Malê Rising

[Chirios]

The map is for 1880, so by that time, the Rozvi would be conquered. It's safe to say, though, that the Shona - especially the eastern ones in the region disputed between Portugal and Britain/Oman - will play a part in the story, and that they will make themselves heard in colonial Matabeleland.

Ahhhh okay, my mistake. I thought we were at 1800 for some reason. Btw, the Bechuanaland protectorate wasn't established until 1885, it should still happen since the butterflies haven't really touched SA yet though.

 

[wannis]

China could go a few ways, but I don't see Abacarism taking hold among its Muslims - there's no readily apparent vector, and the political conditions are wrong. What seems more likely is Ottoman liberalism/reformism entering China via the Turkic peoples of central Asia, possibly during or after the Great War. I'd certainly be interested in others' thoughts on the issue - events in east Asia will mostly take place offstage, but I'll need to know what's going on there when the war starts.

The main conduit for reformist and anti-colonial ideas among the muslim people of Russia in OTL were Tatar intellectuals, with Kazan being a hotbed. They distributed modern ideas to the Muslim peoples of Central Asia, often throgh madrasas. Another conduit were banished revolutionaries and intellectuals - Russians, Poles, and others who were sent East and often did educational work. A good example for the effect they had is the father of modern Kazakh literature, Abay Qunanbay Uly. You can find an English translation of his most important work, the Qara Söz, here. It's an interesting mixture of religious piety and reformist thought; I think he would have appreciated both Belloism and Abacarism.
From here, these ideas would easily move on to China - even up to the 1930s, the border to China was porous and e.g. Kazakh or Kyrghyz nomads would cross it frequently, and live on both sides.

 

[Shevek23]

The main conduit for reformist and anti-colonial ideas among the muslim people of Russia in OTL were Tatar intellectuals, with Kazan being a hotbed. They distributed modern ideas to the Muslim peoples of Central Asia, often throgh madrasas. Another conduit were banished revolutionaries and intellectuals - Russians, Poles, and others who were sent East and often did educational work. A good example for the effect they had is the father of modern Kazakh literature, Abay Qunanbay Uly. You can find an English translation of his most important work, the Qara Söz, here. It's an interesting mixture of religious piety and reformist thought; I think he would have appreciated both Belloism and Abacarism.
From here, these ideas would easily move on to China - even up to the 1930s, the border to China was porous and e.g. Kazakh or Kyrghyz nomads would cross it frequently, and live on both sides.

I'd think intellectuals, especially Muslim ones, would be very likely to pick up on Abacar and Bello, if not via the sorts of grassroots vectors Jonathan (rightly) mainly relies on identifying, than from secondhand accounts, rather the way American Transcendentalists picked up on some notion of Hindu/Buddhist philosophy. They'd see references in both European and Muslim literature and if there is no ready-to-hand primary source, make inferences from secondary ones. But of course there are primary sources, both Abacar and Bello having written pamphlets and books; they'll get their hands on them.

If there are analogs of Plekhanov and Lenin and Trotsky here, they'll probably come up with various offical Russian Social Democrat platforms--which I fear would not be favorable, for the same reasons Marx was particularly critical of what he regarded as radical heresies like Proudhounism, anarchism, and so forth. I am not sure that every Marxist would condemn them both root and branch; I certainly think the revolutionaries would give Abacar some credit, at least as much as they gave other contemporary pre-Marxist revolutionary movements. But the tendency would be to condemn his theism.

Still, even if the more radical Social Democrats pamphletize Abacar to bury and not to praise him, I suspect the attempt to pre-empt him might do as much to spread the Abacarist word as his direct disciples would; among the more well-off Muslims of the Russian Empire Bello might enjoy a similar dispersal by condemnation.

I'd think that the upshot would be, Bolsheviks, if a group closely analogous to them evolves in Russia, would have less traction in Central Asia than OTL, but a very radical--and remarkably well-organized--Islamic radicalism will take their place there. And if the Russian Empire collapses in a crisis anything like OTL 1917, it's not inconceivable to me the alt-Bolsheviks would recognize they have no chance of holding Central Asia on their own terms and make a tactical alliance with the Islamic radicals; I'd guess that Central Asia would not be included in an analog of the USSR but radical Muslim states would be allied with the Communist one.

Or maybe not; the Leninists certainly were very dogmatic and would assume any compromise with "bourgeois" and still worse "feudal" institutions would undermine themselves and inhibit the spread of authentic world revolution they were counting on.

And all of this is getting very far ahead, knowing a Great War is about to erupt in the 1880s and that Russia is already tottering after the losses of the most recent war. There's a fair chance the Tsars won't be ruling as early as 1890 but the particular configuration of the radical spectrum that existed OTL in 1917 can't possibly be in place 27 or more years earlier; if the Tsars do outlast the 19th century it will be because what could exist would not be adequate to replace the Tsarist state. Certainly the climate of the first couple decades of the 20th century will be different.

Oh heck, I can't imagine the Russian Empire will do well in the Great War but Jonathan may have some amazing surprises up his sleeve.

Maybe there will be such a miracle as a canny and wise Romanov on the throne?

 

[Shevek23]

The main conduit for reformist and anti-colonial ideas among the muslim people of Russia in OTL were Tatar intellectuals, with Kazan being a hotbed. They distributed modern ideas to the Muslim peoples of Central Asia, often throgh madrasas. Another conduit were banished revolutionaries and intellectuals - Russians, Poles, and others who were sent East and often did educational work. A good example for the effect they had is the father of modern Kazakh literature, Abay Qunanbay Uly. You can find an English translation of his most important work, the Qara Söz, here. It's an interesting mixture of religious piety and reformist thought; I think he would have appreciated both Belloism and Abacarism.
From here, these ideas would easily move on to China - even up to the 1930s, the border to China was porous and e.g. Kazakh or Kyrghyz nomads would cross it frequently, and live on both sides.

