Likeliest African countries to begin industrializing in the 19th century?

You ought to read Male' Rising, in which the Sokoto Emirate is takeb over by exiled slaves from Brazil and begins industrializing. Other than that Egypt is the classic example.

That sounds like it would make for a fun mod. Up the Sokoto tech level and add Afro-Brazilian as an accepted culture
 
Egypt was on its way to doing this in OTL, if they can avoid getting in a knockdown fight with the Ottomans and an alliance with a European power there's a good chance they could be fairly modern by the 20th century.

The problem with is going to be coal, but while it's a handicap it isn't a total loss. They'll just have to import and stay on Britain's good side.
 
The Cape Colony (South Africa) if the British Empire gets serious about dominating Africa, the Indian Ocean and the South Atlantic,a industrialized South Africa would do it.A major Naval shipyard with repair facilities and an industrial base backing it would turn the South Atlantic into a permnant British Lake and there'd be nothing anybody could do about it.
 
I like the idea of Sokoto but I honestly think they need a good deal more stability and cohesion. The Europeans didn't have to kick very hard to get the whole thing to tumble down. The Brits, the Germans and the French all had designs on it and I think you need to keep them at bay to get a chance. If the Yoruba don't descend into civil war, the Mahdi goes down in flames earlier and the Kano civil war doesn't occur then maybe they'll survive. But even that's iffy.
 
I like the idea of Sokoto but I honestly think they need a good deal more stability and cohesion. The Europeans didn't have to kick very hard to get the whole thing to tumble down. The Brits, the Germans and the French all had designs on it and I think you need to keep them at bay to get a chance. If the Yoruba don't descend into civil war, the Mahdi goes down in flames earlier and the Kano civil war doesn't occur then maybe they'll survive. But even that's iffy.
Eh, African states centered around the Mali region tend to be very unstable. They're basically feodality on meth with fragile alliances centered around one strong leader. It's like the Chinese tribute system as I understand it.
It's ok as long as you can extract tribute but other feodality system seem more solid for some reason
 
Not claiming parity with both, but merely that you can get a period of rapid change and economic expansion like that of Meiji Japan. The society was already transforming in ways that would be conductive to industrialization.

various quotes

I'm not sure where you're getting this notion of Sokoto, or the broader Western Africa as relatively primitive state societies.

I wish I had access to the books and journals you mentioned, but I note that you aren't providing hard numbers here. OK, so there is a boom in literacy. But what is the literacy rate? If it goes from 1% to 3%, a tripling would certainly be a boom, but it would still be far less than the literacy rate in Japan. Japan had around 40-50% of all males in school just before the Meiji Restoration, and the urban population in Tokyo and Osaka had something like 80% literacy. Even in the rural areas, you had peasants (the elite peasants mind you) that had very high literacy and numeracy. Even during the early Edo Period, Japan probably had at least a 10-20% literacy rate - certainly all the Samurai were and they were 8% plus the various monks, rich merchants and tradesman, etc.

You say Kura is devoted to textile production, but what was the population, what was its output? How were the textiles being made? Was there anything like the advanced machines the Japanese were using? Here is an example of the kind of loom pre-Meiji Japan was using. And that is nothing like some of the really big looms and spinning machines the Japanese were using in actual factories - large scale enterprises. In contrast, your example mentions that the "vertical loom" was being found even in remote villages. A vertical loom is a much more primitive loom. I wonder if medieval Europe could make the same claim - I assume so (but could easily be wrong).

Have you seen the movie Princess Mononoke? Many people think it is some kind of fantasy realm since there are guns, iron works, and a lot of advanced economy there mixed with an obviously feudal society. But guess what, it takes place in historical Japan in the 16th century. The movie's Irontown is actually based on the real prefecture of Shimane of that era. The film is fiction, but its depiction of that era of Japan is pretty accurate. I highly doubt 19th century Sokoto Caliphate had anything like that. And remember that Shimane was not an urban metropolis, it was one of the most rural and least populated prefectures in Japan.

Sokoto was in the process of rapid urbanization. And I have no idea where you got that 20,000 number given other explorers such as Chapperton claimed Sokoto had around 200,000 inhabitants being the largest city in West Africa and later writers attest to being a very large city.

