Malê Rising
- Thread starter Jonathan Edelstein
- Start date
Not in the short term, anyway.
The "First Republic" indicates there will be a second, at least. (Hm. Mental image of an emissary of the French Third Republic conferring with officials of the Third Sokoto Republic...)
I doubt Sokoto will have quite as many republics as France, although who knows how many France might have in this history? But yes, there will be a second one, and some of the successor states may also be republican in form.
"Overthrown" is a relative term, and there may be more than one replacement.
An Act to Regulate the Manumission of Slaves and the Residence of Free Negroes (1847)
BE IT ENACTED by the General Assembly of North Carolina as follows:
1. That on and after the first day of July, eighteen hundred and forty-seven, no free Negro shall reside in North Carolina with the exception of those who habitually resided here prior to the first day of July, eighteen hundred and forty-seven;
2. That if any person shall manumit his slave after the first day of July, eighteen hundred and forty-seven, he shall furnish passage for such slave to Liberia, and shall also furnish guards to escort such slave to port to await such passage; and shall also post a bond of five hundred dollars to offset the food, lodging and guard of such slave while awaiting such passage;
3. That if any free Negro shall reside unlawfully in North Carolina after the first day of July, eighteen hundred and forty-seven, he shall be held in custody by the sheriff of the county where he is found, and made to work for the public benefit until he shall have earned his passage to Liberia, and thereafter given passage as aforesaid.
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Marianne Costa, Manumission and ‘Free Negroes’ during the Era of Slavery (Charleston: African Renaissance, 2007)
… The Manumission and Residency Act was one of a series of restrictive amendments to the slave code that were passed in the wake of the Nat Turner rebellion, but the immediate impetus was the “Abacar Affair” in Britain. During 1845, secondhand reports of the affair reached American newspapers, and included sensational excerpts of the anti-Malê pamphlets then circulating in London. Although the name “Malê” was not immediately connected with the Brazilian slave revolt of 1835-37, which was little known in the United States at the time, the editor of the Raleigh Register and North Carolina Gazette was able to piece together a more complete history through the accounts of slave-trade captains.
The notion of a revolt that had combined slaves and freedmen, and that had succeeded well enough to win free passage and establish a state, horrified North Carolina’s slaveowning class. The Raleigh newspaper fueled the fire with accounts of Malê atrocities in both Brazil and Africa, nearly all of them false but exactly the sort of falsehood that post-Turner Rebellion slaveholders were inclined to believe. By mid-1846, public attention was focused on the danger of collusion between slaves and black freedmen, and on the possibility that the Malê example might inspire American slaves to similar revolts.
The act that the General Assembly ultimately passed was a compromise between those who wanted to outlaw manumission altogether, as South Carolina and Mississippi had done in the 1820s, and those who believed that a slaveowner’s right to dispose of his property included the right to liberate slaves. The latter argued persuasively that if slaves were denied any hope of freedom, they would become more desperate and harder to control, and that the public would be better served if the most enterprising slaves – who were at once the most likely to be freed and the most likely to rebel – were simply shipped to Africa where they could do North Carolinians no harm.
There were relatively few manumissions under the Act, as the conditions imposed by law were onerous and manumission had been declining for many years in any event. However, the Act was used in a number of counties as a convenient way to deport freedmen who were considered “uppity” by their white neighbors. Although the prohibition on residency by free blacks contained an exception for those already living in the state, the exception was widely ignored in practice – a mere complaint to the sheriff was enough to get a free black family seized, and few such families were able to prove their residency rights to the satisfaction of a white judge and jury. The great majority of those taken into custody in this manner – several thousand in all – were made to work on public roads and other projects, typically for one to two years, and then put on a ship to Liberia when they were judged to have earned their passage.
These thousands of unwilling settlers, and those who would follow from Georgia and Alabama, would more than double the Americo-Liberian population. And since many of them came from the most educated and enterprising part of the freedman class, they would rise to prominence in Liberian politics later in the century…
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I saw the title, looked up Male saw the Maldives, got excited, read the Thread and was hooked.
Seriously great job.
The same thing happened to me. Unfortunately, before I read the thread, I went fishing (was temporarily banned), and only came back to the thread now.
Jonathan, you have created something here which is both unique and wonderful. It is interesting, well-paced, and plausible.
So with an increased number of American ex-slaves in Liberia, will their mostly Christian conservative outlook clash with the liberal Islamic outlook of the Sokoto Republic? If the British decide to dispose of Sokoto, could they use Liberia as a surrogate from which to do so?
Thanks - I'm glad you're enjoying it.
Liberia (and Sierra Leone, the adjacent colony where the British were settling their freedmen in both OTL and this timeline) are a long way from the Sokoto Republic, which is in northwestern Nigeria. Also, Liberia isn't British, and wasn't well-disposed to Britain during the 19th century due to British claims on its territory. Some of that may change in the ATL but the fundamental distrust will still be there. So I don't think Liberia will act as a British surrogate.
