Chapter 947 Black Population Across the Continent
There are also data saying that under the rule of Leopold II, the Democratic Republic of Congo lost more than 10 million people, which is enough to show how wealthy the Democratic Republic of Congo was in the past. In fact, the area of Congo in the past was much larger than that of the Democratic Republic of Congo, especially in the east and south where the population was most concentrated.
However, these areas have all fallen into the hands of East Africa. Ernst optimistically estimates that the total black population in East Africa should be around 15 million, which is just an optimistic estimate.
Because after the South African War, East Africa's rule over local blacks has entered the most "brutal" stage to ease the pressure of population growth in East Africa.
Now the population of East Africa is already large, and the growth rate is still high. With a population of more than 50 million and a relatively high population growth rate, Ernst himself is not sure to what extent the population of East Africa has expanded now, but it is certain that by 1900, the non-black population of East Africa will definitely reach the third in the world, surpassing the United States and only behind Tsarist Russia.
In addition to population pressure, the big infrastructure in East Africa follows closely. The East African Grand Canal plan alone is enough to make Ernst and Emperor Yang of Sui go hand in hand, and there are also roads, railways, and urban construction.
In this case, East Africa does not even need to export blacks. The local blacks will perish due to heavy labor tasks and imbalanced population structure. Therefore, the genocide in Belgium is child's play compared with East Africa.
So when watching the diary of Nares again, Ernst felt nothing in his heart, and he had no sympathy for the plight of the Chinese in Belgium.
After all, the situation of the Chinese under Belgian rule is much better than in the previous life. In the previous life, Leopold also introduced Chinese immigrants from the Far East Empire to fill the gap of black labor in the Zaire Colony (the old name of the Democratic Republic of the Congo) at that time. As a result, the overwhelmed Chinese immigrants were finally forced to cross the rainforest of the Zaire Colony to escape to other countries' colonies.
It is conceivable how brutal the Belgians were in their previous life. After all, the Chinese in the 19th century were definitely a model of hard work.
Under the influence of East Africa, the Belgian colonies are now very restrained. At least the East African border has never received any cases of Chinese in Belgium fleeing to East Africa.
Of course, this is not a question that Ernst, a mature and cold-blooded politician, has to think about. He is more concerned about the impact of East Africa on the African population.
Now under the rule of Belgium, Chinese have become the mainstream population in the area, not to mention the two major Chinese immigrant countries, Sigmaringen and East Africa.
Of course, Sigmaringen and East Africa are countries where Germans and Chinese intermarry, so the situation is very different from Belgium. In the future, there will be no mainstream Chinese race in the two countries at all, only the proportion and degree of mixed-race people will be different.
Ernst doesn't care about the current number of Chinese in Africa. He wants to know how many pure black people are left in Africa.
Ernst thought that if the number of black people in East Africa is calculated as 15 million, and these 15 million are all men, they will basically die out when the time comes.
In other words, African blacks will only exist in West Africa in the future. According to the population data of Africa in the previous life, the total population of Africa was more than 90 million at the end of the 19th century.
Now East Africa occupies 43% of Africa's land, and it is also the main gathering place of blacks in the previous life. Therefore, if the native blacks in East Africa are excluded, the total population of Africa will be reduced by at least 40%.
That is about 45 million, and the remaining 45 million, we have to subtract the Arab cultural area in North Africa, Egypt, Algeria, Libya and other countries, there were 20 million before, if we count the black and white mixed blood of Abyssinia, it is estimated to be 30 million, so the population left for West Africa is probably less than 15 million!
Of course, this number is probably not very reliable, because it is definitely not reasonable to reduce it by half because of East Africa. After all, before East Africa, West Africa has always been more developed than the indigenous civilization in East Africa.
In addition, East Africa has imported a lot of people to West Africa, so the total number of black people in West Africa should be more than 20 million, less than 30 million.
If this is the case, then the number of black people in Africa is estimated to be equivalent to that of the United States in the 21st century, or even less than that of black people in the United States.
The number of black people in the United States in the 21st century was 47 million, and the number of black people in East Africa plus West Africa may be this number.
And we have to further consider that the future of black people in Sigmaringen and Belgian Congo is basically bleak, and the number of black people in West Africa will be even less.
The total black population in West Africa is less than 30 million, which is an interesting number. After all, colonial development requires a large population, and the total population of West Africa is only equivalent to the total population of France, which shows the degree of sparse population in West Africa.
Of course, there are gains and losses, and the total population of Africa will not change much because of the cliff-like decline of the black population.
The total population of East Africa alone is close to or even the population size of the entire African continent in the 19th century, except that most of them are Europeans and Far Easterners.
When he thought that the time was almost 1900, Ernst also consciously should launch a new round of census on the population of East Africa and other data.
At the same time, East Africa should also pay attention to the population in West Africa and other regions, so as to facilitate the future layout of East Africa in the whole of Africa.
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The population census is a complicated matter, especially after the population size of East Africa is further increased, the difficulty and calculation amount will be further increased.
Therefore, compared with the population census, the attention to other fields is more urgent and convenient, and the investment in education has begun to show results.
With the trend of building schools in East Africa before, in 1898, the number of universities in East Africa further increased, almost doubling in less than a year, and the number of college students also increased to more than 52,000. If quasi-higher education is included, it will directly exceed 100,000. It has become the country with the largest number of colleges and universities and college students in the world, surpassing the United States, Germany and other European and American countries, and this is only the initial stage of the expansion of East African universities.
"By 1900, after the construction of universities in various provinces is completed, the number of college students in East Africa is expected to exceed 160,000, further widening the gap with other countries in the world."
"The current increase in the number of college students can be divided into two main reasons. One is that existing universities have increased their enrollment scale, and the other is that newly built universities have begun to enroll students."
The average number of students in each university in East Africa is actually only about 600 to 700, which is far from comparable to the universities in the previous life. It is not an exaggeration to say that one university in the previous life can accommodate all the current number of college students in East Africa, and the number of faculty and staff in universities in East Africa is less than 8,000, of which there are only more than 3,000 teachers, and the teacher-student ratio is about 1:17.
Therefore, even if East Africa's higher education is at a mid-level in the world, it can be called elite education. After all, East Africa cannot be compared only with European and American countries. There are also higher education in other regions and countries. There is a gap between East Africa and Europe and the United States, and there is also a gap between other regions and countries and East Africa.
However, one good thing is that East African universities have adopted the human sea tactics from the beginning. As an agricultural country that has not yet successfully transformed, the popularization rate of higher education and basic education in East Africa is already at the forefront of the world.
This is also one of the important reasons why East Africa squeezed black slaves to death after the South African War. In terms of the proportion of education expenditure alone, East Africa ranks first among all countries in the world, surpassing Germany.