Inspired, darkly, by the "Worse Scramble for Africa" thread. I will note that, as this is one of my projects, it is subject to possible delays, hiatuses, and largely Wiki-based research and speculation. If this is a bad "pitch", so to speak, at least I will be honest.
The PoD, as with most of my works, is before the start of the timeline. Unlike every other time I write (except maybe ToA), I actually have one in mind- the Ranuccio I of Portugal idea. PoD is in 1569- he is named Odoardo instead of Ranuccio, which is TTL the name of his OTL Cardinal brother. Changes in France and other parts of Europe abound slowly. Other PoDs include: death of OTL's Taichang Emperor of Ming in 1603, the survival of Boris Godunov a few more years, *Charles I dying of typhoid instead of his older brother, and a lot of Japanese shenanigans. This TL starts much later than most of those events, but obviously Europe has ended up much different than OTL...
Africa was on the precipice of a century of untold suffering. Even as the slave trade that had transformed many of its regional economies marched into its last decades, the European imperial powers who drove that trade came ever closer to colonization of Africa.
Africa's hostile climate, myriad diseases, and disease-resistant native states had, for those centuries, prevented a conquest like that which devastated the natives of the New World. The slave trade besides, native states, from the Kingdom of Kongo to the Rozwi Empire to the myriad states of the Sahel to the great slave ports, had all survived, keeping European involvement limited to a few factories (for the most part).
Europe itself had ripped itself apart in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Protestant Reformation, and the forces and questions which it unleashed, upended the last of the old feudal order and the age-old hegemony of Catholicism over the courts of Europe. By the time that these interconnected religious wars ended with the abolishment of the Holy Roman Empire in 1661, untold numbers of people had died, the shambling feudal abomination at the heart of Europe had been united, and the religious landscape of Europe was forever changed. Scandinavia, England, The Netherlands, most of Germany and Lithuania all held to Protestant doctrine. The rest of Europe- the Polish-Hungarian Union, Italy, Portugal and ultra-Catholic Spain and France- maintained the Counter-Reformation and the Catholic church. This ignored the frontiers- Orthodox Russia and the swiftly declining Ottoman state divided Europe with Asia, and in the case of the former straddled Eurasia like a colossus.
In the New World, the theories and methods of colonialism were slowly being developed. Plantation systems necessitated the horrific systems of chattel slavery, just as the Spanish used native labor to harvest gold and silver from Mexico and Peru. The ideas of race begun in this hemisphere would now come to Africa, and would inform mainstream discourse and imperial action for the entire time Europe was present in Africa.
In Asia, ancient powers and minor islands were fought over by chartered companies, looking for an edge on the Spice Trade. Portugal, the pioneer of the India trade, quickly wilted in the face of Dutch pressure, which itself was later bludgeoned by the coming of French and English companies.
It would be one of these companies- the Dutch East India Company- that would found the sole major settler colony in Africa. As opposed to America, where there were many areas fit for European settlement and natural growth of a settler population- and even more when Iberian settlers saw fit to marry natives and Africans in the tropics- Africa was largely inhospitable for the white man. Black kingdoms caught the slaves and sold to the Europeans, and European settlers in places like Luanda died more than they reproduced due to tropical disease (to say nothing of the prospect of war with these native kingdoms). Southern Africa, however, had a temperate, Mediterranean climate, and a lot of land fit for settlement.
The small Dutch settlement at Kaapstad, originally a second African way-station providing access to DEIC territories in the Indian Ocean, would prove to be the genesis of a setter colony. It quickly outstripped Inhambane, a former Portuguese post south of the Zambezi surrounded by hinterland that truly belonged to no one, and the city quickly accumulated a milieu of Asian slaves and women, African slaves, Dutchmen and a few Huguenots. The Cape Colony's history is too long to cover here, but the settlement had many purposes. Firstly, after the loss of New Holland in the Mississippi Delta, it was the sole non-tropical destination for Dutch immigrants. Secondly, the colony had developed fledgling industries of its own, initially controlled by the DEIC. Thirdly, from the separate and often-disputed port of Algoa Bay and from the Cape, the Dutch colony provided yet another source of slaves, albeit a minor one compared to Central Africa or West Africa.