I'd think intellectuals, especially Muslim ones, would be very likely to pick up on Abacar and Bello, if not via the sorts of grassroots vectors Jonathan (rightly) mainly relies on identifying, than from secondhand accounts, rather the way American Transcendentalists picked up on some notion of Hindu/Buddhist philosophy. They'd see references in both European and Muslim literature and if there is no ready-to-hand primary source, make inferences from secondary ones. But of course there are primary sources, both Abacar and Bello having written pamphlets and books; they'll get their hands on them.

If there are analogs of Plekhanov and Lenin and Trotsky here, they'll probably come up with various offical Russian Social Democrat platforms--which I fear would not be favorable, for the same reasons Marx was particularly critical of what he regarded as radical heresies like Proudhounism, anarchism, and so forth. I am not sure that every Marxist would condemn them both root and branch; I certainly think the revolutionaries would give Abacar some credit, at least as much as they gave other contemporary pre-Marxist revolutionary movements. But the tendency would be to condemn his theism.

Still, even if the more radical Social Democrats pamphletize Abacar to bury and not to praise him, I suspect the attempt to pre-empt him might do as much to spread the Abacarist word as his direct disciples would; among the more well-off Muslims of the Russian Empire Bello might enjoy a similar dispersal by condemnation.

I'd think that the upshot would be, Bolsheviks, if a group closely analogous to them evolves in Russia, would have less traction in Central Asia than OTL, but a very radical--and remarkably well-organized--Islamic radicalism will take their place there. And if the Russian Empire collapses in a crisis anything like OTL 1917, it's not inconceivable to me the alt-Bolsheviks would recognize they have no chance of holding Central Asia on their own terms and make a tactical alliance with the Islamic radicals; I'd guess that Central Asia would not be included in an analog of the USSR but radical Muslim states would be allied with the Communist one.

Or maybe not; the Leninists certainly were very dogmatic and would assume any compromise with "bourgeois" and still worse "feudal" institutions would undermine themselves and inhibit the spread of authentic world revolution they were counting on.

And all of this is getting very far ahead, knowing a Great War is about to erupt in the 1880s and that Russia is already tottering after the losses of the most recent war. There's a fair chance the Tsars won't be ruling as early as 1890 but the particular configuration of the radical spectrum that existed OTL in 1917 can't possibly be in place 27 or more years earlier; if the Tsars do outlast the 19th century it will be because what could exist would not be adequate to replace the Tsarist state. Certainly the climate of the first couple decades of the 20th century will be different.

Oh heck, I can't imagine the Russian Empire will do well in the Great War but Jonathan may have some amazing surprises up his sleeve.

Maybe there will be such a miracle as a canny and wise Romanov on the throne?

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

In fact, there was a strong friendship between the family Hugo and the House of Jerome, especially between Prince Napoleon and Victor Hugo; this strong friendship originated from the times when the Red Prince as he was called under the second Republic was in opposition to his presidential cousin (he even felicitated Hugo for his 'Napoleon le petit' speech)... Since he is become Emperor ITTL, would Victor Hugo come back in France, consider that freedom has returned? I wonder about Hugo because his influence would be far from neglectable on politics, and culture.

Did Hugo's friendship with Prince Napoleon persist through the 1860s, or did he fall out with the prince for being part of the imperial government? If the friendship did continue, I could certainly see him returning to France after Napoleon III's death and resuming his political career as he did in OTL. He could very easily be one of the members of Napoleon IV's constitutional commission, and later a liberal National Assembly deputy. I think he'll have a cameo in the next France/French West Africa update (which will be the last one during his lifetime), and I'll have to think about some of the things he might have written in the ATL.

Btw, the Bechuanaland protectorate wasn't established until 1885, it should still happen since the butterflies haven't really touched SA yet though.

There have been some significant butterflies in southern Africa with the earlier discovery of the Transvaal gold fields, the confederation wars advanced by a few years, and the South African Republic defeating the first British attempt to annex it rather than being taken over peacefully (the economic boost from the gold rush enabled it to avoid the bankruptcy and near-anarchy that existed in the late 1870s OTL). As a result, the British are more concerned with outflanking the Boer republics, and have secured their position in Bechuanaland by 1880 in order to cut off splinter states like Stellaland or Goshen.

The main conduit for reformist and anti-colonial ideas among the muslim people of Russia in OTL were Tatar intellectuals, with Kazan being a hotbed. They distributed modern ideas to the Muslim peoples of Central Asia, often throgh madrasas. Another conduit were banished revolutionaries and intellectuals - Russians, Poles, and others who were sent East and often did educational work. A good example for the effect they had is the father of modern Kazakh literature, Abay Qunanbay Uly. You can find an English translation of his most important work, the Qara Söz, here. It's an interesting mixture of religious piety and reformist thought; I think he would have appreciated both Belloism and Abacarism.

From here, these ideas would easily move on to China - even up to the 1930s, the border to China was porous and e.g. Kazakh or Kyrghyz nomads would cross it frequently, and live on both sides.

This is why I love writing this timeline: people keep teaching me things.

Abay Qunanbay Uly will have to make an appearance - he's just too perfect not to do so. I can definitely see him adopting some Abacarist and Belloist doctrines (although, like others, he'll form his own synthesis, which will also include Russian reformist ideas). And I think Shevek23 is right - the books of Abacar and Bello, and their respective disciples, have been circulating for a generation now, and the Islamic scholars of Russia will be aware of them.

At the same time, the Tatars - who in this timeline are under Ottoman patronage - will be a conduit for the Young Ottomans' liberalism, which is a third Islamic reformist current that rejects both Belloism and Abacarism. Kazan might be the center of Young Ottoman-type modernism, while those who come in contact with the banished intellectuals might be more inclined to adopt the revolutionary West African doctrines - and from there, grass-roots vectors could spread all three across central Asia and western China. Maybe Abay's synthesis will be yet a fourth - something inspired by the previous reformists but uniquely Russian.

I'd think that the upshot would be, Bolsheviks, if a group closely analogous to them evolves in Russia, would have less traction in Central Asia than OTL, but a very radical--and remarkably well-organized--Islamic radicalism will take their place there. And if the Russian Empire collapses in a crisis anything like OTL 1917, it's not inconceivable to me the alt-Bolsheviks would recognize they have no chance of holding Central Asia on their own terms and make a tactical alliance with the Islamic radicals; I'd guess that Central Asia would not be included in an analog of the USSR but radical Muslim states would be allied with the Communist one.

