What would longer Europeanization/Christianization of Muslim North Africa really look like

So, in my TL (which, if you'll forgive the shameless plug, is here) Spain was never inherited by the Hapsburgs, and therefore doesn't waste all of its potential on interminable European conflicts, instead following the trajectory it had been set on by the Catholic monarchs (and OTL Cardinal Cisneros), namely the continuation of the momentum of the Reconquista via North Africa.

So my question is: what would the cultural and religious geography of Hispanic North Africa be after three or four centuries of sustained occupation?

There's a paucity of examples to draw on when it comes to Christian Europeans lording over Muslim majority regions before the mid to late 18th century. The only ones that come to mind are the Russians and the Tatars, the Dutch and the Javans, and the Castilians and the Granadans. However, the first two are massively different from the proposed scenario, and the relationship between the Christian Castilians and Muslim Granadans involves centuries of shared cultural and linguistic experience.

Any thoughts?
 

It'll probably involve a bit of ethnic cleansing here and there, most notably in the coast, due to the whole Reconquista mind-set and the conquistadors pushing moral boundaries above all else. The settlement of Europeans in the mid to late 16th century would be followed by ethnic cleansing and expulsion towards the innards of the Sahara creating ethnic tensions between Maghrebis and Berbers.

I expect the Conquistadors to act horrifically, but then again it was the time of the Reconquista Renaissance.

The Conquistadors did bad and evil thinks in the Americas. Apply those bad and evil things in North Africa during the 16th century.
 
How much of North Africa? Roughly OTL Morocco? That, plus roughly OTL Algeria? That, plus roughly OTL Tunisia? More?
 

Deleted member 67076

I hate to be that guy but frankly I don't think a Christian occupation of the Maghreb is possible before the 1800s (where the disparity in population, finances, and state efficiency become too great). The Moroccans and Algerians were always able to consistently match the Iberians for manpower, had the advantage of knowing the terrain, superior mobility and logistics, extensive recruiting pools from the Rif mountains to the Sahel, and had similar amounts of overall firepower.

For instance, during the 1600s the Moroccans were at various points able to marshal professional standing armies nearing 100,000 men (The Black Guard comes to mind) and outside pressures tended to centralize the Moroccans and Algerians (case in point the rise of the Saadi dynasty). Further Christian attacks and a sustained efforts in the Maghreb would just result in the Iberians burning themselves out over several decades and the Maghrebis becoming increasingly centralized and organized to match the constant threat of invasion.
 
It'll probably involve a bit of ethnic cleansing here and there, most notably in the coast, due to the whole Reconquista mind-set and the conquistadors pushing moral boundaries above all else. The settlement of Europeans in the mid to late 16th century would be followed by ethnic cleansing and expulsion towards the innards of the Sahara creating ethnic tensions between Maghrebis and Berbers.

I expect the Conquistadors to act horrifically, but then again it was the time of the Reconquista Renaissance.

The Conquistadors did bad and evil thinks in the Americas. Apply those bad and evil things in North Africa during the 16th century.
You are exaggerating the extent of the ability of Christians to expel people, most of these reconquista expulsion happened when the Islamic or crypto-Islamic community what at its smallest size and even then it didn't affect every member.

In some sense I imagine that with a "continuing" reconquista would delay or prevent the Morisco expulsions, although it's a bit late for the Jewish one. If Spain doesn't feel besieged and it's on a continuing ascendance in North Africa, there would be less for a push to expel Moriscos.

The conquistadores weren't the main fighting force in the European front and tactics, strategies and way of doing this won't be possible even in theory.
 
I hate to be that guy but frankly I don't think a Christian occupation of the Maghreb is possible before the 1800s (where the disparity in population, finances, and state efficiency become too great). The Moroccans and Algerians were always able to consistently match the Iberians for manpower, had the advantage of knowing the terrain, superior mobility and logistics, extensive recruiting pools from the Rif mountains to the Sahel, and had similar amounts of overall firepower.