Settler pressures from the by-then royal colony of the Cape would compound the refugee situation resulting from the Mfecane (1776-1799). The Mfecane was caused firstly by the consolidation of the rule of the Ndwandwe, and then by the fleeing of various armed groups to all parts of Africa. The Swati, for example, fled back into Central Africa, conquering the kingdoms of Urundi and Rwanda before assimilating with the locals. Other Nguni refugees, the Mfengu, went south into Xhosa lands, conquering their own lands on the other side of the Kei. Finally, the Ndebele moved into what was technically Dutch New Friesland, conquering and assimilating into local Tsonga tribes. The greatest slaughter came from the exodus of the Sotho, themselves pushed out by Boers and fellow natives. The Sotho, united by Molahlehi of the Basatsing tribe, would flee from the rangings of the Ndwandwe into the lands once inhabited by the Kingdom of Zimbabwe and the kingdom of Monomutapa, conquering the collapsing remnants of the Rozwi. On their way, they slaughtered any who stood in their path, stealing cattle and occasionally women, sacking villages and everything. Upon reaching their new homes, Molahlehi would continue to raid all of his neighbors, provoking more migrations and brutality, including the Swati migration up into Rwanda-Urundi. Molahlehi, the Lost One, The Sun That Does Not Set, the Bull Elephant, was the most brutal warlord Africa had seen up to that point. To some, he came off as calm and conscientious of his people's welfare- but to his enemies, he was far worse than his enemy Zwide of the Ndwandwe.
As our story begins, one era of Africa is ending. Although they are currently enjoying record profits, the slave ports of West Africa, and the Europeans who took over the Indian Ocean slave trade, are in fact enjoying the last decades of their golden age. Native states that re-consolidated across Africa will face not peace and ascendancy, but rather warfare and imperialism. In the veldt, a group of Boers, a few of them colored, all of them loosely religious, have begun the stirrings of a great journey northwestward. Revolutionary wars occupied Europe until now, but the age of imperialism is around the corner. And the sun of Europe is peeking over the horizon, to shine its harsh and brutal glare on the heart of darkness.
The PoD, as with most of my works, is before the start of the timeline. Unlike every other time I write (except maybe ToA), I actually have one in mind- the Ranuccio I of Portugal idea. PoD is in 1569- he is named Odoardo instead of Ranuccio, which is TTL the name of his OTL Cardinal brother. Changes in France and other parts of Europe abound slowly. Other PoDs include: death of OTL's Taichang Emperor of Ming in 1603, the survival of Boris Godunov a few more years, *Charles I dying of typhoid instead of his older brother, and a lot of Japanese shenanigans. This TL starts much later than most of those events, but obviously Europe has ended up much different than OTL...
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Africa was on the precipice of a century of untold suffering. Even as the slave trade that had transformed many of its regional economies marched into its last decades, the European imperial powers who drove that trade came ever closer to colonization of Africa.
Africa's hostile climate, myriad diseases, and disease-resistant native states had, for those centuries, prevented a conquest like that which devastated the natives of the New World. The slave trade besides, native states, from the Kingdom of Kongo to the Rozwi Empire to the myriad states of the Sahel to the great slave ports, had all survived, keeping European involvement limited to a few factories (for the most part).
Europe itself had ripped itself apart in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Protestant Reformation, and the forces and questions which it unleashed, upended the last of the old feudal order and the age-old hegemony of Catholicism over the courts of Europe. By the time that these interconnected religious wars ended with the abolishment of the Holy Roman Empire in 1661, untold numbers of people had died, the shambling feudal abomination at the heart of Europe had been united, and the religious landscape of Europe was forever changed. Scandinavia, England, The Netherlands, most of Germany and Lithuania all held to Protestant doctrine. The rest of Europe- the Polish-Hungarian Union, Italy, Portugal and ultra-Catholic Spain and France- maintained the Counter-Reformation and the Catholic church. This ignored the frontiers- Orthodox Russia and the swiftly declining Ottoman state divided Europe with Asia, and in the case of the former straddled Eurasia like a colossus.
