Say the Mali Colonize South America and set up plantation colonies worked by slaves both taken from weaker tribes and imported from parts of Europe. Eventually they realize that escaped slaves are easier to find when they stand out from the population so they start exclusively using white-skinned Europeans and when England starts cracking down on the slave trade abroad they just start breeding what they already have. Let's say that the colony breaks off between 1820-1850 now ruled by the planter class. What would be the relations between this state and the USA-CSA, Spain, and Portuguese Brazil and what would be the impact of a state where race relations were reversed?
WI: Mali Slave-Plantation Colony
- Thread starter Kaiser Tito
- Start date
If I just said African plantation colony people would want specifics and Mali was the only African empire that the board thinks would've tried to.
I just wanted to make things weird for White supremacists. Europe still had parts which continued to practice slavery so it's existence is enough for the tl.
I figured that the Mali would be Gran Colombia with the Guianas and parts of North Brazil while Portugal gets what's South of that.
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If I need to move this to ASB I will but I still think this, while unlikely, is still a technically possible scenario.
PsyloSurgeon
Banned
I wish bonded labour never existed. I wish everyone just danced around a bonfire yelling kumbaya.
Lord Almighty, are you guys serious? The posts in this thread so far are borderline racist.
There is a difference though. For one, other Africans are much closer. If Malians establish a colony in the America's it is likely going to be in South America, just because of geography. If so they will be using the currents of the South Atlantic gyre to get around, which means most of their slaves will either come from West or Central Africa. Pure speculation on my part but the Congo basin seems a likely destination. It's "on the way" so to speak. Also African states, which don't have the Christian taboo on slave trading, will just be easier to trade with in this regard.
If you want a state with reverse race-relations (reversed in reference to OTL plantation colonialism in the Americas) a better bet would be a successful rebellion of South Africans against their European colonizers early in the game. The Africans could then take the low road and enslave their former masters.
Great start.
Ok, I'm following you up until the Europe part. Plantation colonies make sense, they generate a lot of wealth with comparatively (with regard to other organizational structures) few native Malians involved. Makes sense for them to develop in your ATL just as they did in OTL. On the other hand, I don't see why Malians would choose to mainly import slaves from Europe. I don't see why Malians would feel any kind of special race-based kinship (our modern ideas about race are mostly a result of the African slave trade, not the cause) with other Africans vs Europeans. In the time of the OTL Age of Exploration or earlier, people who were from Kongo and those from Coimbra would've been equally foreign in the eyes of the Malians: barbarians with strange appearences, languages, and religions.
There is a difference though. For one, other Africans are much closer. If Malians establish a colony in the America's it is likely going to be in South America, just because of geography. If so they will be using the currents of the South Atlantic gyre to get around, which means most of their slaves will either come from West or Central Africa. Pure speculation on my part but the Congo basin seems a likely destination. It's "on the way" so to speak. Also African states, which don't have the Christian taboo on slave trading, will just be easier to trade with in this regard.
I really don't think that would offset economic and geographical concerns I outlined above. If there's a steady supply of slaves closer to home, there would need to be a good reason (religious or cultural) for the Malians to go abroad. If you really want a state where the majority of the slave population is European, it would probably be located in North America, and the Malians are using the North Atlantic gyre, with a replication of the triangle trade of OTL. In this case you need a reason for there to be a supply of slaves in Iberia, which could be easily achieved with a surviving Andalusia. I think this is less likely than a South American colony getting its slaves from Africa, but if we're in this ATL, por que no los dos?
Woah, woah, woah, what? Sorry bucko, if you want this to be feasible you'd need to butterfly away the US and probably Portugeuse Brazil. Relations with Spain/Portugal could vary from "what the hell is Spain" (see my last point) to "Wow those guys are great!".
I wanna emphasize this: race relations, as we think of them, would probably not exist in this timeline. There would be no need to justify slavery based on skin color (which arose due to geographic and historical coincidence) and therefore the modern concept of race doesn't exist. Even if other states from Europe do enslave Africans ITTL, the presence of a powerful African state doing the same smashes the development of racial theory and racism.
If you want a state with reverse race-relations (reversed in reference to OTL plantation colonialism in the Americas) a better bet would be a successful rebellion of South Africans against their European colonizers early in the game. The Africans could then take the low road and enslave their former masters.
No. Mali colonizing the America's is not even close to an ASB idea. They are exceptionally positioned geographically, and are a powerful, centralized state with ample resources to pursue such an endeavour. The reason they didn't do so was because they were a land based power with a vast hinterland of tribes outside their empire, they would fill up those lands with their people before they decide to go Viking anywhere else. They are similar to early Russia in this regard.
The Arabian dhow was in use widely throughout the Islamic world since at least the early medieval era (probably since antiquity), including in Morocco and North Africa which frequently traded with Mali through for gold and slaves. The technology of the lanteen sail (which is what led to Portugese naval dominance) was in use by the Arabs for hundreds of years before Vasco de Gama. The reason why Mali never got these ships is because they never wanted or needed them, not because they didn't have access.
How does this contribute to the discussion? If you think the idea posted by the OP is dumb, you can always scroll past and not comment
I mean, if you want. There's no inherent reason why Portugal has to become a colonial nation though, geography (as shown in the case of Mali) isn't really enough. A ton of things could've stunted the Iberian rise.
I find this kind of scenario implausible to be honest. Slavery was already extant in West Africa during the Mali Empire and they had no problems dealing with black slaves on their own turf, and they would find them to be more usable in the tropical environment compared to Europeans. It's possible that white slaves could be acquired from the Arabs or the Amazigh traders via the Barbary Slave Trade but they'd be a minority compared to the ones they buy or capture whilst in Africa.
Mali wouldn't even need to use race to justify slavery like the Arabs or the Europeans. It's already a part of West African societies as part of a caste system.
I mean, there was still stateless and microstate lands in Mali's borderlands so more forest guinean Africans seems more likely than whites, at least on average.
Pretty sure the normal caste system one was more of serfdom than slavery. Like the "slaves" had rights and shit. There were like 2 ranks of slave, the more common one were more like serfs and the other morel like chattle slaves.
Yeah, I doubt. If anything an African state enslaving mostly Africans while the Europeans also enslave mostly Africans just justifies the idea of the black race being one built for slavery. After all the Anglo-Germans did develop pretty derogatory ideas on Slavs, Iberian and Italians, Moors and Indians.
Like Iberian ship designs bares influence from North Africa so we can always just alt that and say North Africans built Ocean going vessels or do another alt with Coastal canoes being developed to be Ocean going like with Viking Longboats, Ancient Egyptian ships or if you want a more recent POD and you believe the story of how Mansa Musa's predecssor died, more improvements on the Maliean maritime traditions. Either way, not impossible.
Where in the 1500s?
Supposing the Malians are powerful and rich enough to be importing slaves on a mass scale from say Senegambia and the Congo basin, then the Europeans will probably frequent the same markets out of convenience. ITTL arguments will made explaining why Congolese and Gambian peoples make natural slaves, but such an arguement will not be extended to the Mandé.
That wouldn't be racism, as it isn't about race, it would fall into ethnic discrimination against specific people which already existed throughout the world (Germans hated Slavs, Slavs hated the Romani, basically everyone hated the Jews). The idea that all Africans are united by being "Black" wouldn't form.
