WI Roman Settlement of Canary Islands/Cape Verde and West African Trade

[SlyDessertFox]

The ones I've seen do not have central and southern Africa. Or Greenland.

Fuck, I got the 15th century Ptolemy world map. Fuck you too Google.

Anyway, even here they know more than the Sahara. Plus as someone else pointed out, they already had a trade network going through the Sahara, and they would already be aware of the Phoenicians circumnavigation of Africa, described in Herodotus.

 

[Clandango]

Any idea what Terra Enita means or what they'd thought of the lands at the south of the Indian Ocean? That might be a bit off topic though. Then again.... Perhaps some sort of Idea of spice islands could creep into the Rman consciousness. They might try getting islands like Zanzibar or Maderia so that they would not have to have as much of their treasure sent eastward, though it was already somewhat limited given how they used horses or camels on the Silk/Spice Road. Is Macronesia better than ecologically for plantations than areas in the Mediterranean? Were civilizations and trade networks evolved enough in West Africa for the Romans to try and connect themselves for the gold?

 

[DominusNovus]

Mathematically speaking, if we look at the outer reaches of Roman Mauretania (in particular, the city of Sala Colonia), we find that, from Rome, costs and time are comparable to traveling to Alexandria or Antioch, and much closer/cheaper than London (less than half the time, little more than half the cost).

So, we can estimate that, with the proper wind, Rome could get to the Canary Islands easier than Britain, and possible down to modern Mauritania, maybe even Senegal for a comparable investment to Britain. That doesn't really change the value of getting there much at all, but, given the Roman troubles in subduing the whole of Britain, you can pretty much count that as the outer theoretical limits of Roman power projection along the African coast. This doesn't take into account that sailing along the Spanish and French coasts on your way to Britain probably has many more decent ports of call at which to supply your ships than the Saharan coast.

I don't know as much about the Saharan camel trade, but quick googling indicates that it didn't really take off until the 3rd century, and it was after the Islamic conquests that it solidified into a reliable trade network.

As far as the slave trade is concerned, I don't know that the Romans would be all that interested in sailing around Africa in order to buy slaves. On the one hand, if they wanted to buy foreign slaves, they had plenty of Germans, Sarmatians, Arabs, etc. to enslave if they really needed more slaves, rather than take the long way around.

Further, the Romans seemed to prefer to get slaves as spoils of war, rather than just going out and buying them. Maybe its a holdover from their martial character, but it seems that, whenever there was extended peace (or, at least, an extended period between successful external wars), Rome tended to have a shortage of slaves. Suffice to say, its possible that the Romans wouldn't get too many West African slaves unless they bothered to conquer West Africa.

 

[DominusNovus]

Any idea what Terra Enita means or what they'd thought of the lands at the south of the Indian Ocean? That might be a bit off topic though. Then again.... Perhaps some sort of Idea of spice islands could creep into the Rman consciousness. They might try getting islands like Zanzibar or Maderia so that they would not have to have as much of their treasure sent eastward, though it was already somewhat limited given how they used horses or camels on the Silk/Spice Road. Is Macronesia better than ecologically for plantations than areas in the Mediterranean? Were civilizations and trade networks evolved enough in West Africa for the Romans to try and connect themselves for the gold?

Without a direct connection from the Med to the Red Sea, the Romans are not likely to project power beyond Arabia; even their attempt there failed miserably.

The problem is maintaing supply lines and naval supremacy. If you want a fleet, you have to build one dedicated to the Red Sea/Indian Ocean. All well and good, until you consider that that is *all* it can be used for. While there likely was the canal connected the Nile to the Red Sea, it seems to have been useful for little more than riverboats, not sea-worthy craft.

In short, any campaigns in Arabia or beyond pretty much have to be supplied almost entirely by the province of Egypt, which has immense obligations to the rest of the Empire (namely, feeding them).

 

[Flocculencio]

Cut out the middleman: Same incentive that there was later on to sail west to China, India & the Indies, instead of relying on the established Silk Road & spice-importing routes.

Huge numbers of middlemen only become an issue over the massive distances involved in the Silk Route and Spice Route. Trans Saharan trade was pretty much Sahel resources ---> trans Saharan caravans ---> North Africa. This isn't a game of Civ- the guys you're sending on long and expensive trips by sea to West Africa where there are no established ports and established trade routes to the coast are still going to take their cut.

 

[Shevek23]

I gather the reason coastwise trade along the northwestern African coast was a bear was the pattern of the winds. It was relatively easy to sail south, but there weren't any reliable south winds to sail back north along the coast, and the currents also flowed north-south. So the near-legendary Phoenician circumnavigation of Africa in ancient times has some plausibility; they just kept going south, rounded the Cape, and came up north on the East African coast. But to beat back north while remaining in the Atlantic required ships that could fearlessly venture very far out from land and catch countercurrents and trade winds that took then north far out in the Atlantic--so far out that they would probably discover the Americas sooner or later.

So, indeed the Romans themselves were not the most adept sailors, and even the best of their subject peoples were many centuries short of the gradually advancing navigational arts that could enable them to face the long, uncertain passages into the deep ocean to find those northward routes.

Of course these routes were challenging enough if you already knew where the favorable winds and currents could be found (and had suitably advanced navigational equipment and skills to locate oneself on the wide ocean!) For people who didn't have the Atlantic already mapped--it would probably never happen until some hapless crew was blown far out west by some storm they manage to survive, and then have the good luck to find a way back before they die of thirst or starve.

Again I think there's a good chance that before they find a route back to the known world, they find the South American coast or Caribbean islands first. And the odds that they could then find a way from there back to Roman lands would be daunting--they probably would just settle down as castaways.