On the other hand, you're definitely right in foreseeing clashes between the Christian Americo-Liberians and Malê theology, and those clashes will tie into the conflict between the freedmen settlers and the interior tribes (some of which were Muslim). The Americo-Liberians were also in a tricky ideological position - on the one hand, they were liberated slaves who got no respect from the European colonial powers, and on the other, they were colonial settlers themselves and ran what was essentially an apartheid state (although the worst aspects of it may be moderated in this history). Thus, Malê doctrines would be an uneasy fit even without the Muslim-Christian divide - some aspects of Abacar's theology may be attractive to Americo-Liberians, but others would be an uncomfortable mirror.
What's 800 miles between friends?
I didn't know the British had claims on Liberia, that's interesting. And you're completely right, the British had much closer and better surrogates.If the Americo-Liberians do face off against a Male-inspired philosophy, I'd expect that religious aspects of the conflict would become prominent quickly, even if it didn't start that way. Given how explicitly religious Abacar is, and how virulently Christian the Liberians became in putting down paganism in Liberia, any clash between the ideologies will quickly adopt a religious flavor, which adds a whole layer of mess. That's just my opinion, anyway. It's your timeline.
Negotiating an alliance against the Third Reich?The "First Republic" indicates there will be a second, at least. (Hm. Mental image of an emissary of the French Third Republic conferring with officials of the Third Sokoto Republic...
Bruce
Parts of southeastern Sierra Leone used to be in Liberia. The French also grabbed off Liberian territory for Cote d'Ivoire, and both France and Britain would occasionally foment uprisings in the interior. Not to mention the ruinous loans which resulted in Liberia's customs revenues being put into receivership for a decade and a half (the United States and Germany were also involved in this maneuver). The great powers in OTL didn't treat Liberia much differently from a colony; in some ways, Sierra Leone was actually better off, because its British colonial status meant that it only had to deal with one bully.
How much of this will be different in the ATL remains to be seen, but even with twice as many settlers, Liberia will still be unstable and militarily weak.
It definitely will, especially when you factor in Edward Wilmot Blyden, who will have a very interesting career in this timeline. Most of his Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race is available on Google Books, and there's quite a bit of ATL-fodder in the first and second-to-last chapters. He mentions Sokoto.
A literary interlude: through a glass, darkly
Karl May, Durch die Reiche von Afrika (Through the Kingdoms of Africa) (Berlin: Fehsenfeld, 1897)
Karl May as Kara ben Nemsi
… The Empress of Africa pulled into harbor, chugging past the natives’ boats of reeds and wood, startling the cranes and pink flamingos into sudden flight. Wilkinson, the old Englishman who was the Captain, clapped me on the shoulder, and favored Hadschi Halef Omar with a similar farewell. “Ride for half a day down the western road, and you’ll come to the sultan’s palace,” he said. “I hope you find your man - he’s a bad’un, no mistake.”
I thanked him for his many kindnesses and saddled up Rih, my gallant black charger. I patted his flank and whispered in his ear to gentle him as we walked down the gangplank, Halef Omar following behind with his own steed. Firm ground thus gained, we swung into the saddle and rode west.
The lands around the lake were lush with cultivated fields where cotton and foodstuffs were grown, which soon gave way to pasturelands where the Negroes tended their herds. This was scrubland, grasses mixed with a few date palms, but at least it was horse country, not the stark desert where only camels would survive. The natives of this place seemed much like those on the other side of the lake: tall and well-formed, and of an open and friendly nature. They welcomed us with a hospitality like unto the Arabs, and made us eat chops of beef and regale them with our travelers’ tales. Delayed in this manner, it took closer to a full day before we reached the sultan’s city.
The city! No doubt the cosmopolitans of Berlin, or of Vienna or London, would laugh to hear it called thus, but in these wild lands, city it was. The streets were well-paved and clean, with houses of brick and stone, and the communal wells were surrounded by open-air markets with goods from every cardinal point of the compass, where natives mixed with Arab merchants, Greeks, and even Englishmen and Frenchmen. The people were dressed in colorful robes and turbans, and carried themselves with pride; even their camels were bedecked with striped cloth. Not here the servility of the poor men of Cairo, or the mean huts of the Sudan! I could well understand how some people accounted the Bornu not to be natives at all, but instead some lost tribe of Israelites or Assyrians.
Some there were who affected a humbler demeanor, and wore simple white in the heat of the day. “D’you see them?” Hadschi Halef Omar asked me. “These are followers of the Master, who walk in the way of peace and contemplation. They have built schools here and hospitals, and have sent their sons to medical school in Cairo and even in your land.” I had heard of such men, of course, and Halef Omar, himself a contemplative man, often spoke approvingly of the Master Ali bin Bello. No doubt I would soon meet some in the flesh.
In the heart of the city was a large paved square, with a fountain in the center and date palms all around where the people gathered for conversation. To one side was a great mosque, all of stone with a tall domed minaret reaching into the cloudless azure sky. On the other was the palace, of brick but inlaid with polished stones of red and blue which shaped words of the Koran.
There were no guards at the door of the palace, and I became instantly alert: what sultan even in the most peaceful land, let alone a realm at war like this one, would leave the gate open for assassins and thieves? “There is something very wrong here,” I said to Halef Omar. “Be silent as a cat at night, and be ready to fight at my side.” He nodded his acknowledgment, and I loosened the rifle Bear-Killer at my belt and entered the sultan’s home.