The 20,000 figure is something I saw in multiple places when I was doing online research, but it's in Wikipedia as well. I found this PDF which on PDF page 11 (page 84 of the book) it talks about Sokoto's population both in the time of Clapperton in 1827 and of Barth in 1853. They estimate Sokoto might have had a population of around 120,000 in Hugh Clapperton's time, but confirmed by the 1850s it had severely declined to the 20,000 reported by Heinrich Barth. It mentioned that at Barth's time, the court was at another city so it's likely the huge population was a result of the political court - not because it was proto-industrial manufacturing center. If the Japanese government had abandoned Edo to move back to Kyoto, the city would have remained a very large urban area with lots of manufacturing.

Again, I'm not claiming total equality to Japan, far from it, but merely that there was the potential for the rapid administrative and economic transformations akin to Japan. We have a political stable state (minus the bungle of the last few Caliphs, which can be butterflied away) undergoing large population growth, large expanses in education, productivity and busineses

If you want specifics, I can point to plenty of authors such as the above.

This may be unfair of me, but I'm still not convinced your description is of a society ready for rapid industrialization. The descriptions given of an empire with towns in the tens of thousands and urban artisans could also be used to describe Medieval Europe in the 14th century. I wouldn't classify Europe of that era as proto-industrial or had the ability to rapidly industrialize. 18th century Europe was, as was 19th century Japan. On the little that you've told me, it sounds more like a medieval level society building its potential, but not to the point that it had the local skills, capital, and organization to industrialize under European guidance/support (since it would have to import the essentials from Europe).

I am certainly more exposed now to the state of Sokoto, and I'll try to do my own research. However, I'm still very skeptical however that it was ready to industrialize. But thanks very much for pointing me to the research you provided.
 

Deleted member 67076

I wish I had access to the books and journals you mentioned, but I note that you aren't providing hard numbers here.
No one does. Its incredibly hard to estimate rates of literacy in the time period given the mass economic decline and destruction of rates following colonization when sociological studies were first compiled. As an anecdote Ive looked at well over 20 papers in about 5 different journals, and no author that I know provides us. It doesn't help educated people frequently spoke and wrote in multiple languages with multiple different scripts, thus raising questions about what constitutes literacy in the first place.

However, one author estimates in 1800 there were at least 250,000 people literate in Arabic, a figure that would drastically increase over the century (and swiftly decline following British conquest. (Diallo, Ibrahima. "Literacy and education in West Africa: from Ajami to Francophonie." Africa Review 8, no. 1 (2016): 60-70.) So, roughly at least 3% literate in Arabic by 1800 (Given the population estimates). Not counting literacy with local languages and not counting people literate in Roman characters.

OK, so there is a boom in literacy. But what is the literacy rate? If it goes from 1% to 3%, a tripling would certainly be a boom, but it would still be far less than the literacy rate in Japan. Japan had around 40-50% of all males in school just before the Meiji Restoration, and the urban population in Tokyo and Osaka had something like 80% literacy. Even in the rural areas, you had peasants (the elite peasants mind you) that had very high literacy and numeracy. Even during the early Edo Period, Japan probably had at least a 10-20% literacy rate - certainly all the Samurai were and they were 8% plus the various monks, rich merchants and tradesman, etc.
Can you stop moving the goalposts?

Last I checked Mexico, Iran, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, China, South Korea, Venezuela, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Indonesia, Brazil, Turkey, Taiwan and Thailand didn't need high literacy rates to begin industrialization.

I keep pointing out I'm not using Japan as baseline for the transformation of an industrialized state but made a vague reference to how the Meiji regime had a number of conditions that allowed rapid economic and social transformations and you keep insisting Sokoto has to be exactly like Japan in order to begin the earliest stages of industrialization by the 19th century as the OP wishes for.

You say Kura is devoted to textile production, but what was the population, what was its output?
"During the nineteenth century Kano’s textile industry reached extraordinary production levels. In 1851 the city’s annual production was estimated at about 300 million cowries."

