Could Slavery Have Been Prevented?

But there's still going to be massive population issues even years later, if we judge by the Indian Wars. How well can the natives resist if they are still outnumbered? Even in the later 1800s Indians still suffered worse from these diseases IIRC. It'll be a lot closer though.

True, but Amerindians IOTL were by the late 18th Century well-accustomed to using firearms, they were unable to develop their own gunpowder. If in this ATL Amerindian peoples *do* develop that due to greater trade with Europe, by the time any alternate colonization starts the Amerindian political differences will be......unrecognizable. More situations like the Battle of the Little Bighorn where the Amerindians have better weapons than the Europeans they're fighting.

I did say "a chance." :)

Furthermore, the OTL slave system in what would become CONUS began that way. Slavery might have been established later on if the Barbadians hadn't set up plantations in South Carolina, but it might have been established somewhere else by some other means and suffered a different fate.

(Say instead it's tobacco in Virginia and the tobacco market implodes per OTL, taking slavery with it.)

Eh, I think that the best chance to avoid its perpetuation and the US Civil War itself is to somehow prevent need for a cotton gin.
 
True, but Amerindians IOTL were by the late 18th Century well-accustomed to using firearms, they were unable to develop their own gunpowder. If in this ATL Amerindian peoples *do* develop that due to greater trade with Europe, by the time any alternate colonization starts the Amerindian political differences will be......unrecognizable. More situations like the Battle of the Little Bighorn where the Amerindians have better weapons than the Europeans they're fighting.

Not sure if that would be the standard (better weapons that is), but even equal weapons would be frighteningly deadly, especially as the amount of effort needed to protect colonies in the West (west of the mountains OTL calls the Alleghenies) would be ridiculous.

And something like King Philip's War stands a semi-reasonable chance of just wiping out New England*.
 
The primary cause of New World slavery is Capitalism. The competition among the monied classes to invest in enterprises where maximizing profit was all important. So long as there is disposable wealth, people will want to invest it where they get the biggest, easiest returns. Until the Industrial Revolution and stockmarkets (and later real estate markets), slavery was the best deal for the money. Not sure how you can take the steam out of Capitalism, maybe if the church taxed the rich alot more.

Technologically if the sugar beet can be invented earlier it would at least dampen the Caribean sugar cane industry.
 
If the Church taxes the rich more, expect more opposition to the Church by the rich and powerful, unless the Church is in a vastly stronger position than it ever was OTL.

Eliminating capitalism would take a fundamental change to European society from very far back - the earlier the better, but certainly by the end of the Middle Ages. Otherwise, society has simply developed too far away from the kind of structure that would not produce it.

Rather unconvinced that slavery is a product of capitalism, though. And if we're using capitalism to mean "want(ing) to invest (money) where they get the biggest, easiest returns"...that's virtually impossible to eradicate.
 
Not sure if that would be the standard (better weapons that is), but even equal weapons would be frighteningly deadly, especially as the amount of effort needed to protect colonies in the West (west of the mountains OTL calls the Alleghenies) would be ridiculous.

And something like King Philip's War stands a semi-reasonable chance of just wiping out New England*.

Of course one aspect of this that would also apply is Amerindians adopting gunpowder armies would be very different in their own politics from the ones of OTL. Indian political leaders might well get a lot more powerful and thus able to wield real armies against Europeans, as opposed to guerrilla tactics. This might limit the extent to which the ATL Europeans would judge Indians as "primitive" which would have many.....interesting....butterflies.

In any case any alternate versions of King Philip's War will see the Indians as a lot more effective and used to that kind of warfare, and more willing to fight Europeans with set-piece battles and massacres. And that in its own right leads to some very different Indian Wars.
 
Of course one aspect of this that would also apply is Amerindians adopting gunpowder armies would be very different in their own politics from the ones of OTL. Indian political leaders might well get a lot more powerful and thus able to wield real armies against Europeans, as opposed to guerrilla tactics. This might limit the extent to which the ATL Europeans would judge Indians as "primitive" which would have many.....interesting....butterflies.

In any case any alternate versions of King Philip's War will see the Indians as a lot more effective and used to that kind of warfare, and more willing to fight Europeans with set-piece battles and massacres. And that in its own right leads to some very different Indian Wars.

Yeah. This will have a massive change to things, just by events playing out differently - no need to introduce random events by the butterflies.
 
Just prevent massive colonization in the Americas. I have a timeline in the works that should feature this, among other things.
 

yourworstnightmare

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You could also look for an African PoD and have the Africans simply not selling slaves to the Europeans (not that it would make much sense, since the African kingdoms flourished due to the trade).
 
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