My fears were soon realized when I saw a female servant lying on the floor in a pool of blood, a shattered water-jug a few feet away. I knelt to see if anything could be done for the poor girl, but saw that she was dead with a sword-cut through her throat. “We must find the cowardly dog who did this, the accursed murderer, the spawn of Shaitan,” Halef Omar said, and I could not but agree.
And no sooner than he said this did we hear the clash of steel from a room at the end of the hallway. “Quiet will serve us no longer!” I cried. “In there, and quick about it!” Obeying my own command, I dashed in to the rescue.
It was a throne-room, with a rich cushioned divan on a dais at the far end, but I had little time to appreciate it, because the sultan himself was beset by assassins! Richly clad in a deep blue silk jacket and turban with white trousers and under-shirt, that monarch, curved scimitar in hand, was fighting bravely against three foes. Around him were the bodies of the missing guards, fallen in the service of their king, although the assassins’ corpses which littered the floor showed that they had given a good account of themselves. Two guards yet survived, but they were outnumbered and unlikely to live much longer.
I would change that if I could. With a cry, I unlimbered Bear-Killer and wielded it clubwise, delivering a strong blow to the head of one of the sultan’s assailants. Beside me, Hadschi Halef Omar knocked another to the ground, leaving just one to compass the sultan’s death if he could.
“Kill those dogs!” that worthy shouted to his fellow-assassins, who were still hotly engaged with the guards. “Attack them! I will finish the sultan - leave his guards for later!” They turned to do just that, but I was quicker than they: I punched forward with Bear-Killer, striking one in the stomach and doubling him over, and then brought the rifle barrel up to knock out another. I saw that Halef Omar was holding the remaining murderers at bay, and turned my attention back to their leader. He was about to stab the sultan in the heart, and not having time to bring my rifle to bear, I slammed my clenched fist into his temple in the way that had caused the Apache to name me “Old Shatterhand.” He fell heavily to the floor, his work unfinished, the sultan saved.
“Flee!” cried the other assassins, and did just that. “After them!” I called to Halef Omar. “Don’t let them escape!” He obeyed at once, and to my gratification, the guards did as well, leaving the sultan and myself alone in the room.
“A narrow escape, I fear!” I said. “But you are saved from these cowards. Do you know who sent them?”
“Surely it is the slave-lord Zubayr, who wishes to rule this land as he does Wadai. Only he would send hired swords to murder the person of a king in his own throne-room.”
“What a stroke of fortune!” I cried, though the circumstances were hardly fortunate. “My enemy, himself a cowardly slaver, has fled to Zubayr, and it is there that I must find him!”
The sultan’s eyes lit with gratitude. “Unbeliever though you are, I owe you my life,” he said, “and we have a common enemy. You are a most valiant fighter, and tomorrow, you shall lead a company of my finest troops in search of the slave-lord. I name you their captain, and their officers will answer to you with their lives.”
Just then, Hadschi Halef Omar returned to the room, panting with the effort of the chase. “We stopped all but two of them,” he said, “but one flung a jar of oil in my path, and made his escape while I slipped. He is the son of a trollop and a poxed camel, the mud that I scrape off my shoes, the leavings of last year’s vultures…”
“He is all of that, no doubt, but now he will warn his master,” I said, wishing I had gone myself to help with the hunt. “But we must follow anyway: make ready, for tomorrow we ride…”
… It was close to evening on the second day, and I scanned the grassland for signs of the fugitive assassins’ passage, determined that he would lead me to his evil master. I pulled up Rih’s reins to confer with the lieutenant of my fine troops, a tall and handsome man of ebony complexion, resplendent in steel chain-mail with an amulet on his forehead and a Koran hung around his neck in a gilded case. “Look there,” I said, pointing to where the grass had been trampled. “They passed this way not more than an hour ago. No doubt they will camp soon for the night. We will ride until nightfall ourselves, and then I will sneak up to their campsite and hope to learn their plans.”
Soon night had fallen, and forgoing my evening meal, I walked out of our camp. Winnetou the Apache had taught me to track at night, and I used the skill to best advantage, and in less than an hour, I saw a campfire in the distance which surely belonged to my enemies. I dropped to the ground and crawled in slowly, moving silently as the Indians had taught and keeping low so I would not be seen.
It was not long before I heard voices - the two escaped assassins talking among themselves. “We will reach Zubayr’s camp tomorrow,” one of them said, “and then we will be revenged upon these dogs. They say that Ibn Asl’s lieutenant is there, and that he hunts the infidel that killed his master, no doubt the same one that thwarted our plans at the sultan’s palace. He has brought men to our aid, that we will crush the unbeliever forever.”
“But there is something we must do first,” the other said. “Zubayr will not turn aside from attacking the Master’s settlement at N’guigmi, for he hates those men like poison, and striking at them will weaken the Sultan’s rule. He will seize the settlement tomorrow evening, and kill its people or take them for slaves.”
