AHC: Make This Somehow Happen

Actually, why not use the plentiful source of labor that's right at hand? That is, their own people, or at least members of other African groups. That's where most of the OTL trade came from anyways. Look, if we're going to accept a slave economy in a scenario, why not assume that the people conducting it are as intelligent and practical as their OTL counterparts?

Or, since I figure part of this scenario is to mirror OTL in as many ways as possible, maybe we end up with a class of "indentured servants" from economically disadvantaged parts of Africa, who are still a cut above the actual European slaves...
 
Who says it's the Africans enslaving the Irish? Maybe it's the English selling their Irish neighbours so as to avoid raids upon their own shores...
 
You have to really screw Europe if you want to wank Africa logically. Perhaps have Europe... die? :D

Bubonic plague, methinks, or wank the Mongols enough to demolish European cutural/political institutions, even if they don't keep Europe.


I agree, funneling the Mongols onto Europe would definitely make them "ready" for Africa.

As far as I know: There is a fairly strong history of African empires et cetera that were intact until the Europeans showed up with guns et cetera. So, if the 12th and 13th century epic devastation of Europe by way of Mongol horde precludes European capacity to disrupt African empires, then, everything for this ahc becomes more likely.

It could be interesting in terms of having details reflect the "opposite" theme. From what I understand, Columbus had an African pilot on one of his ships in 1492. I'm pretty sure that an African explorer would be happy to have a couple Genoese ship-pilots aboard.


Regarding the Irish:

They seem pretty indestructible to me. Centuries of their being pounded on by one of OTL's most powerful empire-makers didn't seem to slow them down in terms of continuing to exist in large numbers with distinct culture and so on.

In terms of there not being enough Irish to go around, I don't know how familiar some of y'all are with OTL east coast United States, we have A LOT of Irish-descended folks, there is the opposite of a shortage of Irish-descended people in east coast metropolitan USA. (That's without consideration of Irish-descent population of other parts of the United States, which I'm sure is not nonexistent.)

To me, the idea of Africans taking Irish slaves in large numbers to the Americas and from there having a sizable group of Irish-descended people in the Americas by way of slave-traders --with full awareness of their "Roots," speaking of further "opposites" on details-- is appealing and feasible.
 
Who says it's the Africans enslaving the Irish? Maybe it's the English selling their Irish neighbours so as to avoid raids upon their own shores...


Which would also be appropriately analogous to OTL. There just don't seem to be enough Irish to power a continent-spanning slave economy with them alone.
 
Irish where used as slaves in the 1600's in Englands colonies in the West Indies, Virginia and New England most intermingled with the African slaves becoming the black Irish, Gaelic was still spoken in some Islands upto 100 years ago atleast one full Irish community still exists in one of the Islands.

But we wouldn't have had the population to keep it going or for a continent and they did suffer from the heat a lot dying from exposure and heat related illness's.
 
But not used to tropical diseases like Africans are, as our climates tend to be much dryer. Also, there is easier prey to be had, as we usually keep relatively up to date militarily, and don't tend to have a culture of enslaving ourselves as many west African tribes did.

Not totaly sure - there IS some tropical diseases around, like fevers.
 
Why is everyone focused on the Irish as slaves... there are whole other nations just waiting to be enslaved. :p

OP stipulated it in the first line. Personally, I don't think it''s a practical sole solution for the large-scale labor force that would be needed in such an economy either. So be it.
 

Ceranthor

Banned
The point of this isn't necessarily to only have Irish slaves; it's basically to get the world map to look like that by 1700.

This AHC is basically to get African/Asian/Mesoamerican superpowers with foreign colonies, and to have European slaves in the Americas. They don't have to be Irish; considering that the Chesapeake climate/African diseases might kill Northern Europeans, it would actually make more sense to get them from other places. Europeans don't necessarily have to be the only slaves in use either.
 
