I know several of you are hoping for an update to my "Guns of the Monomotapa" timeline, but the computer with all of my saved information is being repaired. Don't worry, I fully intend on continuing that timeline, as I have the latest update half-finished already, as well as a pre-made outline that will hopefully lead to the present-day.
In the meantime, I've also been working on a new timeline, that explores another popular African WI: What if Mansa Abubakari II of Mali actually pursued a successful exploration and colonization of the New World? This is what I think would have happened.
1310 AD: Abubakari II, mansa of the Mali Empire, is intrigued by scholarly speculation of a round, “gourd-shaped” Earth. At the expense of his everyday duties, Abubakari II becomes obsessed with determining this hypothesis. In what could be seen as an act of mid-life crisis, he funds a spectacular exploration effort, having 200-400 sailboats of the finest Mediterranean models built and placed at the mouth of the Senegal River. He hires a large, diverse crew comprising all professions – sailors, traders, builders, artists, warriors, and learned men, and supplies them with enough rations to last for two years. The enormous fleet heads off across the great western ocean, relying on a unique system of drum communication.
1311 AD: A captain returns to Abubakari II, reporting to the mansa that the expedition came upon land at the other end of the ocean. At the site of modern-day Recife, northeastern Brazil, the crew established a make-shift colony and would soon be in need of additional provisions. Excited at this discovery, Abubakari II assembles an even larger fleet of two thousand boats that he intends to lead for himself.
1312 AD: Abubakari II abdicates the throne of Mali, handing it down to his brother, Kankan Musa. He decides instead that he will journey across the ocean to rule this new land he calls “Boure Bambouk”, after the richest goldfields of Mali. He remarks that he will bring Islam to the furthest reaches of the world.
1313 AD: The third year in the fledgling colony of Boure Bambouk, the first under the direction of Abubakari II, sees its highs and lows. Abubakari establishes the first diplomatic contacts with the curious Tupi tribes of the region, encouraging trade with them. Through this trade, the colonists of Boure Bambouk are first acquainted with New World crops, including corn, beans, peanuts, tobacco, cotton, and tropical fruits. Such agricultural commodities will allow the colony to become self-sustaining. Likewise, Old World livestock, such as cattle, sheep, and guinea fowl, are first introduced to the Tupi, as are cereal grains like rice, millet, and sorghum.
1314 AD: Abubakari sends a boat back to Mali to petition his brother for more support. Mansa Musa is impressed by the new crops presented to him, and garners more settlers and aid to send to Boure Bambouk. Thus begins a back-and-forth exchange of Bamboukian goods in return for Malian assistance. Agriculture of corn, beans, peanuts, peppers, and cotton will set off a population explosion in Mali, that will provide future settlers from across the sea.
1316 AD: Meanwhile, the Tupi are devastated by Old World diseases as a consequence of the flourishing trade. It was their belief that the Mandinka were sent by their supreme god, Maira, which led to Tupi to approach the Mandinka with hospitality rather than hostility. Abubakari convinces the local Tupi chieftain that his god, Allah, and the Tupi god, Maira, are one and the same, and that the sacrificial belief system of the Tupi is corrupted. The Tupi chieftain converts to the “true faith” of Islam, and wills his daughter to Abubakari in marriage.
1318 AD: Abubakari gives birth to a son, producing a mixed-race heir to the throne of Boure Bambouk. The Tupi become increasingly dependent on Boure Bambouk, setting up villages around the outskirts of the Mandinka colony. In an effort to promote unity and encourage intermingling, Abubakari permits Tupi migration into his colony, as many curious Tupi abandon their tribal culture in favor of settled life of Boure Bambouk. Marriages between Tupi and Mandinka become more and more common as Islam takes hold among the devastated indigenous peoples, a pidgin Tupi dialect becomes the region’s lingua franca, and a new multiethnic society becomes dominant.
1322 AD: In an effort to stabilize his colonial government, Abubakari works to establish a Gbara, or Great Assembly, much like the one in Mali. Made up of village leaders and Islamicized Tupi chieftains, the Gbara meets for the first time works to modify their own constitution. The proposal they come up with is based heavily on the ancient Malian system of law, the Kouroukan Fouga, also taking into account those aboriginal Tupi customs and cultural rules which have penetrated the multiracial population of Boure Bambouk.
