AH Challenge: African Defender

NapoleonXIV

Banned
Could a state have arisen in African between 1400 and 1800 that was powerful enough to stop or severely curtail the slave trade? I don't know enough about African history to pursue this myself. I'd like this state to remain a power into the 20thc also.
 
There were plenty of West African states who could theoretically have done this, the problem is that they usually benefited too much from the slave trade to want to.

So you need a change in attitude towards the slave trade rather than an increase in power.
 
SurfNTurfStraha said:
the domination of draka is a possibility to keep the slave trade from leaving africa.

I could be wrong, but wasn't the Drakia colony just a small group of Tories from America, which only ruled an area south of where the slaves were being shipped from, until it was bolstered by Confederate immigrants AFTER the bulk of the slave trade?
 
Matthew Craw said:
There were plenty of West African states who could theoretically have done this, the problem is that they usually benefited too much from the slave trade to want to.

So you need a change in attitude towards the slave trade rather than an increase in power.

It was not only that the African kingdoms benefited from the slave trade...it was that it was part of their culture. In West African inter-kingdom warfare, when a village or town was conquered, the lucky ones were enslaved. Those not worth having as slaves were butchered. That was the way it was.

Contrary to what too many people in Western societies...and especially in the white-guilt-ridden United States...believe, slavery and the slave trade was not started by Europeans. Slavery had existed in West Africa for thousands of years prior to contact with Europe, and indeed, it continues to exist there today. And the West African Kingdoms were trading slaves with foreign nations before the Europeans arrived...most slaves went to Muslim lands in North Africa and the Middle East.

When Europeans arrived on the West African coast, it was THE AFRICAN KINGS who offered slaves to the Europeans. It was they who initiated the trade. They certainly did not feel exploited, or that they needed to be protected, when the Europeans accepted.

So the whole POD is ridiculous on its face.
 
Actually, we could always insert a "Great Man" somewhere who sees the devastation that the European slave trade is causing and goes about trying to stop it. If he's clever, he can play the slaving powers off against each other while building up his own power until he's ready to kick the slavers out forever.

However, something tells me such a man would be a Skanderbeg...his power would last until his death (by natural or European causes) and then his anti-slaver regime would crumble.

I've taken a History of Islam in Africa class and slavery in West Africa was generally associated w/ women...adult male warriors were difficult to control. Perhaps that's why the local VIPs were willing to sell off POWs in such large #s...they weren't worth much.
 
Robert> all that's true, but African slavery had one big bonus: a slave always had a good chance to be manumitted and made a full member of the tribe who enslaved him. That didn't happen often in America....
 
As Matt says, it would very likely take a 'great man' as a general cultural revulsion against the slave trade would be unlikely. It is so *profitable*...

By 1650, the impact of the slave trade was such that an intelligent ruler might connect the dots and try to stop it. A law to prohibit the sale of slaves to foreigners is quite feasible. Enforcement would be difficult, of course (When the Brits tried it post-1807, the economies of many coastal states all but collapsed), but if we posit someone matching Shaka in ruthlessness, why not? It's better to be poor than tied to a stake and disembowelled alive by hyenas, I guess.

The European reaction would be fierce, though, and it would have all the righteous ire of good capitalists deprived of a source of revenue behind it. I doubt any European nation would actually put large numbers of regular troops on equatorial African soil before 1800 (it was a big gamble even then), but quiet support to an opposing ruler could turn the tide easily enough. THe law would have to have been passed at a time when the state in question controlled practically the entire territory in question. I doubt the European powers (whom contrary to popular myth, were well aware of the cultures and politics of West Africa) would have allowed that to happen, and a ruler rising in spite of their opposition would have to be incredibly skilled and lucky.

BTW, I was told that the Asante stopped the export of slaves from the then Gold Coast (modern Ghana) for a while. This was towards the end of the slave trade and affected no large area, but it was done. Of course they wanted them for their own fields and for human sacrifice, so I'm not sure it was significantly better, but still...
 
Top