Sorry for taking this thread off track, but this reminds me... Can somebody tell me the name of an alternate history novel where Muslims (I think they were from North Africa or the Middle East), colonize North America?

This also reminds me of another thread, https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=219671, where Western Europe remains backward and Central Africa and Southeast Asia become the cultural centers of the world.

On-topic, related: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_slave_trade
 

Ceranthor

Banned
Are you referring to Lion's Blood, by Stephen Barnes? I think the Muslims involved were West Africans, though, not Arabs or North Africans. It's a great book, you should definitely check it out.
 
Are you referring to Lion's Blood, by Stephen Barnes? I think the Muslims involved were West Africans, though, not Arabs or North Africans. It's a great book, you should definitely check it out.

Might be that, I'm not exactly sure. Could be something else. I don't remember slavery being a big part of the story, though.
 
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I agree, funneling the Mongols onto Europe would definitely make them "ready" for Africa.

As far as I know: There is a fairly strong history of African empires et cetera that were intact until the Europeans showed up with guns et cetera. So, if the 12th and 13th century epic devastation of Europe by way of Mongol horde precludes European capacity to disrupt African empires, then, everything for this ahc becomes more likely.
Yes, quite likely.
Actually, it is possible even without Mongols destroying Europe.

For example: the Turkish tribes which created Ottoman Empire were not the most technologically and culturally advanced nation. But nevertheless they made a warrior elite in the Empire and they used most sophisticated military equipment of Europe and Asia. And they nearly took Vienna.

Let's imagine that some West-African Empire expanded to North-Western Africa at the time of Turks' prime conquering.
Here the Turks and the Africans after the initial bloody conflict came to terms to make peace among themselves (as being brother Muslims and stuff like that) and they cooperated to move against European infidels.

And the Turks and the Africans would divide Europe between them. The Africans would be wise enough to follow the Turks in borrowing new ways of warring.
My guess that the Africans would get Spain, France, British Isles and Scandinavia.

As for the Irish - they would be used in the African Empire's army. As a rule the nation which suffered most in the past is used by the new conquerors as support of the new regime.
And the Irish would constitute the core of the African elite 'janissaries' corps.
Lucky them! :D

*I insist that this is not total ASB. The only thing that Africans needed was a leader of some ability. Like Chaka Zulu.
Well some Africans with spears defeated Europeans even when those had machine guns.
 
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Yes, quite likely.
Actually, it is possible even without Mongols destroying Europe.

For example: the Turkish tribes which created Ottoman Empire were not the most technologically and culturally advanced nation. But nevertheless they made a warrior elite in the Empire and they used most sophisticated military equipment of Europe and Asia. And they nearly took Vienna.

Let's imagine that some West-African Empire expanded to North-Western Africa at the time of Turks' prime conquering.
Here the Turks and the Africans after the initial bloody conflict came to terms to make peace among themselves (as being brother Muslims and stuff like that) and they cooperated to move against European infidels.

And the Turks and the Africans would divide Europe between them. The Africans would be wise enough to follow the Turks in borrowing new ways of warring.
My guess that the Africans would get Spain, France, British Isles and Scandinavia.

As for the Irish - they would be used in the African Empire's army. As a rule the nation which suffered most in the past is used by the new conquerors as support of the new regime.
And the Irish would constitute the core of the African elite 'janissaries' corps.
Lucky them! :D

*I insist that this is not total ASB. The only thing that Africans needed was a leader of some ability. Like Chaka Zulu.
Well some Africans with spears defeated Europeans even when those had machine guns.
Even in Suleyman The Magnificent wet dreams this would be ASB, if the Ottoman empire where to continue expanding into europe through north africa then they would probably just work with Moroco to restore the Cordoba Caliphate or create the Osmali Caliphate. This also ignores the simple fact that neither group has the numbers to invade all of Europe and combined they would barely have enough to take peices of spain.
 
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Even in Suleyman The Magnificent wet dreams this would be ASB, if the Ottoman empire where to continue expanding into europe through north africa then they would probably just work with Moroco to restore the Cordoba Caliphate or create the Osmali Caliphate.