1324 AD: Mansa Musa makes his famous pilgrimage to Mecca, bringing knowledge of Boure Bambouk to the learned scholars of Cairo and beyond. Mansa Musa promotes literacy in the Arabic script throughout his realms. Explorers from Boure Bambouk conduct expeditions to explore the coasts of Brazil, and with funding from Mansa Musa, new settlements are established within the vicinity of the original colony. The initial headquarter trading post, now a burgeoning capital city, undergoes a rapid period of growth, as do the surrounding Tupi villages which are eventually subsumed and incorporated as neighborhoods.
1330 AD: Abubakari, now learned in the Arabic script, establishes schools and imports literate scholars to teach in them. He also has prominent scholars create a literate version of the Tupi dialect spoken by most of his colony, including a version of the Koran translated into Tupi. As the Mandinka population of Boure Bambouk continues to grow, new settler colonies are founded as far away as the sites of Sao Luis in the west and Salvador to the south, which will spread Bamboukian culture to the native peoples of those regions.
1332 AD: Abubakari passes away and is succeeded by his eldest son, Mohammed. Though still an adolescent, the biracial mansa and his advisors will work to further integrate the multicultural society and create a more coherent government modeled after his uncle’s empire across the ocean. His religion, a version of Islam heavily fused with the most complimentary Tupi beliefs, is not much different from that of his subjects. In Boure Bambouk, the lines between Mandika and Tupi become sharply blurred as the country drifts further and further apart from Mali in terms of language, culture, and ideology.
1337 AD: Following the death of Mansa Kankan Musa of Mali, arguably its greatest emperor, his son and successor Maghan takes the throne. Maghan is an incompetent leader who is disdained for his wasteful spending. Even so, his reign is too short to have any long-term damage on the great shape of the state he inherited from his father. Now that a generation has passed between the split of Mali and Boure Bambouk, contact between the two states will become less and less frequent. Maghan and his successors have little interest in the far-away land across the sea, which holds little value to them now that all of its crops have been imported to Africa. Despite its namesake, Boure Bambouk has not turned up much profit in gold for it to be interesting to future Malian mansas.
1340 AD: Merchants from Boure Bambouk first reach the court of Mayapan in the Yucatan Peninsula. The Mayans are very intrigued by the Mandinka and their innovations, and in the ensuing years, a subtle but evident exchange of agricultural, technological, architectural, and philosophical influences will transfer between the two civilizations. Mohammed is likewise interesting in the Mayans, as trade goods of cacoa, vanilla, advocado, chile, pumpkin, and turkey trickle back to Boure Bambouk.
Map of Boure Bambouk growth:
In the meantime, I've also been working on a new timeline, that explores another popular African WI: What if Mansa Abubakari II of Mali actually pursued a successful exploration and colonization of the New World? This is what I think would have happened.
1310 AD: Abubakari II, mansa of the Mali Empire, is intrigued by scholarly speculation of a round, “gourd-shaped” Earth. At the expense of his everyday duties, Abubakari II becomes obsessed with determining this hypothesis. In what could be seen as an act of mid-life crisis, he funds a spectacular exploration effort, having 200-400 sailboats of the finest Mediterranean models built and placed at the mouth of the Senegal River. He hires a large, diverse crew comprising all professions – sailors, traders, builders, artists, warriors, and learned men, and supplies them with enough rations to last for two years. The enormous fleet heads off across the great western ocean, relying on a unique system of drum communication.
1311 AD: A captain returns to Abubakari II, reporting to the mansa that the expedition came upon land at the other end of the ocean. At the site of modern-day Recife, northeastern Brazil, the crew established a make-shift colony and would soon be in need of additional provisions. Excited at this discovery, Abubakari II assembles an even larger fleet of two thousand boats that he intends to lead for himself.
1312 AD: Abubakari II abdicates the throne of Mali, handing it down to his brother, Kankan Musa. He decides instead that he will journey across the ocean to rule this new land he calls “Boure Bambouk”, after the richest goldfields of Mali. He remarks that he will bring Islam to the furthest reaches of the world.
1313 AD: The third year in the fledgling colony of Boure Bambouk, the first under the direction of Abubakari II, sees its highs and lows. Abubakari establishes the first diplomatic contacts with the curious Tupi tribes of the region, encouraging trade with them. Through this trade, the colonists of Boure Bambouk are first acquainted with New World crops, including corn, beans, peanuts, tobacco, cotton, and tropical fruits. Such agricultural commodities will allow the colony to become self-sustaining. Likewise, Old World livestock, such as cattle, sheep, and guinea fowl, are first introduced to the Tupi, as are cereal grains like rice, millet, and sorghum.
