Reversed Scramble for Africa

SunDeep

Banned
10% is "massive" now? Depending on where one looks, there are more blondes than that. And I've never heard anyone describe (except as a stereotype) blonde hair being predominant.

Well, when one considers that the entire continent of present-day Europe only counts for 10% share of the world demographic, I'd say that was a relatively large portion of the population to be enslaved, wouldn't you?

Yet somehow despite a lively slave market OTL (in the Islamic world), we don't see any interest in selling prisoners to them. I suppose that might tell us something

Given that the Crusades had only come to an end with the fall of Acre at the very end of the 14th century, it isn't exactly hard to work out why, is it now?

My interest is in discussing what might have been. And "Europe is dominated by African slave traders" would require a POD so far back as to make Europe as we know it unrecognizable, as well as the African states that are climbing to a position to have something worth selling slaves for, like how Europeans OTL could offer firearms.

This thread was about the possibility of having an African scramble for Europe in an ATL (which, by the way, would probably make Europe as we know it unrecognisable regardless of how it comes about). Having "Europe dominated by African slave traders", especially given that the reverse wasn't really true IOTL, isn't necessary at all- However, I felt that the ATL scenario which it fitted into, along with the causes which would lead to this and the long-term consequences of Euro-American slavery, would be one of the most logical and interesting way to achieve this outcome.
 
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Well, when one considers that the entire continent of present-day Europe only counts for 10% share of the world demographic. I'd say that was a relatively large portion of the population to be enslaved, don't you?

Relative to what?

I'm not asking that over semantics, I'm genuinely puzzled. Because I don't think of the percentage of left handers (also around 10%) as "large" except compared to oh, the number of people with some form of Autism (about a tenth of that), for example.

Given that the Crusades had only come to an end with the fall of Acre at the very end of the 14th century, it isn't exactly hard to work out why, is it now?
Acre fell in 1291. Compulsive nitpicking aside, no, it isn't - but "why" was not inferior technology or something comparable to facing say, France (a much larger and more stable state than the Kingdom of Jerusalem ever was).

This thread was about the possibility of having an African scramble for Europe in an ATL (which, by the way, would probably make Europe as we know it unrecognisable regardless of how it comes about). Having "Europe dominated by African slave traders", especially given that the reverse wasn't really true IOTL, isn't necessary at all- However, I felt that the ATL scenario which it fitted into, along with the causes which would lead to this and the long-term consequences of Euro-American slavery, would be one of the most logical and interesting way to achieve this outcome.
And that scenario requires a dramatically different Africa and a dramatically different Europe just to get to the point where we can even talk about if they would see anything in Europe worth having a scramble over ("prestige" is all well and good, but taking the British Isles say isn't really expanding your empire by very much if you already control a much larger state, where as millions of square miles in Africa looks much more dramatic when your state is the size of the UK). In other words, you need a POD that renders Europe and Africa unrecognizable before you have the Scramble.

The Almoravid scenario might be quite interesting as an alternate New World colonization, but it would not turn Europe into the kind of place your scenario requires or turn Africa into the most technologically advanced part of the world.
 
I think the amount of slave trade Europe experienced right through the middle ages and the early modern period is seriously underestimated. It was huge and it formed the backbone of nearly all European economies outside of Francia prior to the 11th c.

It also formed a huge part of Muslim transit economies for the dependencies of the Ottoman Empire (though by that point African trade outmatched European of course).

All that said it doesn't seem to have slowed Europe down all that much at all.

So the slave trade alone is not a sufficient explanation for why Europe would suddenly start lagging Africa even if Africa had an actual competitive agricultural package.
 
Just an afterthought, though; admittedly, if this were to happen, and the first journey across the Atlantic had already been made, other earlier European explorers would be far more inclined to attempt the voyage even in this era, regardless of whether or not the Vivaldi brothers returned after setting sail in 1291. It may well be hard going for the African powers to keep the Europeans from challenging their marginal head-start in America and establishing footholds of their own- and harder for both of them (but far less dire for the native Americans) than IOTL because the wave of Old World diseases which the colonists bring with them to the New World will be sweeping across the Americas at the same time as the Black Death pandemic sweeps across Europe and N Africa- but a continuation of this scenario could still lead to their eventual dominance over the Americas, and over the Europeans. Would anyone else like to give it a try, or to suggest an Afro-wank timeline of their own?

I think if the Black Death Plagues, which took place in 1348 to 1350, instead of killing 50-60% of Europe, The Middle East, Asia, China, India, and Mongolia, took out 90% or more, then civilization collapses and Ethiopia and the West African Kingdoms would be in the drivers seat as it were, it might take a little longer than the Europeans did it in, but now they have the head start. Especially if Mali can become a maritime nation and cross the Atlantic and begin commerce with the Western Hemisphere Nations. The Plagues that the African bring would make the European Plagues look wimpy in comparison.

Of course this Plague is know as the Muslim Plague as it wiped out Ethiopia's Enemies and allowed the Empire to spread across the Arabian Peninsula and East African Coast from Egypt to the Cape after the plagues died down in the 1400's.

Also Mali lost all of her trade in 1350 as the Plague killed off the North African trading partners, forcing the powers that be in Mali to encourage the opening of trade route any way that they could. Unfortunately the overland trade expeditions to north Africa never returned, The East African expeditions opened up new Markets in Ethiopia and brought news of the Plague. This began "the Golden age of Mali" as the first smell of success is the sweetest.

Early in the next century a new alliance arose with the Kongo, a Kingdom along the south Atlantic Coast near the Equator of West Africa. Trade grew and new crops were introduced, small steps on the road to progress.
 
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