Mendaña's colony in Santa Cruz Islands and Quiros's in Espíritu Santo succeed

So, what if in 1595 doña Isabel Barreto gets the situation under control and consolidates the Spanish colony in Santa Cruz Islands (OTL part of the Solomon Islands, and they remain a Spanish colony until 1899?
Would the islands population (21,364) be bigger because of Spanish and other European immigration, would the majority be Spanish-Melanesian (some Polynesian) mestizo with Spanish surnames? Would Spaniards have settled Vanikoro and some other of the larger island as well as Santa Cruz/Ndeni?
Would the islands be more developed?
Would Spaniards have created plantation economy to both island groups as British and French did later OTL? Would Spaniards have used African slaves there?
Same questions regarding Quiros's colony in La Austrialia del Espíritu Santo, if it remained Spanish and came to comprise provinces of Penama, Sanma and Torba of Vanuatu? In 1906 it would have gained independence as Quirosia.
Do you think its capital Nueba Hierusalem would have changed its name to Puerto de Vera Cruz in 1906 (after the harbor in which it lies?)
Would SCI and Quirosia ended up as typical Hispanic banana republics with frequent military coups, left and right wing guerrillas etc?
 
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There would be little, if any, European immigration outside of the colonial administration and Catholic missionaries. There's obviously the need to make it profitable, which is quite difficult. Unlike Spain's Pacific holdings, the island groups don't lie on a key route between the Philippines (which it would be governed under, which in turn was governed under New Spain/Mexico) and Latin America. I mean, look at the Caroline Islands, a "colony" of Spain, but one which Spain practically ignored compared to Guam which lies right on the Manila galleon route. The biggest problem is the Spanish colonial model. Unlike the Philippines and Latin America, there's no state societies which one can easily decapitate and install a colonial governor on top. There's likewise not a lot of valuable trade goods. Maybe you'd need Spanish Indonesia to make this work. Or Spanish Australia, but that runs the same problem as Spanish Solomon Islands/Vanuatu since there's no state societies and no trade goods (although there's a few plants known by the Aboriginals which in theory Europeans could gain a taste for and thus make a colony there useful).

I think you wouldn't see too many African slaves there, they'd just press the locals into the plantation work.

Also, since the islands are known for their huge diversity in languages, I think the main language would end up being Spanish but with a Spanish-based creole (possibly several) widely spoken. The surnames would be like the Chamorro in OTL and be largely Spanish in origin.

I don't know why it would be called Quirosia--I'd think the entire group of islands would just end up with the name Espiritu Santo and thus gain independence under that name. They might get named Vanuatu anyway, though that relies on a post-colonial leader with an anti-colonialist mindset like Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso when he renamed Upper Volta to its current name.

Would SCI and Quirosia ended up as typical Hispanic banana republics with frequent military coups, left and right wing guerrillas etc?

Probably the case unless it gets ripped from Spanish control by another European power in a manner similar to the Philippines, and even then it's still probably likely once it gets independence.
 
There would be little, if any, European immigration outside of the colonial administration and Catholic missionaries. There's obviously the need to make it profitable, which is quite difficult. Unlike Spain's Pacific holdings, the island groups don't lie on a key route between the Philippines (which it would be governed under, which in turn was governed under New Spain/Mexico) and Latin America. I mean, look at the Caroline Islands, a "colony" of Spain, but one which Spain practically ignored compared to Guam which lies right on the Manila galleon route. The biggest problem is the Spanish colonial model. Unlike the Philippines and Latin America, there's no state societies which one can easily decapitate and install a colonial governor on top. There's likewise not a lot of valuable trade goods. Maybe you'd need Spanish Indonesia to make this work. Or Spanish Australia, but that runs the same problem as Spanish Solomon Islands/Vanuatu since there's no state societies and no trade goods (although there's a few plants known by the Aboriginals which in theory Europeans could gain a taste for and thus make a colony there useful).

I think you wouldn't see too many African slaves there, they'd just press the locals into the plantation work.