I won't go too far into this kind of speculation, because I haven't decided yet who will win out in Russia. I'll add, though, that the Bolsheviks tried to create a revolutionary Islam during the 1920s, sponsoring a socialist imamate and (among other things) appointing Mukhlisa Bubi as the first female qadi. Yaakov Ro'i's Islam and the Soviet Union, although mostly focusing on the post-WW2 period, has some fascinating discussion of Islam under Lenin. Like much else in the early Soviet Union, the initial engagement with Islam (which in any event met with very mixed success) fell by the wayside under Stalin, with many of the modernist figures being shot or sent to the gulag during the 1930s.

In this timeline, revolutionary Islam would already exist, and it would even have a dash of socialism. As you do, I think the Marxists and social democrats would be skeptical of Abacar's mysticism and theism (although those very qualities might attract some of the narodnik village socialists) - but if a Bolshevik government was willing to make a pragmatic engagement with central Asian Islam in OTL, then they might be willing to overlook the perceived flaws of Abacarism, at least in the short term. Or maybe the strong revolutionary Islamic currents - which, for all their skepticism, they wouldn't be able to dismiss as primitive or easily molded - would cause them to back off, and accept the central Asians as client-allies in the style of OTL Mongolia rather than incorporating them outright.

Let's wait and see what happens in the Great War, though - the Tsar may not survive (and certainly not as an absolute monarch), but there are plenty of non-Bolshevik alternatives.

 

[Shevek23]

I'll leave it in your hands!

 

[galileo-034]

Did Hugo's friendship with Prince Napoleon persist through the 1860s, or did he fall out with the prince for being part of the imperial government?

I've not found anything on the relations between Hugo and Prince Napoleon in the 1860s in his biography. But I think that there was still a friendship.
*Firstly, there is a letter from François-Victor Hugo wrote in March 1853 (http://www.victorhugo2002.culture.fr/culture/celebrations/hugo/fr/ow_archiv_napo8.htm), after the restoration of the Empire and Plon-Plon becoming a Prince; Hugo's son, still in France asks in this letter the intervention of Prince Napoleon to help one of his friend, an editor, who has just been arrested. Hugo's son speaks of Prince Napoleon as a 'dear and illustrious friend' and writes later: 'I know you and we all know you so obliging that we have thought at this very moment to your powerful intervention'... So, even after Plon-Plon became Prince, the son of Victor Hugo asks for the help of a friend.
Secondly, I think that Victor Hugo should have a debt to Prince Napoleon for the release of his two sons shortly after the coup. These liberations were among the graces that Prince Napoleon and his father obtained in the aftermath of the coup.
*Thirdly, during all the Empire, Prince Napoleon had maintained a strong friendship with George Sand (stronger than with Hugo I think since Hugo wasn't in France). Despite the coup and the restoration of the Empire, George Sand understood that Prince Napoleon wasn't guilty of the acts of his cousin, his reluctance to accept the Empire and knew his devotion to democracy. Prince Napoleon was even the godfather of a member of Sand's family (a grandchild surely, but I don't remember exactly who) and during many of his travels (the Prince was a true globetrotter), he was accompanied by Maurice Sand (George Sand's son).
If George Sand can forgive Prince Napoleon the fact of being a Bonaparte, I think that Victor Hugo could.
*Fourthly, Victor Hugo was surely aware of that. After his return IOTL, Hugo released among stories about the coup of 51 a very interesting anecdote: in november, a man who could bear the name of Bonaparte came to his home to ask for his support for a coup to preempt a coup of the President and to save the Republic, but Hugo would have declined, saying 'I prefer undergoing the crime rather than committing it'. Finding the full name of the Bonaparte of the story is easy: Prince Napoleon. Even if Prince Napoleon denied having planned such a coup, I would not be surprised (after the overthrowing of the Empire in 1870, he had participated in the planification of a reconquest of France, a plan which included the arrestation of hundreds of notorious Republicans; he justified it by claiming that the Republicans had violated the legality since the French people had massively voted for the Empire when it approved the Constitution of May 1870).

He could very easily be one of the members of Napoleon IV's constitutional commission, and later a liberal National Assembly deputy.

With Prince Napoleon becoming Napoleon IV and his reforms, I've thought that the friendship which existed would make Victor Hugo easier to convince that freedom has returned (he refused to return in France after the general amnesty of 1859 saying: 'When freedom would return, I would return'). However, I hardly imagine that the staunch Republican Victor Hugo was would become a devoted servant to the Empire because of this friendship. But I would not say the same thing about his sons.
Given the age of Hugo, I would rather imagine him elected Senator.
P.S.: Under the Empire, the lower house of French parliament was the 'Legislative Corps'.

 

[wannis]

Abay Qunanbay Uly will have to make an appearance - he's just too perfect not to do so. ... Maybe Abay's synthesis will be yet a fourth - something inspired by the previous reformists but uniquely Russian.

I'll be looking forward to that!

At the same time, the Tatars - who in this timeline are under Ottoman patronage - will be a conduit for the Young Ottomans' liberalism, which is a third Islamic reformist current that rejects both Belloism and Abacarism. Kazan might be the center of Young Ottoman-type modernism, while those who come in contact with the banished intellectuals might be more inclined to adopt the revolutionary West African doctrines - and from there, grass-roots vectors could spread all three across central Asia and western China.

Please keep in mind that the name "Tatars" is a bit of an omnium gatherum - there are at least three distinct Turkic groups called "Tatar" that form different ethnicities and don't even speak the same language. There are the Kazan Tatars, the Crimean Tatars, and the Nogais (in the Steppe region). While the Crimean Tatars are under Ottoman patronage and protection ITTL, I'd assume that the Kazan Tatars would keep more of a distance. Given the more intellectually vibrant, powerful and politically influential OE in TTL, there certainly will be more exchange of ideas, Kazan Tatars going to study to Istambul, individuals who look to the Sultan for "liberating the Muslims from the Russian yoke", etc., but many will also be wary of being seen as foreign agents and will advocate achieving more participation or liberation without support of the Porte and looking for inspiration outside of the OE.

