AHC White Abyssinian Monarchy

So I say this game where one thing that got me facepalming was an obviously Caucasian portrait of a King of Abyssinia, modern day Ethiopia and Somalia.

Well, maybe it would be fun just to see how that could happen.

So here is the challenge. Start POD from 1190, the third Crusade. Get these landmarks.

By 1220, have at least 3,000 European family units go into Abyssinia. A family unit is defined by a male female pair that will have a surviving kid. Since childbirth death is common, there is going to need to be more than that number. They can be civilians, or soldiers along with significant others.

By 1530, have a white-looking Miaphysite (Coptic Christian or some call it Oritental Orthodox which has nothing to do with Eastern Orthodox) monarch on the Abyssinian throne who is a decentdant of Yekuno Amlak. The local royal family must not be displaced forcefully (so I guess that means our newcomers need to strike it rich to make them appealable marriage candidates to marry into nobility and later royalty). I think one needs 7 out of 8 great grandparents to light skinned to have light skin oneself, but I don't remember the melain genes of the top of my head.

By 1620, have the Coptic Christians and Catholic Christians not at each other's throats. This can be by getting along or isolation. The Abyssinian Kingdom must be more prosperous than its OTL counterpart.

Or maybe 1190 is too late to hit any of these. The Third Crusade seems militarily doomed.
 
They'd all still intermarry with Oromo, so more beige than white. Intermarrying has always been common amongst the Highlanders.
 
They'd all still intermarry with Oromo, so more beige than white. Intermarrying has always been common amongst the Highlanders.

Works too.

But you still need a way to get them there. And then they need to prove themselves to make their children attractive marriage candidates. That's the challenge.

One guy came up with a 3rd Crusade Victory followed by taking the throne William the Conqueror and Normans style. There were several problems with this. One is that, I don't think we can make the 3rd Crusade work. Two, Egypt isn't becoming a Crusader state even it was. Three, the William at least made Edward promise him the throne (which isn't how thrones work, but it was something). Most importantly, it got boring. So that's why I want Oromo, or in other words the king must be a descendant of their historical rulers.
 
Works too.

But you still need a way to get them there. And then they need to prove themselves to make their children attractive marriage candidates. That's the challenge.

One guy came up with a 3rd Crusade Victory followed by taking the throne William the Conqueror and Normans style. There were several problems with this. One is that, I don't think we can make the 3rd Crusade work. Two, Egypt isn't becoming a Crusader state even it was. Three, the William at least made Edward promise him the throne (which isn't how thrones work, but it was something). Most importantly, it got boring. So that's why I want Oromo, or in other words the king must be a descendant of their historical rulers.

Well to be far it's ASB to me. The closest you'll get is a Christian exodus as Islam purges Christians and Jews from the Arab world.

Syrians, Egyptians, Yemeni, Saudis, etc.... You might be able to get mercantile families with open calls for all Christendom to support the expanding Red Sea trade to fully cement Abyssinian monopoly on the Western Indian Ocean.

Convert Somali to Christianity will be necessary but ultimately a "European" royalty will be extremely hard. There is little room for more peasants.
 
Well to be far it's ASB to me. The closest you'll get is a Christian exodus as Islam purges Christians and Jews from the Arab world.

Syrians, Egyptians, Yemeni, Saudis, etc.... You might be able to get mercantile families with open calls for all Christendom to support the expanding Red Sea trade to fully cement Abyssinian monopoly on the Western Indian Ocean.

Convert Somali to Christianity will be necessary but ultimately a "European" royalty will be extremely hard. There is little room for more peasants.

Somalia was already partially controlled by the decendents of Yekuno Amlak. The royal family in charge of that area was already Christian!

It doesn't need European culture, just the looks. If you have some remnants of the Crusader States fleeing (say they got separated from the Jersuseum forces), they would adopt customs in the South. But if they are fleeing, then they're nobodies, and commoners don't get to interact with royalty.

So we need some way to get some of the Europeans South and their decedents to become in favor. I can't see this to happen with a Third Crusade POD. I can see it with PODs in the Dark Ages, but 1190 seems too late. Anyone have any creative ideas.
 
Somalia was already partially controlled by the decendents of Yekuno Amlak. The royal family in charge of that area was already Christian!

It doesn't need European culture, just the looks. If you have some remnants of the Crusader States fleeing (say they got separated from the Jersuseum forces), they would adopt customs in the South. But if they are fleeing, then they're nobodies, and commoners don't get to interact with royalty.

