AHC: Make New Caledonia much more populous

The recent New Zealand population thread got me thinking about another island in that region with a significant European settler population: France's overseas territory of New Caledonia.

IOTL New Caledonia has around 250,000 people today, about a third of whom are European settlers. It is very thinly-populated, as it covers a land area of 18,575 km² (7,172 sq. mi.).

How can this island become more extensively settled, to the point that it would have several million residents today (and would probably have become independent)?
 
Any ideas? Does France need to have a stronger birth rate in the 19th century or can this be achieved through (still) greater domestic turmoil?
 
Don't really see any way New Caledonia could be significantly more populous. Sure, it has a nice climate and is great for tourism, but tourist traps swell in season and then everyone goes back to France (or wherever they're coming from) to make some money. NC just doesn't have all the basics required to have a large population and not become a massive drain due to an enormous trade imbalance, in which case France would probably just abandon it to it's own devices.
 

SinghKing

Banned
With any POD prior to 1900, this seems simple enough. Historically, before the Europeans arrived, the native Kanak population of New Caledonia was roughly equivalent to that of Hawaii; and indeed, to the native population of the entirety of contemporary New Zealand. The main difference was in the way the natives were treated. The Kanaks were enslaved, and scattered across the Pacific to be employed as forced labourers on French plantations, ranches and public works- "Blackbirded", in vast numbers. Kanak slaves were exported to such places such as Australia, California, Canada, Chile and Fiji (with the inter-Asian slave trade carrying many of them to India, Japan, South Africa, and what is now Malaysia). By the time that the Kanaks were forced onto Native Reserves in the mountains, the cumulative impacts of the disease epidemics and the slave trade had taken their toll on the Kanak population, and their living conditions became virtually impossible.

The Kanaks were moved onto the Reserves after the French government established a prison colony Australia-style, resettling 20,000 convicts to the island between 1864 and 1897, most of whom settled permanently in the country, who were employed to carry out nickel and copper mining. This caused serious resentment among the Kanaks, who revolted in 1878 against the French colonial rule- but by this stage, it was too late. The Kanak revolt was brutally suppressed by the French, who were far better armed. The Kanak leader was decapitated, and his head was put on display as a trophy of war in the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. Even today, the Kanak population has barely recovered from the trauma, and has only surpassed its pre-contact peak population in the past twenty years.

So, for a potential POD, let's look to OTL first. IOTL, the first American whaler (controlled by the fiercely American loyalist whaling and sealing company, Samuel Enderby & Sons) to come into New Caledonia waters was the Britannia, in November 1793. This ship discovered the island which they themselves named Britannia (for obvious reasons), and which later became known as Maré Island (in the New Caledonian Loyalty Islands). In 1806, this same ship grounded on the Elizabeth Reef ,located 160km North of Lord Howe Island. Whalers operated off New Caledonia during the 19th century. Sandalwood traders were welcome, but as supplies diminished, the traders became increasingly abusive. Tensions developed into hostilities, and in 1849 the crew of the US vessel Cutter were killed and eaten by the Pouma clan.

American whalers were dominant in the South Pacific until France annexed New Caledonia in the 1840s. Whaling was mostly concentrated around the Chesterfield Islands , West of New Caledonia, and to a lesser extent, in the waters to the north of New Caledonia Island and the Loyalty Islands. About fifty American whalers (identified by Robert Langsom from their log books) have been recorded in the region (Grande Terre, Loyalty Is., Walpole and Hunter) between 1793 and 1887. The American whaling operations there peaked between 1835 and 1860- immediately prior to the formal possession of New Caledonia by the French, with the American whalers only relocating their operations elsewhere after the French began transporting settlers to their new penal colony, in 1860.

