This alternate history challenge is to get and have a colony in the America's that is majority Muslim. It can be as small as say, Puerto Rico, or as big as you think you can get it. It must last for at least a hundred years, though plenty of bonus points if you can get it to last all the way up to at least 1900.
AHC: Colony of Muslims in the America's
- Thread starter Kayin Dreemurr
- Start date
Perhaps a scenario wherein Islam becomes dominant amongst certain West African coastal tribes and said Muslim tribe is conquered and sold into slavery to the Spanish or another European Power very early on. This tribe once reaching a Caribbean island, plans a revolt and in a fashion not dissimilar to that of Haiti, rebels with an ensemble of pagan African slaves and remove their Spanish overlords for a time. Due to the structures and communally enforced nature of Islam, the freed slaves establish a form of sharia on the island and start a quasi government on the island where they convert, trade or wage war with the native amerindians of the island. This likely does not last until 1900, but it creates an interesting scenario perhaps.
I think either a United Maghreb or Muslim Spain would do this, to varying degrees, and in significant numbers.
Short of those, you could have a United West Africa under the Mali, perhaps under a continuing Keita dynasty. Establish more control over the whole of West Africa, and when the Portuguese turn up, either trade with Portugal for ships and materials, and start an oversea trade - or send an agent to Morocco for the same purpose.
You could then have Malians conquering territory, selling slaves, establishing trade outposts in Brazil, and later setting up their own plantation economies there, and becoming as integral to Atlantic Trade as anyone else.
Short of those, you could have a United West Africa under the Mali, perhaps under a continuing Keita dynasty. Establish more control over the whole of West Africa, and when the Portuguese turn up, either trade with Portugal for ships and materials, and start an oversea trade - or send an agent to Morocco for the same purpose.
You could then have Malians conquering territory, selling slaves, establishing trade outposts in Brazil, and later setting up their own plantation economies there, and becoming as integral to Atlantic Trade as anyone else.
Haiti was able to maintain independence more or less, so I don't see why these wouldn't.
Planet of Hats
Donor
*slowly raising head*
The problem with doing it through Mali or Ghana is a lack of port infrastructure. While the Mali Empire theoretically reached the Atlantic coast, it's not like there was a vast port infrastructure or huge cities in what's now Senegal, nor a huge naval tradition - trade was mainly north-south, with Berbers and Tuaregs trading in salt and the Sahelian peoples trading back gold and slaves. Most of that trade was conducted overland. Moreover, the political centre was more towards the Niger than towards the Atlantic coast. You'd need a POD which would result in Mali getting ships in the water. Taking Mansa Musa at his word is tempting, but probably ill-advised.
Muslim Iberia is also possible but, again, you need history to unfold in such a way that Muslims from al-Andalus have a good reason to get a qarib or ten into the Atlantic. They have little incentive to do that; the salt-gold-and-slaves route connecting Awdaghost and Timbuktu to Sijilmasa and from there to al-Andalus is a land route, and most Andalusian trade takes place in the Mediterranean in the form of peddling cash crops. Al-Andalus has the advantage of having caravels before Christian Europe does, considering that the caravel was developed from the Arabic qarib; if you can engineer a reason for Andalusian sailors to want to explore the Atlantic, they'll eventually encounter the Atlantic gyre and the trade winds, and someone will eventually discover there's land over thataway.
That said, would the Moors really colonize? Depends which al-Andalus we're talking about. Are we talking about a surviving Umayyad Emirate or Caliphate? Are we talking about a rump al-Andalus under the auspices of the fanatical Almohads? It all depends.
The problem with doing it through Mali or Ghana is a lack of port infrastructure. While the Mali Empire theoretically reached the Atlantic coast, it's not like there was a vast port infrastructure or huge cities in what's now Senegal, nor a huge naval tradition - trade was mainly north-south, with Berbers and Tuaregs trading in salt and the Sahelian peoples trading back gold and slaves. Most of that trade was conducted overland. Moreover, the political centre was more towards the Niger than towards the Atlantic coast. You'd need a POD which would result in Mali getting ships in the water. Taking Mansa Musa at his word is tempting, but probably ill-advised.
Muslim Iberia is also possible but, again, you need history to unfold in such a way that Muslims from al-Andalus have a good reason to get a qarib or ten into the Atlantic. They have little incentive to do that; the salt-gold-and-slaves route connecting Awdaghost and Timbuktu to Sijilmasa and from there to al-Andalus is a land route, and most Andalusian trade takes place in the Mediterranean in the form of peddling cash crops. Al-Andalus has the advantage of having caravels before Christian Europe does, considering that the caravel was developed from the Arabic qarib; if you can engineer a reason for Andalusian sailors to want to explore the Atlantic, they'll eventually encounter the Atlantic gyre and the trade winds, and someone will eventually discover there's land over thataway.
That said, would the Moors really colonize? Depends which al-Andalus we're talking about. Are we talking about a surviving Umayyad Emirate or Caliphate? Are we talking about a rump al-Andalus under the auspices of the fanatical Almohads? It all depends.
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Economically speaking, what we have with al-Andalus is a version of Spain and Portugal that's less tied into the trade of Europe and more tied into the trade of North Africa. I have to imagine it would occur to them that if they can sail down the coast, they can cut out a lot of middle men in their trade with Mali et al.
Planet of Hats
Donor
But there's no port in Mali for them to put in at, is the thing. Even if there were, there'd still be middlemen - the Akan goldfields are nowhere near the obvious places for an Andalusian ship to land, namely Senegal. Most of the gold is actually in OTL Ghana (ie. Ashantiland, maybe northy into Brong-Ahafo, or even up into where the Mossi live) and Ivory Coast, and some around Bamako. There are certainly settlements along the Bight of Benin, but the incentive for the Andalusians to explore that far down is scant because from their perspective, they're getting the gold anyway, through the hands of Berbers who trade it through the Maghreb.
There just is no default driver which would spur al-Andalus to get into maritime trade down the Atlantic coast, especially with so much of the coast inhospitable until you get to about Senegal and there being no obvious ports waiting for them. The Andalusian economy is also not set up right to do it. They were set up to use their awesome irrigation networks and waterwheels and inherited Roman infrastructure to grow cash crops, which they'd then sell along with luxury goods.
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A stronger, more stable Morocco with more leaders as good as Ahmad al-Mansur could probably take a smaller Caribbean island and hold it into the present (assuming Morocco successfully modernises and all). Ahmad al-Mansur had expressed an interest in Caribbean colonisation, and this was a field nations like Courland, Sweden, and Denmark were able to compete at. The Anglo-Moroccan alliance would be useful to keep Spain or France away. It might make a good base for privateers of all nations, redirecting the energy of the Barbary pirates, the pirates at Salé, etc. to "legitimate" activities and also keeping Moroccan territory safe.
They could succeed at first and make a quilombo perhaps (and maybe negotiate with the Brazilian government to send them to Africa as in a certain TL here), but long term success in Brazil would probably elude the Malé. It would probably be a more Islamic version of the Sabinada revolt a few years later which was also crushed by the Brazilian government.