Thanks. Could you give me a summery of this TL since it seems rather long with its POD in the 1840s and I don't have much time on my hands to read through it all.
I'll preface this by saying you
should read it. It's easily one of the best TL's on the board. Don't have much time? Make time.
Basically, Afro-Brazilian Muslim ex-slaves win a revolt (that they lost in OTL) thanks to a mercurial leader who synthesizes French Revolutionary politics with Islam. After their successful revolt, their leader takes them to Africa where they use their superior weaponry and tactics to topple the Sokoto Caliphate, creating a short-lived republic in what is in OTL northern Nigeria. One of the republic's aims is to industrialize (in addition to ending the slave trade), which it slowly starts to do until a series of events lead to internal political struggles that turn out to be ruinous. However, the butterflies flap their wings, and soon other nearby African states are industrializing as well - Europeans as a result start to take Africans slightly more seriously (i.e. accord them slightly more respect) than in OTL, opening the door for broader cooperation (though still horribly one-sided in the European's favour, of course). There's also another new sect of Islam that emerges and makes waves in the Muslim world, and
stuff actually happens in South America!
As I said, read it.