Ancient Jewish Refuge in Madagascar

[Martinus Paduei]

It is now the year 205. Fifty years have passed since contact was first made between Judean and Austronesian settlers. The total population in the Judean area of the island is around 16,000. Cultural interchange between the two groups continues. There are small Austronesian communities in a number of Judean settlements, and vice versa, but "New Judea" (hey, someone please come up with a better name!) remains about 90% Jewish. I think Christianity would be a very small minority, if it is present at all, as I would guess most Judeans would regard it as an odious heresy.

A small local shipbuilding industry has started up, fusing Judean and Austronesian knowledge and techniques. Using those ships, Judeans are trading iron and copper ingots, finished metal goods and textiles, in Rhapta and elsewhere in adjacent mainland Africa, but they do not generally go far afield. Contact with "Old Judea" is intermittent, not constant.

Alluvial gold has been found, and though production is not huge, gold and copper coins are beginning to be minted, facillitating trade in "cash", as opposed to barter, aiding the growth of the local economy (I need to consider the question of who is minting the coins and what the form of local government is). The central highlands of the island have been explored and are being settled, allowing for easier cultivation of wheat and other elements of the traditional Judean agricultural package.

So far, history has diverged little from OTL, and the powers that be, if they know of it all all, pay little attention to the sleepy backwater.

 

[Martinus Paduei]

It is now the year 275. Sources of lead and bitumen have been located and developed. Most of the island has been settled, if thinly, and the Judean population numbers around 100,000. The Judean state covers somewhat over half the island. A half dozen Austronesian polities occupy the remaining area. Though certainly not a major power, the Judean state is no longer a backwater. With a sizable merchant fleet, it is an integral participant in trade around the western and central Indian Ocean littoral.

Since this is a wank of sorts, I will posit the birth of an exceptional person, who will significantly affect history. In the coastal Judean village of New Edom, a flood occurs. The sole Austronesian famliy living there is killed, with the exception of a half-drowned six year old boy who is found clinging to a some driftwood floating in a lagoon. He is adopted by a Judean family, renamed Moses, and raised as a Jew. Moses of New Edom grows up to be a charismatic figure, and a zealous practitioner of the Jewish faith. He begins a movement to voluntarily convert Austronesians to Judaism, and meets with significant success, converting thousands over the course of his life, and influencing local Jewish theology, making it very favorably inclined to missionary work.

Moses of New Edom never forgot his Austronesian heritage, always stressing that conversion should be voluntary and calling for tolerance of unbelievers. Toward the end of his life (around the year 335), having gained some wealthy patrons, Moses began to send disciples outside Madagascar on proseletysing missions to Arabia and to mainland Africa.

 

[floppy_seal99]

It is now the year 275. Sources of lead and bitumen have been located and developed. Most of the island has been settled, if thinly, and the Judean population numbers around 100,000. The Judean state covers somewhat over half the island. A half dozen Austronesian polities occupy the remaining area. Though certainly not a major power, the Judean state is no longer a backwater. With a sizable merchant fleet, it is an integral participant in trade around the western and central Indian Ocean littoral.

Since this is a wank of sorts, I will posit the birth of an exceptional person, who will significantly affect history. In the coastal Judean village of New Edom, a flood occurs. The sole Austronesian famliy living there is killed, with the exception of a half-drowned six year old boy who is found clinging to a some driftwood floating in a lagoon. He is adopted by a Judean family, renamed Moses, and raised as a Jew. Moses of New Edom grows up to be a charismatic figure, and a zealous practitioner of the Jewish faith. He begins a movement to voluntarily convert Austronesians to Judaism, and meets with significant success, converting thousands over the course of his life, and influencing local Jewish theology, making it very favorably inclined to missionary work.

Moses of New Edom never forgot his Austronesian heritage, always stressing that conversion should be voluntary and calling for tolerance of unbelievers. Toward the end of his life (around the year 335), having gained some wealthy patrons, Moses began to send disciples outside Madagascar on proseletysing missions to Arabia and to mainland Africa.