(Lovejoy, Paul E. "The Characteristics of Plantations in the Nineteenth-Century Sokoto Caliphate." The American Historical Review 84.5 (1979): 1267-1292.)

Here's a reference to Kano, the principle city of textile manufacturing in the region. Kura was a regional city in the emirate of Kano.

How were the textiles being made?
"The economic organization of the industry also partly explains the most distinctive characteristics of west African handlooms: their narrowness. In cotton weaving the choice of technique was not determined by ignorance of alternatives but, first of all, by seasonality of labour supply. According to Austin, the dominance of the narrow loom was at least greatly facilitated by the low opportunity cost of dry-season labour. Moreover, farmers could not increase their raw cotton production without imperilling their food security. In such a context, only a limited quantity of cloth could be produced. This amount could have been woven with much less labour had broader looms been used; but the low opportunity cost of dry season labour made it worth choosing extra labour in return for the preferred quality, in competing even at the cheap end of the markets.67"

(Candotti, Marisa. "Cotton Growing and Textile Production in Northern Nigeria from Caliphate to Protectorate c. 1804-1914’: A Preliminary Examination." African Economic History Workshop, London School of Economics, London, Uk. 2009.)

Was there anything like the advanced machines the Japanese were using? Here is an example of the kind of loom pre-Meiji Japan was using. And that is nothing like some of the really big looms and spinning machines the Japanese were using in actual factories - large scale enterprises. In contrast, your example mentions that the "vertical loom" was being found even in remote villages. A vertical loom is a much more primitive loom. I wonder if medieval Europe could make the same claim - I assume so (but could easily be wrong).
Sort of. Mass cotton enterprises were made in plantations that had entire facilities devoted to textile production that can be described as factories.

Have you seen the movie Princess Mononoke? Many people think it is some kind of fantasy realm since there are guns, iron works, and a lot of advanced economy there mixed with an obviously feudal society. But guess what, it takes place in historical Japan in the 16th century. The movie's Irontown is actually based on the real prefecture of Shimane of that era. The film is fiction, but its depiction of that era of Japan is pretty accurate. I highly doubt 19th century Sokoto Caliphate had anything like that. And remember that Shimane was not an urban metropolis, it was one of the most rural and least populated prefectures in Japan.
It did. The country was capable of mass production of guns, and had the necessary metallurgy technologies to mass field entire armies of gunpowder troops since the late 1700s. Such a revolution in military and metallurgy a few decades prior was the entire reason the Fulani Jihad was able to sweep across the Sahel. This is not unique to Sokoto herself, other states were capable of doing this. Hell the reason why Samouri Toure (a warlord with similar military technologies and strategy to the Sokoto state) was able to last so long against the state is precisely because his armies were capable of combining arms and fielding mass cavalry dragoons armed with home created muskets, rifles and pistols.

(Smaldone, Joseph P. "Firearms in the Central Sudan: a revaluation." The Journal of African History 13.04 (1972): 591-607.)

The 20,000 figure is something I saw in multiple places when I was doing online research, but it's in Wikipedia as well. I found this PDF which on PDF page 11 (page 84 of the book) it talks about Sokoto's population both in the time of Clapperton in 1827 and of Barth in 1853. They estimate Sokoto might have had a population of around 120,000 in Hugh Clapperton's time, but confirmed by the 1850s it had severely declined to the 20,000 reported by Heinrich Barth. It mentioned that at Barth's time, the court was at another city so it's likely the huge population was a result of the political court - not because it was proto-industrial manufacturing center. If the Japanese government had abandoned Edo to move back to Kyoto, the city would have remained a very large urban area with lots of manufacturing.
Can't open the PDF.

That's odd, because other sources say otherwise, pointing to a growth by the eve of the British conquest. Besides, you're just sourcing one explorer rather than a study. Yet even should the court be the main reason for the large population the entire region's intensification of agriculture, increasing mass production of textiles, weaponry and agricultural yields (of a myriad of crops including cotton, cowpeas, groundnuts, palm oil, wheat, millet, sorghum, rice, and sugar) large and stable population growth.