How furious I was to hear of this evil scheme! The slave-trade on the Atlantic was long suppressed, of course, defeated by the British navy and the valiant armies of Sokoto and the Toucouleur, and Bornu, once a slave emporium itself, had banned the practice through the enlightenment of the Master’s teaching, but to the east, the snake of the slave-trade still lived , and it was the duty of all good men to fight it. Silently, I left the murderers’ camp to rejoin my men, because we must protect N’guigmi from such a fate at all costs.
Hadschi Halef Omar was sitting by the fire, no doubt thinking of his Hanneh and their child yet to be born, when I returned to reveal the slave-lord’s plan. “Such evil!” he exclaimed. “And to think that once, in this land, a lone woman clad in gold might walk with none to fear but God!”
“Such may have been true in the time of the great king Idris Alooma,” I said, knowing whence that saying had come, “but now war in its cruelty has come even to those who seek peace. We shall ride to N’guigmi tomorrow and make ready to defend it.”
And so we did. N’guigmi sat by the lakeshore, with a thorn fence like so many native villages, but with the houses uniform and arranged in orderly rows, none bigger or more ornate than any other. The men and women in the fields and boats were clad in simple white, and each was about their tasks. I marveled to see that there was no difference in the work they did: women tended cattle, men washed clothes and pots, both taught the children who had come from many villages to be schooled.
“That is how the Master’s folk live,” Halef Omar said, seeing my surprise. “All the people share all the work, so that none may miss any facet of Allah’s world. The true believer must experience all of God’s creation.”
As I was thinking on this, a man of seventy years strode to the fence, empty-handed. “What is your business here with soldiers?” he challenged. “This is a community of the Master, a place of faith and peace, and we shed no blood.”
“Do you see?” Halef Omar said triumphantly. “Here the Prophet’s followers live in peace as God intended. Can your Christians say the same? Is this not proof that Islam is the true faith?”
“Those who truly follow the teachings of Christ can say the same,” I answered. “Far too many do not - but is that not also true of Muslims? Are we not preparing to defend this village from Muslim slavers?”
“They are dogs, not Muslims,” Halef Omar said, but he fell silent.
I turned back to the marabout, for that is surely what he was. “We mean your people no harm,” I said. “Far from it, in fact - the slave-lord Zubayr plans to attack you tonight with two hundred soldiers, and we have been sent by the Sultan to defend you. We will take up positions around your settlement and prepare to meet the attack.” The marabout nodded his assent and, his business done, returned to his work.
“We should lie in wait behind the thorn so we will not be seen,” the officer of my men said, “and take them by surprise when they come.”
“That’s a good plan,” I agreed, “but in the Sudan, I’ve seen slavers set fire to the thorn-fences, so that the villagers must flee into their clutches or burn. We must stop that from happening at all costs. Half the troops will wait behind the thorn, and half will find a sheltered place outside the village, so that we may fall upon the attackers from behind and stop them from ever reaching the fence.” The officer, Baba Gana by name, obeyed my command, taking half his men behind the thorn while I sought a stand of hedges where the other half could hide.
Soon this had been done, and there was nothing to do but wait for Zubayr’s forces to arrive and give battle. As evening fell, the first sign of them appeared: a cloud of dust in the distance and the sound of hoofbeats growing closer. “Don’t fire until I do,” I told the soldiers, “and then shoot at their horses.”
Zubayr’s men came into sight, and I could see that they were indeed carrying torches to set fire to the thorn. I let them pass my position so that they would be between my men and Baba Gana’s, and then I fired. This time I did not use Bear-Killer, but instead the Henry Carbine, which could fire sixteen shots without reloading. I fired, one shot every two seconds, at the horses of Zubayr and his officers; I was sorry for the poor beasts, who had never asked to join this battle, but if I were to shed as little human blood as possible, that was what I must do. Around me, my soldiers were doing the same.
At last, I could see that the horses were starting to panic. “Now go in among them!” I shouted. “Capture them if you can!” As one, we left the shelter of the hedge and ran toward the enemy, a few of whom had the presence of mind to fire but most of whom fled. And their flight, of course, took them toward the thorn where Baba Gana and his men were waiting. Caught between the two forces, those who still had horses rode away, and the others were easily captured in their disorganized state.
“Now we will take them to the city to face justice,” I said. “Is Zubayr there? Is Ibn Asl’s lieutenant?” But as I surveyed the prisoners, I failed to see either of them, and I knew they had escaped to scheme another day…
Karl May, Durch die Reiche von Afrika (Through the Kingdoms of Africa) (Berlin: Fehsenfeld, 1897)
Karl May as Kara ben Nemsi
Karl Friedrich May (1842-1912) was a popular German writer and the author of more than 30 celebrated adventure novels, most set in the American West, the Near East and Africa. Discovering his muse while in prison for theft, he published his first book - an educational text - in 1875, and experimented with serialized romances, historical novels and fantasies before embarking on the travel tales that made him famous.
The heroes of his novels, Old Shatterhand and Kara ben Nemsi (who are suggested, in the works themselves, to be the same person) are both alter egos of May himself. The author often claimed to have actually undergone the adventures depicted in the novels, although he never visited the western United States or Africa and traveled to the Middle East only after the majority of his books were written. As such, the characters are strongly identified with May’s pacifist and humanistic values: although both Old Shatterhand and ben Nemsi are two-fisted adventurers in the classic tradition, both go to great lengths to avoid killing their opponents, and a recurring plot point involves bound or captured enemies winning free to plague the hero again and again. (To be fair, May’s heroes also tend to escape from captivity with surprising ease, and to have more than a little help from Lady Luck when in their nemeses’ clutches.)