Weren't there several prominent Jewish communities in Arabia (more specifically, OTL Yemen?) arising at this time already? Moses' emissaries might not have to do a shitload of work finding additional patrons and whatnot. In addition, if Islam arises (which it most likely will) might be influenced alot more by Judaism, and possibly even be regarded as a sect of it.

 

[Martinus Paduei]

Weren't there several prominent Jewish communities in Arabia (more specifically, OTL Yemen?) arising at this time already? Moses' emissaries might not have to do a shitload of work finding additional patrons and whatnot. In addition, if Islam arises (which it most likely will) might be influenced alot more by Judaism, and possibly even be regarded as a sect of it.

Considering the Madagascarene Judeans' (extended) neighborhood, there were indeed very significant Jewish communities in Yemen (to the point where, from time to time, the Himyarite rulers were Jews) and to a somewhat lesser extent, Aksum.

Regarding Islam, I am a firm believer in butterflies. A POD may start out very small, but butterflies never stop growing. Once a certain point is reached, the butterflies rapidly grow to the size of Mothra, and things get more or less unrecognizable. In this scenario, that tipping point is approaching rapidly. Well before the time of Muhammad, so I do not see anything recognizable as Islam developing in this TL.

 

[thekingsguard]

With the Austronesians converting, will this rising Jewish state cover the whole island eventually?

 

[Martinus Paduei]

With the Austronesians converting, will this rising Jewish state cover the whole island eventually?

Since I have said from the beginning that this thread is on the optimistic/wankish end of the spectrum of reasonable possibility, I'd be surprised if the Judeans didn't take over the entire island, and more besides!

 

[DG Valdron]

Hmmm. I'm curious. The Israeli's would presumably be from a temperate, dry middle eastern climate. In Madagascar, the growing seasons and periods would be wrong. The rainfall would be wrong. Would the Agricultural package and Toolkit io the Israeli population be viable in Madagascar. Or are we just setting them up for mass starvation?

Consider the difficulties of the Polynesian Agricultural package and toolkit in adapting to New Zealand.

 

[Martinus Paduei]

Hmmm. I'm curious. The Israeli's would presumably be from a temperate, dry middle eastern climate. In Madagascar, the growing seasons and periods would be wrong. The rainfall would be wrong. Would the Agricultural package and Toolkit io the Israeli population be viable in Madagascar. Or are we just setting them up for mass starvation?

Consider the difficulties of the Polynesian Agricultural package and toolkit in adapting to New Zealand.

I gave serious thought to these issues, which is why I posited that, with stops in Yemen and along the way in east Africa, the Judeans took on some foodstuffs and animals that would be better adapted to the local climate, so they had a mixture of their own crop package and more local ones. I also have them making landfall in a dryer (though not desertlike) part of the island.

Fishing could obviously provide a lot of protein until flocks/herds of food animals built up, and thereafter as well. The climate in the central highlands of the island, as has been mentioned, would be quite suitable for Judean crops. For example, wheat is grown there. Their subsequent interactions with the Austronesians also gave the Judeans several new foods very well adapted to the climate.

Finally, remember that the Judeans were undisturbed for the first twenty years and thereafter had good relations with their only close neighbors. Effort which in most of the classical world was channelled into aggression, or resisting aggression, went instead into sustaining their fledgling settlements.

 

[DG Valdron]

I gave serious thought to these issues, which is why I posited that, with stops in Yemen and along the way in east Africa, the Judeans took on some foodstuffs and animals that would be better adapted to the local climate, so they had a mixture of their own crop package and more local ones. I also have them making landfall in a dryer (though not desertlike) part of the island.

Not bad. But a partial solution only. Yemen wouldn't help, really. East coast of Africa might. The trouble is that there's a difference between picking up some foodstuffs, and the accumulated knowledge and lore of how to cultivate a tropical package. So basic survival and subsistence would still be an issue.

If the New Zealand example is anything to go by, you might see a reversion to hunter/gatherer models of existence, and perhaps a loss of cultural tools.

