Without the millions of sub-Saharan Africans taken into slavery, would Africa have been in a better position to resist European colonialization and industrialize in late 19th century?
Without the millions of sub-Saharan Africans taken into slavery...
Nathaniel Garcia
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Joseph Lewis
Just means even more of them would have died to superior brit machine guns.
Lucas Long
no, they would arguably have been in an even worse position
Parker Williams
As a proportion of the total population the amount lost to slavery was very small and the amount lost declined significantly such that it would be stretching it to even call it a factor by the 19th century. Slavery may have even increased trade with Europe and thus exposure to new technology, thus negating the small economic loss.
Owen Miller
They would have to look after themselves instead selling their enemies for money.
Caleb Jones
No for several reasons
Africa was always an underdeveloped place because of Sahara, I don´t see how the whole place would had change in a small period
Colonization actually brought foreign investment, thus some kind of industrialization and technology and infra structure.
Without slavery the manforce would be composed of white people, thus less people discovering shit, so who know perhaps machines would not had been invented at all
Colton Rodriguez
I doubt it. Those who were enslaved would have been from presumably inferior tribes, who would have either not been able to fight all that well or would have allied themselves to the Europeans much as those inferior tribes in the Americas allied themselves to the likes of Cortez because of their treatment at the hands of the aztecs. Think about it, if your fellow Africans keep shitting on you and ten these foreigners come along and btfo of your oppressors you’re probably going to side with them
Lucas Walker
>king wants to sell slaves
>goes to war with neighbor to get war prisoners
>forbids rich merchants to sell slaves so only he can sell slaves
>uses money from selling slaves to wage more wars and build palaces
How can you not see, how self-destructive it was? Slave trade fucked over the potentially productive middle class, massively increased social differences, the land was war-ravaged, and the main income of the king - the only rich guy around - was from literally selling his productive force.
Michael Myers
So how did they actually get people who didn’t speak the same language to all farm and eat food together
Taking them meant that the population exceeded its limits slower
Slave trade helped increase the sale of muskets so maybe it would have been even more backward, especially with the crushing of Berber piracy
Liam Torres
ITT: Veeky Forums and youtube-educated "historians"
>the amount lost to slavery was very small
Modern estimates are at about 30%, but it was countered by population boom due to introduction of New World crops. It was in no way small.
>Slavery may have even increased trade with Europe and thus exposure to new technology, thus negating the small economic loss.
And slave trade also fucked over the middle class, which was the only one capable of utilizing new technology
>Africa was always an underdeveloped place because of Sahara, I don´t see how the whole place would had change in a small period
They were in frequent contact with Muslim world and Europe since 13th and 15th century respectively, and in 17th century they were catching up pretty well
>Colonization actually brought foreign investment, thus some kind of industrialization and technology and infra structure.
thats completely irrelevant to OP question, just your generic /pol/tard pro-imperialistic jerking off
>Without slavery the manforce would be composed of white people, thus less people discovering shit, so who know perhaps machines would not had been invented at all
OP asked about Africans, and if Europeans didn't use niggers, it would use native africans as plantation slaves
Nathaniel Robinson
>Slave trade helped increase the sale of muskets
That wasn't about slave trade at all, Europeans were just selling guns to the guys who offered them better trade deals
Hudson Martin
>and in 17th century they were catching up pretty well
Lmao
Chase Garcia
considering that slaver raids depopulated certain regions, like the angolan interior, yes
Colton Walker
>Africa was always an underdeveloped place because of Sahara, I don´t see how the whole place would had change in a small period
Yeah, especially Mali and Kush.
Camden Watson
Okay and? Am I suppose to impress by those societies?
Henry White
This is a messy question because it makes too many assumptions.
West African city-states were well behind the curve in terms of population size, agriculture, architecture, etc. long before colonization (in comparison to other geographical-cultural regions, like Europe, the Middle East, and so forth). What a lot of people either forget or just don't realize is how SMALL Sub-Saharan West Africa was, in terms of population size and especially density. It's an absolutely massive chunk of land, but it was a similar situation to that of the Central Asian steppe - sure there are people, and a few somewhat developed towns here and there, but not the kind of "everyone jammed together in a compact and fertile region" deal that led to nation-state development elsewhere. So - much like Central Asia - you have loosely defined tribe-based borders that are fluid and sort of move around, and you might not bump into another settlement for weeks of travel.
West African states had a significant boom only AFTER the slave trade started. This is where things get messy. Slaves, initially sold to caliphates and later Europeans, became a hot commodity, which led to the rise of powerful slave-states in the region which used the wealth attained by the trade to grow and prosper. This is another thing people don't seem to realize: there was no notion of "race solidarity", as the modern conception of race didn't exist. As far as the king of a slave state cared, foreign was foreign - and the people he captured and enslaved, despite having the same ethnicity, spoke a different language and had a different culture, and thus were foreign. So the economic powerhouse of West Africa became the slave trade itself.
