No or greatly reduced Islamic/Arab slavery in Africa

Angrybird

Banned
Supposed the Islamic conquest never takes place or on a much smaller scale and Africa gets spared all or most of the Arab slave trade which is estimated to have enslaved between 10 and 20 million people in Africa between 650 and 1900 - how does the continent fare?

Would it be strong enough to repel European incursions?

And what about the Atlantic slave trade? OTL 90% of all slaves were bought by Europeans from local African rulers who had been enslaving people to sell them to the Arab slavers.

How much more difficult would the aquisition of slaves had been without a slave economy allready in place?
 
One one hand you do have a definite demographic impact. Population in Africa will be larger. However, some of those taken as slaves would have died anyway from disease, malnutrition, war or other problems. There is a reason before modern medicine why African population growth was slow. I don't think the population would be too much bigger - at least not enough to matter when it comes to resisting European colonization in the late 1800s. There is a Malthusian trap here.

Another thing to consider is that Africans don't sell other Africans to the Arabs and/or Europeans, they have considerably less to trade. Ivory, gold, and some other products certainly have value, but slaves are a huge part of the trade. That means less salt, less firearms, and other products and amenities the Africans do not produce on their own (or produce much less or at lower quality). This will mean those societies are also much poorer.

Another possibility is that Africa becomes less culturally developed. The extra trade value of slaves, and freedman returning home means the transmission of Islam to those societies are less. It will occur much more slowly, and thus things that were included as part of that cultural package will be much less (like literacy, law, books). Without a significant trade surplus from slavery, how much of that money is going to be spent on importing korans, patronizing Islamic scholars, and other cultural benefits? It'll be much less as you concentrate your lesser buying power on necessary economic benefits.

On the whole, I'd think Africa would be even less developed, but with only a modest increase in population.

If you don't have the large existing slave market in place when the Europeans start trading in the 1500s, it will impede the New World economy initially. However, it'll likely develop one to feed the beast. West African kings will just need to create one which means lots of wars and empire building. Giving European made guns to favored chiefs/kings will be a significant advantage. We may see Christianity become more established in West Africa to curry favor with Europeans since the presence of Islam will be much less significant and important to elites without the stronger ties IOTL.

Overall, I don't think much changes on the macro level long term.
 
Overall, I don't think much changes on the macro level long term.

The POD is no or less Arab conquest in North Africa. The changes are going to be absolutely huge and reshape the whole course of African history. North Africa doesn't exist in a vacuum, if the Arabs don't take it the Europeans will. And they'll probably deal heavily in the slave trade since the economics favoring slaves haven't changed.
 
Supposed the Islamic conquest never takes place or on a much smaller scale and Africa gets spared all or most of the Arab slave trade which is estimated to have enslaved between 10 and 20 million people in Africa between 650 and 1900 - how does the continent fare?
I don't think that's possible : even by not conquering Ifriqiya and Maghrib, the need for enslaved taskforce would still be particularly important (remember that Eastern African coast were a major slave trade hub, and acceeding this region would be really easy for Arabs).

At best, you made Western Africa a lesser market (but it would still exist : it's not because Western Europe wasn't conquered by Arabo-Berbers that it didn't was a main slavery trade point for Western Arabo-Islamic world, just look at Prague or Verdun slave markets), and a greater focus on eastern Saqaliba (Slavs, Turks, etc.) and Eastern Africans.

So, no big societal changes.

And what about the Atlantic slave trade?
Likely butterflies, it makes the situation hard to forsee.
But, basically, you didn't remove a slave-based market, you just made it less important.
 
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