AHC: Make Bridgerton realistic. Africans intermix with European nobility.

[Jürgen]

Could a successful conquest of Egypt during the Crusades (either by the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 1160s or by Crusaders while on their way to Jerusalem during one of the next Crusades) pave the way for further exploration into Southern regions of Africa and lead to the foundation of new Christian states in the Middle Ages, with the descendants of European-born rulers eventually marrying into native families?

The problem is that these populations mixing does not make a lot of economic sense. Egypt have in general been centered around the northern part of the Nile. The reason why I suggested America as a better place for this to happen, is that it’s one of the few places where overlapping white and black populations makes geographic sense. We can see it in the American south where the Black Belt border the white dominated highlands, or the mixed race Caribbean which is close to the white dominated Eastern Seaboard.

We could easily imagine if slaves arrived in the Caribbean dominated by city states in the 15th century, that free black or biracial people would join the non-noble upper class less than a century later, and continue to work themselves up, especially if the city states shift from city states to monarchies that the royalty will have significant African admixture in the 18th century, when a princess from the kingdom of Soleye (sun island OTL Cuba) marries the crown prince of the kingdom of Virginien (named after the Holy Virgin Mary and for some reason lying the same place as OTL Virginia).

 

[GregTheWolf144]

The key is a more successful, modernized Kingdom of Kongo. It needs to be successful enough for the Portuguese to marry a princess from there. From there it's just a matter of spreading those black genes across Europe. Maybe you could have Miguel da Paz survive and he could be the one to do it. Ruling all of Spain would give him more potential to spread his genes around because it would make his descendants more attractive matches. If Miguel da Paz is too early, we just need earlier contact between Portugal and Kongo. Maybe this is what makes Kongo more successful and modernized. Plus it doesn't need to be a one-time thing. Portugal could intermarry with Kongo multiple times as well as other Europeans doing so if Kongo is a modern state

 

[Rhymehouse]

The idea was that this half-Indian prince would have to fight for his legitimacy, probably by the sword, so after securing his crown he sets out to break cultural taboos with the help of the church, thus setting into motion a slow change to cultural norms opening the door to non-white nobility. I probably should have elaborated that, TBH.

But if you specifically want African, how about this: a Mali prince, distant descendent of Mansa Musa, is deposed by his brother and sold into slavery. He somehow through a chain of events ends up on a plantation in the Carolinas in the mid 1700s. Once his story is known, he's sent back to London and becomes a curiosity. King Frederick I of England (because hey, he's just eccentric enough to do this) makes him a Lord. His family eventually intermarries with other noble houses after initial scandal and fights for recognition, eventually overcoming the grossest racism. By the 19th C. a black Lord is old hat.

Neat story, but that would ultimately be another example of a naturalized slave that is bought by European royalty and turned into a low-level nobleman. If you want to read examples of that, check out some of the links in this thread. Also, African royalty also got turned into slaves all the time and non-Africans never cared (Zumbi Dos Palmares' uncle was the king of Kongo).

Besides my idea, I think @Polish Eagle has the next best idea for the thread. Have the Reconquista create a Hispanic kingdom in Morocco. The North African nobility can intermarry with dark-skinned gentry overtime and marry Europeans later on.

 

[Geekhis Khan]

Neat story, but that would ultimately be another example of a naturalized slave that is bought by European royalty and turned into a low-level nobleman. If you want to read examples of that, check out some of the links in this thread. Also, African royalty also got turned into slaves all the time and non-Africans never cared (Zumbi Dos Palmares' uncle was the king of Kongo).

Besides my idea, I think @Polish Eagle has the next best idea of the Reconquista creating a Hispanic kingdom in Morocco. The North African nobility can intermarry with dark-skinned gentry overtime and marry Europeans later on.

I mean, I said "wacky idea." I'm under no delusions of it's plausibility, lol.

 

[Kellan Sullivan]

Not really germane to the discussion, but I thought I'd share this parody of Bridgerton:

 

[Emperor-of-New-Zealand]

A lot of the responses here are specific examples of famous black or mixed-race people in European high society in history, and that has literally nothing to do with what the OP is asking. The key thing to take away from Bridgerton is that Queen Charlotte and a large chunk of the English court is black or mixed-race. No matter how many random exceptions to the rule existed in real history, this was not one of them. Of course, the show itself is romantic fiction, as stated, and not worth taking seriously.

For something like the naively progressive world of Bridgerton to exist, you'd need a country that has close to a 50/50 mix of white and black people while still fitting the mold of a European kingdom. IMO this is very literally impossible. A colony in this period would not have nearly enough white settlers to achieve such a setting, nor would any potential white settlers belong to high society, or at least, not enough of them would to establish a court akin to that of Bridgerton's fictional England.

The only thing I can think of, and even then it's complete nonsense, is a smaller country, like, say, a petty German county in the Holy Roman Empire, hiring a company of African mercenaries to help them in a war, then awarding some of these captains with lands and titles. These new African nobles become assimilated into society to such a degree that interracial marriage isn't even blinked at. Eventually a mixed-race ruler sits on the throne and everyone within this country sees this as extremely normal.