Or maybe the strong revolutionary Islamic currents - which, for all their skepticism, they wouldn't be able to dismiss as primitive or easily molded - would cause them to back off, and accept the central Asians as client-allies in the style of OTL Mongolia rather than incorporating them outright.

I'd say not incorporating Mongolia wasn't done for any reasons of the Mongolians not being ready for socialism, but for reasons of foreign policy - the USSR didn't want to be seen as a conquering power. On the whole, the USSR didn't extend its borders beyond the frontiers of the Tsarist empire (with the exceptions of Northern East Prussia after WW II and Tuva in 1944, when the USSR felt much more secure about its status).
In general, the policies of introducing socialism and collectivization were the same in Mongolia, as in the Soviet Republics, although collectivization was finalized later than in the USSR.
So, what I want to say - OTL Bolsheviks probably wouldn't allow independent (islamo-)socialist entities to arise inside the borders of the old Tsarist empire - wherever non-bolshevik socialist states were formed inside those borders IOTL (e.g. in the Caucasus), the bolsheviks crushed them and incorporated them in the USSR. The most the islamo-socialists would get is to be treated as fellow-travellers and some share of the power in the early years, until they'd be purged. But the point, of course, is moot, as ITTL Russia is on a different course and OTL-like bolsheviks perhaps won't achieve power at all.

 

[Daztur]

Also with a lot of the Tartars farther west you'd often have more intermixture between them and Russians than with Muslim minorities farther east, otherwise I wouldn't be 1/16th Tartar

 

[B_Munro]

Scratch a Russian, eh?

I'll be starting my 1880 map this weekend: probably will post a rough draft before getting too cluttered for people to critique.

Bruce

 

[Unknown]

Jonathan, the population of South Carolina in 1860 was about 301,000 whites and 402,000 slaves.

What percentage of the total population died or were wounded in the events of TTL's uprising? (I'm just interested, that's all.)

And don't forget about the Charleston earthquake of 1886.

Waiting for the next update.

 

[Ganesha]

Jonathan, I really enjoyed this update. I hope you're not disappointed I have nothing more intelligent to say, but I really don't know much about pre-Independence Indian politics, especially the politics of the Raj. I know a good deal about pre-British Indian history, I know post-Independence politics, and I certainly know Indian culture pretty well, but the Raj is a big gap in my knowledge.

In any case, this was excellently written. The changes in India are pretty massive already, and they're going to have even huger ramifications. After West Africa and Brazil, I'd say India will be the most changed area of your new world. I'm really looking forward to wherever you take it next, and if you have any questions about Indian culture, PM me. If you have any questions about Indian history, PM Flocculencio, not me!

Keep up the great work!

Cheers,
Ganesha

 

[B_Munro]

Thinking of starting with a 1850-ish base and working from there: does anyone have something better than this one from the wiki map dump? (1848)

Bruce

 

[Ganesha]

Thinking of starting with a 1850-ish base and working from there: does anyone have something better than this one from the wiki map dump? (1848)

Bruce

No, I'm sorry, I don't have anything better. I'm really looking forward to this map, Bruce! Thanks for taking it on!

Cheers,
Ganesha

 

[wolf_brother]

Thinking of starting with a 1850-ish base and working from there: does anyone have something better than this one from the wiki map dump? (1848)

Bruce

I'm working on a 1856 map right now, it might be better to wait for that and go from there.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

If George Sand can forgive Prince Napoleon the fact of being a Bonaparte, I think that Victor Hugo could.

Sounds very reasonable, especially since Hugo wasn't opposed to Bonapartes as such, only to the acts of Napoleon III.

With Prince Napoleon becoming Napoleon IV and his reforms, I've thought that the friendship which existed would make Victor Hugo easier to convince that freedom has returned (he refused to return in France after the general amnesty of 1859 saying: 'When freedom would return, I would return'). However, I hardly imagine that the staunch Republican Victor Hugo was would become a devoted servant to the Empire because of this friendship. But I would not say the same thing about his sons.

Given the age of Hugo, I would rather imagine him elected Senator.

He wouldn't be a devoted servant of the Empire - but surely he'd be willing to help draft the constitution that restores many republican liberties.

Agreed that he'd probably be a senator - he did serve in the National Assembly during the early 1870s OTL, but by the later 1870s, his role would be more that of elder statesman than active politician.

P.S.: Under the Empire, the lower house of French parliament was the 'Legislative Corps'.

I mentioned that it was reconstituted as the National Assembly under Napoleon IV's 1875 constitution - it was the Legislative Corps before that.

Please keep in mind that the name "Tatars" is a bit of an omnium gatherum - there are at least three distinct Turkic groups called "Tatar" that form different ethnicities and don't even speak the same language. There are the Kazan Tatars, the Crimean Tatars, and the Nogais (in the Steppe region). While the Crimean Tatars are under Ottoman patronage and protection ITTL, I'd assume that the Kazan Tatars would keep more of a distance. Given the more intellectually vibrant, powerful and politically influential OE in TTL, there certainly will be more exchange of ideas, Kazan Tatars going to study to Istambul, individuals who look to the Sultan for "liberating the Muslims from the Russian yoke", etc., but many will also be wary of being seen as foreign agents and will advocate achieving more participation or liberation without support of the Porte and looking for inspiration outside of the OE.

Fair point. To some extent, the Kazan Tatars won't have a choice, because many reactionaries in the Russian court will consider all Muslims agents of the Sultan. But certainly, avoiding direct contact with the Porte will be one way to minimize suspicion, and some of the Tatars will take that route and look for other sources of inspiration. So the Turkish and West African varieties of reformism will both be present.

BTW, I think I've figured out exactly where Abay will fit in.

Also with a lot of the Tartars farther west you'd often have more intermixture between them and Russians than with Muslim minorities farther east, otherwise I wouldn't be 1/16th Tartar

Hmmm, a vector for Abacarist influence to make its way into the *narodnik movement?

I'll be starting my 1880 map this weekend: probably will post a rough draft before getting too cluttered for people to critique.

Looking forward to it!