(Gwadabe, Muhammadu Mustapha. “THE ADMINISTRATION OF LAND AND LABOUR IN PRE-COLONIAL KANO.” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, vol. 19, 2010, pp. 23–38.)

This may be unfair of me, but I'm still not convinced your description is of a society ready for rapid industrialization. The descriptions given of an empire with towns in the tens of thousands and urban artisans could also be used to describe Medieval Europe in the 14th century. I wouldn't classify Europe of that era as proto-industrial or had the ability to rapidly industrialize. 18th century Europe was, as was 19th century Japan. On the little that you've told me, it sounds more like a medieval level society building its potential, but not to the point that it had the local skills, capital, and organization to industrialize under European guidance/support (since it would have to import the essentials from Europe).
A better comparison would be late Qajar Iran or much of Latin America rather than Japan.

But thanks very much for pointing me to the research you provided.
Your welcome.
 
Sokoto being landlocked makes it incredibly hard to imagine industrializing.

Without a much earlier POD I don't see any state in Africa having the political and economic situation to industrialize.
 
@Soverihn do you have any good generals sources for someone who wants to look into pre-colonial West African Civilisations? I have a few, somewhat outlandish ideas for the area, and I want to make sure I've got a decent enough grounding in the area.
 
How far back is the POD?

I've had some thoughts on Africa and industrialization for my American domesticates timelines, where a large trans-Atlantic slave trade does not develop (though the slave trade to Macaronesia still exists).

In this scenario my thought was that we would not see industrialization itself in Africa, but instead a burst of economic activity caused by European industrialization and the outflow of manufactured goods to Africa, combined with political consolidation to take control of this economic productivity.

OTL's Sierra Leone and Liberian coasts would become rich off of selling rice to Europe, while other areas could get rich from selling palm oil. African gold would already be a well established trade in this scenario since the Spanish plunder of the Andes and Mexico would not have obliterated the precious metal market elsewhere, but industrialization could see an increase in trade for gold.

In this scenario, the Congo is still a slavery-based economy (just not as extreme as IOTL) and its survival as a political entity will depend on its ability to pivot to rubber. This would still be quite a brutal industry, forcing people inland to harvest rubber so a country which previously existed to control the slave trade could probably make the switch.
 

Deleted member 67076

@Soverihn do you have any good generals sources for someone who wants to look into pre-colonial West African Civilisations? I have a few, somewhat outlandish ideas for the area, and I want to make sure I've got a decent enough grounding in the area.
The United Nations has a (slightly outdated now but still good) encyclopedia on African history.

Super long, but it covers everything.

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/themes/general-history-of-africa/
 

Towelie

Banned
If Algeria was held to be separate from France, like if it was either independent (settler colony that breaks with France at some point) or a crown colony (lets just say that there is no 1830 revolt), it would be a good target for this.

Egypt isn't a bad choice either. It is easy to see how some sort of city based industrial growth, accompanied by steam travel growing on the Nile, could lead to industrialization, and probably land reform in the Nile Delta and more efficient forms of farming.

Your best bet for this? A settler colony of some form. The Uganda idea for a Jewish state, for example, if it came early enough, would have been a good target, as the Kibbutz movement did not exist in a Levantine vacuum but rather relied on settler concepts of getting the most from land and from communal concepts that were prevalent in Jewish political thought at the time. So an industrialized state with an agricultural focus was very much possible.
 
If Algeria was held to be separate from France, like if it was either independent (settler colony that breaks with France at some point) or a crown colony (lets just say that there is no 1830 revolt), it would be a good target for this.
I dunno, look at Tunisia. I stayed independent much longer and had some very solid efforts at industrial development but got destabilized by frumentarian crisis
 
I wish to say that I found this discussion extremely interesting. The data for the Sikh Empire and Sokoto is simply fascinating, and I wasn't aware of it. Thank you.

As for the OP, I believe that Egypt, Morocco, Ethiopia and Liberia are the best candidates. However, from what I'm reading, places like Sokoto could have developed more into industrialization with the right POD.
 
Well, if the Dutch settlers - somehow - manage to keep themselves independent in the Cape and at the same time continue their trek inland, they have a good chance.
 
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