WI: No Slave immunity to Malaria?

Hey Guys,

IOTL the African slaves in the Americas had a degree of immunity to malaria, which is one of the reasons as to why in the Caribbean the black population rapidly overtook the white population, as white Europeans didn't have the same immunity levels, therefore had much higher death rates from the disease.

But what if, for some reason, the African slaves didn't have that kind of immunity, and so were just as susceptible to malaria as their white owners were? Would this kill off slavery before it truly kicks off, as it'd cost an owner so much money to constantly replace slaves.
 
Its an African screw either way. Without malaria semi-immunity they wouldn't be prime slave fodder to the Europeans and Arabs but w/o the immunity life in the malarial belt would be short and unpleasant ---- actually, large parts of sub-Saharan Africa could very well be a relatively human-free zone, altogether.
 
One thing to keep in mind with this whole situation is the malarial swamps of the Caribbean, and the mosquitos and disease itself for that matter, were imported along with the enslaved Africans to the region and greatly aided by mass deforestation and other consequences of plantation agriculture. So really if you don't have slaves being imported to the Caribbean you won't have any malaria in the first place and if the native Africans are unable to develop any kind of immunity there won't be that many people living in those parts of Africa.

Honestly a PoD for this not to be an issue would probably be one far back enough in human evolution to have pretty massive impact.
 
Last edited:
Yes seeing as this would have massive evolutionary consequences...
Definitely, considering that I can think of six genes that each can confer partial or total resistance to at least one form of malaria when mutated. Of these, four are present in Africa. Malaria is an ancient disease-one that we have been in an evolutionary arms race with since Plasmodium first evolved to infect vertebrates some 100 million years ago or so. That some form of resistance doesn't arise would be ASB.
 
Top