Plausibility Check: Canals in Medieval Africa

In my TL, West Africa is developing several centuries sooner than it did IOTL due to Carthage winning the 2nd Punic War and spurring a large scale trans-Saharan trade to pay off its wartime debts.

I have a sahelian state that spans the Senegal and Niger rivers and I was wondering if it's plausible that a permanent canal could be made to connect the two rivers to each other? Similar to China's Grand Canal which connects the Yellow and Yangtze rivers. In the TL, west Africans have domesticated giant eland, so they have access to animal power when it comes to construction.

Also, would it be possible to connect some of Africa's great lakes together through canals to create a second "inner coast" system that could then be used for trade and transportation?
 
Certainly not impossible but I think it might be difficult as the rivers of west Africa are extremely seasonal. Currently the Niger river is only navigable for a few months a year. But I don't know enough about the region to say if a canal would work or not.

This link has a small section that talks about the navigable portions of the Niger River basin and some climatic information you might find useful:
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/...River_Basin_Vision_Sustainable_Management.pdf
 
In my TL, West Africa is developing several centuries sooner than it did IOTL due to Carthage winning the 2nd Punic War and spurring a large scale trans-Saharan trade to pay off its wartime debts.

I have a sahelian state that spans the Senegal and Niger rivers and I was wondering if it's plausible that a permanent canal could be made to connect the two rivers to each other? Similar to China's Grand Canal which connects the Yellow and Yangtze rivers. In the TL, west Africans have domesticated giant eland, so they have access to animal power when it comes to construction.

Also, would it be possible to connect some of Africa's great lakes together through canals to create a second "inner coast" system that could then be used for trade and transportation?

The question is: can you get the level of political stability and concentration/centeralized control of sufficient economic and material resources to sustain such a large and fragile canal system? West African polities were notoriously unstable and decenteralized, so it becomes a question of who is going to actually conduct the project even if it's theoretically possible?
 
The question is: can you get the level of political stability and concentration/centeralized control of sufficient economic and material resources to sustain such a large and fragile canal system? West African polities were notoriously unstable and decenteralized, so it becomes a question of who is going to actually conduct the project even if it's theoretically possible?

Well, as IOTL for the Mali empire, a mansa or "high king" will be ruling the empire from a seat based in the Niger inland delta. Under the mansa are the province-masters that control the individual provinces that compose the empire, and there are griots to help govern the provinces as well that in theory report to the province-masters. I'm thinking the advent of eland domestication will improve transportation which in turn help centralization. The distance from the Niger and the Bafing, a tributary of the Senegal is about 150 miles. In comparison, the Grand Canal is 1,104 miles long!
 
Well, as IOTL for the Mali empire, a mansa or "high king" will be ruling the empire from a seat based in the Niger inland delta. Under the mansa are the province-masters that control the individual provinces that compose the empire, and there are griots to help govern the provinces as well that in theory report to the province-masters. I'm thinking the advent of eland domestication will improve transportation which in turn help centralization. The distance from the Niger and the Bafing, a tributary of the Senegal is about 150 miles. In comparison, the Grand Canal is 1,104 miles long!

I'm not saying that they coulden't do it, per say. Technically, it is plausable, and if politically your timeline has the region more centeralized and stable that IOTL than I see no reason why this can't work. However, its important to remember the Grand Canal runs through some of the best cropland in Europe, in a region with high political stability, and was a system steadily built up and meticiously maintained for centuries that required frequent repairs and alot of labor to keep running. The state you make is going to have be structured in a way fundimentally different than the Mali Empire of our history in order to sustain such a project, and local governors are going to have to be kept on fairly tight leashes.
 
I'm not saying that they coulden't do it, per say. Technically, it is plausable, and if politically your timeline has the region more centeralized and stable that IOTL than I see no reason why this can't work. However, its important to remember the Grand Canal runs through some of the best cropland in Europe, in a region with high political stability, and was a system steadily built up and meticiously maintained for centuries that required frequent repairs and alot of labor to keep running. The state you make is going to have be structured in a way fundimentally different than the Mali Empire of our history in order to sustain such a project, and local governors are going to have to be kept on fairly tight leashes.

