eastern Cape and Durban further to the east of South Africa were already taken?
They had their hands full on Brazil already, Portugal had a pretty small population at the time. Notwithstanding it was neighbouring the greatest power of its time Spain. Colonizing a place require lots of investment in capital and in workforce which they did not have the incentive.
brazl was irrelevant as a colony to Portugal till the XVII-XVIII centuries. Their main focus and goal was India and the spices
i don´t know, but what the portuguese did historically was fabulous if you think about it. Navigate the entire seas
the portugese brought a lot of african blacks in india, so much so that they founded their own communities there. In the portugese colony of goa, africans were not considered humans and were made to work for the portugese to do all tasks like manual labor, domestic help and fighting in the military. Africans also became servants of the goans and faced discrimination even uptil the 20th century. When india invaded goa, a large part of the portugese defenders were african blacks. Today, african blacks are called 'khapri' in goa and it is considered a racial slur and politically incorrect.
South Africa had bumfuck compared to places like Zanzibar
The Dutch "colonized" it only to provide logistic support for their vessels and their scope of control never extended beyond Cape Town
No populatcion enough to populate southern africa they barely left any kids in southern ameica .