The biggest ASB I know about in 11 century A.D. was to imagine poor insignificant wild Mongolian tribes to conquer half of the world.
But it happened. These guys were lucky to have Temujin (Chengiz Khan).

Other Arab guys were lucky to have someone named Muhammad, creator of a new religion. And they had conquered their half of the world as well.

So why cannot you imagine that some Western-African guys were lucky to have some great ruler? (To conquer Europe in alliance with the Ottomans)
What is wrong about it? :confused: They don't deserve this?

One nation conquering other nations is quite often a dumb luck.
Sometimes it is a matter of a great ruler being born in the right time in the right place...
 
The biggest ASB I know about in 11 century A.D. was to imagine poor insignificant wild Mongolian tribes to conquer half of the world.
But it happened. These guys were lucky to have Temujin (Chengiz Khan).

Other Arab guys were lucky to have someone named Muhammad, creator of a new religion. And they had conquered their half of the world as well.

So why cannot you imagine that some Western-African guys were lucky to have some great ruler? (To conquer Europe in alliance with the Ottomans)
What is wrong about it? :confused: They don't deserve this?

One nation conquering other nations is quite often a dumb luck.
Sometimes it is a matter of a great ruler being born in the right time in the right place...
The Mongols had the advantage of a style of warfare no one had been exposed to yet, the arabs had the luck of catching the Byzantines as they where on decline. West Africa does not have either of those advantages and was sparsely populated. If the different nation where united under one strong ruler then they could probably create a powerful empire that with luck stays together but saying that one powerful leader could lead them to annex all of Europe even with the help of the ottomans is ridiculous. It is possible though to have them atleast attack into Europe and possibly take Al-Andalus if you have enough reasons for why it could work. It is impossible for them to take all of Europe though, manpower alone would make it impossible let alone the issues that would start happening because of christians rebelling.
 
The Mongols had the advantage of a style of warfare no one had been exposed to yet
Oh, you mean mounted archers and things like that? I see.
There was nothing(!) new in Mongolian style of warfare comparing to other mounted nomads all over the world (greatest of them of Turkish origin of course).

As a matter of fact this style had not changed too much for more then a thousand years. Since Scythian devastating invasions. And most definitely it had not changed at all since Avarian invasion to Europe.

the arabs had the luck of catching the Byzantines as they where on decline
The Byzantines were the strongest country on Earth at this time. They were so tough that they went on to 'decline' for about thousand years more. And definitely outlived the Arabs.
West Africa does not have either of those advantages and was sparsely populated. If the different nation where united under one strong ruler then they could probably create a powerful empire that with luck stays together but saying that one powerful leader could lead them to annex all of Europe even with the help of the ottomans is ridiculous. It is possible though to have them atleast attack into Europe and possibly take Al-Andalus if you have enough reasons for why it could work. It is impossible for them to take all of Europe though, manpower alone would make it impossible let alone the issues that would start happening because of christians rebelling.
West Africa is not so sparsely populated as you think.
But anyway Mongolia was not what you may call 'overpopulated' country.
The core of great Tibetan Empire (11-12 centuries A.D.) was one of the least populated areas in the world.
Persian tribes of Achaemenids, Persida or Pars was very thinly populated. And Macedonians taking it from the Persians were astonishingly few.
Well, I can continue for half an hour proving my point. :D

So conquering is not about numerical superiority. You can always use power base of one conquered peoples against others. Quite a usual thing, ordinary actually.

It is impossible for them to take all of Europe though, ... the issues that would start happening because of christians rebelling.
I did not say 'all Europe'. I said they would do it in alliance with the Turks (of Suleiman the Magnificent for instance). And I said 'the African share' would be 'Spain, France, The British Isles and Scandinavia'.

And I did not imply that it would be 'a thousand years African Raich'. It might disintegrate easily. Or it might not...
 
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