National history of Muluwheyo (Muluwheyo, The African dream that could have been....)

This is going to be a short 3 page article. The POD is that colonial rule worked in part of Africa. What would have a nation been like if the British Empire (and maybe the French Empire as well) had succeeded in their cultural gaols and also held out much longer, like say until 1972...

History


Hunter gatherers settled the territory in the stone and iron ages, followed later by Bantu settlers centuries later. The first whites arrived in 1450. The (OTL) Portuguese navigator Diogo Cão reached Point Portugal. Spain had a brief interest from 1795 to 1835, while British finally holding sway from 1845 to in's independence in 1972.

Prehistoric
Near the coast of the Bentiaba desert have been found Late Cretaceous fossils of sharks, turtles, mosasaurs, shellfish, plesiosaurs and sauropods.

The Bushman (San) era
Human hunter-gatherers types moved into what would become northern Muluwheyo following the last glacial period. This was either in the Neolithic period around 8,000 BC, or in the long humid period which followed that lasted up to around 3,000 BC. Archaeological excavations near Poer Corfe had revealed evidence of some sparse settlement by hunter-gatherers in the late stone age, followed by a noticeably larger settled population in the early Iron Age, who produced dimpled pottery, miniature stone carvings and iron tools. It is suspected that these scattered and settled populations were connected to the former Twa Pigmy culture of the Great Rift Valley.

Bushmen (San) first arrived in about 4,000 BC, who appear to have flourished until about 1,000 BC, as depicted in a series of rock paintings near Boerburg and Port Eric, which date from about 6,000-1,000 years ago. The Bushmen were replaced as the dominant by the Namaqua in circa 500AD.

The Bantu era
Several Xindonga tribes drifted in to St. Lawrencia county in the 12th Century according to resent archeologically evidence and long held tribal oral traditions.

Archaeological evidence also points to a brief trade in Arab pottery and local gemstones in Muluwheyo bay during the mid-14th century.

The Chewa people came to the south of the country in about 1400AD and remained the ruling tribe until the arrival of the Portuguese slave traders came 200 years later. The Chewa had mastered the use of metal, unlike the tribes they were to conquer, so making up for lack of Chewa numbers. Sadly none of the tribes would be able to stop the Portuguese slave traders.

The (OTL) Portuguese navigator Diogo Cão reached Point Portugal, to the north of the Muluwheyo bay, in 1485. BaKongo traders from the nearby (OTL) Kongo Empire would briefly trade with the people of Muluwheyo bay during the mid to late 15th century.

Post-Portuguese contact.
The (OTL) Portuguese slave traders would pillage the (ATL) enclave for slaves from between roughly 1545 to 1745, taking approximately 500 over to Brazil in that time. A few British, Dutch and French slave traders would also take a lesser number, in the late 17th century, from what would become the nation's Costal Region.

As a result of the Portugese destruction of the native Chewa state, the power vacuum was filled by the various newly arrived Herero in the 17th century, but a flue epademic (axidently brought by the Portuguese) would soon bring most of their civilization to an end. Eventually, the region fell in to social chaos, which was only ended by the gradual take over by the migrating Ovimbundu and Ovambo tribes in the early to mid-18th century. Ovimbundu and Ovambo, who gradgualy took power back from the Portugese in a series of bush-wars in the 1770s and 1780s. The Ovambo and Chewa would aldo engage in a nearly 100 year long on-off tribal war with each other until it was peacefully stopped by British imperial intervention.

The town of Klenunga was founded by a reformist Portuguese Catholic missionary in 1790, and became the first outpost of Christianity in the nation. The local industry was diamond mining, but this only lasted for about 10 years and was never very prospers.

Portugal sold it's 'claim' to Spain, who ruled it in a 'arms length way' from 1795 to 1835.

The Spanish did not significantly alter the social structure of the county, but exerted influence by supporting the Ovimbundu and Ovambo king and the existing hierarchy, along with the delegating power to local chiefs. The British simplified and centralised the complex power structure. They would go on to launce major projects in education, health, public works, and agricultural supervision, including new crops and improved agricultural techniques to try to reduce the regularly occurring desert land famines.

Colonial era.


British traders first arrived in 1835, then French Catholic missionaries arrived in 1845, and finally Prussian Lutheran missionaries arrived in 1875.

British rule was over the territory first guaranteed when Prussia, the Britain, France, Spain and Portugal singed the London Accords of 1845 and 1846. France retained control of Boule Island until 1865, when it was sold off to the UK.