Owen Long
The greatest irony is that the burgeoning West African city-states underwent economic (and eventually societal) collapse only AFTER the slave trade was outlawed, since slaves were their primary export and without them they had no commodities. This lack of any kind of powerful states to resist European expansionist policy was a pretty important factor in allowing the colonialism to take root.
So it's hard for me to envision an alternate history where West Africa doesn't get fucked six ways to Sunday, because they had the bad luck to not be at parity with other world powers from the get-go. If Western Europe didn't fuck them, the Islamic world would have; and if not them, someone else. The only way West Africa doesn't lose the real life game of Risk is if they get agriculture earlier, or all the other powerhouses on the Earth undergo societal collapses and allow West Africa to catch up.
Dylan Diaz
> > the amount lost to slavery was very small
> Modern estimates are at about 30%,
Modern estimates are wildly over-blown for politically correct reasons.
> > Slavery may have even increased trade with Europe and thus exposure to new technology, thus negating the small economic loss.
> And slave trade also fucked over the middle class, which was the only one capable of utilizing new technology
There was no African “middle class” to begin with, the population was subsistence farmers with a handful of nobles/warriors ruling over them.
Sebastian Jackson
Actually a lot of ethnic groups that were once a motley group of tribes actually banded together due to pressure.You'd see a lot of smaller entities run into the arms of bigger local powers for protection. Also many bigger political entities were ALSO victims of slave raids as well so that pool of slaves aren't what you necessarily call "Weak" per say.
The New world case is completely different.
Matthew Rivera
No, the slave trade armed various warlords allowing some tribes to consolidate power. Without the slave trade the Africans would have been fighting the Europeans with sticks and stones with smaller tribes owning smaller territory.
Jose Phillips
There were merchants and tradesmen+craftsman though.
Chase Adams
You are assuming that Europeans wanted to takeover asap though or that sans slavery they'd go for that. You also have to consider many entities that sought out modernization.
Landon Murphy
>sticks and stones
>were in the iron age back then
???
Andrew James
>There were merchants and tradesmen+craftsman though.
Who were for the most part Mediterranean / Saharan peoples, not native Black Africans.
Robert Williams
>>sticks and stones
>>were in the iron age back then
>???
Only because the technology had been _brought to_ sub-Saharan Black Africa by people from the Mediterranean and even then, Black African iron production was very limited and local; village blacksmiths not wide scale state organized production.
Josiah Wood
>And slave trade also fucked over the middle class, which was the only one capable of utilizing new technology
>subsarahan africans had a 'middle class'
Holy fuck can the wewuzzers just go back to tumblr or wherever they came from please
Jack Cruz
>and in 17th century they were catching up pretty well
Yes, the mud production efficiency is estimated to have increased in that time by 20%
Levi Moore
>>subsarahan africans had a 'middle class'
Here is some middle class man from Great Benin Empire in his air conditioned villa
Brody Brown
The population of the entire Africa only eclipsed Europe's in 20th century as medical and industrial developments made population boom possible. There were fuck all people in the 2nd largest continent in the world.
Owen Edwards
Are you fucking bullshitting me? How can you think that despite the massive amounts of trade South of the Sahara and the countless textile, and ironworking
Nicholas Powell
daily reminder
Oliver Phillips
omg le mayo
Hunter Rodriguez
Are you trying to summon him? If so there are better ways to do that.
Eli Gray
To convey some idea of the number of crucifixions
-and sacrifices witnessed in this "city of blood" it will be
necessary to enter into a few gruesome details. Facing the
principal entrance to the King’s compounds stood a large
sacrificial tree on which two bodies were crucified, and
scattered in all directions around its base lay numbers of
decapitated and disembowelled sacrifices in various stages of
decomposition, amongst which were the decapitated remains
of three Europeans, who had evidently been gagged and their
hands bound behind their back before execution. A few
hundred yards to the south of the main entrance, already
alluded to, stood another sacrificial tree, on which was
crucified the body of a woman, and at its base three other
eviscerated bodies (also women) were found. Continuing my
way to the south I came upon the large plain leading to the
Gwato Path, and there witnessed one of the most horrible
sights that it is possible for the human mind to conceivei.
e., one hundred and seventy-six newly decapitated and
mutilated human sacrifices strewn about in all directions,
besides countless numbers of skeletons-truly, a most
gruesome sight and one not to be easily forgotten.
Aaron Green
>Modern estimates are at about 30%
In the last quarter of the 18th century, at its height, 80000 slaves left subsaharran Africa per year out of a population of 80 million. 0.1% of the population.
>slave trade also fucked over the middle class
How? Before the industrial revolution the overwhelming majority of middle classes arose out of trade.
Bear in mind for a full and sufficient explanation you must educate me about how it affected the vast majority of middle classees, from salt traders to palm oil merchants, from West Africa to East Africa.
