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What if: "The Black Plague" Had Struck Africa? |
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ChazD1 
Immortal Guard 
Joined: 26-May-2009 Online Status: Offline Posts: 1 |
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 Topic: What if: "The Black Plague" Had Struck Africa?Posted: 26-May-2009 at 12:13 |
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Suppose the 'black plague' instead of striking Europe, has instead struck the Africa, and ravanged that continent instead?
What alternative rivers might have been created by this?
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gcle2003
King 
Suspended Joined: 06-Dec-2004 Online Status: Offline Posts: 7035 |
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Posted: 26-May-2009 at 15:05 |
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Rivers?
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Al Jassas
Arch Duke 
Joined: 07-Aug-2007 Online Status: Offline Posts: 1810 |
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Posted: 26-May-2009 at 15:08 |
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Sorry to disappoint you but black plague did strike Africa. Already having their own quarantine system (well before it was introduced in europe), the effect in some countries was less than others.
Egypt may have lost a third to half of its population in those dark days and one historian said the situation was so terrible a house would change hands 10 times in one month among relatives through inheritance.
Al-Jassas
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Akolouthos
Sultan 
Joined: 24-Feb-2006 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 2091 |
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Posted: 26-May-2009 at 15:09 |
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I could be mistaken, but wasn't part of the reason the plague was so bad in Europe in its various incarnations because of the proliferation of urban centers? I would imagine it would have a harder time ravaging sub-Saharan Africa. Then again, I am woefully uninformed wth regard to African history, and potentially misinformed with regard to European history, so take anything I say with several heaping spoonfuls of salt.
As far as what alternate courses history may have taken, I don't know enough to even begin to speculate. I'm sure someone here could do a bang-up job, though.  -Akolouthos |
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Guests
Guest 
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Posted: 26-May-2009 at 15:52 |
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Subsaharan Africa had always had a high morbility, caused by theirs permanent exposure to contagious diseases, like malaria and others, and compensated only by its high fertility. So I bet the Black Plague wouldn't mean any difference there.
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JRScotia
Knight 
Joined: 12-May-2009 Location: Alba Online Status: Offline Posts: 78 |
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Posted: 26-May-2009 at 16:02 |
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I don't think the proliferation of urban centers really had that much to do with it in Europe since it was hardly confined to those. Huge areas of non-urban areas were wiped out in Europe in addition to urban areas. Since urban areas were centers of commerce and travel they made easy places for cross-infection.
But I'm not sure what the original poster meant by "rivers" and can't say I know anything about (or care much about) alternate history. There are days it's hard enough dealing with what DID happen.
Edited by JRScotia - 26-May-2009 at 16:21 |
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ChazD1
Immortal Guard
Joined: 26-May-2009 Online Status: Offline Posts: 1 |
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Posted: 26-May-2009 at 17:04 |
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I didn't expect such a reaction, but it's nice to see so many folks talkin on this subject. I am curious though - my intent was asking if what might have happened if the plague had struck the **whole** of Africa? Might this, if populations had been decimated, affected the future colonial slave trade? And if so, what measures might have been taken to counter that problem? |
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Guests
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Posted: 26-May-2009 at 17:12 |
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Read the tread, the answer is already there. The impact would be marginal.
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Dacian
Housecarl 
Joined: 13-Mar-2009 Location: Romania Online Status: Offline Posts: 43 |
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Posted: 12-Jun-2009 at 22:06 |
i am thinking along those line also...black plague did strike afrika but they didn't care too much about it (or to put it in a less cynical way there were/are plenty lethal desies there already one more couldn't do much difference) and its not only urbanization that matters (even though it is an important factor for the huge bodycount), it is also a increasing high desise resistance afrikans have due to fast generation's swaps that allow for natural resistence to appear and spread much faster than in other societies |
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Jallaludin Akbar
Samurai 
Joined: 20-Jan-2009 Location: U.S.A! Online Status: Offline Posts: 132 |
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Posted: 14-Jun-2009 at 18:57 |
That depends though, Africans would only have immune resistance to the disease if they have encountered it before. The Black plague would affect the africans as much as the europeans because niether would have encountered it as much. But the only reason I believe why the Bubonic Plague did not reach the whole of Africa is because of large natural barriers such as the Sahara and relative isolation of central and southern Africa.
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"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win."
-Mahatma Gandhi 
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