Effect of Polynesian America

In a scenario where Polynesians made it to the west coast of North America, and what's the earliest they could reach the continent? And under the following scenarios

1) They wipe out the natives with disease accidentally like Europeans did OTL.

2) They coexist/war with the natives periodically

How would European colonization be affected.
 
I don't see Polynesians ever getting to, and settling, North America. However, the Chinese could have reached the west coast (or even east coast) of North America in the OTL 1420's, according to Gavin Menzies :p, so I have no problem with them doing it with a POD leading to no dynastic changes in that time period.
 
I don't see Polynesians ever getting to, and settling, North America. However, the Chinese could have reached the west coast (or even east coast) of North America in the OTL 1420's, according to Gavin Menzies :p, so I have no problem with them doing it with a POD leading to no dynastic changes in that time period.

I don't see why they wouldn't, if they can go from Marquesas to Hawaii, it's about the same distance to southern California. Something would have to push them, maybe a brutal tribal war or diseases/famine, but it is plausible.
 
Didn't this happen IOTL?

IIRC some South American peoples have significant Polynesian ancestry- Polynesians reached South America before being culturally assimilated.
 
I guess Polynesians are possible, but if I were a European explorer, I'd be more afraid of the Aztecs. What I'm saying is that a POD leading to Chinese colonization of the West Coast would also make them a hell of a lot stronger, and would really turn European imperialism on its head, especially if the Chinese got to the Atlantic by 1500.
 
In a scenario where Polynesians made it to the west coast of North America, and what's the earliest they could reach the continent?

Before 1000 AD. That's because 1000 AD was when sweet potatoes were widespread in Polynesia, and possibly had been brought in by Polynesians who had visited the Americas before that date.


1) They wipe out the natives with disease accidentally like Europeans did OTL.

Not going to happen. The Polynesians did not live at the population densities necessary to sustain epidemic disease, and they would not have brought disease to the Americas.

2) They coexist/war with the natives periodically

If the Polynesians actually try to settle in the Americas, then yes-occasional war (which could very well wipe out the settlers) mixed with peace since the Polynesian settlement wouldn't be such an overpowering threat to the Natives. Other possibilities include absorption into Native communities (which appears to have happened IOTL) or the Polynesians maintaining separate communities on islands or isolated peninsulas but having regular cultural and economic contact with the Natives (the Galapagos would be an interesting example of this.)

How would European colonization be affected.

If the Polynesians introduce sugarcane and it's widespread when the Europeans come, it will add to the scramble for land as sugar was so valuable. Since sugar cultivation is already set up, it might slow the slave trade down at the beginning, but the Europeans would still kill off many Native Americans and so would still need to find alternate sources of labor.
 
I don't see Polynesians ever getting to, and settling, North America. However, the Chinese could have reached the west coast (or even east coast) of North America in the OTL 1420's, according to Gavin Menzies :p, so I have no problem with them doing it with a POD leading to no dynastic changes in that time period.

Nowhere near as likely as Menzies likes to claim. My ships were designed to sail the known routes between China, India, and East Africa and probably would not have done as well on long open ocean voyages. You also need a POD that is more than just simple dynastic changes. You need a POD where a Chinese emperor decides to send fleets into the great unknown for some reason. My Treasure Fleets did not sail into the great unknown, the sailed well established trade routes.
 
In that book Menzies mentioned that while the fleet was gone a dynastic change leading to isolationism occurred in China. If a POD erased that dynastic shift, then maybe a Chinese Henry the Navigator would become emperor and possibly sail for unknown waters after an accidental discovery of a Pacific island (Guam).
 

SinghKing

Banned
I don't see Polynesians ever getting to, and settling, North America. However, the Chinese could have reached the west coast (or even east coast) of North America in the OTL 1420's, according to Gavin Menzies :p, so I have no problem with them doing it with a POD leading to no dynastic changes in that time period.

Ahem. It's now been confirmed beyond any reasonable doubt, through genetic studies, that the Rapa Nui people did indeed travel to South America, with considerable interbreeding taking place between them and the Amerindians, (even as far afield as the Aimoré people, residing in the Espirito Santo region of Brazil), some time prior to Columbus' 'discovery' of the Americas.

In the genomes of 27 living Rapa Nui islanders, the team found dashes of European and Native American genetic patterns. The European genetic material made up 16% of the genomes; it was relatively intact and was unevenly spread among the Rapa Nui population, suggesting that genetic recombination, which breaks up segments of DNA, has not been at work for long. Europeans may have introduced their genes in the 19th century, when they settled on the island.

