Africa not falling behind

Africa falling behind definitively only happened in the Renaissance,Asia too IMO. From what i can tell prior empires like Aksum and Nok and Kush. dawned the antiquity age and the Medieval era was Shown to have great Zimbabwe,Ghana,Mali,and the christian Nubian and Ethopian kingdoms held on. From what i can tell the kingdoms i named were not far behind Europe,their were knights atop horses from the middle East in Africa the Nubian archers even in the medieval age were some of the best in the world at the time. The Nok developed iron on their own not to far from the years of the European iron age and Nubia a while after. Though it can be argued that lack of guns caused the lag,but in many areas even this isnt true. Nations like Benin and Asante empire's armies were entirely armed with firearms,though by the time of the scramble for Africa many were outdated,the importation only stopped around 1830 so they were decent.(on a local level Benin learned to produce firearms,and tried and failed to produce firearms at a national level but locally they continued to be produced.) Finally sources albeit somewhat contested show standards of living in Africa and Europe were around the same until 1700 when Africa began to level off and slightly went down while Europe greatly went up. The same happened to Asia in 1800.


That was longer then i meant for it to be but essentially with a POD that is post 500 AD find a way for Africa not to greatly lag behind Europe.
 

Albert.Nik

Banned
Africa's Geography wouldn't do much help. A better historical contact would be needed for Africa to not lag behind. A Green Sahara would certainly help but is ASB. But without that,could a possible technology that could help any one side to cross the desert and forest easily and hence establish a connection in that era? This is the actual question we need to be looking at.
 
@Obabigpapi are we talking about sub-Saharan Africa here, or the whole of Africa? Some of the African nations such as Morocco and Egypt did not fall behind until the 1750s or later.

In the case of Morocco, a telling anecdote is the fate of the villagers of Baltimore, Ireland. In 1631, a fleet of Barbary Corsairs (Pirates) from Morocco attacked the coast of Ireland and took away many people as slaves. Efforts were made over the years to ransom back the prisoners. But in a recent book published about this incident, the author notes that the standard of living at the time was higher in Morocco than in Ireland, and many of them didn't want to go back!

In the case of Egypt, advances were made in Cotton production and industrialisation in the early 19th century, and the country was moving towards an industrial revolution, especially between 1812 and 1840. Investments were made in manufacturing and canal irrigation, and Egypt experienced an export boom. Although these efforts eventually did not produce an industrialised Egypt, it can be argued they came close.
 
As the others have said, are you talking about subsahara africa?

In that case, there are some serious issues in large parts of the continent: Nature, the Tse Tse etc. etc. That’s pretty hard to overcome.

Also the Sahara is a quite hard border to overcome for continuous cultural exchange before major colonization efforts. And developing a European level while isolated would be ASB imo.

Maybe I see an option for a Muslim Sahel State (see my signature lol) that develops early trade relationships with European nations and is strong enough to deter possible aggression by them while bypassing the trans-Sahara trade and promoting cultural exchange?

We could kinda cause a “Muslim Humanist reform” akin to the renaissance, I think.
 

Albert.Nik

Banned
Avoid the Sahara go by the ocean and devolp a trade network
Could Romans,Greeks,Egyptians or earlier peoples in the surrounding have established a greater contact and settlement with SSA? They could but needed to be more advanced and for that timeline,I have created an another thread. Crossing the desert followed by extremely thick forest and vice versa would be very difficult otherwise.
 
There was major subsaharan trade; how did Islam get to west Africa?
Yah but it was only for a short tile compared to the rest of time and it wa s still very treacherous and it wasn’t really Islam it was a combination and a very small amount too
 

Zachariah

Banned
Couple of suggestions- how about if the Kilwa Empire gets gunpowder, at around the same time as the other 'gunpowder empires' (Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires) or even earlier (i.e, at around the same time as the Majapahit Empire)?https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/how-powerful-could-a-kilwa-empire-have-been.421042/ Or if the Chinese settlements established on the Swahili Coast by shipwrecked sailors from Zheng He's Fourth Expedition had been more successful, and established as permanent colonies? https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/bcs-swahili-chinese.426719/
 
Have Paul III not place the Kongo under the control of the Bishop of Sao Tome, and keep the Portuguese too busy to meddle in the Kongolese church. This would keep the Kongo in contact with Rome and thus the rest of Europe instead of being isolated under Portuguese control. If the Kongo is seen as Christian they could probably have an easier time getting involved in the spread of renaissance and modern technology.
 
