It has always been a puzzle to me why Europeans did not colonize Africa first before the New World. It’s not like they didn’t know it was there......................
“It has always been a puzzle to me why Europeans did not colonize Africa first before the New World.”
Disease.
Before modern medicine a trip to the heart of Africa could prove fatal even without encountering any natives.
In the 17th to 19th century a European going to Sub-Saharan Africa was most likely going there to die! I remember reading that the average time to die for a European in the 16th to 18th century was something like 90 days.
More temperate climate, especially the Northern continent. Not full of nasty muslims, nasty wild natives pagan animist tribes, nasty beasts, snakes malaria and other nasty diseases. North America was comparatively easy to settle!
The Americas were not densely populated and many parts of the two continents have a temperate climate suitable for Europeans. Even in the United States, the more temperate Midwest and Northeast had larger populations than the South until the advent of air conditioning.