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

[Rhymehouse]

For those of you who don't know. Bridgerton is a popular show on Netflix about romance in Regency England. Something infamous about the TV show is that multiple noblemen and noblewomen on the show are Black/Mixed-race despite the fact that wasn't acceptable in historical England. The TV show hand waves it by saying Queen Charlotte (a German princess) was actually a Black woman somehow and afterwards, Western European nobility became multiracial. It is silly, but that is romance fiction for you. My mother loves it for some reason.

It made me wonder, is there a plausible timeline where something like Bridgerton could actually happen? You have Black and White nobility engaging in royal European culture, getting in scandals, trading, warring, and intermarrying with each other? There are a few scant examples of Black European nobility like Abram Gannibal Petrovich and Belle, but those are very exceptional cases and they were never treated as equals by most of their contemporaries. What changes need to happen for something like Bridgerton to occur in real life? Can a Euro-African royalty even arise earlier like during medieval times?

The best POD I can think of is prevent Islam from forming or at least spreading. Before Islam, North Africa, Europe, and West Asia were a part of the same cultural and political sphere. The Arab Caliphates is what separated North Africa and the Middle East from the Christian and later on European spheres of influence. In a timeline without Islam, it would be commonplace for Christian Europeans to intermix and intermarry with Christian North Africans. If a major West African or East African kingdom or empire forms and christianizes, they would also join into the Mediterranean cultural/royal milieu. Of course, a timeline without Islam is a timeline that is very different from OTL (outside of Scandinavia and a few remote regions), so who knows what will happen. Alternatively, you could have Islam conquer Europe, but that seems like a more difficult and more disruptive POD; Arabs also had very different monarchical systems than Western Europeans.

 

[Analytical Engine]

The best POD I can think of is prevent Islam from forming or at least spreading. Before Islam, North Africa, Europe, and West Asia were a part of the same cultural and political sphere.

There are records of black (or at least dark skinned) people in England dating all the way back into the middle ages

I know this is literary, but several of characters from Arthurian legend were black or mixed race - Morian, Palomides, and Feirefiz

IMO, what's required is for race not to be coupled with slavery

The Arab Caliphates is what separated North Africa and the Middle East from the Christian and later on European spheres of influence. In a timeline without Islam, it would be commonplace for Christian Europeans to intermix and intermarry with Christian North Africans.

North Africans aren't black, though

If a major West African or East African kingdom or empire forms and christianizes,

Kongo and Ethiopia existed IOTL, but

they would also join into the Mediterranean cultural/royal milieu.

this didn't happen as a result

 

[Math]

the closest thing was Inca and Aztec nobility mixing with the conquistadors/spanish (Who also had nobles among them).

The closest thing to doing would be the Portuguese in Kongo, but there it was different from the Americas, now it would be very difficult for the high nobility to marry African nobles, the only kingdom that would have prestige Enough would be Ethiopia (What almost happened between Aragon and Ethiopia) , At best, in the rest it would be the same in the Americas, low European nobility marrying indigenous nobility In case of an Conquest.

 

[Kellan Sullivan]

they were never treated as equals by most of their contemporaries

I list:
George Bridgetower, the violinist- who was esteemed enough by both the average man (Ludwig von Beethoven originally wrote the famed Kreutzer Sonata for him to perform) and princes (both George IV, the King of Saxony and Prince Radziwill offered him pensions).
Joseph de Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges. Violinist, duellist, soldier and friend of Marie Antoinette. Loved by the French court but not by the Parisians (the Opéra refused to appoint him as director because of his race)
Thomas Dumas (father and grandfather of both Alexandres)
Angelo Soliman, who went from being a Nigerian slave to running the princess von Liechtenstein's household and the attentions of Emperor Joseph II (among others) who counted him as a personal friend. Angelo's wife was the sister of Napoléonic Marshal Kellermann
Ignatius Sancho, an English slave who was a respected member of English society, received at the British court by George III and Queen Charlotte, friend of several writers and influenced both the author of the novel Tristram Shandy, friends with Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, her circle and Charles James Fox as well as several abolitionists and people at the admiralty and war office.
Olaudah Equiano (aka Gustavus Vasa)
Another one- whose name escapes me ATM- was in the household of Princess Sophia Albertina of Sweden and was friends with Gustaf III and Charles XIII

While these people aren't "most" of society, it is interesting to note that most of them had the esteem of their contemporaries regardless of social class.