Also, since the islands are known for their huge diversity in languages, I think the main language would end up being Spanish but with a Spanish-based creole (possibly several) widely spoken. The surnames would be like the Chamorro in OTL and be largely Spanish in origin.

I don't know why it would be called Quirosia--I'd think the entire group of islands would just end up with the name Espiritu Santo and thus gain independence under that name. They might get named Vanuatu anyway, though that relies on a post-colonial leader with an anti-colonialist mindset like Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso when he renamed Upper Volta to its current name.



Probably the case unless it gets ripped from Spanish control by another European power in a manner similar to the Philippines, and even then it's still probably likely once it gets independence.

I think they would have been administered as Captaincy General of Santa Cruz Islands which formed part of the Viceroyalty of Peru, since the expeditions were organized by and from that Viceroyalty.
Quiros' 1606 expedition included African slaves, as likely did Mendaña's, so that's why I mentioned them. Also, Spanish didn't use Indians as slaves in Latin America, so I guessed they won't have used Melanesians either. But they probably would.
The islands are geographically small (1,000 and 4,000 sq kms) so there is no room for l European settlement in large scale, but could 20-30% be white (if we assume that Q has ~90,000 and SCI 21,000 inhabitants as in OTL) and another 30-47% mestizo with some Asians in Q (so that it's 85% non-indigenous) and SCI ~50% non-indigenous?
Quirosia is derived from the discover just like Colombia. I like it since it's my invention and sounds good, while ES doesn't.

In my TL, they stay Spanish until 1898, when Magellanica conquers them and gives Q independence in 1906 and SCI in 1951. They've been democracies continously since 1993. I've already invented their leaders, parties, history etc nearly completely.
 
But why would so many white Spaniards (or even Mestizos) settle there? It's a fringe of the Spanish world, and definitely not a very noteworthy part of it in terms of economics. I'm also not saying they'd enslave the natives, they'd more just be used as forced labour of some sort, which the Spanish would consider different than slavery of Africans as they did in the Americas even if the end result was very similar.

I've already posted in your Melanesia threads about the issues with disease and hostile natives which prevent Melanesia from being very appealing to Europeans, the issues which also doomed OTL's colonies in the Solomon Islands/Vanuatu, although it's very possible they could be added to the Spanish Empire. Look at areas like Guam, the Caroline Islands, etc., where there's minimal input of European genetic influence, although here there would be a Spanish creole since the native languages are so diverse I'd think that Spanish and a Spanish-based creole would be the most likely outcome linguistically (observe East Timor with its much smaller linguistic diversity). There's no real economic incentive for large-scale migration of whites. I highly doubt you could get more than 5% whites in this area, with maybe 10% Mestizo with the rest being indigenous. As in OTL, you might have a small Chinese population.

The difference between Quirosia and Colombia (or for that matter Columbia as in British Columbia or the poetic name for the United States) is that Christopher Columbus had centuries of positive appraisals and a grand historiography built on his name. Queiros has the legacy of founding a Spanish colony on the fringe of the Spanish colonial empire which is likely not well appreciated by the natives assuming Spanish colonial rule is anything like what is experienced elsewhere. I suppose there are exceptions like the Caroline Islands, Mariana Islands, and of course the Philippines, but those are named for Spanish royalty and not a mere explorer of minor legacy. But perhaps "Queiros" is a surname which a few families of natives are forced to adopted, and one of these men named Queiros ends up becoming an independence leader? It was proposed at one point the Philippines be named Rizalia after Jose Rizal, much like Bolivia being named after Simon Bolivar, so you could get "Querosia" after something like that.
 
But why would so many white Spaniards (or even Mestizos) settle there? It's a fringe of the Spanish world, and definitely not a very noteworthy part of it in terms of economics. I'm also not saying they'd enslave the natives, they'd more just be used as forced labour of some sort, which the Spanish would consider different than slavery of Africans as they did in the Americas even if the end result was very similar.