So, for a potential POD; WI the Americans assert their own claim first, with the USA whalers establishing permanent colonial settlements and ports on the island, and subsequently taking formal possession of New Caledonia (or even just the Loyalty Islands and Chesterfield Islands, as a starting point) before Napoleon III and Admiral Febvrier-Despointes manage to assert France's claim to the territory (before September 1853)? Would this be a suitable POD to make New Caledonia more populous? IMHO, if you get some local competition for control between the Americans and the French, along with increased settlement as a result, a present day population on a par with that of the island of Timor seems more than reasonable. On the other hand, the OP's challenge; for New Caledonia to have not just a few million residents, but several million residents, seems a bit too much to accomplish plausibly without ASB intervention.
 
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SinghKing

Banned
Bumping this. Does the American New Caledonia (New Caledonia=Timor) option sound like a good basis upon which to establish such an ATL? Or would we have to go further back than this to achieve the goal of 'several million residents today'?

If we would, then might I suggest using the Lapita as the basis; developing one of the first thalassocratic civilisations in the world (after the fall of the Minoan civilisation, but prior to the establishment of the Delian League) on and around New Caledonia, before successor empires go on to establish mighty empires, eventually claiming sovereignty over the entirety of Melanesia (and Polynesia, and Micronesia). Effectively, an ATL where New Caledonia takes Java's place, and becomes the historical core of TTL's 'Austronesia' (effectively encompassing almost the entirety of OTL's Maritime Southeast Asia and Austronesian Oceania).
 
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TFSmith121

Banned
I think the general reluctance of the US to get involved

I think the general reluctance of the US to get involved in territorial claims outside North America in the Nineteenth Century, certainly as early as the 1850s and 1860s, would preclude the "US Caledonia" although it is an interesting idea.

The claim on Hawaii, which had a strategic purpose, only came in fits and starts; Samoa was something atypical, but made some sense - potentially - as coaling station in an era before an isthmian canal.

The guano island claims were not really anything beyond a flag and a note on a map.

New Caledonia seems a long way from anywhere the US really cared about.

Weirder things happened in the imperial era, but New Caledonia in the 1850s-60s just really seems like a stretch, and I'd imagine the US would rather have good relations with France than a confrontation in that era, as well - certainly over a tropical island in the South Pacific.

Confrontation between the French and British seems slightly more plausible, bit even that would seem pretty unlikely given the two countries relationship in the period.

Best,
 

SinghKing

Banned
I think the general reluctance of the US to get involved in territorial claims outside North America in the Nineteenth Century, certainly as early as the 1850s and 1860s, would preclude the "US Caledonia" although it is an interesting idea.

The claim on Hawaii, which had a strategic purpose, only came in fits and starts; Samoa was something atypical, but made some sense - potentially - as coaling station in an era before an isthmian canal.

The guano island claims were not really anything beyond a flag and a note on a map.

New Caledonia seems a long way from anywhere the US really cared about.

Weirder things happened in the imperial era, but New Caledonia in the 1850s-60s just really seems like a stretch, and I'd imagine the US would rather have good relations with France than a confrontation in that era, as well - certainly over a tropical island in the South Pacific.

Confrontation between the French and British seems slightly more plausible, bit even that would seem pretty unlikely given the two countries relationship in the period.

Best,

Well, this also happens to coincide with the era when the first Indian Appropriations Act came into force in the USA, in 1851. And at this time, the US Colonization Societies didn't just promote establishing colonies to return freed African Americans back to Africa (Liberia), they also promoted the racial separation of American Indians. Indian Removal was still going strong; Native Americans in the South had been forced to move out west, to the Great Plains, but by the 1850s, Americans began to move into that area as well. Thus, the federal government, acting on such exigency and on Americans’ long-standing sentiments regarding the Indians, passed the Indian Appropriations Act of 1851, placing Indians on reservations, because there were no other lands available for another forced relocation. So, WI one of the US Colonization Societies had gotten involved, seen the potential advantages extending the colonial solution to the Native Americans as well as the 'Negroes', and successfully set about transporting a few ships of American Indian migrants out across the Pacific to establish colonies in New Caledonia, in the same manner that they'd already done in Liberia (which, at this time, still seemed to be a resounding success)? It wouldn't have to be an official US colony, any more than Liberia was.
 