What would be the economic and social and political effects of a successful construction of a canal that linked the Niger and Senegal rivers?
 
The Inner Niger Delta is a mess, since too often it's dried out and only seasonally is it useful. I can't imagine it ever being particularly useful to connect with the Senegal River, since the canal would suffer from low water most of the year. Recall that the Niger River itself has poor navigability since once again, most of the river runs dry in most of the year, and even in modern Africa, there's no real desire to fix the river for navigation. Even with a canal, it would be hard to sail from Senegal to the Niger Delta.

It's plausible, but like a lot of other potential megaprojects of Antiquity/Middle Ages, it falls under "what's the point?" Why put so many resources into that when you could spend the money on other things?
 
The Inner Niger Delta is a mess, since too often it's dried out and only seasonally is it useful. I can't imagine it ever being particularly useful to connect with the Senegal River, since the canal would suffer from low water most of the year. Recall that the Niger River itself has poor navigability since once again, most of the river runs dry in most of the year, and even in modern Africa, there's no real desire to fix the river for navigation. Even with a canal, it would be hard to sail from Senegal to the Niger Delta.

It's plausible, but like a lot of other potential megaprojects of Antiquity/Middle Ages, it falls under "what's the point?" Why put so many resources into that when you could spend the money on other things?

Well, I'm saying that the capital of the Sahelian state is located in the Inner Niger Delta. The canal itself would branch off from the western downward end of the Niger and go from there to the Bafing river which is connected to the Senegal river.

The point of a potential Senegal-Niger canal could be economic perhaps? Riverine transportation is faster and cheaper than overland transport so if oceanic trade begins to take off, it would be easier to get goods from the Atlantic, to the Senegal, and then take the canal into the Niger into the rest of the empire. Instead of having to haul them from the Senegal into the Niger. Or it could be used to transport foodstuffs or soldiers from one corner of the empire to the other at a faster rate to those that need them or to quell an uprising or invasion before it even gets started.
 
What would be the economic and social and political effects of a successful construction of a canal that linked the Niger and Senegal rivers?

@metalinvader665 really hit the nail on the head on this: the commerical and travel impact is probably going to be minimal and seasonal for anything in bulk (and your average citizen won't exactly be swimming in disposal income to really trigger a market revolution, so bulk transport isen't even that useful anyways) and a net lose due to divert labor to sustain the canal and the affect it would have on the agricultural output of the traditional riverlands. This irreliably also probably takes away its use as a military asset, as your ability to move mass numbers of men along poorly navigable areas (and not very friendly terrain) only sporadically will do very little to allow the Imperial core to respond to a rebellion before it can consolidate (compared to using the resources you put into maintaining the canal to just maintaining a loyal garrison in the region/bribing the local elites to keep them quiet/ investing in local projects to disuade the people from the idea of violent resistance.
 
Well, I'm saying that the capital of the Sahelian state is located in the Inner Niger Delta. The canal itself would branch off from the western downward end of the Niger and go from there to the Bafing river which is connected to the Senegal river.

The point of a potential Senegal-Niger canal could be economic perhaps? Riverine transportation is faster and cheaper than overland transport so if oceanic trade begins to take off, it would be easier to get goods from the Atlantic, to the Senegal, and then take the canal into the Niger into the rest of the empire. Instead of having to haul them from the Senegal into the Niger. Or it could be used to transport foodstuffs or soldiers from one corner of the empire to the other at a faster rate to those that need them or to quell an uprising or invasion before it even gets started.

But the river is very seasonal. I suspect a camel laden with packs can easily be the equivalent of a ship (pretty much a big canoe) which can traverse the Niger during the dry season. If some camels can do the job for most of the year, then why bother maintaining a canal? And during the wet season, you have local people fishing in the river or using it to irrigate their fields, which would really be the main use of the canal instead of for navigation. Dams for irrigation are an old use of dams, so any link between the Senegal and Inner Niger Delta will mainly be for local agriculture.
 

Marc

Donor
Just a thought: the quality of the soil and how much rainfall are major factors in being successful, among a multitude of other issues - canals aren't simply made by digging a very long ditch. It's a challenge for experienced engineering folk, for those newer to the technology, it might be too daunting.
 
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