African country in Europe

[Melvin Loh]

Could anybody design a POD where by the present day there's a country in Europe predominantly inhabited by ppl of African descent ? OTL there've been substantial black populations in such areas as England (including London, which apparently has always had African ppl dating as far back as Roman times), Scotland, and the Netherlands, and I also read that under Ottoman domination of the Balkans, large nos. of Africans were transplanted to Bulgaria, where they intermarried into the local Slavic pop. Apparently, ppl in these regions with full lips and curly blond/e hair are descendants of these African settlers.

[Max Sinister]

Blond hair? That seems a bit strange, since the gene for blond hair is recessive. Of course, I know the theory (some people from Northern Germany claimed that the Bavarians are descendants of Sudanese / Mesopotamian / Syrian slaves the Romans brought ;-)), but I'd like a little more proof.

I guess that the blacks would've had mixed slowly with the local populations, as the centuries went on. And even if they had tried to resist and form their own state, it would've been overwhelmed sooner or later.

[wkwillis]

First a major meteor impact puts us through a famine caused by no crops in Europe, followed by massive releases of hydrates caused by tsunami and a greenhouse.
90% of Europe's population dies off to famine, and then the green house causes anopheles mosquitos to move into Europe as palm trees spread to Iceland (again), and then 90% of the rest get malaria.
If we do it around 1845, after steamships but before modern weapons, there will be lots of cheap transport north and no one left to resist.

[Tom_B]

Something less drastic than giant meteors. Imagine Timbuktu was just a little more advanced than it was and that its absorption by Mali was much more unpleasant. A migration of its upper class to a portion of Moslem Iberia where they form an enclave and develop into a small principality.

[MerryPrankster]

The fundamentalist Almoravid and Almohad Caliphates of Islamic Spain were largely black African (I think they came from present-day Senegal). Perhaps they face more difficulties from the Christian Iberian states and non-fundamentalist Muslims and import more people from Africa to help them out.

This could be a good beginning.

[Straha]

in my For All Strange Days TL which diverges in the 1930's I have the psanish take lare amonts of forced labor settlers and move them to southern spain. Come 1960 when spain gets worse in repression, along with the Catalan republic and Euzcadia, Al-Andalus secedes from spaijn then. Al-Andalus is a prosperous and liberal democratic nations with a figurehead monarchy that by 2000 has Muretania(coastal algeria,morroco and tunisia) join up with it.

[Chris]

Well, you could have a massie influx of people from ethopia to Italy and the itaisn shove them all onto sardina and abandon it.

Chris

[Otis Tarda]

Or maybe some kind of Ottomans' displacements? For example they decide to use Assyrian strategy against some African tribes?
Or they just make cleansing, in some Mediterranean island and fill the gap with black slaves?

[Tyr]

I think the moors are the best place for this.
Maybe you could even follow a over used POD and have a Carhiginian Empire in place of Roman.

[Michael E Johnson]

Melvin I'm really interested in this topic and I hope that you decide to write about it some more.I'm currently reading Africa's Discovery of Europe: 1450-1850 by David Northrup which is about Africans in Europe before 1850.I have started a couple of threads similar to this subject before and the consensus was that the only way the African presence would have had a greater European dimension is if perhaps the Black Death had been more virulent and created the need for much more labor.

To me an ATL with a large black population in Europe is fascinating for many reasons.Much of the beginnings of modern racism was sort of influenced by European "scholars" observing the slavery system at work in the Americas and Africa and "naturally" concluding that blacks were inferior to have fallen into such a sorry state.It seems that there is a chance that an expanded European African slavery system wouldnt have taken on such a "racial" character as it did in the Americas but rather more like indentured servitude- at least the farther north you went.

Perhaps a AH challenge -Make Europe in 1900 10-15 %(?) black in total- Portugal- 30%, Spain-25% , Italy-20% ,France 15% England 10%, Netherlands 10%, Germany-5% Scandanavia,Eastern Europe and Russia 1-3%.

[Glen]

Originally Posted by Melvin Loh

Could anybody design a POD where by the present day there's a country in Europe predominantly inhabited by ppl of African descent ? OTL there've been substantial black populations in such areas as England (including London, which apparently has always had African ppl dating as far back as Roman times), Scotland, and the Netherlands, and I also read that under Ottoman domination of the Balkans, large nos. of Africans were transplanted to Bulgaria, where they intermarried into the local Slavic pop. Apparently, ppl in these regions with full lips and curly blond/e hair are descendants of these African settlers.

This one is an interesting challenge...

[At-Bari]

How about african colonies in Europe? Not just the moors but some of the west african or east african empires?

[Keenir]

Originally Posted by Tom_B

Something less drastic than giant meteors. Imagine Timbuktu was just a little more advanced than it was and that its absorption by Mali was much more unpleasant. A migration of its upper class to a portion of Moslem Iberia where they form an enclave and develop into a small principality.

didn't at least one Portugese army march all the way to Timbuktu?

[Hapsburg]

Originally Posted by Melvin Loh

Could anybody design a POD where by the present day there's a country in Europe predominantly inhabited by ppl of African descent ?

Perhaps Egypt stays strong and expands into Greece during the chaos of the Greek Dark Ages?

[fhaessig]

The problem is not getting african colonies ( at least from North Africa - including berbers - ) colonies planted in Europe; there were a lot of them in OTL. It's keeping them alive in the face of the raging barbarians.

The key for this is to keep North Africa nations on a better technological footing than Europeans. Not so easy, but doable.

For equatorial africa, it's much more difficult. The african empires alluded to came in existance long after Europe acquired an unbeattable technological lead OTL. So in order to get those empire to plant colonies on mianland europe, you need not only to uplift them technologivally, but to sharply degrade the technological learning in Europe. Extremely difficult; nearly ASB in fact, and definitely requiring multiple PoD.

[HueyLong]

Asuming he wanted Black Africans, Egypt is not the way to go. They're closer to Arabs, although their Copt population is probably the better comparison.

[jolo]

Afaik, the Iberian peninsula used to be black before other peoples got the upper hand just a few thousand years ago - partly by enslaving them, partly by immigration of other Europeans. But I don't know if those "blacks" looked more like northern Africans, which btw. would mean little difference to todays southern Spanish.

Another possible PoD would be the fall of the Roman Empire, which might have allowed black slaves from all over the area to form a small country. With 50% of the rural Roman population being slaves, and I suppose about half of them of African descent, there should be possibilities in this regard - especially if one adds lots of Roman soldiers of the same descent. All that's needed here would probably be a pretty clever warlord carving out an area for his people and setting up or choosing a religion able to survive the competition (Christianity would probably be the only one able to survive the next 1500 years in the area).

[Burton K Wheeler]

A significant part of Portugal's population is of Sub-Saharan African descent, descended from slaves brought in to fill labor shortages brought about by Portugal expending so many men running its colonies.

[MerryPrankster]

In my "Muslim Europe, Christian Middle East" TL, I have Donatist Berbers invade Visigothic Spain (this isn't part of the TL quite yet, but it is part of the future plan).

[Johnnyreb]

Jolo, why wait until the fall of the Roman Empire? What about Numidian legions?

The legionary organisations land-banked, which is to say they bought large areas of land cheaply in out of the way places, to parcel out as farms for retiring soldiers. The wine-growing areas of the Rhone grew out of this practice, as did Romania.

Suppose a number of (predominantly black) legions from Numidia did the same? The legions bought the land somewhere in Europe or even North Britain, et voila, a predominantly black Hadrians Wall.