AHC: African power

So I was sitting at a Hibachi restaurant this fine Father's Day. The chef comes out after the black family sitting next to me take their order. All of a sudden, I thought about how I could make an AH where I was sitting in America, with an Asian family sitting next to me, and a Black chef making African cuisine.

So far, the only thing I could come up with was a Mali that somehow maintained its powerful status in Medieval Africa, connected with the west African coast, and eventually made it to the New World along with the Europeans.

So the challenge is to get Mali charged up and ready for colonial expansion by 1500, expand into the New World far enough so that they eventually have a growing colony that becomes just as, if not more, powerful than the homeland.
 
There was an unfinished timeline about this a while ago, it had Mali colonizing Brazil, I'm too lazy to look for it though.
 

ninebucks

Banned
There are doubtless easier ways for African cuisine to penetrate North America, (moreso than it already has, the USA is certainly the world's greatest gastronomic melting pot).
 
There are doubtless easier ways for African cuisine to penetrate North America, (moreso than it already has, the USA is certainly the world's greatest gastronomic melting pot).

Certainly, but that's not the point of the thread. He was just talking about what inspired this.

I think that your best bet for a Malian colonial empire is to have them pull a Meiji (of sorts). Perhaps buy caravels and gunpowder and other European goodies from the Portugases or Spainses.
 
Thinking about this, it really shows how rare seafaring talent is in the world - just about every nation relies on waterways for communication and trade, but very, very few have every really tried it on an oceanic scale.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
I think Mali would be better off consolidate their position in Africa. Beside that it would be good idea to convert to Christianity and to send representants to Europe and get their own bishops, this could make European knowledge, technology and experts flow into the country more easily and later on newly discovered crops and domestic animals from Asia and the Americas.
 
I think Mali would be better off consolidate their position in Africa. Beside that it would be good idea to convert to Christianity and to send representants to Europe and get their own bishops, this could make European knowledge, technology and experts flow into the country more easily and later on newly discovered crops and domestic animals from Asia and the Americas.

Wouldn't that make them even more tentative to the Moroccans (or any other of their Muslim neighbours)?
 

Valdemar II

Banned
Wouldn't that make them even more tentative to the Moroccans (or any other of their Muslim neighbours)?

They didn't really have any Muslim neighbours (there was a desert between them and Morocco), and if they converted in the 16th century the Portugeese and the Spanish could serve as alternative marked for their main export; slaves.
 
I think Mali would be better off consolidate their position in Africa. Beside that it would be good idea to convert to Christianity and to send representants to Europe and get their own bishops, this could make European knowledge, technology and experts flow into the country more easily and later on newly discovered crops and domestic animals from Asia and the Americas.

Would that have been possible at all, for Mali (or even later Songhai)...

The nobility was Muslim in both empires, which kind of meant that you couldn't convert. But then again, until the later centuries much of the population of both areas were mainly various pagan religions and not Muslim (or at least only nominally Muslim).

But then again, the Wolof Empire almost converted to Catholicism, and its rulers were Muslim. So I suppose there is a historical precedent for conversion. Maybe if you get a Spanish presence in the Gambia River area, they can introduce Christianity to Mali (or Songhai, which IMO is a better bet for an African power).

Would conversion be possible then? Doing a little research, it seems that most of the population was pagan in the Songhai Empire. Even those who were Muslim retained some pagan ideas (one Songhai ruler stated that he could turn himself into a vulture, and had anyone who pointed out the paganism there killed :D), so it might work.
 
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