Native American DNA accounted for about 8% of the genomes. Islanders enslaved by Europeans in the 19th century and sent to work in South America could have carried some Native American genes back home, but this genetic legacy appeared much older. The segments were more broken and widely scattered, suggesting a much earlier encounter—between 1300 C.E. and 1500 C.E.

And if the people of Easter Island could make it all the way around Tierra Del Fuego, up to the Brazilian state of Espirito Santo in sufficient numbers to leave a lasting genetic legacy there to this day IOTL, then we can infer that they, or the Hawaiians, could easily have been capable of making it to the Pacific Coast of North America in sufficient numbers to establish a settlement or two there. To fulfil the other elements of the challenge- have the Polynesians establish a more unified and thallasocratic empire or two, maintaining tenuous trade links with South-East and/or East Asia. That way, you bring the diseases along, and you get Polynesians with a more colonialist mindset.
 
And if the people of Easter Island could make it all the way around Tierra Del Fuego, up to the Brazilian state of Espirito Santo in sufficient numbers to leave a lasting genetic legacy there to this day IOTL, then we can infer that they, or the Hawaiians, could easily have been capable of making it to the Pacific Coast of North America in sufficient numbers to establish a settlement or two there.

This quote says "Rapa Nui islanders" had native DNA but says nothing about natives having Polynesian DNA.
 
In that book Menzies mentioned that while the fleet was gone a dynastic change leading to isolationism occurred in China. If a POD erased that dynastic shift, then maybe a Chinese Henry the Navigator would become emperor and possibly sail for unknown waters after an accidental discovery of a Pacific island (Guam).

It was not so much isolationism as it was the bean counters in the Ming court determining that the Treasure Fleets were not worth the cost, which they were not from a strict point of cost-benefit analysis. Same effect though.
 
More than likely the Polynesians would coexist. If they came in great enough numbers, maybe have greater influence on the Californian Indians and Pacific Northwest in turns of navigation and introduction of pigs. Would love to see them as traders introducing ocellated turkeys,llamas,alpacas and guinea pigs from Andeans and Mesoamericans to North America and maybe even to Oceania, but in order for that to happen we'd probably have to see a huge population explosion among the Polynesians and maybe not quite so much warfare among them.
 
There is some evidence of contact, in the form of funky looking South American chickens that lay blue eggs - and are native to Polynesia. See Araucana.
 
Didn't this happen IOTL?

IIRC some South American peoples have significant Polynesian ancestry- Polynesians reached South America before being culturally assimilated.

They did have contact. Thing of it is that the encountered Andean civilizations which had a population at the very least six figures. I think that was why they didn't colonize it. So much easier to take over uninhabited islands. That, and as you mentioned, they would be absorbed by the larger population.
 
In a scenario where Polynesians made it to the west coast of North America, and what's the earliest they could reach the continent? And under the following scenarios

1) They wipe out the natives with disease accidentally like Europeans did OTL.

2) They coexist/war with the natives periodically

How would European colonization be affected.

1. What disease do they bring? As far as I understand it, there are no truly epidemic diseases originating from the Polynesians.

2. Why would they even bother? The Maori never settled Australia and only intermittently contacted the people of Australia- and there the distance is quite a bit less vast. There is a reason that the Polynesian migrations only really "made it" on virgin territories.
 
In that book Menzies mentioned that while the fleet was gone a dynastic change leading to isolationism occurred in China. If a POD erased that dynastic shift, then maybe a Chinese Henry the Navigator would become emperor and possibly sail for unknown waters after an accidental discovery of a Pacific island (Guam).
Menzies is a crackpot. Basically, ignore everything he says or has written.

The problems with Chinese settlement of the Americas are several, and the ideological aspect is probably the least important. Europe is vastly closer to the Americas than China is (look at a globe; it's not even close). Furthermore, Europeans had an obvious economic incentive to try to reach China; the Chinese had no such incentive to reach Europe. The Portuguese and Spanish weren't sailing off into unknown waters to see what they would find; they were trying to reach a specific destination, and just attempting to find the way there. Even Columbus was trying to sail west to a known destination, he was just very bad at geography and very lucky.
 

Kingpoleon

Banned
To reference this, the disease resistance is shown in the Time Line: The Horse and the Jaguar, except these are Mongolians. Polynesians and Chinese settling the Western Hemisphere would be interesting, though.
 
I'm not sure the Polynesians would give them much disease resistance, really. Populations would be fairly small, and it's not like the Polynesians were particularly immune to European diseases OTL (having also been effectively isolated from Eurasia for several thousand years, and with only a few domesticated animals). The two populations I'm most familiar with, the Maori and the native Hawaiians both suffered fairly heavily from European diseases post-contact.
 
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