The French pastor and well known (ATL) humanitarian Henri Boule unified the desperate desert clans in county and founded the Northern County village of Boule in 1865, around a local well, which he personally dug out. He also claimed the then uninanbated Boule Island for France in 1851. Christianity began to make heavy inroads into the local religions, with most conversions to Christianity happening among the Ovambo in 1872, 1873, 1887 and 1890. The Finnish evangelist Cecilia Geiger and here 2 loyal followers St. Grace Savimbi and St. Lawrencia Bingu would help maintain Henri Boule’s well in the 1890s and 1900s.

An unforeseen smallpox then plague killed 60 (about 10%) of the Bushmen and 150 (about 10%) Ovambo in 1867. It was in the wake of this sad event that the British colonial authorities tried and succeeded in improving the locals lives with improved farming techniques, the peaceable ending of the Ovambo-Chewa war and a literacy campaign in the Far Northern and Point Portugal counties.

A revolt by Afrikaners in the newly founded town of Boerburg in 1894, was brutally suppressed by British troops and their loyal Ovambo militia men.

Urban and rural settlements were enlarged as irrigation, sewage and water supplies were improved trough out the enclave between 1895 and 1908 by a small band of Christian British and Swedish philanthropists in order to fight malaria and cholera. The farming of Cassava around Boerburg, Point Portugal, Keizerberg, and Koliki would gradually rise between 1909 and 1918. Subsequently the population began to grow rapidly until the late 1960's. Some more Afrikaners and a few Tswana would migrate in to the south of the country in the 1920's

In World War 1 it was briefly attacked by a 2,000 strong Prussian army advancing westward from the interior. A brief battle took place near Koliki, in which (ATL) Lt Tony Smith numerically inferior, but tacitly superior 500 strong colonial garrison forces, along with some 250 native levies, just managed to defeat the advancing Prussians after 22 hours of bitter hand to hand fighting in the scorching savannah lands.

World war 2 and decolonialisation


Little happen over the next 50 years exit for the Great Depression closing one of the 2 coal mine near Koliki for 10 years, 6 people (5 British and 1 Ovambo) volunteering to join the British forces fighting Rommel in North Africa and the 1st tin mine opening in 1947, thus creating Tin City. The UK also welcomed it's first Muluwheyo ex-colonial graduate at Cambridge in 1952.

The construction of the St. Grace dam near St Grace town in 1955-6 ensured a cleen and reliable water source for Far Northern, Klenunga, Tin City, St. Grace, Outer Muluwheyo counties and the western part of Northern County.

A second tin mine opened, near Tin City, in 1964 and then a third in 1968, bringing much wealth, prestige and industrialisation (as well as 1,000 British, 80 White Rhodesian and 50 Greek immigrants) to the enclave. As part of the plan to redevelop the enclave and make it ready for independence, the 2 1/2 year long building of Port [Tony] Smith, just south of the old port at Point Portugal in 1968. As time passed power was transferred to the strong Oxford-Cambridge-Sandhurst collage trained western social elite.

From independence to today.
Independence occurred peacefully in 1972, Under the Liberal Democratic President, Nicklaus Rolihlahla N’ktarvi, with monitory union continuing in to the present day. Nicklaus' daughter, Nomzamo, would become president in 2008.

A minor lead mine opened near Tin City in 1979 and the Tibayla phosphate mine near Boerburg, opened in 1982, bringing more prosperity and 60 ethnic-German Namibian migrant Labours to the nation.

The first coal-fired powered power station was built in Muluwheyo city in 1972 and the second was built in Boerburg during 1982.

Later both (OTL) SWAPO and (OTL) SWANU were to prove a major problem as Namibia fought against South Africa in the 1980s, with a low level rural insurgency in 1982 and a brief anti-white letter-bombing campaign in 1983. The vast bulk of the populous was not swayed by the Marxist-Leninist SWANU ideology and rejected it out of hand in favour of their native verity of Anglophile-Liberal Democracy.

In 1989, South Africa made a mutual defence treaty with Muluwheyo. Niger, Angola, Namibia, Botswana and Mozambique agreed to similar treaties in the next few years. The tiny nation joined NATO in 1999. These treaties were made in the wake of a brief set of (ATL) UNITA attacks on the (ATL) pro-MPLA village of Tonytown in Northern County.