Jonathan, the population of South Carolina in 1860 was about 301,000 whites and 402,000 slaves.

What percentage of the total population died or were wounded in the events of TTL's uprising? (I'm just interested, that's all.)

I've mentioned in the past that the combined deaths from military action, disease and hunger were in five figures on both sides - neither side gave any quarter in battle, and both went after each other's farms. Probably up to 10 percent of the black population and five to seven percent of the whites. The casualty rate is one of the contributing factors to South Carolina being so militarized after the war and to mutual-aid networks being such an important part of the freedmen's society.

Jonathan, I really enjoyed this update. I hope you're not disappointed I have nothing more intelligent to say, but I really don't know much about pre-Independence Indian politics, especially the politics of the Raj. I know a good deal about pre-British Indian history, I know post-Independence politics, and I certainly know Indian culture pretty well, but the Raj is a big gap in my knowledge.

In any case, this was excellently written. The changes in India are pretty massive already, and they're going to have even huger ramifications. After West Africa and Brazil, I'd say India will be the most changed area of your new world. I'm really looking forward to wherever you take it next, and if you have any questions about Indian culture, PM me. If you have any questions about Indian history, PM Flocculencio, not me!

I'm not disappointed, just glad you're enjoying what you're reading. You're right that the changes in India will be very extensive, both politically and culturally: for instance, an ATL Indian in 2012 would give you a blank look if you mentioned Pakistan or Bangladesh, but there may be some holes in the middle of the map. Islam in India will be changed profoundly, which means that the relationship between Muslims and Hindus will also be changed, and an earlier bottom-up democratization in the princely states may strengthen the grass-roots identity of some of them.

I'll definitely have some cultural questions for you down the line. I'll have to figure out where Jainism fits into all this, for instance; was there enough crossover between Jainism and Islam for the *Ahmadi Belloists to adopt Jainist philosophies?

Update tomorrow evening or Monday, and after that, I'll update the Egyptian one before returning to this.

 

[galileo-034]

I mentioned that it was reconstituted as the National Assembly under Napoleon IV's 1875 constitution - it was the Legislative Corps before that.

I missed this detail. I have some doubts. Prince Napoleon was of course a democrat, a liberal, but when we get close to anything related to the history of Napoleon I, he becomes suddenly the harshest censor who can be (one of the contradictions of his personality): he was the member of a commission established to gather correspondance of Napoleon I in a book to show the greatness of the character, and after the commission released a first draft, he declared there was not enough cuts and obtained the direction of the commission.
The Legislative Corps was established by Napoleon I as the lower house of his regime, and Napoleon III retook this name to be in continuation with the First Empire and its legend. So, I doubt that Prince Napoleon would want such a change, especially when 'National Assembly' has a huge republican connotation. Here, the problem of the Prince is that he considered that it was a family matter, not a public one, even when both were linked.

This contradiction reminds me another which caused a misadventure to President Lincoln.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

The Legislative Corps was established by Napoleon I as the lower house of his regime, and Napoleon III retook this name to be in continuation with the First Empire and its legend. So, I doubt that Prince Napoleon would want such a change, especially when 'National Assembly' has a huge republican connotation. Here, the problem of the Prince is that he considered that it was a family matter, not a public one, even when both were linked.

Fair point. The Corps législatif it will remain. My reference to a "national assembly" in the previous update was in lowercase letters, so we'll assume that it was a description of the legislature rather than its actual name.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Zélia Moreira, A Princely Republic: Ilorin During the British Period (Ilorin: Popular Press, 2007)

​

… Usman Abacar may have handled the British politics of the Oyo-Company War almost perfectly, but he bungled the domestic politics. The man in the street in Ilorin couldn’t understand why Oyo had won the war but was now acknowledging the sovereignty of a British queen, and many of Usman’s core Abacarist supporters balked at bending the knee to any monarch at all. The reason for the peace terms – that the sheer scale of Oyo’s victory made it necessary to come to terms with Britain lest the London mob bay for revenge, and that the terms of accession preserved Ilorin’s republic in all but name – were somewhat too nuanced to be easily explained, and Usman’s political enemies weren’t interested in trying. By the time the peace was actually signed, and approved first by a visibly reluctant Ilorin legislature and then by the leaders of the confederated Oyo states, many people saw Usman not as the winner of the war but as the loser of the peace.

Usman’s political coalition held together through the ratification, but the defections had already begun, and they accelerated afterward. Less than a month later, the government lost a vote of no confidence and for the first time in Ilorin’s history, early elections were called. The industrialists and large merchants who had lost power to the Abacarists in 1872 pulled out all the stops, charging that Usman had mismanaged and sold out the country, and even seizing on his son’s middle name of Malik (after the founder of the Maliki madhab) as evidence that he was a would-be dictator.

In the uncertainty and charged atmosphere of the postwar period, these attacks worked. When the dust had settled on the 1880 election, Usman had retained his seat handily and the Abacarists were still the largest single party – in fact, they remained the only political party worthy of the name – but they had lost their majority, and the industrialists’ faction seized the premiership. Usman would remain as the largely ceremonial chancellor of the New Oyo Confederation, but in his own constituent state, he was once again leader of the opposition.

Curiously, the outcome of the election did much to calm the political tensions. Possibly the people were reassured by the fact that they could still vote out their government, and that even with Oyo as a British imperial domain, their voice still mattered. And in the event, the merchant-industrialist faction's policies were at least as pro-British as Usman’s. Britain was where the money was, many of them already had British partners or investors, and the elimination of barriers between Oyo and Britain meant that they could now invest their profits throughout the empire. Some went into finance, becoming bankers and merchants to the West African parts of the empire as the Indians were in East Africa. Others, who had developed relationships with particular naval officers or British suppliers in their role as refitters to the Royal Navy, removed to Britain itself, joining the naval manufacturing facilities around the Chatham Dockyard and founding the African community of the Medway Towns. These ventures were still in their infancy in the 1880s, but in time, millions of pounds in profits would be reinvested in Ilorin.

The "interval of the merchants," as it is locally known, was in some ways a period of rapid development. The railroad from Lagos to Ilorin was completed in 1883, and by the end of the decade, it would extend to Jebba. The navigation canals that had been built during the First Sokoto Republic were enlarged and extended, making the Niger navigable year-round for larger packet steamers, and the port facilities at Jebba were improved.