 

[Martinus Paduei]

I don't know about Yemen not helping. The climate there and in parts of Madagascar is fairly similar. I have also stated, more than once, that I am looking at an outcome that while not completely unreasonable, lies firmly on the positive end of of the spectrum of reasonable outcomes.

Unlike the ancestors of the Maori, the Judeans were both more technically advanced (metalworking, writing, etc.), and had the means to go back and forth to Rhapta and other east African trading areas for more supplies and for knowledge of how best to use them.

 

[Martinus Paduei]

The year 350. For the past three decades, Judean missionaries have been proselytyzing in Madagascar, up and down mainland East Africa, and in the Arabian Peninsula. These efforts have borne significant fruit. Judaism is now the largest religion in Arabia , though not a majority at this point. The King of Aksum has converted to Judaism rather than Christianity, along with a large percentage of the Aksumite elites and the common people. The East African mainland is becoming a patchwork of kingdoms, some Jewish, some pagan, but Judean technology (writing, navigation, metallurgy, agriculture) is spreading there.

In the larger world, what would be the changes? I have to think abut it, though of course, suggestions are welcome

 

[mlp]

Australian proto-civilisation develops?
Judean Indonesia?
Judean colonisation of Australia?
Judean colonisation of India?
Alternate evangelic religion develops in Roman Empire?
This is all very interesting.

 

[Mario]

I am quite skeptical about the adaptation of a Jew (or whatever Mediterranean) population to Madagascar as soon as the 2nd-3rd centuries.

Mind that Madagascar climate then was quite different to the present one and so the kind of terrain for crops and so. During the first milennium, Madagascar was way wetter than it is now, with lot more peatlands, swamps... and much less savannah than today, meaning that usual Mediterranean crops were hard to adapt here. They should have better acquired the cultivation of rice as Austronesians did.

Also then the now-vanished Malagasy megafauna was still widespread and this meant a lot of easy prey (cheap proteins) which kept the Austronesians on low rates of civilization until this megafauna collapsed around the 9th-10th century, unleashing the climate changes in the island toward the model we know today. This change boosted the Austronesians to improve their agricultural skills and the later contact with Arabian traders helped them to improve in another fields; but 3th century Austronesians were way less civilized than the ones the French would meet centuries later.

Given this scenario, it means that an eventual Jew expedition to the island as soon as the 3rd century would have seen the Austronesian as 'savages' and any kind contact between them seems really unlikely to me, in the levels of the Viking-Iroquois clashes in Vinland. Probably Jews would have opted for the annihilation of the 'savages' considering the mentality of the era, and probably Austronesians would have opted for the same solution against Jews.

If the imported crops fail and the hostility of the Austronesians is high, I think the most sensible option for them would have been to flee back to Africa or Yemen.

 

[Martinus Paduei]

Australian proto-civilisation develops?
Judean Indonesia?
Judean colonisation of Australia?
Judean colonisation of India?
Alternate evangelic religion develops in Roman Empire?
This is all very interesting.

Hello, zeppelinair. In answer to your questions:

I see Judean missionary activity continuing, maybe even increasing. Power projection all the way to India, much less Indonesia or Australia is quite another matter! I'd say those are way too far to consider a war of conquest or colonization efforts for quite a while. Even settlement of thinly settled areas in Africa probably wont't happen until Madagascar is significantly more densely populated.

As far as religion in the Roman Empire is concerned, I think ITTL, it will go Christian in basically the same time frame as OTL. So there will be two rival proselytzing religions, I think with considerable enmity.

In the case of the Jews, Christianity is already viewed as a weird and distateful heresy. Given their history with Rome, Roman Christians will be twice as bad as either pagan Romans or Christians of other nations.

Christians will inherit the historic Roman dislike of Jews as deniers of the Gods, transferring it to denial of Jesus as the Messiah, along with, among other things, resentment over differences in treatment of Jews and early Christians by pagan Rome, and Jesus' antipathy toward the Pharisees.


P.S. I think that any sufficiently powerful Jewish ruler whose power base is not too far away would view the "liberation" of Jerusalem as a crowning achievement.