Basically my impression is the general arts of navigation and shipbuilding would have to be a thousand years in advance of the best practices of the Classical world, and they would indeed get into contact with the Western Hemisphere if they could pull it off at all.

I wouldn't call the idea of developing such a timeline crazy; I've commented on a few, but it's a tough challenge to show how and why the Roman subject peoples advance their open-ocean seafaring abilities so much.

Obviously West African gold is a good incentive, because the stuff has to be hauled north. But the obvious solution for conquering (or hegemonizing) Romans would be to haul it overland across the Sahara.

If there is a lot of northward traffic somehow, then I'd say colonizing the eastern Atlantic islands is an obvious outcome, but if it just goes south they'd simply hug the African coast; the islands would only be auxiliary backstops at best.

And if they did have contact with the Americas, the islands would become very important. But I think we all would have to agree that's a long shot.

Just not much more of a long shot than regular, two-way maritime trade with West Africa!

 

[DominusNovus]

Remember, the Carthaginians under Hanno explored at least as far as Senegal, maybe as far as Cameroon. So it was within the technical capabilities of classical sailors to get down there and back. Just almost certainly was not worth the effort.

 

[Agricola]

The romans had already connections with Ethiopia (Aksum) and there is evidence that trade went even more south to East-Africa. Now tell me, what should the romans get in West-Africa, they could not get in East-Africa or via the frequent caravans form the Niger?

They were not that interested in slaves, because they had already invented the more casual system of colones. They also were not interested in a market for industrial mass products because they had none, and the mediterrenean market was sufficient for manufactured goods. What should they sell over there, Terra Sigillata? And the african gold-mines were unnown afaik, as the german ones.

The romans did reject to conquer the strategic important regions of Caledonia, Hibernia and Germania due to economical reasons, why they should conquer/colonize West-Africa?

However, a civil trade outpost on the Canarian Islands makes sense. But who told you, that it did not exist?

 

[Agricola]

oops double post sorry.

 

[twovultures]

The ones I've seen do not have central and southern Africa. Or Greenland.

Yeah, that is definitely a Renaissance map (or a later map meant to look Renaissance-y)

 

[DominusNovus]

I'm not sure when West Africa started exporting gold in significant quantities, but I do believe it was during the Roman era to some degree. Of course, its hard to say for sure what was going on during the time. What we do know is that whatever trade routes that existed overland could not handle the continual desertification of the Sahara. Which is why, in the end, camels weren't introduced until the 3rd-4th century; they weren't really suitable until then.

If we wanted to come up with some scenario that would remotely make sense, perhaps some foolhardy explorers follow up on Hanno's expedition, trying to see what sorts of wealth there might be on the Senegal river. Around the point where the river gets into modern Mali, there are gold deposits that would eventually form an integral part of the Saharan trade routes. The explorers (be they Punic, Hellenic, or Latin) manage to kickstart the gold mining industry in western Africa.

A small trading post is built at the mouth of the river, though the overland route is still viable for horse caravans, and dominates the trade. As the desert expands, the emporium along the coast becomes more and more important, and gradually comes to dominate the trade. Eventually, the Romans come to dominate the Mediterranean, and, while they almost certainly would not bother to try to control this far off city state, they certainly would keep up trade relations with it.

 

[katchen]

This raises some interesting questions/issues. Apparently the Imperial Romans did not make a priority of conquering new land to take over gold and silver MINES or lands where gold and silver might be found and mines developed. It would seem that bringing more precious metal into circulation and enriching the Empire that way was a very low priority for Emperors. Debasing the currency and relying on Imperial fiat to make the currency good was easier.
I say this because Trajan's conquest of Dacia seems to be the exception that proves the rule. We do not see Roman conquest of Marcomannia (Bohemia and Moravia) or Francia-Thuringia (the Hartz Mountains) by the Romans even though those areas have silver deposits, let alone Kongsberg in Telemark in Norway. Nor do we see Roman conquest of Southern Maretania (Morocco) for the gold and silver in the Southern Atlas, let alone a quest for the gold mines of Djenne-Jenno in West Africa. This, at a time when the Han Chinese conquered Tocharia (Sinkiang) as much for the jade mines it contains as for the trade routes it has to the west.
Just what was the Roman perception of the money supply?

 

[DominusNovus]

As far as expansion for precious metals is concerned, you cannot leave out Britain (which, despite its remoteness, was generally easier to get to than places like Dacia).

As far as the value of precious metal, it seems that the Romans had a very good understanding of the inherent value of gold and silver, as evidenced by their struggles against debasement (hence Constantine and the Solidus), but that they had a poorer understanding of the dangers of inflation. In short, they figured that the value of both gold and silver (and the coins made from them, so long as their content was kept pure) was pretty constant.

As to why they didn't bother to conquer gold producing regions, we know that, of course, Augustus wanted to conquer up to the Elbe, which would have incorporated Thuringia, and Marcus Aurelius wanted to conquer Marcomannia. So there's two regions on the list. The other precious metal regions seem to remote. Dacia was unique in that it simultaneously was enough of a military threat to require action, and settled enough to merit occupation. It also helps that it was generally pretty close to major commercial centers and relatively easy to get to, as compared to the interior of Germania.

Finally, if there's any particular reason the Empire didn't conquer these regions, its simply because they didn't need to. Who were the Moors going to trade with? Rome. Who were the Germans going to trade with? Rome. If they were already producing gold, and Rome was producing anything else, then they'd get the gold, one way or another. It wouldn't be as direct and simple as going there and taking over the mines themselves, but it would be easier.