Also bear in mind I am talking about the raw facts, not any moral argument. It might suit a moral agenda to inflate the negative effects of slavery, and you are free to do so in normyville, however Veeky Forums is for patricians seeking the truth of the world.
It was difficult even for an uncolonized and modernized polity like Siam to industrialize. So even if the impact of slavery had any significance at all, its removal would not improve Africa's chances of industrialization. Also regions deep inland were too isolated to obtain the military technology necessary to resist colonialism. Only Ethiopia which was geographically isolated from Europeans but not muslim polities to the north, thus receiving exposure to modern firearms, managed to resist, up until the invasion by Italy.
All in all I would say it had virtually no impact whatsoever.
Dylan Hill
>despite the massive amounts of trade South of the Sahara
There was never a "massive amount" of trade with sub-Saharan Africa by the very fact that the fucking Sahara Desert was in the way.
Until the Europeans began sailing to Asia in search of spices, what little trade did happen with sub-Saharan Africa was done by slowly slogging across the desert on camel back.
Blake Morgan
By 1000, the Old Empire of Ghana controlled all trade of salt and gold, it was an intermediary, controlling Berbers and Arabs salt traders and the ivory and gold producers in the south, had an organised taxation system and an army of 200,000 soldiers to protect their caravans.
Mali literally had the richest man of all times.
Ryan Thompson
Gao had trades routes with Egypt before Islamization and had with a lot of other after becoming Songhai.
Chase Green
They were so rich they built this
Connor Perez
>Post two examples of underdeveloped societies in comparison to the world at that time
who are them compared to the Romans, Greeks, Chinese or the Egyptians, what are some examples of great architecture they have? weapons? scientific knowledge? philosofy?
>They were in frequent contact with Muslim world and Europe since 13th and 15th century respectively, and in 17th century they were catching up pretty well
some tribes it did, but most Africa no, as most of them were still in the tribal age, even nowadays a good chunk of Africa is still trapped in tribalism without any form of developed society...
>17th century they were catching up pretty well
What do you even mean by that? they were nowhere as close to Europe or Asia, the first university was funded by Europeans, no scientific knowledge being produced, no architectural wonders, basically nothing
>thats completely irrelevant to OP question, just your generic /pol/tard pro-imperialistic jerking off
What? he is clearly asking what would had happen if they did not had been colonized I am explaining that colonization actually brought progress so without them it would take even more time so they could catch up with the rest of the world
Stop projecting you fucking idiot
>OP asked about Africans, and if Europeans didn't use niggers, it would use native africans as plantation slaves
OP make a broad question with broad consequences, I did not understand what you said beyond that
Nathan Perry
This was for you
William White
>ctrl+f rinderpest
>no results
Everyone's forgetting a huge factor here. Rinderpest was only introduced to Africa in the 1880s by Italy (accidentally through their colony in Eritrea) and it had a 90% mortality rate among unexposed herds.
Most of Sub-Saharan Africa was based around pastoral economies at the time, so Rinderpest would be particularly devastating to Africa. IIRC something like a third of all Ethiopians died from the ensuing famine and half of the Massai in East Africa.
While the slave trade was no doubt devastating to many areas (the King of Kongo, for example, was making direct appeals to the Portuguese King in the 1600s over the damage done by the slave trade in his kingdom), I'd argue the Rinderpest epidemic was far worse in its scope and timing.
Andrew Sanders
Ah no the first University was started by morrocans the first European University was built by Berber conquerors in Spain in 1088
Nathaniel Sanders
The Malian empire was home to Universities older then the ones in Europe Sankore established in 989 A.D.
Ayden King
Actually it was in Italy, you fucking moron.
en.m.wikipedia.org
Liam Bailey
There were many empires and cities such as the Swahili City states Mali had over 400 cities the Ashanti cities Yoruba settlements the cities built by Kamen bornu etc
Jackson Roberts
Not sure what you're getting at with that. I know there were tons of states around Africa by the time the Scramble for Africa kicked off. What I'm saying is that they suffered a near apocalyptic event around that time.
Carter Bailey
Africa has always been underpoplated Mali fell into chaos after the morrocans killed or abducted all the smart people
Ethan Taylor
Off topic answer.
Alexander Diaz
No, because for the most part the conquest of Africa took place during the age of imperialism, whereas the Atlantic slave trade was during the age of exploration/colonization.
Isaac Smith
Define “city”
Cooper Wright
I did not knew north Africa was above sub Saharan Africa good job user
Owen Fisher
Sadly no. Africa was doomed no matter what. The amount of slaves taken was negligible when compared to the rest of the population.
Ayden Adams
Do you even triangle trade
Hunter Gutierrez
Did not know
Jaxon Brown
The BLACK gods would've easily crushed the cracker cavemen if not for the evil wizard Yakub helping them.
James Hall
Fuck no