SinghKing

Banned
What happened to Oklahoma?

Best,

Still gets established as per IOTL ITTL. But Oklahoma was the US government's solution for the issue of Native American segregation; the Indian Territory was established as a public venture. The US Colonization Societies were private organisations, and their African colonies (which amalgamated to form Liberia) were established as private ventures. Just like with the Freed African Americans; the official US solution for that issue was to use segregated 'free black communities' across the USA itself, which were effectively the black equivalent to the Indian reservations (but less isolated, because the USA still needed the freed black population to supply cheap labor and produce its goods). It didn't stop the US Colonization Societies from simultaneously establishing the Liberian colonial settlements to tackle the same issue themselves, in their own way.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
I suppose, but that requires:

a) Native Americans who want to leave (very few AAs were interested in Liberia; I expect there would be even fewer NAs in New Caledonia;)
b) The French (or British, or whoever wants New Caledonia) would be deterred from planting their flag by what amounts to a few missionaries and their charges.

Maybe there's a final effort to colony-claiming by the Dutch in the mid-Nineteenth Century? I'm trying to think what other power absent the British and/or French might have a plausible interest in the island...

If the French simply don't destroy the native population (intentionally or not) I suppose you'd get a larger population, but I'm not sure that would get to be all that large.

Best,
 

SinghKing

Banned
a) Native Americans who want to leave (very few AAs were interested in Liberia; I expect there would be even fewer NAs in New Caledonia;)
b) The French (or British, or whoever wants New Caledonia) would be deterred from planting their flag by what amounts to a few missionaries and their charges.

Maybe there's a final effort to colony-claiming by the Dutch in the mid-Nineteenth Century? I'm trying to think what other power absent the British and/or French might have a plausible interest in the island...

If the French simply don't destroy the native population (intentionally or not) I suppose you'd get a larger population, but I'm not sure that would get to be all that large.

Best,

a)- of course, there'd only be a handful of the NA's who'd be willing to go- fewer than the AA's who went to settle Liberia. But they should still be able to find (or 'persuade') enough of them to send a single settler vessel, and that'd still be significant in the grand scheme of things. IOTL, the initial French colonial settlement of New Caledonia commenced with only a few dozen free settlers, in the first few years. Shouldn't be too hard to trump that.

b)- Yes, they'd basically be deterred from planting their flag by what amounts to a few missionaries and their charges- along with the political implications of the settlements' close association with the USA. After all, it worked for Liberia, and there was far more demand for the colonial real estate in that region. It wouldn't be a worthwhile or lucrative enough colonial possession for the Europeans to provoking conflict with the USA over it. Or vice-versa.

Also, I don't really think that they'd be able to stop the French from planting their flag and claiming the main island of New Caledonia, Grande Terre, for themselves. Hence the comparison with Timor; the likeliest outcome would see lines being drawn in the sand (ocean) between the American and French claims, with a formal border only established by treaty some decades later.

With a two-state solution, the increased competition between the two Great Powers' neighboring colonial interests in the New Caledonian archipelago spur greater investment and increased settlement there ITTL, in the same manner that it did in East Timor and West Timor IOTL (and, indeed, in Liberia and Sierra Leone IOTL).

Hence, I expressed the opinion that this could be enough to give New Caledonia (the entire archipelago) a population as large as Timor's population; but that it still wouldn't be enough to plausibly give New Caledonia a population any larger than that of Timor (3.1 million people). Not all that large- but if 'several' is defined as "more than two but not many" (as it's defined in the dictionary) then it'd still be enough to satisfy the OP's AHC.
 
I'm basically assuming that any sort of Melanesian/Polynesian influx is not likely to work out due to the problems of introduced diseases and so forth. I think that, like Australia and New Zealand, New Caledonia is only going to become densely-populated if there is a major influx of European settlers. My question is, can this be done? Is there a way for it to become the francophone equivalent of Australia/NZ?
 
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