But these very improvements would lead to hardship in many parts of the country. A decade of Abacarist industrial policy, combined with Usman's strategic partnership with the Royal Navy, had enabled the ironworking and textile industries to stay locally competitive, becoming efficient enough to sell their products more cheaply than imported goods despite diminishing shipment costs. The latecomer industries such as furniture and glass, however, hadn't been able to scale up to this degree, and the coming of the railroad reduced shipping costs to the point where they were no longer viable.

In time, these industries would restructure. The glass-works would find a niche in naval and medical production, while the furniture workshops would shift away from mass-market production to high-quality, artistically carved wares for the export market. The reformed furniture industry, in fact, would take in not only Ilorin but all the Oyo city-states, taking advantage of traditional wood-carving forms. But for both industries, this represented a shift from factories to semi-artisanal production, and many jobs and fortunes were lost during the process.

The losses in the secondary industries would prove to be the first crack in the industrialists' political coalition. While the government was undoubtedly pro-business, it lacked a coherent industrial policy, and it had no solutions for the weaker sectors, which in turn began to rethink their allegiance. The coalition's final downfall, though, would come from the other direction. In 1884, the industrialists attempted to take advantage of the weak labor market by repealing the Abacarist labor code that Usman had instituted. In doing so, they overestimated their strength; several of the independent legislators upon whose support they relied belonged to the traditional imamate, whose communitarian sensibilities were offended by the industrialists' adversarial attitude toward their workers. Usman rallied the imams, the independent Abacarists and some of the disgruntled furniture- and glass-makers against the bill, succeeded in declaring it a vote of confidence, and brought down the government with its failure.

The ensuing election marked a return to old patterns: Usman was once again seen as his father's heir and the champion of the working class, and he argued for an industrial bank to ease the secondary industries' transition and increased zakat distribution in the form of business loans to displaced workers who qualified. In October 1884, the Abacarist party was returned to office with an absolute majority, and Usman was once again prime minister...

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Samuel de Souza, Political Science: Medicine and Agriculture in Colonial Africa (Lagos: United, 1995)

… Ilorin’s agricultural institute and medical school were created as technical training institutions, and for the first few years, they were exactly that. The medical school trained local doctors and assisted cities and towns in improving public health; the agricultural college introduced clay-pipe drip irrigation to West Africa and dispatched instructors to teach farmers about crop rotation and soil conservation. During the 1870s, as these measures spread across the Oyo confederation and north to the Sahel, the region experienced a modest increase in crop yields, creating a surplus to feed the growing cities and reducing dependency on imported foods.

But neither institute would remain exclusively a technical school for long. The medical school’s public health work led naturally to experimentation and research: doctors sent to control epidemics sought to determine their sources, and in doing so, discovered the vectors for several locally endemic diseases. In 1883, David Bruce, who was investigating an outbreak of sleeping sickness in Lagos, discovered the tsetse-fly vector, and the mosquito vector for yellow fever was found three years later. [1] This would lead to pest-control campaigns and draining of stagnant water throughout Oyo, and the success of these efforts would encourage the medical faculty to more experimental efforts.

Medicine in the lower Niger also benefited from the “Company’s gift:” the introduction of cinchona trees in the delta region. Britain begun cultivating smuggled cinchona in Ceylon as early as 1861, and when the Company took over Bonny in 1872, it purchased several trees from the Hakgala Gardens for use by its personnel, as well as land in the Udi Hills where they could be cultivated. Unlike the palm-oil trade, the Company made no attempt to monopolize cinchona cultivation, trading seeds and young plants freely in order to build trust. By 1880, there were also cinchona plantations in the hills of central Oyo and on the Jos plateau, and the bark was being traded north as far as Gobir and Bornu. Deaths from malaria in the lower and middle Niger dropped precipitously during the 1880s, and it is estimated that life expectancy in the region increased by five to seven years…

David Bruce​

… The agricultural school had likewise established experimental gardens by the end of the 1870s. Many of the early experiments involved attempts to breed tropical varieties of European cereal crops, and most of these proved unsuccessful. At the same time, however, the faculty had begun to experiment with local crops, breeding higher-yield varieties of pearl millet and cowpea, and studying the cultivation of wild udala or star-apple as well as underused bean and nut crops. [2] Although some of these efforts met with resistance from local farmers, something of a breakthrough was achieved in 1886, when the institute’s director persuaded the Ilorin government to grant loans to displaced workers who agreed to grow the experimental crops…

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Laura Douglas, “British Administration in West Africa During the Transitional Period,” African History Quarterly 37:318-30 (Autumn 1983)

... The Oyo war wasn't the end of the Royal Niger Company: in fact, during the early 1880s, it continued to consolidate its control of the Igbo country and the Benue basin. But as the new decade dawned, the Company found itself with its freedom of action curtailed. Whitehall had no interest in bailing the Company out of any other disastrous ventures, and with its reputation damaged by Usman Abacar’s propaganda assault, its political patrons were unable to protect it. Even before the conclusion of the peace treaty, the British government imposed a new oversight board, put the Company’s military under the direct command of Horse Guards, and required its directors to submit all treaties with indigenous rulers for review.

Soon, another attack would come from an unexpected quarter. Jaja of Opobo, the former king of Bonny whose overthrow the Company had arranged, had banked much of his fortune in Britain before being exiled, and invested much of it in breaking the Company’s palm-oil monopoly. Using his connection with the Coaster peoples, who carried on a nominally-illegal but broadly tolerated trade that linked the colonial empires, Jaja bought large consignments of palm oil in Côte d’Ivoire and transshipped them at Freetown or Lagos, selling them in the British industrial cities at below the Company’s price. In order to stay competitive, the Company was forced to slash its profit margins and cut wages to the point where many plantation workers returned to subsistence farming.