Could Romans,Greeks,Egyptians or earlier peoples in the surrounding have established a greater contact and settlement with SSA? They could but needed to be more advanced and for that timeline,I have created an another thread. Crossing the desert followed by extremely thick forest and vice versa would be very difficult otherwise.
Rome did eventually come into contact with ssa all the way to North Nigeria,but it was very limited.
 
Musa of Mali had so much gold, he could have used it to develop his country. Either with help from the Europeans, or the Arabs. But for some reason, he didn't want to.
 
Ok, let's back up-how was Africa underdeveloped, what are we defining as "underdeveloped" or "Falling behind", and what are we comparing it to (and when?). We can't make categorical statements about a continent of several billion people today without having a sense of what we are talking about.
 
Musa of Mali had so much gold, he could have used it to develop his country. Either with help from the Europeans, or the Arabs. But for some reason, he didn't want to.

We can see major improvements under Musa especially (from the expansion of Sankhore to an influx of Muslim scholars), but - I agree - it was nowhere close to what he could have done.
Already giving Sankhore a more important secular branch could have helped immensely to acquire and store practical knowledge.

Direct European influence in the region - as I’ve just stated in my own thread - is really nonexistent prior to the invention of the caravel, since the earlier ships had difficulties returning from beyond Cape Bojador due to unfavorable currents/winds.

Basically pre 1350 there were only two attempts (I know of) to go further south: The Vivaldi Brothers around 1310 and Jaume Ferrer (1346) Both never returned.

Development wasnt really Mali's problem. Constant infighting was.
Mande Empire was destoyed by it and the imbecile later Mansas.
Tribalism is evil.
However - without later continuous exchange with advanced European nations I can’t possible think of the Malians being on par with Europe by 1750 - especially with the Trans-Sahara trade starting to decline due to trade routes shifting to the Seas.


Thanks for advertising my TL haha. Really appreciate your Input there :)


A very last thought: we should not forget that Europe at the time of the Renaisscance was not a homogenous place. It would be unfair to compare the beacon of European Art/Learning/Architecture to the average African peasant.

While Europe leaped forward following the Renaisscanse on average, there were a lot of places left that didn’t profit from these developments instantly.
 

SwampTiger

Banned
Note that Hanno the Navigator reached Guinea and returned, using galleys. Only a few additional Carthaginian voyages followed. The natives were unfriendly. The trip difficult. The profit non-existent. The Carthaginians already controlled the northern link of the trans-Sahara gold route. The fact that the Carthaginians did not persevere in attempts to each the gold sources, speaks volumes of the difficulty.

The sub-Saharan peoples generally fell behind in the technology race. The exploitable divisions of the various groups aided the European colonization efforts. The Europeans suffered many setbacks when facing organized opposition.
 
Note that Hanno the Navigator reached Guinea and returned, using galleys. Only a few additional Carthaginian voyages followed. The natives were unfriendly. The trip difficult. The profit non-existent. The Carthaginians already controlled the northern link of the trans-Sahara gold route. The fact that the Carthaginians did not persevere in attempts to each the gold sources, speaks volumes of the difficulty.

The sub-Saharan peoples generally fell behind in the technology race. The exploitable divisions of the various groups aided the European colonization efforts. The Europeans suffered many setbacks when facing organized opposition.

I would like to add that there is no hard proof how far Hanno actually came, but still I would argue that the consensus is that he went past Cape Bojador.

Also this - according to the few accounts we have - was not a small exploration effort with a few ships. This was a large expedition with (presumably) thousands of people involved.


In your conclusions I absolutely agree. Imo it is not only necessary to consider how something could have happened. It’s equally important to explain WHY it should have happened.
 
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