For instance, during the 1600s the Moroccans were at various points able to marshal professional standing armies nearing 100,000 men (The Black Guard comes to mind) and outside pressures tended to centralize the Moroccans and Algerians (case in point the rise of the Saadi dynasty). Further Christian attacks and a sustained efforts in the Maghreb would just result in the Iberians burning themselves out over several decades and the Maghrebis becoming increasingly centralized and organized to match the constant threat of invasion.
Iberia had about the same people than the Maghreb in 1500 as well.
 

Deleted member 67076

Iberia had about the same people than the Maghreb in 1500 as well.
And Spain's army was around 30,000-40,000 men at arms during 1500, with a commitment of 20,000 men in the Italian wars considered large and dangerously expensive. Theoretical manpower doesn't always translate to the ability to put men in the field.
 
And Spain's army was around 30,000-40,000 men at arms during 1500, with a commitment of 20,000 men in the Italian wars considered large and dangerously expensive. Theoretical manpower doesn't always translate to the ability to put men in the field.
Tercios were one of the strongest armies of the time, in any case after the Italian wars, after Spain consolidated in Europe and the Americas, you could bigger numbers in North Africa as Portugal had 20k people for Alcacer Quibir.
If we were to use more analogies Spain, a country with more than 5 times the population of Portugual, could employ many times more that number.
 

Deleted member 67076

Tercios were one of the strongest armies of the time, in any case after the Italian wars, after Spain consolidated in Europe and the Americas, you could bigger numbers in North Africa as Portugal had 20k people for Alcacer Quibir.
If we were to use more analogies Spain, a country with more than 5 times the population of Portugual, could employ many times more that number.
The issue is this is all sidestepping the logistical commitment and difficulties of invading North Africa. Putting troop quality aside for a moment, Morocco is the size of California and its less settled yet more militarized population would make any occupational force go through hell to hold onto territory. (Which is why Portugal and Spain historically decided to eventually just stick to port enclaves to ward off piracy)

How is Spain or a theoretical Iberian state supposed to hold onto this massive territory as an occupational force with little to no legitimacy? Moroccan states themselves had intense difficulty securing control of their own population. I just don't see how 1500s Iberia can just march in and take land (as if the locals wouldn't resist to the death and call in backup from the Tuaregs, Songhai, Turks, Berbers, Wolof, and so on) without the troops eventually revolting, the state going bankrupt, or the casualties mounting up until an ungraceful withdrawal.

I'm not even getting into the grand strategy difficulties if the Iberians still want to have their hand in the colonial game, or in controlling Italy and contesting Ottoman naval dominance.
 
An additional incentive might be if the discovery of the Americas is delayed. This way and without the Habsburgs Spain has will be focused on the maghreb and not even distracted by the americas.
 
The issue is this is all sidestepping the logistical commitment and difficulties of invading North Africa. Putting troop quality aside for a moment, Morocco is the size of California and its less settled yet more militarized population would make any occupational force go through hell to hold onto territory. (Which is why Portugal and Spain historically decided to eventually just stick to port enclaves to ward off piracy)
The territory is not massive by any metric, the territory where the bulk the population is, north of the Atlas moutnains, is about 200.000 km2 large, while Spain itself is about 500.000 km2 large in the mainland.

The Iberians didn't expand further because of other distractions in the Netherlands, succession wars(Portugal), France and the HRE, not because it was an inherently failed project, considering the fact a million and some more Europeans were enslaved by the Maghrebi states during the early-modern period, there is more than enough of an incentive to expand, outside the classical ones.

(as if the locals wouldn't resist to the death and call in backup from the Tuaregs, Songhai, Turks, Berbers, Wolof, and so on) without the troops eventually revolting, the state going bankrupt, or the casualties mounting up until an ungraceful withdrawal.
Berbers? The Morccans were Berbers, in any case good luck bringing enough people across Transaharan routes for any kind of long term military campaign while Spain, one of the countries with the largest navies, sits 100-200 km across the coast, easily able to resupply its forts and armies. Also funny how you think the Songhai and other West African population are either in any position to help or are willing to do so to begin with, the Moroccans were their enemies.