The “native” characters who feature in the novels vary by region. The Native Americans are portrayed as noble savages, simple and honest, whose pure way of life was threatened by the white man’s rapacity. May’s Arabs, while affectionately drawn, are childish, superstitious and cruel in their justice. The Africans are somewhere in between. May was certainly inclined toward the noble-savage view, and those from tribal societies are portrayed similarly to his Indian hero Winnetou, albeit less spiritually mature. But he was also aware of the urban societies of the Sahel - which feature prominently in two of the Kara ben Nemsi works - and while their modernism was an uncomfortable fit with his romanticism, the Abacarist and Belloist religious movements (particularly the latter) strongly appealed to his humanist world-view.
Characters who belong to these movements thus tend to be portrayed differently from other Africans, and are drawn somewhat closer to white Europeans. In this, May echoed some of the racial theorists of the time, who ascribed the modernism of the Malê and other freedmen societies to an infusion of white genes and culture during their period of enslavement, although this echo was surely unconscious, as May was known to be an opponent of scientific racism. And European liberals as well, even in France and certainly in Britain and the German-speaking world, often distinguished the Muslims of West Africa from other Africans, holding the former to be more civilized and more worthy of the white man’s respect.
In Durch die Reiche von Afrika (translated into English in 1899, with a renamed and Americanized hero, as Jack Hildreth in Kanem-Borno), a sequel to the well-received Im Sudan, Kara ben Nemsi, having compassed the defeat of Sudanese slave-trader Ibn Asl, learns that one of his enemy’s lieutenants has escaped westward to join the slaver and warlord Rabih az-Zubayr. He pursues the lieutenant to the Bornu Empire, which at the time was trying to maintain precarious relationships with Britain, France and Egypt while simultaneously subduing the last of its obstreperous feudal vassals and fighting off Zubayr’s forces in the east. There, in the imperial court, the feudal hinterlands and the Belloist religious communes, ben Nemsi and his faithful servant Hadschi Halef Omar find adventures in plenty before continuing on to Adamawa and the lands of the western Sahel…
The heroes of his novels, Old Shatterhand and Kara ben Nemsi (who are suggested, in the works themselves, to be the same person) are both alter egos of May himself. The author often claimed to have actually undergone the adventures depicted in the novels, although he never visited the western United States or Africa and traveled to the Middle East only after the majority of his books were written. As such, the characters are strongly identified with May’s pacifist and humanistic values: although both Old Shatterhand and ben Nemsi are two-fisted adventurers in the classic tradition, both go to great lengths to avoid killing their opponents, and a recurring plot point involves bound or captured enemies winning free to plague the hero again and again. (To be fair, May’s heroes also tend to escape from captivity with surprising ease, and to have more than a little help from Lady Luck when in their nemeses’ clutches.)
The “native” characters who feature in the novels vary by region. The Native Americans are portrayed as noble savages, simple and honest, whose pure way of life was threatened by the white man’s rapacity. May’s Arabs, while affectionately drawn, are childish, superstitious and cruel in their justice. The Africans are somewhere in between. May was certainly inclined toward the noble-savage view, and those from tribal societies are portrayed similarly to his Indian hero Winnetou, albeit less spiritually mature. But he was also aware of the urban societies of the Sahel - which feature prominently in two of the Kara ben Nemsi works - and while their modernism was an uncomfortable fit with his romanticism, the Abacarist and Belloist religious movements (particularly the latter) strongly appealed to his humanist world-view.
Characters who belong to these movements thus tend to be portrayed differently from other Africans, and are drawn somewhat closer to white Europeans. In this, May echoed some of the racial theorists of the time, who ascribed the modernism of the Malê and other freedmen societies to an infusion of white genes and culture during their period of enslavement, although this echo was surely unconscious, as May was known to be an opponent of scientific racism. And European liberals as well, even in France and certainly in Britain and the German-speaking world, often distinguished the Muslims of West Africa from other Africans, holding the former to be more civilized and more worthy of the white man’s respect.
In Durch die Reiche von Afrika (translated into English in 1899, with a renamed and Americanized hero, as Jack Hildreth in Kanem-Borno), a sequel to the well-received Im Sudan, Kara ben Nemsi, having compassed the defeat of Sudanese slave-trader Ibn Asl, learns that one of his enemy’s lieutenants has escaped westward to join the slaver and warlord Rabih az-Zubayr. He pursues the lieutenant to the Bornu Empire, which at the time was trying to maintain precarious relationships with Britain, France and Egypt while simultaneously subduing the last of its obstreperous feudal vassals and fighting off Zubayr’s forces in the east. There, in the imperial court, the feudal hinterlands and the Belloist religious communes, ben Nemsi and his faithful servant Hadschi Halef Omar find adventures in plenty before continuing on to Adamawa and the lands of the western Sahel…
*******
… The Empress of Africa pulled into harbor, chugging past the natives’ boats of reeds and wood, startling the cranes and pink flamingos into sudden flight. Wilkinson, the old Englishman who was the Captain, clapped me on the shoulder, and favored Hadschi Halef Omar with a similar farewell. “Ride for half a day down the western road, and you’ll come to the sultan’s palace,” he said. “I hope you find your man - he’s a bad’un, no mistake.”
