AHC: Polynesia Pulls a Meiji

Meerkat92

Banned
Okay, this one might be pretty hard, so I'll understand if you don't take it. Regardless, I think it would be interesting to explore.

So...

Your challenge (should you choose to accept it) is to find a way that some segment of the region normally considered "Polynesia" is able to modernize somewhat, and retains its independence into the 20th century. Good luck!
 
ASB

Simply put, Polynesia was in the stone-ages when the Europeans came, to have them pull a Meiji is for 19th Century Japan advance from Medieval age to the Space Age in 30 years.

As for independence that could be feasible.
 

Meerkat92

Banned
ASB

Simply put, Polynesia was in the stone-ages when the Europeans came, to have them pull a Meiji is for 19th Century Japan advance from Medieval age to the Space Age in 30 years.

As for independence that could be feasible.

If you can manage that, that'll be fine too.
 
ASB

Simply put, Polynesia was in the stone-ages when the Europeans came, to have them pull a Meiji is for 19th Century Japan advance from Medieval age to the Space Age in 30 years.

As for independence that could be feasible.

Considering that Japan already had the manpower and the mindset that's primed for industrialization even before the Black Ships, and how they went from 1945 to 1960, that's actually quite possible for Japan. But I digress. :D

Back to topic, the manpower and quasi-industrial mindset that was in Japan before 1850 were not present anywhere in Polynesia. As for retaining independence, the best candidate would be Hawaii...if they can successfully play the British against the Americans. Tahiti may qualify at first glance, but once either the French or the British is gone, there's no stopping the other party from taking over because of isolation.
 
Yeah, its often ignored but Japan really wasn't just starting from nothing with Meiji. Under the shogunate it had developed rather a lot.


As for this one....Hawaii is a possibility if you can get more British and maybe other countries interested, to counteract the American interest.
 
As others have said, you could quite easily get a situation where a Polynesian nation is nominally independent; both Tonga and Hawaii came close, off the top of my head (and indeed, Tonga kept its monarchy even as a British protectorate). Any such nation would almost certainly be under heavy Western influence, but it could potentially survive, if Western powers took an interest in ensuring its independence.
 
Hawaii's a definite possibility if they manage to manoeuvre matters diplomatically a bit more.

As for the others, Tonga may be able to escape with just being a South Pacific Nepal- not annexed but under heavy influence and de facto part of the British Empire. The others really don't have a chance I'm afraid. Ignoring the minor chiefdoms on a half dozen islands which often didn't even have that one island united, the only real candidates are the Kingdom of Rarotonga (the southern Cook Islands) and Tahiti. The former managed to stay independent for a while, but I think is too close to the French for comfort hence why it sought British protection OTL (there were a few islands in French Polynesia which actually tried the same later on but by that time Britain considered it to be the French sphere and so ignored them). Tahiti has the same problems of being weak and also had some minor conflicts going on with the kingdoms of the Lesser Society Islands (Bora-Bora and so on) to contend with as well IIRC.
 
What about Fiji? British influence over it may not have been avoidable, but British direct rule may have been.
 
Okay, this one might be pretty hard, so I'll understand if you don't take it. Regardless, I think it would be interesting to explore.

So...

Your challenge (should you choose to accept it) is to find a way that some segment of the region normally considered "Polynesia" is able to modernize somewhat, and retains its independence into the 20th century. Good

this ain't ASB as long as Polynesians are openly defined. All you have to consider is Polynesians colonizing Australia. Polynesians were at parity with the Norse sailing capability in the 10th century. The Polynesians even traded or settled with prehispanic south America and as far as Madagascar to Taiwan. So if you consider every local before Europeans arrived in the Malay archipelago(otl Indonesia,Philippines) are Polynesians.

You also have to consider that New Zealand is also part of Polynesia. So an independent former British citizen unifying and populating New Zealand or another European power doing it more than otl.
 
What about Fiji? British influence over it may not have been avoidable, but British direct rule may have been.

OTL it wasn't united until 1865 and was almost immediately in massive debt and with a cabinet and legislature run entirely by Australian businessmen and settlers.
 

Avskygod0

Banned
Basically make them sign a deal with a great power that pretty much goes "your ass belongs to us, but you are very autonomous and we give you knowledge and privileges, so you have that going for you, which is nice.
 
OTL it wasn't united until 1865 and was almost immediately in massive debt and with a cabinet and legislature run entirely by Australian businessmen and settlers.

...Who might for some reason opt to keep a local monarch rather than subit to British or Australian rule.
 
...Who might for some reason opt to keep a local monarch rather than subit to British or Australian rule.

Not with the OTL one. It was so unworkable the King (who had just united the islands) found the country completely ungovernable and his already shaky claims to a national monarchy crumbling, so just sold the rights to Britain while he was still the de jure ruler of the whole archipelago and could get the money and run (he'd tried to do it about 10 years previously but been refused as Britain did not think he had the authority to do so).

Frankly, unless you create a completely new person and situation from whole cloth, Fiji looks to be better off economically (both in absolute terms and for the native Fijians) under the British colonial rule than under the OTL Kingdom of that time. It's one of the few cases where the new governor can be said to have done a categorically better job than the native rulers (though they still retained some power and influence in the colony).
 
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