I'm not even getting into the grand strategy difficulties if the Iberians still want to have their hand in the colonial game, or in controlling Italy and contesting Ottoman naval dominance.
By 1560 Spain already has secured Italy and the Americas, so citing the colonial game as a distraction or the Ottomans as a big threat are both weak points, especially considering the Ottomans could be made weaker IATL for whatever reason, I don't know the specifics of OP's TL but it could be the case.
 
Proper christianization/ westernization of the area is difficult to achieve in my opinion, at least for the period that most people here are discussing about, which is the early modern era. However, things could have easily gone a lot better for Spain, if we take the Habsburgs out of the picture.

Without major distractions in Europe, Spain could have poured a lot more resources into this conquest of North Africa. I don't mean to say they could actually hold everything, but there's no reason to believe they couldn't at least control wide coastal areas in Morocco and Algeria. North Africa was far from a homogenous place, so politic struggle between Muslim rulers in the area could be made a lot worse, and thus favorable to Spain in this ATL.
 
Hypothetical speaking, if large gold and silver mines were discovered in Morocco and Algeria, I believe Spain could commit resources to conquer North Africa. There had to be a reason for the conquest. Spain didn't have a history of controlling North Africa, so there was no cultural or historical links. The resource needed to be used to conquer the land outweigh the benefit.

Another possibility was a Shia-like movement happened in Morocco. An internal and long warfare among Muslim community would give Spain an opportunity for an easy conquest. However, this would not result of massive conversion to Catholic. It would be similar to French controlling of Algeria.
 

Deleted member 67076

The territory is not massive by any metric, the territory where the bulk the population is, north of the Atlas moutnains, is about 200.000 km2 large, while Spain itself is about 500.000 km2 large in the mainland.
That is a huge amount of territory to secure for any state, and attempting to takw the north of the Atlas still leaves with targeted raids.

Something the size of California with 8 million or so inhabitants with similarly available amounts of manpower and firepower where all troops need to be transported by navy to hostile terrain isnt easy just because Iberia is on paper larger. If that were the case the Spanish would have marched all over the Dutch when they revolted.

The Iberians didn't expand further because of other distractions in the Netherlands, succession wars(Portugal), France and the HRE, not because it was an inherently failed project, considering the fact a million and some more Europeans were enslaved by the Maghrebi states during the early-modern period, there is more than enough of an incentive to expand, outside the classical ones.
The Iberians tried to continue their reconquista and failed for over two centuries of attempts. Removing fighting in France doesn't mean the Maghrebis will fold over. And yes it is a failed project because it wont remove security concerns (they Corsairs will just shift their operations to the Ottoman territory) and will cost vast amounts of blood and treasure for limited economic gain.

Berbers? The Morccans were Berbers, in any case good luck bringing enough people across Transaharan routes for any kind of long term military campaign while Spain, one of the countries with the largest navies, sits 100-200 km across the coast, easily able to resupply its forts and armies. Also funny how you think the Songhai and other West African population are either in any position to help or are willing to do so to begin with, the Moroccans were their enemies.
Not every Berber is a Moroccan and not everyone lives north of the Sahara. Nor was it historically difficult for the Moroccans to recruit a few tens of thousands of mercenary troops from below the Sahara in times of crisis. West Africa was always decentralized enough that people could always slip by and not be stopped moving where they want to.

By 1560 Spain already has secured Italy and the Americas, so citing the colonial game as a distraction or the Ottomans as a big threat are both weak points, especially considering the Ottomans could be made weaker IATL for whatever reason, I don't know the specifics of OP's TL but it could be the case.
If Spain has secured the colonial zones then she must embark signifigant assets to protect them, especially militarily or else the colonies will be up for raids. Historically the spanish didnt even let the colonies have their own militias until the 1700s, relying instead on professional troops being stationed there. That provides another front to consider in the geopolitical analysis that would be morr vital than another set of vital costly campaigns for limited gains in the Maghreb.

Again Spain just seems to be setting itself for bankruptcy trying to conquer Morocco, and this never gets addressed.
 