In 1881, Jaja took the battle to London itself, filing suit against the Company for the restoration of his throne on the ground that it had unlawfully arranged for him to be deposed. The case, with its flavor of the exotic, was a media sensation when it was tried before the High Court, and again when Jaja’s appeal reached the House of Lords. Although the trial was a somewhat quixotic enterprise, Jaja’s lawyers delighted in revealing embarrassing details about how the Company did business, and public sympathies, which were always ready to turn against rapacious trade barons, swung heavily in favor of the exiled king.

Ultimately, the Law Lords declined to restore Jaja to his throne or to award damages; to do so would risk undoing far too many political arrangements made by other chartered companies. The lords did find, though, that since Jaja had been convicted of no crime in any British court, the Company had no right to bar him from returning to Opobo as a private citizen and must give him the same regard as any other British subject. Early in 1883, Jaja arrived in Bonny to great fanfare, taking a villa across the street from his old palace and buying vast tracts of land in the interior to plant palm oil and cocoa.

With its profits further cut by scandal and competition, the Company threw up its hands. In April 1884, its parliamentary backers arranged for the British government to buy out the directors – at substantially more than their shares were worth – and to take over direct responsibility for its territories. The kingdoms of Bonny and Calabar became British protectorates, and the remaining holdings were incorporated as the Crown Colony of Lower Niger.

The assumption of this large new colony completed a three-tiered system of administration in West Africa, modeled on that of India. The coastal areas that had long been held by Britain, and the new territories where no pre-colonial state existed, came under direct rule by British governors, district officers and courts. The inland and delta kingdoms which had been conquered by Britain or the Company – or which voluntarily sought British protection from Adamawa, as the Nupe and the Wukari did in 1884 – were treated as princely states, with external relations and defense in British hands but broad internal self-government. Most of the smaller states, such as the two Yoruba city-states that hadn’t joined the Oyo Confederacy or the petty kingdoms of the Wukari (and later of the Borgu), contracted away many of their governmental functions to Britain, to the point where their rulers held title largely in name. The larger ones continued to manage their own affairs, with some even having military units under integrated British command, but were responsible to a British resident who could overrule or even depose their rulers.

The third category, unique to Oyo until the later 1880s, was that of “imperial domain.” In some ways, Oyo’s relationship with Britain was like that of a princely state: it was a subsidiary alliance in which Oyo recognized British sovereignty, ceded its war-making power to Whitehall, and bound itself to imperial foreign and trade policy. At the same time, it kept a fully equipped army, under British command only at the operational level, and had responsible government with the resident having solely diplomatic authority. It also continued to maintain diplomatic relations with African nations outside the British Empire, which would prove to be a useful back-channel for British diplomacy. Indeed, until the establishment of the Empire Office, relations between London and Ile-Ife would be handled out of the Foreign Office rather than the Colonial Office…

… To rule its growing empire, Britain established the African Civil Service, modeled on the elite civil service of India. Like its Indian counterpart, the ACS, which was established in 1885, would number about 1000 at any given time, and would form the senior judicial and executive branch of the colonial government (lower-level administrators and clerks would be recruited locally or else posted from the British civil service). Candidates were chosen by competitive examination and, after two years of training in administration, law and the language of the area in which they were to serve, were liable to service anywhere in British Africa except the Cape Colony and Natal.

In theory, the ACS examinations were open to any British subject regardless of race, and since Africa was considered a hardship posting, there was more non-European representation than in the Indian senior bureaucracy. But many of these non-Europeans were from India, where there were more candidates who met the educational qualifications; ironically, during the 1880s and early 1890s, there were ironically more Indians in the ACS than in the ICS. And, with advances in tropical medicine making Africa safer for Europeans, Indians and Africans together were far outnumbered by Englishmen. There were always a few African judges and district officers - typically recruited from the Krio of Sierra Leone, the Yoruba or the Malê, who were most likely to have a post-secondary education – but for the first generation of its existence, the African Civil Service was primarily a European affair. This would have some benign effects, such as introducing cricket, rugby and football to Africa, but many others would not be so benign…

… By the mid-1880s, as the European powers expanded their African empires, the borders of British West Africa were increasingly troubled. In the west, the French colonial governors of Côte d’Ivoire disputed the borders of the Asante kingdom, which was now firmly incorporated into the British empire as a princely state. To the north, Britain and France quarreled over the right to trade with the Mossi kingdom and bring it into their sphere of influence; French authorities were particularly disturbed by British merchants selling weapons to the Mossi, many of which were sold on to the Toucouleur.

In the east, relations between the Lower Niger Colony and the North German Confederation’s ivory-and-rubber trading post at Douala were more cooperative, but this too had its hazards. The boundary between the German zone and French Gabon was uncertain, and a number of incidents between French and Prussian colonial troops during 1884 and 1885 threatened to bring Britain, as a North German ally, into the dispute.

And then there was the growing scramble for the Congo…

*******​

Ahmadu Odubogun, Faith and Ferment: The Sahel and Sudan in the Nineteenth Century (Ibadan Univ. Press 2005)

… The Nana Asma’u’s death in March 1882, at the age of eighty-eight, marked the end of an era in the Islamic Sahel. For more than half a century, her name had been synonymous with education; kingdoms and republics might rise and fall, but her jaji corps of itinerant teachers had brought primary education to village women and children throughout the lower Niger and Benue basins. The jajis had helped bring Islam to the southern Yoruba, raised the basic literacy rate from less than five percent to more than fifty, and spread the Roman alphabet from Ibadan to Yola.

The jajis were far too useful to let lapse, but there was no one of the Nana’s stature to continue them. Instead of a single, international corps of teachers, there would now be several, each operating within a single country and under the control of its government. The jajis, like the teachers at brick-and-thatching schools, became civil servants.

It seems amazing to a modern reader that the Sahelian governments waited so long to take over the itinerant teachers, but few of them thought of education as political. To them, the jajis were performing a religious duty, and if the Nana Asma’u wanted to educate their subjects at no cost to them, they weren’t inclined to ask questions. The idea of primary education as a tool to inculcate loyalty and spread political propaganda is a modern one, and the Sahelian rulers’ modernization didn’t extend quite so far.

Thus, the emirs of Adamawa didn’t notice that an entire generation of children, both in rural districts and in the industrial cities, had been exposed to Abacarist ideals, and by the time events brought that fact to their attention, it was far too late to change.

