Vikings in Southern Africa??

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Vikings in southern Africa would just be too implausible. The continent wasn't a very nice place to visit for the Europeans hence the reason why there is a fairly low population of white European descent than let's say in more hospitable areas like the Americas. A Norse base in Morocco is fairly easy and it's not hard to have Vikings attempt to launch raids down on the coastal cities in West Africa and maybe even very small groups of them as mercenaries in wars wouldn't be that hard but long term settlement? Unlikely.
 
Sa'id - actually the Cape region of southern africa is quite amenable to european settlement. It's getting there that is the problem as demonstrated by earlier posters.
 
We don't know for certain there wasn't. Maybe they formed a settlement that failed like Vinland or interbred. At more implausible level maybe they built Zimbabwe although this gets a bit close to the Smith regimes attempts to tamper with archaeology to try and prove that African were incapable of building them i.e it was Arab traders. I suspect they probably didn't but the odd Viking boat may have gone down the African Coast and not returned maybe thwe crews became absorbed into local tribes
 
We don't know for certain there wasn't. Maybe they formed a settlement that failed like Vinland or interbred. At more implausible level maybe they built Zimbabwe although this gets a bit close to the Smith regimes attempts to tamper with archaeology to try and prove that African were incapable of building them i.e it was Arab traders. I suspect they probably didn't but the odd Viking boat may have gone down the African Coast and not returned maybe thwe crews became absorbed into local tribes

Reality is unrealistic. It wasn't impossible for black Vikings to pop up. ;)
 
I think there were some comparitively advanced African societies in Modern Ghana and Nigeria. Ghana was called the Gold coast too once. And there's ivory too. The Vikings traded in Walrus ivory so why not elephants?

I think the Vikings if they had known could have plundered a little, especially since West Africa has lots of big rivers for ships.

Settlement no. Diseases would wipe them out and the Local Africans would eventually destroy them. If Vikings couldn't hold Greenland against Eskimos (inuit) then I don't think thet could hold a position on the African coast.

On the Vilkings in Morocco thread I think I said a Viking empire based on the Canary islands and eventually Azores and Madeira would work. It has climate fish and whale hunting. Azores and Madeirs were uninhabited.

The Vikings could set up a maritmie kingdom and raid Africa at their leisure.
 
Africa was very rich, and if the vikings can make it there and back there is plenty of Gold, palm oil, spices, ivory, and of course since the vikings were superb slavers in Europe west africa.

Economically when the Portuguese began trading in West Africa, they were able to become one of the richest kingdoms almost instantly.

However "raid the west african coast at leisure" is simply not plausible.

First of all I don't think the Vikings could navigate well enough to find Madieras and the Azores. From what it seems to me is that they mainly navigated by following the coast.

I have already stated the difficulty in sailing against the ocean currents, but even handwaving that. Militarily the various tribes of Africa were no slouches either.

Poison arrows were a major weapon that was feared even by gunpowder armed europeans.

Warriors extremely adopted to the terrain, and plenty of them. I don't see how a boatload of tired vikings could fight in tropical africa.

At sea the Vikings will have to deal with huge war canoes carved from 80 foot tall trees filled with a hundred or more warriors.
 
Africa was very rich, and if the vikings can make it there and back there is plenty of Gold, palm oil, spices, ivory, and of course since the vikings were superb slavers in Europe west africa.

Economically when the Portuguese began trading in West Africa, they were able to become one of the richest kingdoms almost instantly.

However "raid the west african coast at leisure" is simply not plausible.

First of all I don't think the Vikings could navigate well enough to find Madieras and the Azores. From what it seems to me is that they mainly navigated by following the coast.

Warriors extremely adopted to the terrain, and plenty of them. I don't see how a boatload of tired vikings could fight in tropical africa.
At sea the Vikings will have to deal with huge war canoes carved from 80 foot tall trees filled with a hundred or more warriors.

Point taken but the Vikings found Iceland and Greenland AND North America without following the coast. The Portuguese also used to the coast at first. Then Prince Henry the navigator drew maps.

Finding Madeira by accident the way the Portuguese did was possible. Once ashore they can build huts and adapt to the climate as they did in the MED.
 
Point taken but the Vikings found Iceland and Greenland AND North America without following the coast. The Portuguese also used to the coast at first. Then Prince Henry the navigator drew maps.

Finding Madeira by accident the way the Portuguese did was possible. Once ashore they can build huts and adapt to the climate as they did in the MED.


And if you combine this thread with the idea of the Norse establishing themselves in the Rif and improving upon their own vessels with influences from the Arabs and Berbers neighboring them to expand their horizons to more distant places like the Azores or down south to the then nominally Islamic kingdoms and empires of west Africa
 
Point taken but the Vikings found Iceland and Greenland AND North America without following the coast. The Portuguese also used to the coast at first. Then Prince Henry the navigator drew maps.

Finding Madeira by accident the way the Portuguese did was possible. Once ashore they can build huts and adapt to the climate as they did in the MED.

I think discovery of Iceland and Greenland makes sense for the vikings because it is essentially their native waters. Madiera and the Azores are too distant from any viking common routes.

Erik the Red went to colonize the Americas with 25 ships, only 14 made it to America. He heard about the place from other sailors lost at sea.

But what Prince Henri did was extremely important. Because unlike the vikings the portuguese were able to map the coast of africa and therefore return to here they had been reliably. The vikings had no maps and relied on word of mouth.
 

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I doubt it's easier. Going through the west coast of Africa would be very dangerous, as many tribes were extremely hostile to foreigners. Dealing with diseases near the Niger and Congo river deltas, not to mention having to forage for food in the regions and deal with the occasional storm- with little prospect of trade, would make the voyage tough. What would they do when they got to the Cape? It's not like there was any shipping there at the time.

It's interesting but not impossible. Now, if you have Vikings mitigate some of the diseases in the region, perhaps launch raids on richer civilizations like the Kingdom of Congo or Ashanti.. hmm.
The Egyptians and Phoenicians are supposed to have circumnavigated Africa so it's not impossible for the Vikings to have reached the Cape.
 
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