What if Africa was never taken over by Europe?

True - this is not to condone European slavers' practices, just to note that they depended on the cooperation of local African rulers to get the slaves in the first place.
 
I agree. The European Nations are eventually going to turn to Africa to satisfy their Imperialistic goal and essentially, games. There was no Strong African Nation that could defeat them. You can delay colonization but without a very early POD, like a surviving Vandal Kingdom or an Egypt that's not conquered by the Ottoman Empire to have any real resistance.

African nations, if strong enough could successfully turn back Europeans. A stronger Mali, or a Songhai Empire that doesn't fall could do the trick quite well. And the interior isn't 'bound' to be 'conquered', so it isn't all that hard to achieve anyways.
 
I'm not sure the Africans ever crammed slaves together in the sort of conditions seen on slave ships across the Atlantic, however, where conditions were so bad a third died.

Eh. The transport of slaves to the Islamic world was done on foot across largely desolate regions before they reached the ports. Mortality rates were pretty impressive, though maybe not quite as bad as on the Atlantic routes.

People talking about strong polities being resistant to colonization and exploitation - fair enough, maybe that could work. Two problems though:

1. Few African polities could withstand any half-serious effort from a European or Mediterranean power to bring them down or destabilize them...and

2. Many of the 'stronger' polities (on the Ethiopian plateau, for example, or the Kongo) themselves depended on the slave traffic.

It's a bad situation whichever way you look.
 
Would things have been different if Christianity had spread across sub-Saharan Africa before the arrival of Europeans? The fact that Ethiopia was Christian eliminated a big moral argument for colonizing it (although the Italians did try anyway).
 
Would things have been different if Christianity had spread across sub-Saharan Africa before the arrival of Europeans? The fact that Ethiopia was Christian eliminated a big moral argument for colonizing it (although the Italians did try anyway).

Spread of Islam could have been better. Muslim slave traffic relied on having a large non-Muslim population in the interior as a source. This was exploited by Christian, Muslim and other states that followed traditional beliefs. They relied on Christians to provide them with eunuchs, too.

It's much more problematic if the slaves are also Muslim, it goes against religious teaching. And Europeans have not historically used any Muslim-majority country as a source of chattel slavery.
 
Spread of Islam could have been better. Muslim slave traffic relied on having a large non-Muslim population in the interior as a source. This was exploited by Christian, Muslim and other states that followed traditional beliefs. They relied on Christians to provide them with eunuchs, too.

It's much more problematic if the slaves are also Muslim, it goes against religious teaching. And Europeans have not historically used any Muslim-majority country as a source of chattel slavery.

That may be true on the slaving part (although I believe some of the West African slaves sent across the Atlantic were Muslim) - but Europeans had no problem colonizing Muslim-majority countries - consider Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, etc. If Africa is Christian, then you present Europeans with a moral dilemma that doesn't exist if it's Muslim.
 
That may be true on the slaving part (although I believe some of the West African slaves sent across the Atlantic were Muslim) - but Europeans had no problem colonizing Muslim-majority countries - consider Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, etc. If Africa is Christian, then you present Europeans with a moral dilemma that doesn't exist if it's Muslim.

Once the Scramble gets going...Italians grabbed Eritrea and attacked Ethiopia, didn't they?
 

Cryostorm

Monthly Donor
You probably need three things at once:

1. Larger Muslim and Christian spread into Africa to give a moral reason not to do it.

2. Larger, more centralized kingdoms that have both the wealth, manpower, and stability to keep the Europeans stuck to the coasts(with the help of disease).

3. keep this going long enough for some of these kingdoms to adapt to European style warfare and gain allies in Europe, or at least become client kingdoms instead of outright colonized.
 
The African slave trade was around and far more active BEFORE direct European Colonization. It was the Royal Navy that ended the Atlantic Slave Trade, and that was made possible by the British acquisition of various territories where that slave trade could be effectively monitored and stopped.

Yeah, some of the earliest examples of European colonisation were actually about anti-slavery measures (Liberia, Sierra Leone).


Assuming no European empires in Africa is the only change and the rest of history is largely as we know it- Africa is absoloutely fucked. With European governments pretending the place doesn't exist the dregs of the European business world will come flooding in with no oversight and no regard for life and a never sated pursuit of profit. The entire continent south of the Sahara (well, much of it) will be Heart of Darkness whit large.
 
There's only one thing that keeps Europeans, English, or any other non-african entity from abusing Africa: power.

Morality is the heart of only a few people, who typically cannot control events. Morality is a tool for some, to be used while hypocritally abusing those being 'protected'. Morality is something that all nations throw aside if there's a buck to be made. If you're inferior and hoping morality will save you.... well, funeral directors need to make a living, too.

If you want to keep the invaders out, whether it's the American Natives, or the African Natives, you need power. The invaders simply had more technology, which translated into power. Give the natives some technology. That's the only way to keep Europe from taking over Africa. Nature (disease) protected them for a while, but then technology caught up, and whites were able to penetrate the interior. Make the natives embrace firearms and learn to manufacture them and how to use them, and they now have the power.
 
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