 

[Martinus Paduei]

Mario, before I respond to your more substantive points, I feel the need to point out that the use of the term "Jew" as an adjective is rather perjorative.

What basis do you have for the assertion of radical change in Madagascar's climate? In any case, I had the Judeans land on the drier side of the island. Also, some of the megafauna will likely hold out a while longer, maybe much longer, due to some of it (hippos, for example) not being kosher. I am still wondering about domestication of elephant birds.

As to rice, I do not believe it was part of the original Austronesian agricultural package brought to the island, though it will come later. The Judeans did get taro (among other crops) from the Austronesians, and also got additional crops from adjacent areas in east Africa.

For this TL, I have both the Judeans and the Austronesians arriving in the 2nd century, not the 3rd, and have posited generally friendly contact and relations, at least while there is still a lot of space to expand. Perhaps not the most probable turn of events, but most definitely not ASB. By the way, the "skraelings" the Vikings met in Newfoundland and adjacent areas were certainly not Iroquois. They would have most likely been some variety of Algonkian (Beothuk, Micmac or something similar), Inuit or Dorsets.

 

[Mario]

Mario, before I respond to your more substantive points, I feel the need to point out that the use of the term "Jew" as an adjective is rather perjorative.

Oh, I'm sorry, English is not my mother tongue and I was not aware of this, as in Spanish the term is quite neutral. Thanks for the observation.

What basis do you have for the assertion of radical change in Madagascar's climate? In any case, I had the Judeans land on the drier side of the island. Also, some of the megafauna will likely hold out a while longer, maybe much longer, due to some of it (hippos, for example) not being kosher. I am still wondering about domestication of elepant birds.

The climate of the island was significantly wetter before the 9th-10th century. Historically it has been asumed that the climate of the island suffered gradual changes, but today is mostly admitted that the climate suffered a relatively drastical change between the 8th and 11th century due to the alteration of the ecosystems caused by the humans. The drier side of the island before these changes was the southwestern area.

I do not think that elephant birds could have been successfully domesticated as they were shy and elusive creatures that apparently did not form herds, and they were vulnerable to environmental changes. It is suspected that they were badly affected by the introduction of new avian diseases through domestic fowl.

And regarding hippos, they did not only vanished because humans hunted them, but rather to the transformation of swamps and probably also introduced diseases.

As to rice, I do not believe it was part of the original Austronesian agricultural package brought to the island, though it will come later. The Judeans did get taro (among other crops) from the Austronesians, and also got additional crops from adjacent areas in east Africa.

Although it is not proven when it was introduced, rice is one of the oldest crops in Madagascar and it probably played a role in the destruction of the swamps in the island, because the early cultivation would have been probably very inefficient.

I am not sure that Judeans could have got any crop from East Africa at that time, because croplands were mostly absent of that area before the Islamic contact. They should have travelled to the Rift Valley area, and this is too far from the coast I guess.

For this TL, I have both the Judeans and the Austronesians arriving in the 2nd century, not the 3rd, and have posited generally friendly contact and relations, at least while there is still a lot of space to expand. Perhaps not the most probable turn of events, but most definitely not ASB. By the way, the "skraelings" the Vikings met in Newfoundland and adjacent areas were certainly not Iroquois. They would have most likely been some variety of Algonkian (Beothuk, Micmac or something similar), Inuit or Dorsets.

OTL Austronesians arrived at least 300 years BC, and following the latest opinions of some ecologists, probably earlier. The coastal areas were slashed and burnt very early as the central highlands suffered important ecosystem alterations as soon as the 5th century. The early practices of cultivation were greatly inefficient and too much land were needed in relation to the small population.Their only domestic animal was probably fowl then.

So it is unlikely that in such scenario new rival human groups would have been welcome. Arabs avoided any settlement in the island. When Bantu population settled there from Africa (around the 9th century), they imported zebu herds, which reduced significantly the competition for food (although accelerated deforestation and drying of the island).

 

[fi11222]

Interesting Idea!

