AHC: Split New Zealand.

The challenge is, to divide New Zealand in two Dominions (may later be republics), one for each island. The names I suggest is Aotearoa and New Munster.
 

Glen

Moderator
The challenge is, to divide New Zealand in two Dominions (may later be republics), one for each island. The names I suggest is Aotearoa and New Munster.

I'm not certain how you could get enough/different enough population on the Southern Island to justify two Dominions - on the other hand, if you can have Canada and a Dominion of Newfoundland, maybe its not so crazy...
 
The challenge is, to divide New Zealand in two Dominions (may later be republics), one for each island. The names I suggest is Aotearoa and New Munster.

With those names, I suppose the obvious thing to do would be a Maori protectorate closed to colonisation on North Island and an Irish settler colony down south, at least until gold is discovered.
 
The best way to do this is to have the Northern Wars be far more violent during the 1860s. At that time, the government was mostly controlled by the Southern Gentry, the wealthy farmers and estate owners in the South Island. There was something of a movement in OTL by these people that wanted to split from the largely urbanised and feudal North Island and form their own crown colony.

So let's say that here they achieve that. The new colony is, as you said, New Munster. I think the North Island will still be referred to as New Zealand, as Aotearoa is a name only in Maori use, and during this period nobody would have given it that name except the Kingitanga (the Maori King movement, the only pan-Maori party of its day). Now, how do we keep them separated? After the Northern Wars, it's going to be attempted to unite the islands with responsible government seated at Port Nicholson (Wellington), roughly between the two islands as OTL.

The best way to keep them separate thus far is to have the capital remain at Auckland. That way the seat of power is far, far away from the Southern Gentry and they can have their capital down south in Otago (so, probably Dunedin at this stage, as Christchurch wasn't that important yet). Leading up to the First World War (assuming it isn't butterflied - the British are going to have to send more men from New South Wales and India to fight the Maori is the New Munstermen are refusing to go), New Munster will be holding onto strictly conservative ideals while after 1900 New Zealand is going to shift to a labour party because it is much more urbanised than the south (people working in factories rather than farms) and will therefore become far more liberal. Women's suffrage is probably delayed too.

So New Munster will have its own identity. Because of the split, responsible government will probably come later, maybe even only after WWI. Both islands will have generated their own national identities after a great war like that. I also suspect the flags will not differentiate too much (sorry Saurian :p) as both will have been settled by proud Englishmen and handled similarly to OTL.

After WWII (again, assuming it isn't butterflied) the national identities become even more independent, eventually drifting away from Britain in the late 40s, as OTL, or maybe even the 50s depending on the course of the Cold War. However I do suspect an eventual union is inevitable, even as late as the 1950s. The south is going to be far wealthier as far as exports are concerned - meat, dairy, wool and gold are going to be flowing from the south for some time (obviously gold rushes come and go). The south is also going to be far more diverse as far as culture goes - fewer Maori, but more Chinese (miners from the Gold Rush), Scots and Irish. The north will recieve an influx of Polynesians due to Britain's possessions in the Pacific being offloaded to New Zealand and New Munster.
 
Oh, just in case anyone wanted to ask any other questions, I'm not going to be online for most of the day. Julius Vogel however is far better versed in our history than I. I'm not sure what he does in the UK (if he's still there) or when he's online, but it might be worth PMing him as well.
 
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