Indian 'colonisation' or trade with africans?

Now, a spin off of the "The Effect of A Stronger Africa on Human History" thread; I have wondered if there could be maybe links between India and Africa (maybe by Arabia) since early(ier) days.

Could we end up with like, a commercial routes set between by example modern region of Kenya and around and/or Ethiopia, to Yemen (both Yemen and Ethiopia had trades since 'biblical' days it seems), to india? Would it change history of the region?

Could there be by example Hinduisation or Buddhism in Yemen, Ethiopia, Africa in general?
 
There was a Indian Ocean sea-borne trade between India, China, the Arabian coast, and Africa's Swahili coast OTL. If you want inland Africa more involved,you could have the Kilwa Sultanate expand and generally do better or have Ethiopia more interested in its southern frontier. Hinduisatian or Buddisation seems rather unlikely though, as coastal Africa's trade centers were firmly in the orbit of Islam IOTL.
 
A very large amount of that did happen, it gave rise to the swahili trading kingdoms on the east african coast and the birth of swahili whihc is a combination of arabic and native languages.
The traders would use the monsoons to their advantage by using the wind currents to shuttle back and forth from india to africa.
 
I pointed at that.. can we male this even earlier, before Islam...

Maybe Islam would not exist anymore, depending on events away from the region.

but I can see a muslim trade and cultural links deepened in this alternate history, at least.
 
Maybe the Romans establish trading posts along the east African coast. With Roman trading post people from Ethiopia, Yemen, and Arabia settle in the town establish by the Romans. Late indians would also settle in the cities and towns.

If Islam still rises in this world the muslim would take over trade and cultural links establish by Romans(If Roman falls in this world). Buddhism may become establish in East Africa but don't think would Hinduism.
 
I pointed at that.. can we male this even earlier, before Islam...

Maybe Islam would not exist anymore, depending on events away from the region.

but I can see a muslim trade and cultural links deepened in this alternate history, at least.

I suspect you'll still see it dominated by Arab traders. I'd hazard a guess that the way the winds work, it's easier to get from the Malabar coast to Oman rather than going straight to East Africa.
 
I suspect you'll still see it dominated by Arab traders. I'd hazard a guess that the way the winds work, it's easier to get from the Malabar coast to Oman rather than going straight to East Africa.

Yes.

Also why the heck are the Indians bothering with dumbass african ventures, they're the ones with the massively valuable goods that they're putting lots of effort into acquiring from further east in Asia, any westerners with wealth are going to come to them, not the other way round.
 
I pointed at that.. can we male this even earlier, before Islam...

There's good reason to believe these trade routes already existed before Islam... Look up the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea. The text describes South Arabian trading posts along the coast of East Africa as early as the first century AD, and archaeological excavations have uncovered Roman artifacts as far south as Tanzania.

Also, the Omanis carved an empire that included both East African cities (Zanzibar and north) and the port of Gwadar in present-day Pakistan.
 
The reason Islam spread to SE Asia in OTL was it allowed the local traders to become a part of an Indian Ocean-wide trading network of co-religionists pioneered by the Arabs and Persians. There is no reason why such a thing could not occur with Hinduism taking the place of Islam. Spreading Hinduism to the Arabian coastlines first would make later expansion along the coast of East Africa the most likely result.

As for "why would the Indians go there?", well one has to ask oneself, why did the Cholas become a maritime trade power in OTL? There was Indo-African trade and contact in OTL, so all that would be required would be simply to increase the tempo and remove the wildcard that Islam represented in order to have more Hinduism/Buddhism in Africa.
 
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