One thing is missing though : a religious motivation for the whole endeavor. If we assume the Jews in question still follow the mainstream form of Judaism in their time, there is zero likelihood that they would accept to go that far from Jerusalem, especially if the idea is to settle a piece of land. For standard Jews the only land worth settling (and indeed the only possible one) is Judea because it was given to them by God. Full stop.

IMO, the only possible way to make this TL work is to invent some sort of alternate, heterodox, flavor of Judaism which would designate Madagascar as the new promised land.

This, by the way, does no seem to be that difficult. For example, we could imagine a Jewish trader who has been involved in the Red sea trade and gone to Yemen / Axxum / Somalia a couple of times before the events of the Bar Kokhba revolt. As a result, he knows of some fabled "southern islands" with strange beasts but fertile land. In 135 we may imagine he is in Jerusalem and has a vision. He thus becomes a Prophet and starts preaching about a new promised land and a new Jerusalem. He associates with some of the non Pharisee/Zealot groups (like the various shades of Ebionitism, Nazoreism and post-Essenes) which were against the revolt and were as a result being persecuted by the Bar Kokhba and were in the process of leaving Judea anyway. We may imagine this guy as a likely leader for the exodus from Eilat to Madagascar.

In short, this TL needs a prophet from the start, not 200 years after the arrival at the new promised land.

 

[GdwnsnHo]

Interesting Idea!

One thing is missing though : a religious motivation for the whole endeavor. If we assume the Jews in question still follow the mainstream form of Judaism in their time, there is zero likelihood that they would accept to go that far from Jerusalem, especially if the idea is to settle a piece of land. For standard Jews the only land worth settling (and indeed the only possible one) is Judea because it was given to them by God. Full stop.

IMO, the only possible way to make this TL work is to invent some sort of alternate, heterodox, flavor of Judaism which would designate Madagascar as the new promised land.

This, by the way, does no seem to be that difficult. For example, we could imagine a Jewish trader who has been involved in the Red sea trade and gone to Yemen / Axxum / Somalia a couple of times before the events of the Bar Kokhba revolt. As a result, he knows of some fabled "southern islands" with strange beasts but fertile land. In 135 we may imagine he is in Jerusalem and has a vision. He thus becomes a Prophet and starts preaching about a new promised land and a new Jerusalem. He associates with some of the non Pharisee/Zealot groups (like the various shades of Ebionitism, Nazoreism and post-Essenes) which were against the revolt and were as a result being persecuted by the Bar Kokhba and were in the process of leaving Judea anyway. We may imagine this guy as a likely leader for the exodus from Eilat to Madagascar.

In short, this TL needs a prophet from the start, not 200 years after the arrival at the new promised land.

See, it doesn't need to be a promised land, it could just be a change that all the waters of the Red Sea are in some way a gift from God. The Promised Land is still important, but it opens up the idea that the Red Sea, or the Indian Ocean, is as sacred, and any lands surrounded on all sides (i.e. Islands) are blessed. Making Madagascar, Socotra, Sri Lanka, etc all rather in high demand for such believers.

Plus, it might make it more popular to be naval traders.

Regardless, I've enjoyed this timeline so far

 

[fi11222]

See, it doesn't need to be a promised land

Sorry, but it does. For Jews, even more so at the time than today, the promised land is all that matters. Even the Messiah ranks a distant second after the yearning to be in "The Land" promised by God.

Unless he is truly convinced the promised land has changed location, a devout Jew will always try to remain as close as possible from Palestine/Juda.

 

[Mario]

See, it doesn't need to be a promised land, it could just be a change that all the waters of the Red Sea are in some way a gift from God. The Promised Land is still important, but it opens up the idea that the Red Sea, or the Indian Ocean, is as sacred, and any lands surrounded on all sides (i.e. Islands) are blessed. Making Madagascar, Socotra, Sri Lanka, etc all rather in high demand for such believers.

Plus, it might make it more popular to be naval traders.

Regardless, I've enjoyed this timeline so far

I would love a timeline about an ancient Empire centered in the Indian Ocean, encompassing East Africa, Madagascar, India and Austronesia.