I thanked him for his many kindnesses and saddled up Rih, my gallant black charger. I patted his flank and whispered in his ear to gentle him as we walked down the gangplank, Halef Omar following behind with his own steed. Firm ground thus gained, we swung into the saddle and rode west.
The lands around the lake were lush with cultivated fields where cotton and foodstuffs were grown, which soon gave way to pasturelands where the Negroes tended their herds. This was scrubland, grasses mixed with a few date palms, but at least it was horse country, not the stark desert where only camels would survive. The natives of this place seemed much like those on the other side of the lake: tall and well-formed, and of an open and friendly nature. They welcomed us with a hospitality like unto the Arabs, and made us eat chops of beef and regale them with our travelers’ tales. Delayed in this manner, it took closer to a full day before we reached the sultan’s city.
The city! No doubt the cosmopolitans of Berlin, or of Vienna or London, would laugh to hear it called thus, but in these wild lands, city it was. The streets were well-paved and clean, with houses of brick and stone, and the communal wells were surrounded by open-air markets with goods from every cardinal point of the compass, where natives mixed with Arab merchants, Greeks, and even Englishmen and Frenchmen. The people were dressed in colorful robes and turbans, and carried themselves with pride; even their camels were bedecked with striped cloth. Not here the servility of the poor men of Cairo, or the mean huts of the Sudan! I could well understand how some people accounted the Bornu not to be natives at all, but instead some lost tribe of Israelites or Assyrians.
Some there were who affected a humbler demeanor, and wore simple white in the heat of the day. “D’you see them?” Hadschi Halef Omar asked me. “These are followers of the Master, who walk in the way of peace and contemplation. They have built schools here and hospitals, and have sent their sons to medical school in Cairo and even in your land.” I had heard of such men, of course, and Halef Omar, himself a contemplative man, often spoke approvingly of the Master Ali bin Bello. No doubt I would soon meet some in the flesh.
In the heart of the city was a large paved square, with a fountain in the center and date palms all around where the people gathered for conversation. To one side was a great mosque, all of stone with a tall domed minaret reaching into the cloudless azure sky. On the other was the palace, of brick but inlaid with polished stones of red and blue which shaped words of the Koran.
There were no guards at the door of the palace, and I became instantly alert: what sultan even in the most peaceful land, let alone a realm at war like this one, would leave the gate open for assassins and thieves? “There is something very wrong here,” I said to Halef Omar. “Be silent as a cat at night, and be ready to fight at my side.” He nodded his acknowledgment, and I loosened the rifle Bear-Killer at my belt and entered the sultan’s home.
My fears were soon realized when I saw a female servant lying on the floor in a pool of blood, a shattered water-jug a few feet away. I knelt to see if anything could be done for the poor girl, but saw that she was dead with a sword-cut through her throat. “We must find the cowardly dog who did this, the accursed murderer, the spawn of Shaitan,” Halef Omar said, and I could not but agree.
And no sooner than he said this did we hear the clash of steel from a room at the end of the hallway. “Quiet will serve us no longer!” I cried. “In there, and quick about it!” Obeying my own command, I dashed in to the rescue.
It was a throne-room, with a rich cushioned divan on a dais at the far end, but I had little time to appreciate it, because the sultan himself was beset by assassins! Richly clad in a deep blue silk jacket and turban with white trousers and under-shirt, that monarch, curved scimitar in hand, was fighting bravely against three foes. Around him were the bodies of the missing guards, fallen in the service of their king, although the assassins’ corpses which littered the floor showed that they had given a good account of themselves. Two guards yet survived, but they were outnumbered and unlikely to live much longer.
I would change that if I could. With a cry, I unlimbered Bear-Killer and wielded it clubwise, delivering a strong blow to the head of one of the sultan’s assailants. Beside me, Hadschi Halef Omar knocked another to the ground, leaving just one to compass the sultan’s death if he could.
“Kill those dogs!” that worthy shouted to his fellow-assassins, who were still hotly engaged with the guards. “Attack them! I will finish the sultan - leave his guards for later!” They turned to do just that, but I was quicker than they: I punched forward with Bear-Killer, striking one in the stomach and doubling him over, and then brought the rifle barrel up to knock out another. I saw that Halef Omar was holding the remaining murderers at bay, and turned my attention back to their leader. He was about to stab the sultan in the heart, and not having time to bring my rifle to bear, I slammed my clenched fist into his temple in the way that had caused the Apache to name me “Old Shatterhand.” He fell heavily to the floor, his work unfinished, the sultan saved.
“Flee!” cried the other assassins, and did just that. “After them!” I called to Halef Omar. “Don’t let them escape!” He obeyed at once, and to my gratification, the guards did as well, leaving the sultan and myself alone in the room.
