Colonisation | AskHistorians Archive Observer

I'm not 100% sure what you are asking, but I'll try and answer what I think you might be asking. If I am off the mark, please let me know.

Why didn't Europeans send settlers to establish settler-colonies like the 13 colonies?

In fact, European powers did establish settler-colonies in various regions throughout the centuries.

The earliest were Portuguese settlers in the 1500s who settled around Luanda in what would become Angola, and on the East African coast in what would eventually become Mozambique. However, in the early portion of Portuguese empire in Africa, up to the mid 1800s, the number of Europeans in Angola and Mozambique was minimal, and efforts to make those into settler-colonies only really ramped-up in the later 1800s and early 1900s, coinciding with the broader Scramble for Africa. Most of the Portuguese settlers living in Mozambique and Angola left when those colonies gained independence in 1974.

Ditto, Dutch people started moving in considerable numbers to their Cape Colony in southern Africa throughout the 1700s. When the British took over the Cape Colony during the Napoleonic wars, that in turn brought a wave of British migration to southern Africa in the 1800s. The descendants of these Dutch and English settlers now make up about 10% of South Africa's population.

The French conquered Algeria starting in the 1830s and substantial numbers of French people settled in Algeria in the 19th and early 20th century. When Algeria gained independence from France in 1962, there were over a millon of these settlers or their descendants, making up about 10% of the population. But, throughout the 1960s the vast majority moved out of Algeria to France.

In southern Africa again, substantial numbers of British and British South Africans moved into Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), making up about 5% of the population of that country in the mid-1970s. After Zimbabwe gained majority rule in 1980, the majority of these white Zimbabweans have moved to South Africa, Australia, or the UK.

In Kenya, about 30,000 British settlers moved in between 1900 and 1950, and took over the best agricultural lands, an area that came to be known as the "White Highlands" of Kenya. That displaced many peasants from Gikuyu, Luo, and other communities and led to political protest and anti-colonial warfare by the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (called Mau Mau). Like in Algeria and Zimbabwe, the vast majority of these White Kenyans left the country after independence in 1964.

There were also other, smaller-scale movements of Italians to colonial Libya, Eritrea and Somaliland. And about 9,000 German settlers in Namibia before 1914.

But, in almost all these cases, European settlers often left when African countries gained independence (and/or majority rule) in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. Although, it should be said that small numbers of these communities have stayed put.

South Africa is the major exception to that characterization. By-and-large, white South Africans have not left the country.

Now, you may have noticed that throughout those examples, Europeans consistently remained a small portion of the total population of the colonies. Nowhere did they become a majority of the population, unlike in Canada, America, Australia and New Zealand (among others) where european-descended people make up large majorities of the population; and the original inhabitants of the land are now a small and economically disadvantaged part of the population.

There are numerous factors that go into why Europeans and their descendants end up as majorities in the countries I mention, but not in African settler countries. A few possible factors are:

These African colonies usually start in late-19th century, and exist for 60-80 years before independence. North American and Oceanian colonies have longer timescales.
possible settlers from Britain, Germany, Portugal, Italy, etc. are going to US, Canada instead of going to these colonies.
Native American, Aboriginal australian, and Maori populations experienced demographic decline, partly due to disease but also from the effects of conflict and occupation/displacement by white settlers. There are scholars who make the convincing case that these populations experienced genocide at the hands of settler-colonial governments.
African populations did see severe disease outbreaks through the 16th-20th centuries, as well as the severe shock of the slave trade. But, by-and-large, African populations did not see demographic collapse. Certain populations like the Herero, Nama, and perhaps the Cape San were victims of genocidal violence, but those experiences were largely exceptional.