Maoistic

Banned
So, in my TL (which, if you'll forgive the shameless plug, is here) Spain was never inherited by the Hapsburgs, and therefore doesn't waste all of its potential on interminable European conflicts
You call creating the first global empire in history "wasted potential"?
 

Maoistic

Banned
1) Spain can conquer North Africa. The Christian kingdoms of Iberia resisted the Almohad onslaught and even reversed the Almohad advance completely. Spain also became very sizeable under the Catholic Monarchs since it possessed the Canaries, which can be used to assist Spanish invasions of Marrakesh, and with its alliance with Naples, ruled by an Aragonese noble put in power by the Kingdom of Aragón over a century prior to the union. The fact that North Africa is divided into various warring states at this point makes conquest even easier as well. Only the Ottoman Empire can come to their aid, but at the moment it is too occupied with fighting the Habsburgs, Venetians and Hungarians to effectively assist, not to mention how the Ottomans weren't exactly friends with said North African states.

2) I think the Spaniards would have installed a system similar to the encomienda and repartimiento (the true example of Spanish brutality, not the overrated Inquisition that actually looks like a human rights commission in comparison to several other methods and systems of repression both before and after), which is going to kill at the very least several thousand Arabs and Berbers, though the conversion of a significant proportion of the population to Christianity is still going to take well over a century. Should be pointed out that forced conversion isn't really what's going to be all that brutal. Spanish brutality comes because of a revival of Hellenistic and Roman methods of exploitation (mainly reducing the native population to slaves and other kinds of non-paid workers in mass extraction operations of precious metals), due to its interest of matching the levels of growth achieved by the Hellenistic empires left by Alexander and the Roman Empire.
 
All very good observations from you guys, so thank you.

However, there are some things to consider that I haven't specified yet:

- I don't intend full occupation of the Maghreb. I agree with the general consensus that Early Modern Spain absorbing even the majority of the land north of the Atlas Mountains and west of El Taref is completely unfeasible. What I mean is more along the lines of strategic occupation of harbors and coastline - primarily in Tingitana, the Moroccan Gharb, and around Oran, Algiers, and the OTL Portuguese possessions on the Atlantic coast - during the 16th through possibly the late 18th centuries. These possessions will wax and wane in size but occupation of the important areas I've specified will mostly be static. This pattern of occupation involves a lot of puppet states akin to the one the Spanish maintained IOTL with the Hafsids in Tunisia, as well as a lot of cooperation with the Genoese, who have similarly invested themselves in this quasi-colonial scheme.

- This occupation preempts a lot of developments that we may take for granted when it comes to how difficult European conquest of the Maghreb might have been. For instance, the reason the Portuguese were expelled from Morocco was due primarily to the power of the highly energetic Saadi dynasty, which revitalized Morocco after its nadir under the Wattasid dynasty. It's not an exaggeration to consider the Wattasid era to have been perhaps Morocco's weakest state since pre-Roman times, and the same could be said for the concurrent Tlemceni sultante in Algeria. IOTL neither the Portuguese nor the Spanish fully took advantage of this low point in the robustness of the North African sultanates, so let's posit that they do in this case. A major military victory on land isn't out of the question.

- Likewise, the involvement of the Turkish corsairs in the Western Mediterranean - which transformed Barbary piracy into the real scourge of the seas it came to be regarded as - has also been seriously curtailed in this scenario, in part due to much earlier and much heavier Spanish involvement in the Maghreb than IOTL. Turkish involvement in the Maghreb quickly brought the area up to speed in terms of military technology and foreign investment, so apart from removing the breather the corsairs gave to North African independence, this also means the Spanish are in uninterrupted control of the ports of Algeria.

- Further, it's important to remember that most of the North African states are still deeply riven along tribal lines at nearly every societal stratum. They've achieved unity on the basis of religion, geography, and history, but none of them are true nation-states in the same sense as Early Modern Spain. Holy war against the intrusive Spaniards will most certainly bring these divided groups into close cooperation, but once they realize that they are unable to fully oust the Spanish, the temptation to use these foreigners in an effort to subvert a rival tribe will grow considerably.