The trigger was economic. During the 1870s, the industries of Ilorin were forced to contend with European competition, but shipping costs to Sokoto and the former Atikuwa sultanate remained high enough that their factories were still insulated. By the 1880s, that was no longer the case: the accession of Oyo to the British empire, the beginning of the West African railroad system and the navigational improvements on the middle Niger enabled British goods to undercut local products. And unlike Ilorin, the governments of the northern states had no policy in place to confront this challenge.

The industrialists of Sokoto – and, even more, those of Zaria, Kano and Kaduna – responded by cutting the cost over which they had the most control: labor. Between 1883 and 1885, wages fell by more than a third, to the point where many industrial workers became eligible for zakat, even while working hours increased and conditions became less safe. In Sokoto, which still paid lip service to Abacarist ethics, the government made a half-hearted attempt to enforce the minimum wage and control working conditions, but with an inexperienced emir and a parliament dominated by the industrialists, these efforts amounted to little. In Adamawa, where the factory barons owned the municipal governments outright, not even that much was done.

The labor movement, blooded by a generation of bitter struggle, treated the wage cuts as a declaration of war, and the radicalism which had been repressed since the late 1850s once more made an appearance. This was not, however, the radicalism of Gusau, which had sought to overturn both politics and religion and to transform Islam into a cult of reason. Instead, the Sahelian labor movement was deeply rooted in traditional religious brotherhoods, and shaped by Abacarist militancy and the communal ethic of Labor Belloism.

Although the unions disagreed on points of doctrine, they were unanimous in arguing that the industries were cutting the wrong cost. To them, a factory was a community, and profit should be invested for the community’s good, which necessarily meant that the first cuts should come at the top rather than being visited on those least able to bear them. And since the industrialists were unlikely to make these cuts voluntarily, then it was necessary for the workers to take ownership of the mills and manage them according to principles of ijma, or consensus.

Up to the 1880s, this had been a matter of philosophical debate, with the actual strikes relating to more immediate matters of wages and hours. But the 1883-85 wage cuts brought the question to the forefront. So severe and widespread were the cutbacks that strikes alone seemed ineffective to deal with them, and when the Third Labor Shura met in Ilorin in 1884, it seemed less like a trade union congress than a planning ground for revolution. And so it proved to be.

The labor uprisings of 1885 broke out almost simultaneously in Sokoto and Zaria. In Sokoto, union militias aligned to the Malê religious brotherhoods took control of much of the capital, forcing the king to flee and declaring a republic. In Zaria, the unions engaged in three days of pitched battles against the industrialist-controlled city militia, driving them out of the city and establishing a municipal government controlled by a council of factory cooperatives. Kano and Kaduna followed suit within the week, and there was even unrest in Yola itself.

The Second Sokoto Republic would last less than six months. The upheaval of the 1850s was still fresh enough in mind for people in the rural districts, and even many in the cities, not to want to repeat it, and they preferred the stability of the emirate to the uncertainty of another republic. The revolution was thus unable to expand its control beyond the capital, and while its control of the city armories made it difficult to dislodge, its fate was sealed when the emir requested British aid.

This was not a decision the emir made lightly; he had studied the British empire, and was well aware of the limitations placed on princely states. But what he also saw was that princely-state status was a powerful guarantee of stasis, protecting the ruler against both external enemies and popular unrest from within. So in 1886, Sokoto became the second of West Africa’s Imperial Domains, and the capital was retaken with the help of a regiment from the Lagos garrison. At the urging of the new British commissioner, the emir extended the qualifications for suffrage and increased the zakat allowance for the needy, but the unions’ attempt to seize control of the factories had, for the time being, failed.

In Adamawa, the emir had no desire to call upon the British Empire, but his other options were limited. The bulk of the military was tied up along the northern frontier; the emir had invaded Bornu two years earlier with the intent of adding it to his kingdom, but his plans had gone disastrously wrong due to the fanatic defense put up by the Bornu armies. Many of the troops not committed to the war were stationed in other recently-conquered provinces, and pulling them out might put those districts at risk of revolt.

It was early 1886 before the emir could scrape together enough force to confront the industrial rebellion, and in March, his forces invested Zaria. There, however, the unions played their trump card: they held the factories hostage, and any attempt to retake the city would result in the destruction of its industries. By this time, both the army and the government of Adamawa depended on industrial production, the few factories in Yola were insufficient to meet their needs, and with the nation at war, a victory which came at the cost of the Atikuwan factories would be suicidal.

The emir had no choice but to come to terms. On May 11, 1886, the Zaria Commune – which had negotiated for Kaduna and Kano as well as for itself – surrendered to the emir’s forces. The terms of surrender required it to compensate the industrialists, but the unions were legalized and the labor brotherhoods were allowed to keep control of the factories they had seized.

The unions’ victory would prove bittersweet. Some of the cooperatives were still unable to withstand competition from imported goods. Hard times would force many workers to sell their shares, and within a few years, many of the cooperatives would have to sell majority ownership back to the industrialists in order to raise capital. Over time, both the local governments and the emirate would systematically undermine and suborn those that remained. But the Sahelian labor movement was now, beyond doubt, a power in itself…

_______

[1] In OTL, the sleeping-sickness vector was found in 1903, so an 1883 discovery isn’t that great an advance. Germ theory was advanced enough by 1883 that the vector could be found if someone were actually looking for it. The pioneering doctor, David Bruce, is an ATL sibling of the man who isolated the cause of sleeping sickness in OTL; rather than going into private practice and then joining the British army and being posted to Malta, this Bruce accepted a faculty position in Ilorin. Because he went directly to Africa after medical school, he never met Mary Steele, who became his wife and his partner in microbiology; on the other hand, he’ll have the opportunity to marry locally, and we’ll see which family he marries into, and what his wife (and children) end up doing.

[2] I am indebted to The Sandman for pointing me to the National Academies Press' Lost Crops of Africa series (all of which can be read online for free if you click on the individual books in the series).

 

[Future8]

Wow. Two Imperial Domains in West Africa now. I wonder how many more Britain will get before decolonization begins.