Could Africa industrialize?

I've read on this forum that easy access to coal is a must when it comes to early industrialization and Africa is fairly limited in that regard.

Still, could Africa theoretically industrialize using perhaps its great rivers as the necessary power source? And what would be the best location for sub-Saharan Africa to industrialize? Would it be in Southern Africa; the only place in Africa with large stores of coal?
 
Frist question that comes to mind is if you mean a specific part of Africa, or African in general?

Second question concerns what industrialization is the goal here? A 19th Century European model? Or a post 20th Century model? Or maybe the 19th Century Asian model?

Third question is how far along pre or proto industrialization had come along in Africa? That is how much farther did one part or another have to go to reach the 19th Century Euro or North American style industrialization.
 

Deleted member 67076

The Sahelian states have potential, especially around the Niger Valley. They have coal and have sophisticated trade routes and a commercial oriented mindset thanks to the Trans Saharan trade. Give the right PODs, a Songhai empire or so might be able to do it.
 
The Sahelian states have potential, especially around the Niger Valley. They have coal and have sophisticated trade routes and a commercial oriented mindset thanks to the Trans Saharan trade. Give the right PODs, a Songhai empire or so might be able to do it.

Now there's an idea...
 

SunDeep

Banned
Useful Map:

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As you can see from this, Southern Africa is the best place in Africa for coal, but there are a few other candidates scattered across the continent. If one of the Sahelian kingdoms expands as far as Morocco or Western Algeria, they might have a decent shot. A surviving successor state to Great Zimbabwe might be interesting as well, with access to most of that coal in the South-East corner and access to the Zambezi river valley. And Madagascar's coal reserves are significant, larger than those of Japan even if you exclude Lignite deposits (which, unfortunately for the Niger Valley, OTL's Abysinnia and OTL's Mali, aren't really useful for early industrialisation efforts). If you want an island nation analogue to Great Britain or Meiji-Era Japan to kick off the industrialisation of Africa, Madagascar's your best bet.
 
IMHO the problem is capital and the only access to capital is debt which eventually brings its own crises, and usually European intervention. Mid 19th century Egypt is a good one to look at, modernising at a pace but the state went virtually bankrupt because its own revenues were nowhere near enough to cover outlay to this extent.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 

SunDeep

Banned
IMHO the problem is capital and the only access to capital is debt which eventually brings its own crises, and usually European intervention. Mid 19th century Egypt is a good one to look at, modernising at a pace but the state went virtually bankrupt because its own revenues were nowhere near enough to cover outlay to this extent.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

OP= Sub-Saharan Africa. Otherwise I'd be suggesting Morocco.
 
Madagascar is an intriguing suggestion - coupled with something like a Pirate's Republic which was the subject of an excellent timeline on this board a few years ago. Extensive contact with the Europeans could allow the natives to develop their coal reserves and, in time, industrialise their own society. If the natives are able to exploit the various jealousies of the European powers - ie, playing off the French-British-Portuguese against each other, there is potential they avoid colonisation.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
I've read on this forum that easy access to coal is a must when it comes to early industrialization and Africa is fairly limited in that regard.

Still, could Africa theoretically industrialize using perhaps its great rivers as the necessary power source? And what would be the best location for sub-Saharan Africa to industrialize? Would it be in Southern Africa; the only place in Africa with large stores of coal?

For independent industrialization, you would need a reasonably strong African state to have control of enough coal and iron. Iron is quite common in Africa, so coal is real issue. Go with Southern Africa. You also have a much more usable climate with more limited tropical disease. I would look at getting more technology down there a lot faster. And give them quite a few centuries to develop. So probably use Oman and some Chinese fleets. They come more often, but not enough to conquer. They end up with technology like gunpowder, cannons, modest shipping industry to keep trade links to Orient, competent infantry, etc. So when the European come, they are not a push over. Trade for something. Some educated class people move down, probably politically unpopular. I think it is a doable POD, but you need a lot more knowledge of China, Oman and Southern Africa than I have to write TL or give good POD's.

I did background work on Cameroon for my TL. The problem with hydro is you need big damns for the big rivers. And it is the mid to late 1800's before you have this item. You can make steel with electricity, but Aluminium is easier. It is quite doable from a technology perspective, but I can't make the politics work. But here it is handwavium on POD.

We roll around to about 1880. Prussia has an united country. Feels safe with good network of alliance. Wants to build model colony like Taiwan was for Japan. Has some good land, lets say Congo, French Equitorial Africa and Cameroon. Or whatever land you wants. Massive support for building colony, but no coal. Willing to spend 5% of OTL army budget on colony for 30 years. You then get a nice industrial region. The problem is the will, not the doing.

You could just as easily take the Aswan dam and ASB French support for a industrial Islamic state, and get the same result. Africa is poor due more to lack of investment than any other single factor. Second is really corrupt governments. Thirds is a century of colonial explotation.
 
For independent industrialization, you would need a reasonably strong African state to have control of enough coal and iron. Iron is quite common in Africa, so coal is real issue. Go with Southern Africa. You also have a much more usable climate with more limited tropical disease. I would look at getting more technology down there a lot faster. And give them quite a few centuries to develop. So probably use Oman and some Chinese fleets. They come more often, but not enough to conquer. They end up with technology like gunpowder, cannons, modest shipping industry to keep trade links to Orient, competent infantry, etc. So when the European come, they are not a push over. Trade for something. Some educated class people move down, probably politically unpopular. I think it is a doable POD, but you need a lot more knowledge of China, Oman and Southern Africa than I have to write TL or give good POD's.

