Disease. If the natives of the new world didn't die out due to disease, persons of European descent would not be the majority in the new world. Those in the Americas and Australia had no resistance against Old World diseases, in Africa not only were they just as immune as Europeans were, but Africa had their own diseases.
Only the open savannah areas received significant immigration. Southern Africa, Rhodesia and Kenya, because while it was hot there wasn't disease infested jungles and the soil was pretty good. Soil in most of Africa is awful, they do have plenty of resources though, just it's hard to get and the natives, unlike in the Americas, didn't really make note of them.
Quote (Goomshill @ Jun 8 2013 10:50am)
Hostile arab states and deserts between them, bad farming land, a shithole where nobody would want to live, heavily populated by natives and colonization efforts seriously repulsed by warlords, a lack of known resources at the time, and yes, above all else, malaria. There aint enough jesuit bark for an entire continent.
The land down under was a similarly infertile resource barren shithole, but at least it had less aborigines with no zuluesque armies and no malaria, and the only good use for it was exile
Australia has lots of good farmland, and it's also extremely resource rich. The problem with Australia was it was so far away from everybody. If the Shogun hadn't closed down Japan in the 1600s, maybe the Japanese colonize Australia again.
This post was edited by Caedus on Jun 8 2013 01:00pm