1314 AD: Abubakari sends a boat back to Mali to petition his brother for more support. Mansa Musa is impressed by the new crops presented to him, and garners more settlers and aid to send to Boure Bambouk. Thus begins a back-and-forth exchange of Bamboukian goods in return for Malian assistance. Agriculture of corn, beans, peanuts, peppers, and cotton will set off a population explosion in Mali, that will provide future settlers from across the sea.
1316 AD: Meanwhile, the Tupi are devastated by Old World diseases as a consequence of the flourishing trade. It was their belief that the Mandinka were sent by their supreme god, Maira, which led to Tupi to approach the Mandinka with hospitality rather than hostility. Abubakari convinces the local Tupi chieftain that his god, Allah, and the Tupi god, Maira, are one and the same, and that the sacrificial belief system of the Tupi is corrupted. The Tupi chieftain converts to the “true faith” of Islam, and wills his daughter to Abubakari in marriage.
1318 AD: Abubakari gives birth to a son, producing a mixed-race heir to the throne of Boure Bambouk. The Tupi become increasingly dependent on Boure Bambouk, setting up villages around the outskirts of the Mandinka colony. In an effort to promote unity and encourage intermingling, Abubakari permits Tupi migration into his colony, as many curious Tupi abandon their tribal culture in favor of settled life of Boure Bambouk. Marriages between Tupi and Mandinka become more and more common as Islam takes hold among the devastated indigenous peoples, a pidgin Tupi dialect becomes the region’s lingua franca, and a new multiethnic society becomes dominant.
1322 AD: In an effort to stabilize his colonial government, Abubakari works to establish a Gbara, or Great Assembly, much like the one in Mali. Made up of village leaders and Islamicized Tupi chieftains, the Gbara meets for the first time works to modify their own constitution. The proposal they come up with is based heavily on the ancient Malian system of law, the Kouroukan Fouga, also taking into account those aboriginal Tupi customs and cultural rules which have penetrated the multiracial population of Boure Bambouk.
1324 AD: Mansa Musa makes his famous pilgrimage to Mecca, bringing knowledge of Boure Bambouk to the learned scholars of Cairo and beyond. Mansa Musa promotes literacy in the Arabic script throughout his realms. Explorers from Boure Bambouk conduct expeditions to explore the coasts of Brazil, and with funding from Mansa Musa, new settlements are established within the vicinity of the original colony. The initial headquarter trading post, now a burgeoning capital city, undergoes a rapid period of growth, as do the surrounding Tupi villages which are eventually subsumed and incorporated as neighborhoods.
1330 AD: Abubakari, now learned in the Arabic script, establishes schools and imports literate scholars to teach in them. He also has prominent scholars create a literate version of the Tupi dialect spoken by most of his colony, including a version of the Koran translated into Tupi. As the Mandinka population of Boure Bambouk continues to grow, new settler colonies are founded as far away as the sites of Sao Luis in the west and Salvador to the south, which will spread Bamboukian culture to the native peoples of those regions.
1332 AD: Abubakari passes away and is succeeded by his eldest son, Mohammed. Though still an adolescent, the biracial mansa and his advisors will work to further integrate the multicultural society and create a more coherent government modeled after his uncle’s empire across the ocean. His religion, a version of Islam heavily fused with the most complimentary Tupi beliefs, is not much different from that of his subjects. In Boure Bambouk, the lines between Mandika and Tupi become sharply blurred as the country drifts further and further apart from Mali in terms of language, culture, and ideology.
1337 AD: Following the death of Mansa Kankan Musa of Mali, arguably its greatest emperor, his son and successor Maghan takes the throne. Maghan is an incompetent leader who is disdained for his wasteful spending. Even so, his reign is too short to have any long-term damage on the great shape of the state he inherited from his father. Now that a generation has passed between the split of Mali and Boure Bambouk, contact between the two states will become less and less frequent. Maghan and his successors have little interest in the far-away land across the sea, which holds little value to them now that all of its crops have been imported to Africa. Despite its namesake, Boure Bambouk has not turned up much profit in gold for it to be interesting to future Malian mansas.
1340 AD: Merchants from Boure Bambouk first reach the court of Mayapan in the Yucatan Peninsula. The Mayans are very intrigued by the Mandinka and their innovations, and in the ensuing years, a subtle but evident exchange of agricultural, technological, architectural, and philosophical influences will transfer between the two civilizations. Mohammed is likewise interesting in the Mayans, as trade goods of cacoa, vanilla, advocado, chile, pumpkin, and turkey trickle back to Boure Bambouk.
Map of Boure Bambouk growth:
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