I did background work on Cameroon for my TL. The problem with hydro is you need big damns for the big rivers. And it is the mid to late 1800's before you have this item. You can make steel with electricity, but Aluminium is easier. It is quite doable from a technology perspective, but I can't make the politics work. But here it is handwavium on POD.

We roll around to about 1880. Prussia has an united country. Feels safe with good network of alliance. Wants to build model colony like Taiwan was for Japan. Has some good land, lets say Congo, French Equitorial Africa and Cameroon. Or whatever land you wants. Massive support for building colony, but no coal. Willing to spend 5% of OTL army budget on colony for 30 years. You then get a nice industrial region. The problem is the will, not the doing.

You could just as easily take the Aswan dam and ASB French support for a industrial Islamic state, and get the same result. Africa is poor due more to lack of investment than any other single factor. Second is really corrupt governments. Thirds is a century of colonial explotation.

I knew about the damage colonialism did to Africa but I thought that a lot of Africa's problems could be ultimately traced to the trans-Atlantic slave trade (along with the Indian Ocean one to a lesser extent). It transformed political and social institutions and encouraged the rise of warlord states whose rulers saw its citizens and neighbors as mere chattel. And it made Africa's population stagnate for 100 years just as the rest of the Old World's population was exploding, impeding the rise of (relatively) centralized states.


This is bordering on ASB, but is it possible solar power could be used to boil water to create steam? Africa's drenched in sunlight year-round and if there was a way to somehow concentrate that energy through mirrors or glass...:p. The industrialization might be small scale and weather dependent but it'd be better than burning trees. How do water wheels work for industrialization?
 
This is bordering on ASB, but is it possible solar power could be used to boil water to create steam? Africa's drenched in sunlight year-round and if there was a way to somehow concentrate that energy through mirrors or glass...:p. The industrialization might be small scale and weather dependent but it'd be better than burning trees. How do water wheels work for industrialization?
Even the cutting-edge, hyper-expensive solar thermal plants available today can't get temperatures high enough to do the job - so no, utterly impossible. Water wheels and windmills are an important auxiliary power source, but they give kinetic energy, not heat energy - they can't do it alone. The only options available are timber, peat, and coal, and the two former have the problem of being exhausted rather fast with the amount of energy required.
 
the Portuguese central Africa (including the states Rhodes stole from them) is awash in all the useful metals necessary. Angola has oil and Mozambique has a huge coal field. It also has about every tropical disease known to man. The problem with industrialization had nothing to do with materials or manpower (the region was the source of a lot of the world's slaves). It takes some major ASB to create the will, the appropriate governance, medicine if you're counting on whites to be involved, and financing to make it happen.
 
the Portuguese central Africa (including the states Rhodes stole from them) is awash in all the useful metals necessary. Angola has oil and Mozambique has a huge coal field. It also has about every tropical disease known to man. The problem with industrialization had nothing to do with materials or manpower (the region was the source of a lot of the world's slaves). It takes some major ASB to create the will, the appropriate governance, medicine if you're counting on whites to be involved, and financing to make it happen.

Is oil accessible enough to be used for rudimentary factories? Because if it is, that brings West and North Africa into the equation.

The reason why slavery was so prevalent in Africa in the first place was because of a constant shortage of labor due to low birth rates and high infant mortality. It was people who were valuable more so than the land. It's why the Asante imported slaves to work in their gold mines. So if an enterprising Shona can determine a way to make labor saving devices for something like processing grain, that frees up valuable labor for other activities. After that, industrialization could occur through the natural process of striving to increase the machine's efficiency.

I don't think it's ASB to have industrialization in Sub-Saharan Africa, but a POD before the Atlantic Slave Trade is probably best. Once the Atlantic Slave Trade gets started, Africa's pretty much hosed.

Contact with the Chinese could help.
 
I don't think it's ASB to have industrialization in Sub-Saharan Africa, but a POD before the Atlantic Slave Trade is probably best. Once the Atlantic Slave Trade gets started, Africa's pretty much hosed.

I agree. West Africa's population could have been much higher without the slave trade, and without that trade states could have developed where the elite was interested in more than just extracting wealth by selling off their citizens. In addition, having world powers who don't see Africans as tools to be used until broken would help Africans immensely.

I think South African states could have great potential to industrialize had they not been screwed over by Apartheid, given their access to coal and their place outside the malaria/yellow fever zones.
 
Jean Laborde is an interesting example, a Frenchman who was shipwrecked on Madagascar and along with several other Europeans helped introduce a mini-industrial revolution. To quote the Genocide

Laborde had some engineering background. With the help of five other Europeans, he set up a manufacturing and engineering center. They had no imported machinery beyond simple blacksmith's tools and no documents, but within a few years were producing iron (cast and wrought), steel (via the crucible method), muskets, gunpowder, light cannons, metal-working lathes, watermills, window and blown glass, machine-spun cotton, spinning machinery, and power looms.

Laborde built a complete industrial complex. Within 6 years, he had blast furnaces with waterwheel-powered draught producing cast iron, puddling mills producing wrought iron, a steeling plant producing spring steel, a glassworks, brickworks and cement-plant, a heavy foundry capable of producing 24-pound cannons, a musket factory, a gunpowder mill, a tower to make lead shot, and textile mills.

Laborde also opened up mines, roads, and bridges in various parts of the island. He built ox and horse wagons and a short horse-drawn stretch of railway.

Shows what might be achievable if you introduce the right knowledge to an area with the right kind of conditions.
 
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