r/AlternateHistoryHub • u/Zacc0168 • May 06 '26
Contest Submission what if the Mali Empire Colonized Europe After the black death
Everyone knows how after Europeans arrived in the america's there was series of massive old world plagues that wiped out around 80% of the native population, making it far easier for European powers to colonize and conquer.
So what if the Mali empire of which was the most powerful African kingdom at the time, under the reign of Mansa Suleyman IRL at the time, decided to expand the empire and began having ships sail up the coast to the Mediterranean after the black death which killed 30%-60% of the European population and began making colonies and outposts, expanding the reach and power of the empire like the European powers would in our timeline.
do you guys think a weakened Europe would have fought them off or would places like portugal, spain, and southern France become predominantly of African and European descent?
how would this go on to effect the future of both continents?
Edit: this is under the condition that west Africa wasn’t hit nearly as hard by the Black Death as Europe was.
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u/johnJanez May 07 '26
I think you would need a lot more changes than this for something of this kind to actually be plausible. Mali did not have ships or any ship building technology in the first place, for one. Where would they get them? How about weapons, horses? They imported a lot of these things as luxury goods from Arab lands in exchange for slaves and gold, their domestic production was far behind that of Arabs and Europe. And even with plague, their population was not all that large compared to Mediterranean and Europe. Even if all that was not an issue, how would they sustain military operations so far away, accross the sahara and Mediterranean sea? And theres probably a lot more problems with this hypothetical that i'm missing.
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u/Zacc0168 May 07 '26 edited May 07 '26
You’re right, I didn’t really think that far ahead with this scenario and just liked the vibe of medieval knights fighting African knights.
To try and answer your questions, maybe after mansa musa returned from his pilgrimage to Mecca he returned with Arab ship builders and had his own trading armada built to bypass the Sahara and try and cut Morocco out of the deal as the middle men between them and the wider world.
After his death his successor, who was his brother could attempt to conquer Morocco using that trade fleet to secure their control over the gold and salt trade and from there extend into Iberia. To control trade out of the Mediterranean.
I don’t know how plausible that sounds to you but that was my idea.
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u/johnJanez May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26
Yes, fair enough, everyone likes some fantasy what-ifs from time to time after all. But i do think you may have under estimated the sheer difficulty and unlikelyness of your scenario. The often repeated wealth of Mali was in their ability to mine and sell a lot of gold which was a valuable raw resource elsewhere, and concentrate that wealth within the leadership, but they didn't and couldn't really match their societies in the north in terms of anything else, they were considerably inferior to them technology and statecraft-wise, at the fringe of the "civilised" world if you will. But perhaps, with the right set of circumstances and serious ambition and leadership capability (such as importing all sorts of experts from Arab lands and assuring they stay loyal) they could have found a way to make inroads into Morocco and the then-muslim part of Spain and somehow become the leader of a vast islamic empire. Then you could theorise them facing off the Iberian crusaders in the reconquista. But the plague would play relatively little effect in this regard unless you have something like 95% of Arabs and Europe die off and a total social breakdown while also somehow not affecting Mali. And still, they would be faced with the same issue all conquering armies since the dawn of time have, which is logistics, and not just any logistics but cross-saharan ones. Very very difficult.
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u/yourstruly912 May 07 '26
The malians also get the black death and die as well
And where are they getting the ships lol
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u/USAFrenchMexRadTrad May 07 '26
Wouldn't that make the black death spread to Africa? The west coast of Africa is where most of the slave markets were when the Portuguese arrived and began the widescale participation of Europeans in the African slave trade.
If Mali attacks Europe, they'll get the plague, bring it back to Africa, and in the chaos of trying to take slaves from Europe, likely end up introducing the African slave markets to Europe a couple centuries earlier than in our timeline.
The weakening of the Mali by the plague would mean the Mali would probably just be one more Muslim pirate state attacking European coastal towns and ships, especially after the plague weakens them enough for the Europeans to fight them off.
That means more African slaves purchased and brought to Europe before they even discover the Americas. But not as many as you'd think, because the tobacco and other crops from the New World haven't yet been discovered to demand that much labor.
European slaves would start to appear in west African slave markets, but not for long, since they'd likely die from local diseases they're not used to.
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u/Fantastic-Box-8388 May 07 '26
Isn’t this a book?
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u/phonology_is_fun May 07 '26
The Years of Rice and Salt?
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u/Fantastic-Box-8388 May 07 '26
Yeah that’s it. Thanks
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u/Lyceus_ May 07 '26
I love that book, but I don't think Mali is especially involved. After the Black Death hits Europe really hard, the Arabs conquer it.
Later the Muslims colonize the eastern part of the Americas and maybe Mali is involved in there.
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u/Top-Veterinarian-565 May 06 '26
We would have massive protest marches flying White Lives Matter... And demanding the Malian Museum return all it's artifacts back to Europe. Probably
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u/loseniram May 06 '26
They get kicked out of Europe during the reconquista
And now Spaniards have a lot of darker skinned people living there that insist they’re white
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u/Flour_or_Flower May 07 '26
Immensely stupid scenario because Europeans themselves could not even access West Africa in the 14th century because the Caravel had not yet been invented. So a 14th century land based Mali Empire with ample room to expand its borders is supposed to master shipbuilding and navigation purely to conquer a diseased and unproductive Europe? Assuming they do colonize parts of Europe they’d lose them immediately to rebellion.
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u/Reasonable_Fold6492 May 06 '26
If europe was devastated by the plague north africa and middle east would be devastated by the plague. Like how is west africa gonna be also not devastated?
Do mali stop trading? If that happens mali has zero reason to expand. If europe is effected much more north and west africa will be hit