It'll probably involve a bit of ethnic cleansing here and there, most notably in the coast, due to the whole Reconquista mind-set and the conquistadors pushing moral boundaries above all else. The settlement of Europeans in the mid to late 16th century would be followed by ethnic cleansing and expulsion towards the innards of the Sahara creating ethnic tensions between Maghrebis and Berbers.

I expect the Conquistadors to act horrifically, but then again it was the time of the Reconquista Renaissance.

The Conquistadors did bad and evil thinks in the Americas. Apply those bad and evil things in North Africa during the 16th century.

The behavior of the men termed conquistadors was not the official modus operandi of the Spanish or Portuguese militaries or of their foreign policy. Cortes, Pizarro, Alvarado, and the like were all freebooters, usually from disgraced, lowborn, or otherwise desperate backgrounds, operating thousands of sea miles away from royal oversight, in a land they didn't understand against enemies they understood even less and who far outnumbered them. Their actions were scarcely different than those of many of their English, French, or Dutch counterparts who found themselves in the same circumstances. Keep in mind that when Bartolome de Las Casas and his compatriots reported back on the cruelties they'd witnessed in Spanish America, it caused widespread moral outrage in Spain, in turn leading to a formal debate on the matter which ended in condemnation of any savagery committed towards the Amerindians.

None of this is to say that there wouldn't be atrocities committed in a war of conquest against the Muslim North Africans, but there really is no comparison with what occurred in the Americas. The Reconquista saw the Christian Iberians gradually absorbing large numbers of Muslims into their kingdoms for hundreds of years, and any instances of ethnic cleansing during this process are extremely few. Even after the Inquisition was formed or the issue of "limpieza de sangre" ("cleanliness of blood") came to the fore, the subject of racial tension was almost always the Jewry, while one's Muslim ancestry was virtually ignored.

You call creating the first global empire in history "wasted potential"?

No. I call repeatedly bankrupting the Spanish treasury through 80+ years of hopeless warfare against the Dutch, English, French, and German Protestants to the point of full scale economic collapse and the premature curbing of the Spanish empire "wasted potential."
 

Maoistic

Banned
I agree with the general consensus that Early Modern Spain absorbing even the majority of the land north of the Atlas Mountains and west of El Taref is completely unfeasible.

Why? Like seriously, it's almost as if the Iberian kingdoms' defeat or at least stop of the Almohads and the various Muslim taifas and emirates, plus creating the Aragonese kingdom of Naples and its successful defence of it against repeated French incursions, didn't happen. The North African polities of the time are fragmented and can be easily suppressed through divide and conquer tactics. It doesn't help that Spain can starve them by taking its ports from the Canaries and thus cutting a significant portion of the North Africans' revenue.


No. I call repeatedly bankrupting the Spanish treasury through 80+ years of hopeless warfare against the Dutch, English, French, and German Protestants to the point of full scale economic collapse and the premature curbing of the Spanish empire "wasted potential."

Yes, because Britain and Holland weren't constantly at war as well and in constant danger of getting assimilated, fighting hopeless wars and decaying too. Fam, please. Being at constant war is practically a necessity for any empire. Spain is no different, neither worse, in this regard. In spite of all the things you mentioned, Spain maintained its territorial integrity across Europe, America and Asia until the 1820s when it lost all of continental Latin America.
 
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Why? Like seriously, it's almost as if the Iberian kingdoms' defeat or at least stop of the Almohads and the various Muslim taifas and emirates, plus creating the Aragonese kingdom of Naples and its successful defence of it against repeated French incursions, didn't happen. The North African polities of the time are fragmented and can be easily suppressed through divide and conquer tactics. It doesn't help that Spain can starve them by taking its ports from the Canaries and thus cutting a significant portion of the North Africans' revenue.

I'm not saying the Spaniards of the 16th century wouldn't wallop anything the North Africans could throw at them. In fact, the whole point of this thread is to seek outside opinions on what a successful conquest - at least in part - of North Africa would look like later on.