 

[HumptyDumpty]

I think you need two things to happen:

1. No Islam such that the Mediterranean Middle East and North Africa remains a Christian majority

2. Christianity, through missionary activity or other adoption, spread throughout Africa during the Middle Ages in a similar vein to how Islam penetrated into Sub-Saharan Africa

This way you end up with lots of different Christian African kingdoms which then can have contact with European and Christian nobility. If this is the case, then you most certainly will have a situation where African Christian nobility intermingles with European Christian nobility. If Christendom also remains more important as a concept over race or ethnicity, then this is even more likely.

 

[Wendell]

Have the marriage alliance between Portugal and Ethiopia materialize.

 

[da Racontor]

For those of you who don't know. Bridgerton is a popular show on Netflix about romance in Regency England. Something infamous about the TV show is that multiple noblemen and noblewomen on the show are Black/Mixed-race despite the fact that wasn't acceptable in historical England. The TV show hand waves it by saying Queen Charlotte (a German princess) was actually a Black woman somehow and afterwards, Western European nobility became multiracial. It is silly, but that is romance fiction for you. My mother loves it for some reason.

It made me wonder, is there a plausible timeline where something like Bridgerton could actually happen? You have Black and White nobility engaging in royal European culture, getting in scandals, trading, warring, and intermarrying with each other? There are a few scant examples of Black European nobility like Abram Gannibal Petrovich and Belle, but those are very exceptional cases and they were never treated as equals by most of their contemporaries. What changes need to happen for something like Bridgerton to occur in real life? Can a Euro-African royalty even arise earlier like during medieval times?

The best POD I can think of is prevent Islam from forming or at least spreading. Before Islam, North Africa, Europe, and West Asia were a part of the same cultural and political sphere. The Arab Caliphates is what separated North Africa and the Middle East from the Christian and later on European spheres of influence. In a timeline without Islam, it would be commonplace for Christian Europeans to intermix and intermarry with Christian North Africans. If a major West African or East African kingdom or empire forms and christianizes, they would also join into the Mediterranean cultural/royal milieu. Of course, a timeline without Islam is a timeline that is very different from OTL (outside of Scandinavia and a few remote regions), so who knows what will happen. Alternatively, you could have Islam conquer Europe, but that seems like a more difficult and more disruptive POD; Arabs also had very different monarchical systems than Western Europeans.

Just as a disclaimer, I have not watched Bridgerton.

But normally the issue with these types of things is not actually the existence of minorities in high positions etc. As many people earlier have commented on.

It's the fact that no one comments on them being a minority & being there.

Yes, that would be very uncomfortable for a modern audience, but it is the historically accurate way to do it.

 

[Math]

Have the marriage alliance between Portugal and Ethiopia materialize.

As far as I remember, there was only a marriage proposal between Ethiopia and Aragon, In this case, the Ethiopian king proposed a marriage between one of his daughters and the brother of the Aragonese king to form an alliance against the Muslims. It never materialized because Aragon never managed to reach Ethiopia, all attempts died on the way, Only the Ethiopians managed to reach Aragon

 

[holycookie]

You have Black and White nobility engaging in royal European culture

I mean you had a few blacks of notice in Europe, but they are a minority within a minority.

separated North Africa and the Middle East from the Christian and later on European spheres of influence.

That just makes North Africans interact more with the Mediterranean European powers, but North Africa is not black. It was blacks primarily due to the slave trade. You could get a lot of interaction between the Romans and the Nubians in lower Egypt.

it would be commonplace for Christian Europeans to intermix and intermarry with Christian North Africans.

It will be common but it won't generate something like the show. The Maghreb and Iberia or south Italy and Tunisia for example could have a lot of interactions. And they did in OTL but that doesn't generate blacks, it generates Mediterranean-looking people.

