WI/AHC: Mali under Mansa Musa I discovers South America

[Kayin Dreemurr]

This is also a sort of plausibility check as well.

The challenge and what if scenario here revolves around the very obscenely wealth Mansa Musa I of the Mali Empire ould have managed to, through expeditions, find and discover South America and perhaps even established settlements or trading posts there.

A Mali presence doesn't have to be permanent, or even remain under the direct rule of the Mali Empire for this challenge/wi either.

 

[Lalli]

Fristly there should be reason why to send expedition beyond the sea. Did they know shape of Earth?

 

[Happers]

Fristly there should be reason why to send expedition beyond the sea. Did they know shape of Earth?

As far as I'm aware the Mali like most people of the time believed the earth to be flat but Musa I was clearly aware of cultures outside of Africa.

But, "North African sources describe what some consider to be visits to the New World by a Mali fleet in 1311. According to these sources, 400 ships from the Mali Empire discovered a land across the ocean to the West after being swept off course by ocean currents. Only one ship returned, and the captain reported the discovery of a western current to Prince Abubakari II; the off-course Mali fleet of 400 ships is said to have conducted both trade and warfare with the peoples of the western lands. It is claimed that Abubakari II abdicated his throne and set off to explore these western lands. In 1324, the Mali king Mansa Musa is said to have told the Arabic historian Al-Umarithat "his predecessors had launched two expeditions from West Africa to discover the limits of the Atlantic Ocean." - Wikipedia

I'll look into the sources but maybe, Musa I did find South America.

 

[Kayin Dreemurr]

I remember looking something about about that, an Abu Bakar II, but what I found claimed that those were likely myth. Link to where you got that they did in fact find such evidence? Since I believe Wikipedia on Abu Bakar II was where I got the info on once when looking up information on the achievement from EU4.

EDIT: People of that time period, at least in europe, didn't actually think the world was flat, it's an old myth. They didn't know there was the North and South America in the way though, just a big ocean.

 

[Deleted member 67076]

Mali had no tradition of a bluewater navy and its control over coastal Senegambian peoples was tributary more than direct. Furthermore, trading routes were directed inland to the Sahel (which was always more developed than the coast).

You would need to alter this somehow to shift Mali's power base to the Sengambia region and for coastal trade routes to be more important than Saharan caravan trade.

 

[Arkenfolm]

Mali had no tradition of a bluewater navy and its control over coastal Senegambian peoples was tributary more than direct. Furthermore, trading routes were directed inland to the Sahel (which was always more developed than the coast).

You would need to alter this somehow to shift Mali's power base to the Sengambia region and for coastal trade routes to be more important than Saharan caravan trade.

This is the reason why it probably never happened contrary to some theories. But to say no African ships (with their sailors alive in them) ever washed up on South America shores, we can't say. I believe that it did and archaeology evidence is out there, undiscovered, in a manner similar to East Asian sailors and the West Coast of the Americas.

But as in the case of the Asians, it's highly unlikely any of these sailors could make it back to Africa to tell of what they saw. And if large scale Malinese exploration commences, the diseases might end up destroying the civilisation which was there to greet them.