So we need some way to get some of the Europeans South and their decedents to become in favor. I can't see this to happen with a Third Crusade POD. I can see it with PODs in the Dark Ages, but 1190 seems too late. Anyone have any creative ideas.
But we both know most Somali remained Waaq worshippers until Sufism took root outside of trading ports. You ain't gonna say all of Somalia is therefore Christian enough to rebuke Islam.

James Bruce claimed Smyrna Greek refugees landed in Abyssinia within a decade or two of his arrival and that amongst them were traders and silversmiths around Gondar.

So once again maybe Christian refugees from the Muslim/Arab world migrate there? Greek minorities were well dispersed
 
But we both know most Somali remained Waaq worshippers until Sufism took root outside of trading ports. You ain't gonna say all of Somalia is therefore Christian enough to rebuke Islam.

James Bruce claimed Smyrna Greek refugees landed in Abyssinia within a decade or two of his arrival and that amongst them were traders and silversmiths around Gondar.

So once again maybe Christian refugees from the Muslim/Arab world migrate there? Greek minorities were well dispersed

Rebuking Islam is easy if one has a ruling royal family that is rich and in power and if Sufism isn't outside of its trading ports, which it wasn't at this point in time.

I don't know about James Bruce, since he's too far forward in time. It's a tricky challenge isn't it?
 
The Fourth Crusade doesn't divert to Constantinople, and by some extraordinary stroke of good luck manages to conquer Egypt. Knights and settlers pour in from the rest of Christendom, attracted by the prospect of being given part of the famously lush farmland for their estate.

The new King of Egypt secures his southern border by a dynastic marriage with the Abyssinian royal family. Then a plague or something hits the Abyssinians, killing most of their royals. The King of Egypt declares that he or a member of his family is the rightful heir, and sends an army down to make good his claim. The expedition succeeds, and hey presto, you now have a white ruler of Abyssinia.

(This second stage would only really work if Egypt and Abyssinia had had fairly close contacts for some time already, so 1220 would be way to early. It could conceivably happen eventually, though.)
 
The Fourth Crusade doesn't divert to Constantinople, and by some extraordinary stroke of good luck manages to conquer Egypt. Knights and settlers pour in from the rest of Christendom, attracted by the prospect of being given part of the famously lush farmland for their estate.

The new King of Egypt secures his southern border by a dynastic marriage with the Abyssinian royal family. Then a plague or something hits the Abyssinians, killing most of their royals. The King of Egypt declares that he or a member of his family is the rightful heir, and sends an army down to make good his claim. The expedition succeeds, and hey presto, you now have a white ruler of Abyssinia.

(This second stage would only really work if Egypt and Abyssinia had had fairly close contacts for some time already, so 1220 would be way to early. It could conceivably happen eventually, though.)

Wouldn't Makuria and Alodia would be better candidates for intermarriage in that scenario?
 
By 1530, have a white-looking Miaphysite (Coptic Christian or some call it Oritental Orthodox which has nothing to do with Eastern Orthodox) monarch on the Abyssinian throne who is a decentdant of Yekuno Amlak. The local royal family must not be displaced forcefully (so I guess that means our newcomers need to strike it rich to make them appealable marriage candidates to marry into nobility and later royalty). I think one needs 7 out of 8 great grandparents to light skinned to have light skin oneself, but I don't remember the melain genes of the top of my head.
.

Depending on whoever is depicting them in art, they could be very mixed-race looking and still not look particularly dark-skinned. Looking at pictures of mixed-race Somalis and Ethiopians, I'd say maybe 50% or so would produce a "white-ish" look.

Also, depending on how loose your definition of "white" is, the OTL Abyssianians technically already fulfill that since they have significant Caucasoid features.

Perhaps Italy defeats Ethiopia pre-1900 and installs someone from the House of Savoy as Sovereign.

Cheating, but the King of Italy needs an imperial title to match his fellow sovereigns in Austria, Germany, Russia, and Britain, so why not Emperor of Ethiopia as Victor Emmanuel III did upon his conquest of Ethiopia?
 
Depending on whoever is depicting them in art, they could be very mixed-race looking and still not look particularly dark-skinned. Looking at pictures of mixed-race Somalis and Ethiopians, I'd say maybe 50% or so would produce a "white-ish" look.