Yes, because Britain and Holland weren't constantly at war as well and in constant danger of getting assimilated, fighting hopeless wars and decaying too. Fam, please. Being at constant war is practically a necessity for any empire. Spain is no different, neither worse, in this regard. In spite of all the things you mentioned, Spain maintained its territorial integrity across Europe, America and Asia until the 1820s when it lost all of continental Latin America.

Neither the British nor the Dutch were funding a standing army hundreds of miles away for almost a hundred years. Spain's Army of Flanders reached as many as 86,000 troops and never dropped below 10,000, all in an era before technology allowed for cheaper mass conscription. Wars are, of course, necessary for an empire, but only quick, successful wars, not absurdly long ones that run counter to a nation's interests in the first place.

-Spain- didn't maintain its territorial integrity in Europe, the Hapsburgs did. The Spanish economy had serious legal and economic grievances that were begging for redress, but never ended up getting royal attention due to the demands placed on Charles V by his imperial office further afield in Central Europe. Not to mention virtually every cent of debt Charles V and Philip II accrued by their European escapades was secured against Spanish revenues.

To shed some light on this, here's a cross-post from my TL:

It really can't be emphasized enough just how little Spanish silver the Spaniards actually saw IOTL. To give you an idea of how bad it was IOTL, when the Casa de Contratación reported in July of 1552 a whopping 1.9 million escudos of treasure brought back from Peru by Pedro de la Gasca, Charles V decided (after paying off a good deal of creditors) to send 600,000 to Germany, 400,000 to the Low Countries, 200,000 to Parma, and 100,000 to the Pope as a loan, leaving only 200,000 for Castile. OTL's Charles V and Philip II of course received a few windfalls in American treasure, but their expenditures were so massive (having to fight France, the Ottomans, the Barbary Corsairs, the German Protestants, the Dutch, and the English) that their consequent borrowing sprees landed them a floating debt of 29 million ducats against Spanish credit alone by the end of Charles V's, with a full repayment obligation of 38 million. To put this in perspective, the money gathered from Spain in the 16th century was perhaps only 9 million ducats annually - meaning that over the course of Charles V's 40 year reign as King of Spain, he dished out perhaps hundreds of million of ducats from the Spanish treasury and still didn't have enough money for all his receipts.

To make things worse, the ease of regularly farming taxes in Castile and the Crown of Castile's legal ownership of the Americas meant that OTL Spain often bore the brunt of the Hapsburgs' ill-conceived borrowing policies, and most of the Hapsburgs' loans were secured against Castilian revenues which ended up ruining Spanish credit when the unsustainable debt forced a default. On the contrary, the Netherlands were responsible for managing their own debt (being under a regency) unlike the poor Spaniards, and they were able to keep it to 1/3rd of what Spain owed. Part of all this can be blamed on the necessity of maintaining an imperial grandeur befitting their massive empire, and the monarchical tendency to view the treasury as a personal purse rather than as a public trust.

TL;DR, the OTL Spanish experienced all the tribulations of the price revolution and virtually none of its benefits.

Having to shoulder almost the entire responsibility of a gigantic European empire without receiving very much in return really screwed Spain as a nation and its people in the long run, while it kept the Hapsburgs in Austria from being completely subsumed by their vast number of enemies. Probably the worst development of this arrangement was the war in the Netherlands, which were the primary market for Spanish and Portuguese goods. The war with the Dutch also nearly wiped out the Portuguese presence in Asia (and severely undermined it everywhere else) and served to supplant Spain's naval dominance of the Atlantic. It's fairly easy to see why the Dutch were using notes of exchange on a large scale shortly after their grueling war of independence while the average Spaniard was simulataneously reduced to using a barter system.

It can be hard to estimate what the true potential of a Spanish Empire might be without all these albatrosses around its neck. The tercio was unmatched for roughly 150 years, and the Iberian Union gave Spain the largest merchant fleet in the world, so I want to be as optimistic about Hapsburg Spain as you are, but there's just some things that aren't quite as obvious at first glance that make me realize that a non-Hapsburg Spain would've been better for the Spanish.
 
So I know I'm late but someone needs to write an alternate history for this similar to hadrians consolidation reboot cause this is an interesting scenario. And I'm dying to read stuff
 
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