If a major West African or East African kingdom or empire forms and Christianizes, they would also join into the Mediterranean cultural/royal milieu.

East Africa with Nubia and Ethiopia maybe (with the interaction being mostly with Egypt), west Africa is too far away and separated by a desert.

is very different from OTL (outside of Scandinavia

About race, almost no difference. More interaction in the Mediterranean is a given. But that is it.

you could have Islam conquer Europe

Those get castrated so no mixed children or an actual black nobility.

 

[holycookie]

Have the marriage alliance between Portugal and Ethiopia materialize?

that is not enough, in 2 or 3 generations the descendants of the couple will look like any European. You need a heavy interaction between both (with geography and distance difficulting this). Maybe a colony would be better for this idea.

 

[alexmilman]

For those of you who don't know. Bridgerton is a popular show on Netflix about romance in Regency England. Something infamous about the TV show is that multiple noblemen and noblewomen on the show are Black/Mixed-race despite the fact that wasn't acceptable in historical England. The TV show hand waves it by saying Queen Charlotte (a German princess) was actually a Black woman somehow and afterwards, Western European nobility became multiracial. It is silly, but that is romance fiction for you. My mother loves it for some reason.

It made me wonder, is there a plausible timeline where something like Bridgerton could actually happen?

Where? In Britain it was a fantasy (and pushing it on TV is beyond being silly) for which it now is trying to compensate by “reinventing” its history to a silly extreme (Black Anne Bolein and, AFAIK, some other discoveries). 😂
Was this attitude universal? Nope, and you don’t need any PODs.

In Russia Abram Gannibal (1696-1781) was a reality (reputable military engineer, full general, chamberlain) was a reality and so were his descendants including A.S.Pushkin, the greatest Russian poet, who liked to joke about his African ancestry but nonetheless was accepted in the high society.

In France this was, seemingly, not such a big deal either. Thomas-Alexandre Dumas (1762 - 1806) was, under the Old Regime, accepted in the society regardless his color and bastard’s status and made it into a general during the Revolution. It does not look like this ancestry somehow handicapped his son in the terms of a social acceptance and his grandson had been married to the Russian aristocrat.

In Poland: Of mixed ancestry, Władysław Franciszek Jabłonowski (1769 - 1802) was the illegitimate child of Princess Maria Franciszka Dealire, who was born in Britain and married into the Polish aristocracy, and an unidentified man of African descent. He acquired the nickname "Murzynek". Dealire's husband, Polish nobleman Konstanty Jabłonowski, accepted the boy as his son and gave him his family name, so he was considered Polish. In 25 February 1783, Jabłonowski as a youth was admitted to the French military academy at Paris École Militaire. Upon graduation on 20 February 1786, he joined the Régiment de Royal-Allemand with the rank of second lieutenant. Which means, his noble status was not in question.

As a side note, Othello in a play presumably black but in the original Italian novel he is just a Moor, which means a Muslim (baptized in his case) of Arab or African descent and even if African, he can be a Berber or Egyptian, etc. In novel his high position and marriage to a Venetian aristocrat are not something extraordinary but Shakespeare made a considerable fuss out of them. Can it be that the notion “Moor = Black” was just a matter of the contemporary English ignorance on the subject? The same as seacoast of Bohemia, etc.

You have Black and White nobility engaging in royal European culture, getting in scandals, trading, warring, and intermarrying with each other? There are a few scant examples of Black European nobility like Abram Gannibal Petrovich and Belle, but those are very exceptional cases and they were never treated as equals by most of their contemporaries.

Abram Hannibal was quite “equal” and so were his descendants. He was married to the nobility. His elder son Ivan was full general, commander of the Black Sea Fleet, and three other sons had been army or naval officers, all married to the nobility. Pushkin (Abram’s great grand son) was accepted at the court.

 

[Geekhis Khan]

Wacky idea: under pressure to marry someone, Elizabeth I has Raleigh bring her back a "New World Prince" to wed, figuring she'd be able to bend him to her whim. He brings back Opechancanough, who assumes the Christian name Arthur. "Arthur" soon dies to some disease, but not before siring a son. The son, Henry Arthur, becomes the next Tudor King.