“A narrow escape, I fear!” I said. “But you are saved from these cowards. Do you know who sent them?”
“Surely it is the slave-lord Zubayr, who wishes to rule this land as he does Wadai. Only he would send hired swords to murder the person of a king in his own throne-room.”
“What a stroke of fortune!” I cried, though the circumstances were hardly fortunate. “My enemy, himself a cowardly slaver, has fled to Zubayr, and it is there that I must find him!”
The sultan’s eyes lit with gratitude. “Unbeliever though you are, I owe you my life,” he said, “and we have a common enemy. You are a most valiant fighter, and tomorrow, you shall lead a company of my finest troops in search of the slave-lord. I name you their captain, and their officers will answer to you with their lives.”
Just then, Hadschi Halef Omar returned to the room, panting with the effort of the chase. “We stopped all but two of them,” he said, “but one flung a jar of oil in my path, and made his escape while I slipped. He is the son of a trollop and a poxed camel, the mud that I scrape off my shoes, the leavings of last year’s vultures…”
“He is all of that, no doubt, but now he will warn his master,” I said, wishing I had gone myself to help with the hunt. “But we must follow anyway: make ready, for tomorrow we ride…”
*******
… It was close to evening on the second day, and I scanned the grassland for signs of the fugitive assassins’ passage, determined that he would lead me to his evil master. I pulled up Rih’s reins to confer with the lieutenant of my fine troops, a tall and handsome man of ebony complexion, resplendent in steel chain-mail with an amulet on his forehead and a Koran hung around his neck in a gilded case. “Look there,” I said, pointing to where the grass had been trampled. “They passed this way not more than an hour ago. No doubt they will camp soon for the night. We will ride until nightfall ourselves, and then I will sneak up to their campsite and hope to learn their plans.”
Soon night had fallen, and forgoing my evening meal, I walked out of our camp. Winnetou the Apache had taught me to track at night, and I used the skill to best advantage, and in less than an hour, I saw a campfire in the distance which surely belonged to my enemies. I dropped to the ground and crawled in slowly, moving silently as the Indians had taught and keeping low so I would not be seen.
It was not long before I heard voices - the two escaped assassins talking among themselves. “We will reach Zubayr’s camp tomorrow,” one of them said, “and then we will be revenged upon these dogs. They say that Ibn Asl’s lieutenant is there, and that he hunts the infidel that killed his master, no doubt the same one that thwarted our plans at the sultan’s palace. He has brought men to our aid, that we will crush the unbeliever forever.”
“But there is something we must do first,” the other said. “Zubayr will not turn aside from attacking the Master’s settlement at N’guigmi, for he hates those men like poison, and striking at them will weaken the Sultan’s rule. He will seize the settlement tomorrow evening, and kill its people or take them for slaves.”
How furious I was to hear of this evil scheme! The slave-trade on the Atlantic was long suppressed, of course, defeated by the British navy and the valiant armies of Sokoto and the Toucouleur, and Bornu, once a slave emporium itself, had banned the practice through the enlightenment of the Master’s teaching, but to the east, the snake of the slave-trade still lived , and it was the duty of all good men to fight it. Silently, I left the murderers’ camp to rejoin my men, because we must protect N’guigmi from such a fate at all costs.
Hadschi Halef Omar was sitting by the fire, no doubt thinking of his Hanneh and their child yet to be born, when I returned to reveal the slave-lord’s plan. “Such evil!” he exclaimed. “And to think that once, in this land, a lone woman clad in gold might walk with none to fear but God!”
“Such may have been true in the time of the great king Idris Alooma,” I said, knowing whence that saying had come, “but now war in its cruelty has come even to those who seek peace. We shall ride to N’guigmi tomorrow and make ready to defend it.”
And so we did. N’guigmi sat by the lakeshore, with a thorn fence like so many native villages, but with the houses uniform and arranged in orderly rows, none bigger or more ornate than any other. The men and women in the fields and boats were clad in simple white, and each was about their tasks. I marveled to see that there was no difference in the work they did: women tended cattle, men washed clothes and pots, both taught the children who had come from many villages to be schooled.
“That is how the Master’s folk live,” Halef Omar said, seeing my surprise. “All the people share all the work, so that none may miss any facet of Allah’s world. The true believer must experience all of God’s creation.”
As I was thinking on this, a man of seventy years strode to the fence, empty-handed. “What is your business here with soldiers?” he challenged. “This is a community of the Master, a place of faith and peace, and we shed no blood.”
“Do you see?” Halef Omar said triumphantly. “Here the Prophet’s followers live in peace as God intended. Can your Christians say the same? Is this not proof that Islam is the true faith?”
“Those who truly follow the teachings of Christ can say the same,” I answered. “Far too many do not - but is that not also true of Muslims? Are we not preparing to defend this village from Muslim slavers?”
“They are dogs, not Muslims,” Halef Omar said, but he fell silent.
I turned back to the marabout, for that is surely what he was. “We mean your people no harm,” I said. “Far from it, in fact - the slave-lord Zubayr plans to attack you tonight with two hundred soldiers, and we have been sent by the Sultan to defend you. We will take up positions around your settlement and prepare to meet the attack.” The marabout nodded his assent and, his business done, returned to his work.
