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Africa, uncolonized

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
It's fun. I like that they show it south-side up, it really breaks that sense of expectation.

Most of the European or Asian nations have a point in history where a bunch of small kingdoms united or otherwise conquered each other. It seems likely to me that more of that would have occurred on its own in Africa had they not been colonized. From a worldbuilding standpoint, for me, a speculative thought analysis of how that might have played out, and what those conquering might have looked like, would be more interesting to think about.

Do you know if the Year of Rice and Salt get into that at all?
 

Smith

Minstrel
This is a really cool map. Thanks for sharing this, Steerpike, or I might never have seen it.

I would really love to see this done with the Americas, as I've recently been very interested in what the world would look like without European colonisation, particularly after doing some research on some of the ancient kingdoms and civilisations of Africa, and Spanish colonisation of the Americas.

Been meaning to read The Years of Rice and Salt for a long time, too. An extra nudge in the ribs.
 

K.S. Crooks

Maester
Awesome and interesting. Many people do not understand how artificial borderlines for countries are in Africa. How tribes and families were forced together or split apart base solely on outsiders wanting to divide their spoils using neat, straight lines. I would be interesting to see this done for North and South America as well.
 

Nameback

Troubadour
I got into so many arguments with people about this map on twitter. Plus I have a history prof who just gave a lecture he called "a defense of the British Empire." He actually said that, out loud.

Anyway, I do agree with Devor that presumably some larger states would have formed, but obviously this map is more about provoking discussion and thought than it is meant to be the most plausible outcome of a non-colonized Africa.

But, to indulge the more pedantic line of inquiry, one of the complications in developing a map like this is that many of the African states that became wealthy and powerful prior to the colonial moment did so at least in part through trade with Europeans, especially the slave trade. People often forget that African and European states traded peacefully and had proper diplomatic relationships for a long time (centuries!) before Europe went on its global rampage of conquest. It's actually a big reason why African states didn't unify and oppose European states (who had agreed not to interfere in each other's imperial ambitions), because they assumed that diplomacy and reason could work with Europeans, as it had for decades or centuries prior.

As a result, you get a lot of instances where a European state like France would make alliances with one African state against another, only to turn on their "ally" after the common enemy had been extinguished. Predictably, there were also a lot of treaties that Europeans reneged on. This happened, for example, with the French who defeated the Tukulor Empire while maintaining peaceful relations with Samori Toure's Wassoulou Empire, only to turn on Toure after the Tukulors had been defeated (and sign and violate multiple treaties with Toure between 1886 and 1889).

Anyway, I'm not sure states like Dahomey or Benin would have been nearly as powerful without the coastal slave trade with Europeans, but it seems plausible that other states would have become continental powers regardless--the Zulu, for example, or someone out of Mali (hard to know which empire would have ultimately triumphed there, but Mali was the base of huge states since the 1300s).
 

Jabrosky

Banned
It's a nice map, but I would have really liked to see one with the Islamic influences cut out along with the European ones. For example, they could replace the Misr and Zarqa sultunates along the Nile with Kemet and Kush (aka ancient Egypt and Nubia respectively). That way we would have predominantly indigenous influences on all the African kingdoms.
 
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Legendary Sidekick

The HAM'ster
Moderator
Africa would own Sicily?
inconceivable.jpg
 
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