Too much?

 

[holycookie]

Elizabeth I has Raleigh bring her back a "New World Prince" to wed,

I mean her son will be seen as a half-breed of pagan blood. It is probably not enough to cause her fall, but it screwd her son's chance to a peaceful transition.

 

[Geekhis Khan]

I mean her son will be seen as a half-breed of pagan blood. It is probably not enough to cause her fall, but it screwd her son's chance to a peaceful transition.

Probably true, but it is a massively challenging AHC! Technically "Arthur" converted to Christianity before the marriage so not technically a Pagan, but yeah, admittedly a hard sell!

 

[Polish Eagle]

Where? In Britain it was a fantasy (and pushing it on TV is beyond being silly) for which it now is trying to compensate by “reinventing” its history to a silly extreme (Black Anne Bolein and, AFAIK, some other discoveries). 😂
Was this attitude universal? Nope, and you don’t need any PODs.

In Russia Abram Gannibal (1696-1781) was a reality (reputable military engineer, full general, chamberlain) was a reality and so were his descendants including A.S.Pushkin, the greatest Russian poet, who liked to joke about his African ancestry but nonetheless was accepted in the high society.

In France this was, seemingly, not such a big deal either. Thomas-Alexandre Dumas (1762 - 1806) was, under the Old Regime, accepted in the society regardless his color and bastard’s status and made it into a general during the Revolution. It does not look like this ancestry somehow handicapped his son in the terms of a social acceptance and his grandson had been married to the Russian aristocrat.

In Poland: Of mixed ancestry, Władysław Franciszek Jabłonowski (1769 - 1802) was the illegitimate child of Princess Maria Franciszka Dealire, who was born in Britain and married into the Polish aristocracy, and an unidentified man of African descent. He acquired the nickname "Murzynek". Dealire's husband, Polish nobleman Konstanty Jabłonowski, accepted the boy as his son and gave him his family name, so he was considered Polish. In 25 February 1783, Jabłonowski as a youth was admitted to the French military academy at Paris École Militaire. Upon graduation on 20 February 1786, he joined the Régiment de Royal-Allemand with the rank of second lieutenant. Which means, his noble status was not in question.

As a side note, Othello in a play presumably black but in the original Italian novel he is just a Moor, which means a Muslim (baptized in his case) of Arab or African descent and even if African, he can be a Berber or Egyptian, etc. In novel his high position and marriage to a Venetian aristocrat are not something extraordinary but Shakespeare made a considerable fuss out of them. Can it be that the notion “Moor = Black” was just a matter of the contemporary English ignorance on the subject? The same as seacoast of Bohemia, etc.


Abram Hannibal was quite “equal” and so were his descendants. He was married to the nobility. His elder son Ivan was full general, commander of the Black Sea Fleet, and three other sons had been army or naval officers, all married to the nobility. Pushkin (Abram’s great grand son) was accepted at the court.

It must be noted that there was a bit more friction in some of these examples than people like to remember. General Jabłonowski was subject to some amount of racist taunting during his education in France, for example. But that's par for the course, given the time (Napoleon himself was subject to similar simply for his Corsican background). "Moor" was, of course, a fairly generic term across Europe for someone of African descent--the term "Murzynek" is cognate to it.

To make this widespread, though, one would need, essentially, to form a personal union between a European kingdom and an African one such that the nobility intermix about as thoroughly as the nobility of Poland-Lithuania or Austria-Hungary or the Tsarist state (with its Baltic Germans) or the United Kingdom did IOTL. Essentially, make lusotropicalism a reality. This is hard because most European kingdoms are rather far away from Africa, with the exception of Portugal and Spain (and it's worth noting that even IOTL, other Europeans seemed at times to regard the Spaniards with some suspicion of being 'tainted' by their Moorish and Jewish populations--there is suggestion nowadays that Alexander VI's bad reputation comes in some part from the suggestion of his family having Jewish background). Britain seemed to kind of start going that way late in the 19th century, with a substantial Indian population in London--but that's a bit too late for the Regency period. And Portugal, as I alluded to with lusotropicalism, seemed to try and make it a top-down effort, but that was too late to save the empire.