In the New World, the theories and methods of colonialism were slowly being developed. Plantation systems necessitated the horrific systems of chattel slavery, just as the Spanish used native labor to harvest gold and silver from Mexico and Peru. The ideas of race begun in this hemisphere would now come to Africa, and would inform mainstream discourse and imperial action for the entire time Europe was present in Africa.
In Asia, ancient powers and minor islands were fought over by chartered companies, looking for an edge on the Spice Trade. Portugal, the pioneer of the India trade, quickly wilted in the face of Dutch pressure, which itself was later bludgeoned by the coming of French and English companies.
It would be one of these companies- the Dutch East India Company- that would found the sole major settler colony in Africa. As opposed to America, where there were many areas fit for European settlement and natural growth of a settler population- and even more when Iberian settlers saw fit to marry natives and Africans in the tropics- Africa was largely inhospitable for the white man. Black kingdoms caught the slaves and sold to the Europeans, and European settlers in places like Luanda died more than they reproduced due to tropical disease (to say nothing of the prospect of war with these native kingdoms). Southern Africa, however, had a temperate, Mediterranean climate, and a lot of land fit for settlement.
The small Dutch settlement at Kaapstad, originally a second African way-station providing access to DEIC territories in the Indian Ocean, would prove to be the genesis of a setter colony. It quickly outstripped Inhambane, a former Portuguese post south of the Zambezi surrounded by hinterland that truly belonged to no one, and the city quickly accumulated a milieu of Asian slaves and women, African slaves, Dutchmen and a few Huguenots. The Cape Colony's history is too long to cover here, but the settlement had many purposes. Firstly, after the loss of New Holland in the Mississippi Delta, it was the sole non-tropical destination for Dutch immigrants. Secondly, the colony had developed fledgling industries of its own, initially controlled by the DEIC. Thirdly, from the separate and often-disputed port of Algoa Bay and from the Cape, the Dutch colony provided yet another source of slaves, albeit a minor one compared to Central Africa or West Africa.
Settler pressures from the by-then royal colony of the Cape would compound the refugee situation resulting from the Mfecane (1776-1799). The Mfecane was caused firstly by the consolidation of the rule of the Ndwandwe, and then by the fleeing of various armed groups to all parts of Africa. The Swati, for example, fled back into Central Africa, conquering the kingdoms of Urundi and Rwanda before assimilating with the locals. Other Nguni refugees, the Mfengu, went south into Xhosa lands, conquering their own lands on the other side of the Kei. Finally, the Ndebele moved into what was technically Dutch New Friesland, conquering and assimilating into local Tsonga tribes. The greatest slaughter came from the exodus of the Sotho, themselves pushed out by Boers and fellow natives. The Sotho, united by Molahlehi of the Basatsing tribe, would flee from the rangings of the Ndwandwe into the lands once inhabited by the Kingdom of Zimbabwe and the kingdom of Monomutapa, conquering the collapsing remnants of the Rozwi. On their way, they slaughtered any who stood in their path, stealing cattle and occasionally women, sacking villages and everything. Upon reaching their new homes, Molahlehi would continue to raid all of his neighbors, provoking more migrations and brutality, including the Swati migration up into Rwanda-Urundi. Molahlehi, the Lost One, The Sun That Does Not Set, the Bull Elephant, was the most brutal warlord Africa had seen up to that point. To some, he came off as calm and conscientious of his people's welfare- but to his enemies, he was far worse than his enemy Zwide of the Ndwandwe.
As our story begins, one era of Africa is ending. Although they are currently enjoying record profits, the slave ports of West Africa, and the Europeans who took over the Indian Ocean slave trade, are in fact enjoying the last decades of their golden age. Native states that re-consolidated across Africa will face not peace and ascendancy, but rather warfare and imperialism. In the veldt, a group of Boers, a few of them colored, all of them loosely religious, have begun the stirrings of a great journey northwestward. Revolutionary wars occupied Europe until now, but the age of imperialism is around the corner. And the sun of Europe is peeking over the horizon, to shine its harsh and brutal glare on the heart of darkness.
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