Also, depending on how loose your definition of "white" is, the OTL Abyssianians technically already fulfill that since they have significant Caucasoid features.

Hmmm... Good point. Ok, let me rearrange the 1530 Challenge to have the King of Abyssinia descendent from the expats from Europe and the mightly Yekuno Amlak (A real king who ushered in a 3 generation golden age). Our expats are going to need to strike it rich to get noble titles so that one of their descendants can marry into royalty.

Perhaps Italy defeats Ethiopia pre-1900 and installs someone from the House of Savoy as Sovereign.

Not only is this cheating, but the fine print includes being a descendant of an actual Abyssinian. This excludes William the Conqueror style stuff. Actually, your example is WEAKER than William's claim to the throne, at least Edward promised him the throne. And Edward promised three other people the throne. And then might have approved of Harold on his deathbed.
 
Weren't the ethiopian monarchs descendants of solomon, the king of israel?
I mean, I don't know the full story, but perhaps if they, like the hapsburgs, started doing icky stuff, they could stay caucasian. On the other hand, icky stuff can sometimes make really bad rulers.
 
Weren't the ethiopian monarchs descendants of solomon, the king of israel?
I mean, I don't know the full story, but perhaps if they, like the hapsburgs, started doing icky stuff, they could stay caucasian. On the other hand, icky stuff can sometimes make really bad rulers.

That's what they say, at least. But the Bible says Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines. Assuming that is true, and Solomon was real, then odds are many peoples of the Middle East, including the Aksumites, are descended from Solomon, and that's everyone from some random peasant to the Solomonic dynasty to all of their enemies, and that probably includes significant amounts of people on this website (if not everyone, according to some interpretations).
 
That's what they say, at least. But the Bible says Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines. Assuming that is true, and Solomon was real, then odds are many peoples of the Middle East, including the Aksumites, are descended from Solomon, and that's everyone from some random peasant to the Solomonic dynasty to all of their enemies, and that probably includes significant amounts of people on this website (if not everyone, according to some interpretations).
Everyone's related to someone, or more than one someones. For example, I'm probably related to charlemagne. The point is, I could be, but I'm probably not. The ethiopians however, can trace their descent back to solomon accurately (if he existed), which gives them a much better claim on the prestige that being related to solomon would have, than I could if I was related to him, which.. I don't know?

In addition, the bible could even be bullshitting about it. It's evolved several times in its history, and it's not the most historically accurate piece of scripture you'll ever find. I read the damn thing, and shit's crazy in it.
 
Everyone's related to someone, or more than one someones. For example, I'm probably related to charlemagne. The point is, I could be, but I'm probably not. The ethiopians however, can trace their descent back to solomon accurately (if he existed), which gives them a much better claim on the prestige that being related to solomon would have, than I could if I was related to him, which.. I don't know?

In addition, the bible could even be bullshitting about it. It's evolved several times in its history, and it's not the most historically accurate piece of scripture you'll ever find. I read the damn thing, and shit's crazy in it.

Solomon might've existed, he might not have. He almost certainly didn't exist the way the Bible says he did.

Long ago, the Solomonic dynasty claimed their ancestry led back to Solomon himself. Only the fact that it's so old and became culturally important makes the difference between someone on this site coughing up almost 3,000 years worth of geneology using tons of people who can in no way be proven to exist.
 
Weren't the ethiopian monarchs descendants of solomon, the king of israel?
I mean, I don't know the full story, but perhaps if they, like the hapsburgs, started doing icky stuff, they could stay caucasian.

The ancient Israelites were Semitic, not Caucasian.

ETA: Plus, the level of inbreeding needed to keep the royal bloodline "pure" would probably result in them going extinct eventually anyway.
 

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Just make people not consider Ethiopians black, if I remember correctly the Amharas and other Highlanders did not consider themselves black, but considered the lowlanders (Oromos etc.) to be black. So if Europeans decided that the highlanders are not black, voila.
 
The ancient Israelites were Semitic, not Caucasian.

ETA: Plus, the level of inbreeding needed to keep the royal bloodline "pure" would probably result in them going extinct eventually anyway.

All Semitic-speaking peoples are Caucasian, just some like the Amhara are less Caucasian-looking than others.
 
How implausible would it be for Ethiopia to employ Caucasian Mamluk soldiers who would then take the throne in a coup, similar to what happened in Egypt?
 
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