“We should lie in wait behind the thorn so we will not be seen,” the officer of my men said, “and take them by surprise when they come.”
“That’s a good plan,” I agreed, “but in the Sudan, I’ve seen slavers set fire to the thorn-fences, so that the villagers must flee into their clutches or burn. We must stop that from happening at all costs. Half the troops will wait behind the thorn, and half will find a sheltered place outside the village, so that we may fall upon the attackers from behind and stop them from ever reaching the fence.” The officer, Baba Gana by name, obeyed my command, taking half his men behind the thorn while I sought a stand of hedges where the other half could hide.
Soon this had been done, and there was nothing to do but wait for Zubayr’s forces to arrive and give battle. As evening fell, the first sign of them appeared: a cloud of dust in the distance and the sound of hoofbeats growing closer. “Don’t fire until I do,” I told the soldiers, “and then shoot at their horses.”
Zubayr’s men came into sight, and I could see that they were indeed carrying torches to set fire to the thorn. I let them pass my position so that they would be between my men and Baba Gana’s, and then I fired. This time I did not use Bear-Killer, but instead the Henry Carbine, which could fire sixteen shots without reloading. I fired, one shot every two seconds, at the horses of Zubayr and his officers; I was sorry for the poor beasts, who had never asked to join this battle, but if I were to shed as little human blood as possible, that was what I must do. Around me, my soldiers were doing the same.
At last, I could see that the horses were starting to panic. “Now go in among them!” I shouted. “Capture them if you can!” As one, we left the shelter of the hedge and ran toward the enemy, a few of whom had the presence of mind to fire but most of whom fled. And their flight, of course, took them toward the thorn where Baba Gana and his men were waiting. Caught between the two forces, those who still had horses rode away, and the others were easily captured in their disorganized state.
“Now we will take them to the city to face justice,” I said. “Is Zubayr there? Is Ibn Asl’s lieutenant?” But as I surveyed the prisoners, I failed to see either of them, and I knew they had escaped to scheme another day…
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wolf_brother
Banned
The Toucouleur are still an empire in the 1890s? What's the time period that piece is meant to be set in, though you have it as published in 1897.
It's set in the 1890s - all of May's travel stories were (supposedly) contemporary. However, while the story mentions that Sokoto and the Toucouleur suppressed the Atlantic slave trade, it doesn't say that they still existed as nations at the time.
Not quite Flashman. The Flashman stories are a parody of nineteenth-century adventure fiction; Karl May was the real deal. Where Fraser was cynical, May was earnest - painfully so, to the point of self-parody for the modern reader (which may be where his work feels somewhat Flashman-like).
May's heroes were heroes, archetypal Mary Sues (or as they'll come to be called in this universe, "Sallie Maes"), which means that they share the author's values and his, um, eccentricities. Some of them read wrong to a modern audience - there was a good deal of unconscious racism in his stories, although I toned it down somewhat in light of the greater respect in which West Africans are held in this timeline - but his characters also tend to respect the customs of the 'natives' and the value of human life. The heroes really do go to absurd lengths not to kill and to beg mercy on behalf of defeated enemies, although sometimes they're willing to let others take revenge for them. They were also ridiculously lucky in making escapes and getting enemies to reveal their plans.
Karl May is a guilty pleasure, but hey, it's one of the ways I improve my German.
We'll see some Flashman later in the timeline, incidentally - some things are just too good to butterfly away. And an Edgar Rice Burroughs analogue... from West Africa. And the Soyinkas and Achebes, of course, although the center of literary gravity in this universe will be further north.
(And for the record, May's portrayal of the Bornu capital city and Belloist customs are roughly accurate, the saying about Idris Alooma's reign is genuine, and Zubayr was a historical person in both OTL and this timeline. Everything else in the story is in-universe fiction, and dime-novel fiction at that, although there's one thing toward the very beginning that may hint at a spoiler. Oh, and the notion that the Bornu are descended from Assyrians - that was what they believed themselves.)
Very interesting to see. Why did you make the literary choice to jump ahead forty years? It was very well-written, and gave me an idea of European attitudes of the time (which I'm sure is what you intended). Will you jump back, or continue on from 1897?
Keep up the great work, Jonathan!
Cheers,
Ganesha
Keep up the great work, Jonathan!
Cheers,
Ganesha
The next post will return to the late 1840s - there's a great deal that has to happen between then and 1897. I made the literary choice for the reason you stated - in order to highlight the European attitudes which will give context to some of what happens in the interim. I also wanted an interlude that would put Bornu and Belloism at center stage - well, that and to have a bit of fun.
Nice touch with the the Karl May adventure - that was unexpected, as he's an author that in my experience is almost unknown outside the German-speaking countries. Brought back pleasant boyhood memories...
Actually, if you e.g. check the maps that come with the classic hardcover editions, the Old Shatterhand and Kara ben Nemsi stories are mostly set in the 1860s/70s. But that's something you can butterfly away in this TL...
Actually, if you e.g. check the maps that come with the classic hardcover editions, the Old Shatterhand and Kara ben Nemsi stories are mostly set in the 1860s/70s. But that's something you can butterfly away in this TL...