I would suggest that, if you put a Hispanophone kingdom in Morocco, that had extensive ties to West Africa, you might have a shot--they would have a darker-complexioned nobility that could marry into other European kingdoms. Could you get a Christian holdout in Morocco analogous to the handful of Spanish kingdoms that survived the Moorish conquest and began the Reconquista?

 

[PeterEzgo]

I would like to point out that the various dark skinned aristocrats or aristocrat adjacent people listed in this thread have an advantage that a black noble class wouldn't. Namely, that they were looked at as "one of the good ones." In other words, they dressed, talked, and acted like European aristocrats even though they had darker skin than most European aristocrats. Any inter-mixing of the nobility will inevitably lead to an inter-mixing of cultural traditions, etc. That is going to be viewed very negatively by the "native" aristocracy, whether the natives are African or European.

A single black aristocrat is a curiosity. A hundred of them is a threat. You can see this in other places. A 1% minority is rarely thought much of (unless they have outsized economic or political power like medieval Jews who were bankers). A 15% or 33% minority is actively suppressed and discriminated against. Because they are powerful enough to change or at least threaten to change the existing order.

If you start to see an inter-mixing of African and European nobility, it will probably go swimmingly right up until the non-native group has enough members to wield actual power. Then there will be a sharp and severe reaction against them.

 

[Wendell]

As far as I remember, there was only a marriage proposal between Ethiopia and Aragon, In this case, the Ethiopian king proposed a marriage between one of his daughters and the brother of the Aragonese king to form an alliance against the Muslims. It never materialized because Aragon never managed to reach Ethiopia, all attempts died on the way, Only the Ethiopians managed to reach Aragon

That's the one I was thinking of. Find a way for the proposal to work out and it's a start.

that is not enough, in 2 or 3 generations the descendants of the couple will look like any European. You need a heavy interaction between both (with geography and distance difficulting this). Maybe a colony would be better for this idea.

In what sense would a colony work better?

 

[holycookie]

In what sense would a colony work better?

It is easier to do a mix of the elite in the colonies than in places such as England. We saw in Peru, Mexico, and Brazil people of mixed or non-European descent being part of the elite (on a much larger scale than in Europe).

 

[Wendell]

It is easier to do a mix of the elite in the colonies than in places such as England. We saw in Peru, Mexico, and Brazil people of mixed or non-European descent being part of the elite (on a much larger scale than in Europe).

True, at the lower levels.

 

[Polish Eagle]

It is easier to do a mix of the elite in the colonies than in places such as England. We saw in Peru, Mexico, and Brazil people of mixed or non-European descent being part of the elite (on a much larger scale than in Europe).

True, at the lower levels.

There's a point to be made about what I think is the reason for that. The Spanish caste system distinguished between Europeans born in the colonies and Europeans born in Spain itself. It was intentionally designed to prevent the formation of local power structures that might opportunistically try to seize independence, I think--after all, Cortes' very sons had been accused of that just a few decades after the conquest. Which disincentivized Europeans from putting down roots, and thus created an opportunity for Mestizos to fill the ranks in a way that the later British civil service didn't quite--because there was, AFAIK, no equal disenfranchisement of English sons born in India.

Of course, that's the colonies. The fundamental problem with the Bridgerton scenario is that there's no particular reason for large numbers of African or American Indian elites, even if they have legal equality with European ones, to move to Europe, far from any holdings or properties they might have at home. An intentional mixing of aristocracies to promote loyalty is one option--but Europeans more often than not thoroughly dominated their colonies even without that, and as the "Marquis Plot" of the Cortes brothers indicates, there's peril in actually cultivating any elite in your colonies.

So to address the why...

What about education? Some great African king, if Kongo does not break down perhaps, sending a large number of noble boys to Portugal or France or Britain to study the latest innovations of the Enlightenment so he can replicate them at home? Of course, for them to be socially accepted they'd all have to come in with the wealth of princes.