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I was on a panel at Windycon a few years ago on why so few science fiction stories are set in Africa. I made the point that alternate history is very difficult there because so few people know the real history. Here's an example: I'm going to toss out some things about an African kingdom called Kongo. Challenge: without googling it, tell me which if any of the events I describe are alternate history:
1) Starting in 1491, the royal family of the Kongo, a powerful kingdom in what is now Northern Angola, converted to Catholicism. Many of their subjects followed suit. They were in contact with various popes over the next several hundred years and had a considerable church hierarchy.
2) For the next almost a century and a half, Kongo remained a regional power, interacting intriguing with and fighting for and against the Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch.
3) In the 1660s, the Portuguese crushed Kongo in an epic and close-fought battle that was to that Kingdom as Mansikert was to the Byzantines. They killed the king and the core of his supporters, seized his treasury and triggered a decades long civil war. Some of the Portuguese forces were from Brazil, and they may have included Brazilian Indians allied to Portugal.
4) The remnants of the kingdom generated a "Joan of Arc"-type figure who tried to bring the kingdom back together, and was burned at the stake for her troubles.
Feel free to make your guesses as to what is alternate history and then scroll down
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I would happily read just that history, if it was done well.
The Wikipedia article on Alternate History is detailed, comprehensive and filled with links to other resources.
WIKIPEDIA