WI: Spain used Spanish Sahara as a settler colony?

Spain doesn’t even have to strike oil it just has to find minerals to mine for more settlement to pop up. I believe if Spain made permanent gains during its 1850s military/imperial revival Spain would countinue to be a more powerful European power though a secondary one as she might have focused on feasible expansion and settlement such as Spanish Africa. In South American history Spain adopted the Native American culture in to the colonies. I wonder if this could be possible for Africa providing they increased efforts to convert the locals to catholic Christianity. These missions can help establish artificial towns in the middle of the deserts, where nomads might stop for supplies, or perhaps we're the locals who live nearby.


By this time I think Spain had religious tolerance or freedom of religion though maybe Spain could encourage all the undesirable for a reject colony.

If Spain can inhabit more of her holdings in Africa, she can expand or at least make claims with stronger substance let alone substance, to begin with.

What is happening here is a fundamental misunderstanding of what a 'settler colony' means. This is exacerbated by modern politics, which have shifted the readily available definitions of the term to match the current political cause de jour.

A settler colony is one where people move to settle: to establish farms. There can be other primary industries, such as fishing, mining and lumber, but the primary goal is self-sustaining agricultural production, followed by exports of food and cash crops.

This is a desert without the capacity for that, hence settler colonies are fundamentally impossible. There might be rich fishing grounds, but they have never been an absolute precursor for permanent settlement; rather, rich fisheries were visited seasonally and then the vessels returned home.

The era of artificial towns in the middle of deserts is a modern phenomenon that was permitted by technology, such as air conditioning. Look at the mining towns of Outback Australia, for example. They are almost entirely based on minerals with a handful of exceptions. Spanish Sahara doesn't have any of the externalities that would facilitate those exceptions.

During the era of settler colonialism, tourism wasn't a factor.

Spain can't expand in Africa, due to borders set in the 19th century and the surrounding area being held by a bona fide Great Power (France).

Egyptian settlements were based around the Nile or large oases. There weren't settlements in the middle of the jolly desert.

There isn't sufficient gold in the Spanish Sahara for a gold rush; even if there were, then the technology available doesn't support large scale settler colonies. Settler colonies and mining colonies are distinctly different beasts.

Tourism in the 19th century was based around the cities of Europe and North America in the overwhelming majority of cases. There were safaris in East and Southern Africa in the 20th century, but no expeditions to vast expanses of empty sand.

You are shifting the goalposts. The original post specifically mentions settler colonies, not mines. Spanish settler colonies, with all that implies.

Resources harvested for settlements? This is the Sahara, not Age of Empires. There is a dearth of water, rainfall, fertile soil, plants, trees and all of those things that serve as a basis for a settler colony.

It isn’t possible for more resources to be discovered than what is there. The real world is the real world. Neither mining resources nor the silly notion of sand tourism are part of settler colonies.

To escape a Spanish winter in say, Castile, there is the closer option of Andalusia. A place with all of the things that the Spanish Sahara did not have. Further, there was never such a factor at play in colonists in @. What drove them was the prospect of free or cheap land to farm, not warmer climes.

There is main problem for Spanish Colonisation of Spanish Sahara

it's mostly a Desert with scarce freshwater resources.
Today most drinking water comes from costly desalinization facilities.

A large scale settler colony would not work here
the Spanish just colonised it for only resources it got: rich fishing waters and phosphate reserves
(there prospect for Oil and Gas in the area but do conflict there its inaccessible)

There has probably been a misunderstanding on all of our parts regarding this discussion. I never said that there would be a dense amount of Spanish settlers in Spanish Sahara Africa and that it probably wouldn't be prosperous, as there are no proven oil reserves, let alone gold mines. Cities have been in the desert before, usually out of mining interest. Furthermore, Spain's economy was weak and unstable, further hindering spain from granting subsidies to set up colonies.

I indicated there would be more Spanish settlements under a stronger Spain. Still, I didn't suggest how many settlers there would be. Cities and towns can be established in the desert. However, conditions for the continuation and growth of desert settlements are challenging.



I will move out of the hypotheticals of possible mining discoveries because it isn't as much based on historical reality. This American civilization boomed in the desert.

Government projects such as maintaining prisons and increasing military presence can place these artificial desert communities in prisons for convicts, exiles, and undesirables.
In the 19th century, subjects often illegally tried to immigrate out of Spain mainly to escape conscription which increased the desire to live in the Spanish empire, particularly Cuba. Unfortunately for the dreamers, you had to apply for passports for such a privilege, and local loyalty in Cuba was mixed.

One incentive to encourage settlements in Sarah Africa could allow the settlers no passport necessary entry and conscription immunity. The onley way the government could use the desert outside mining interest would be through prisons in an attempt to bring life to worthless piles of sand. It is a fact that railways allow settlement growth even in an arid conditions unsuitable for farmland.

The southern route was the shortest transcontial railway route during the planning and construction of the first transcontinental railroad. It was desired in the hope that it would bring life to artificial towns out in the desert. The same hopes should be projected in Spanish Sahara Africa.

I am arguing this is possible in a stronger Spain, where hopefully, some of these trade routes could be connected through railroads trade and reinforce areas with relatively weak military presence.

During the age of imperialism, people traveled just to see the empire, and it was also out of patriotism. Of course, travel is meant for pleasure, so the Spanish government could possibly grant subsidies for whatever tourists might be attracted to. While the colony is a pile of sand, there are geological features of interest. Of course, you need geologists to find resources; however, in an attempt to provide usage to the colony, increased interest in geological science could perhaps lead to increased expeditions in hopes of finding gold and at least increasing the likeness of finding additional resources .

However, while I repeat myself, I think the Trans-Saharan slave trade could be revived through increased military presence by putting down insurrections and possibly through military expeditions sponsored by slavers heading or east. The slaves could risk shipping out directly out of that colony or going to morocco or perhaps being tolerated by french colonial rule under a Spanish-American civil war intervention leading to a Spanish french alliance as a part of Spain's reward along with other things.

I think spanish Guinnea would be a better idea for Spain to have a settler colony.