WI: Spain used Spanish Sahara as a settler colony?

Okay, again a thread title which goes on in a post.

This is not how this works.

A thread title and then a complete post, not as you done 50/50, it is confusing.

Example being:

Spanish Sahara was never a place where many Spanish civilians lived due it being challenged by stiff resistance from the indigenous Sahrawi tribes, Saharan Berbers who lived in many oases and coastal villages.

But what if a large number of Spanish colonist moved to Spanish Sahara due to a large gold ore oil find, how would this effect Spanish Sahara history.

It’s a desert. It’s in the name.

It’s a desert without significant resources of any kind. That makes it a useless place for a settler colony. Furthermore, Spain did not have the surfeit of people necessary for one. I can’t think of a worse candidate.

The phosphate reserves are characterised as relatively unimportant. Modern day suspected oil does not equal early 20th century actual oil.

But let us go further: What makes a settler colony? Is it a few miners in a desert, or farms and land available for, well, settlers. I would suggest that the former is more applicable to every incidence of successful settler colonies in the world.

Suppose that Spanish Sahara was actually an inverse Greenland and actually a land of plenty. Why would Francoist Spain permit, nay encourage, it’s settlement by personae non grata whose loyalty to the State is greatly suspect?

The Spanish Sahara could be used for penal colony. Oil being discovered is feasible however. Absence of Evidence isn’t evidence of absence just as there is speculation could allow a feasible hypothetical alternative history.

Spain was they last colony to abolish the slave trade what if a illegal slave trade persisted as long as a victorious slave power victory Relished the slave trade could last for a time in the slave-holding nations bringing profit against these hostile tribes

Well prisoners can be placed at any moment in time , but a sizeable colony made up mostly of political exiles could work. Spain 🇪🇸 had a history of political instability as there were several civil wars and coups before the Spanish Civil War. During the 50s, as a part of the process of preventing decolonization, the colony was urbanizing.

During the scramble for Africa, Europe invested in the colonies in areas of comparatively little value Or great expense. Colonies could afford to be in places such as the desert or in impoverished areas such as the Caribbean post abolition of slavery .

But yes Franco region could work !

No problem, feel free to do so.