I've already posted in your Melanesia threads about the issues with disease and hostile natives which prevent Melanesia from being very appealing to Europeans, the issues which also doomed OTL's colonies in the Solomon Islands/Vanuatu, although it's very possible they could be added to the Spanish Empire. Look at areas like Guam, the Caroline Islands, etc., where there's minimal input of European genetic influence, although here there would be a Spanish creole since the native languages are so diverse I'd think that Spanish and a Spanish-based creole would be the most likely outcome linguistically (observe East Timor with its much smaller linguistic diversity). There's no real economic incentive for large-scale migration of whites. I highly doubt you could get more than 5% whites in this area, with maybe 10% Mestizo with the rest being indigenous. As in OTL, you might have a small Chinese population.

The difference between Quirosia and Colombia (or for that matter Columbia as in British Columbia or the poetic name for the United States) is that Christopher Columbus had centuries of positive appraisals and a grand historiography built on his name. Queiros has the legacy of founding a Spanish colony on the fringe of the Spanish colonial empire which is likely not well appreciated by the natives assuming Spanish colonial rule is anything like what is experienced elsewhere. I suppose there are exceptions like the Caroline Islands, Mariana Islands, and of course the Philippines, but those are named for Spanish royalty and not a mere explorer of minor legacy. But perhaps "Queiros" is a surname which a few families of natives are forced to adopted, and one of these men named Queiros ends up becoming an independence leader? It was proposed at one point the Philippines be named Rizalia after Jose Rizal, much like Bolivia being named after Simon Bolivar, so you could get "Querosia" after something like that.

If these islands retain their original OTL populations like I've planned, their populations are tiny like I pointed out.
Mendaña expedition had 378 civilian settlers on board, even their descendants 414 years (2009 census) later would amount to thousands, right? Add some minor influxes to them between 1595-1898 and their descendants today could easily number 5,000?
Same for Quirosia I guess, the few hundreds have multipled to tens of thousands in 400 years?
It's Quiros in Spanish, the e is in the Portuguese form of the name, and this is a Spanish colony.
What could be the number of Chinese? In Vanuatu it's 600 and in Solomons 4000. So hundreds in Q, thousands in SCI? Besides, there were a few Japanese in Vanikoro, SCI (less than 10 at any time) in the timber industry in 1920s and 1930s and a few Norwegians.
And post-WW2, some planter recruited about 50 Italians for work in a Santo plantation, plus the French bought in 6,000 Vietnamese workers to the plantations during the early 20th century and in 1967 an American businessman planned to sell lots in Santo to settle 100,000 Americans with their Vietnamese war brides there. Other schemes to sell land for European settlers were planned in 1960s and 1970s as well. If they'd came into fruition, how many Europeans could there be today...
 
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No, because the majority of those settlers would have died of disease or violence regarding the natives or even other Spaniards. Others would leave the islands and go to more profitable lands (the Philippines, Latin America), and the population would exhibit the usual effects of demographics--childlessness or otherwise no surviving children (if child mortality was bad enough in Europe at the time, imagine how bad it would be on tropical islands far away from civilisation), pedigree collapse (cousin marriage etc.), and such. So it would be implausible to have more than a few thousand descendents, and a significant portion of them would give birth to the Mestizo population of the islands. Do remember that most Europeans settling there will be single men.

The OTL native populations, reduced as they were by unpleasant interactions with Europeans, will easily dwarf any population of foreigners unless they are outright mass murdered.
 
No, because the majority of those settlers would have died of disease or violence regarding the natives or even other Spaniards. Others would leave the islands and go to more profitable lands (the Philippines, Latin America), and the population would exhibit the usual effects of demographics--childlessness or otherwise no surviving children (if child mortality was bad enough in Europe at the time, imagine how bad it would be on tropical islands far away from civilisation), pedigree collapse (cousin marriage etc.), and such. So it would be implausible to have more than a few thousand descendents, and a significant portion of them would give birth to the Mestizo population of the islands. Do remember that most Europeans settling there will be single men.

The OTL native populations, reduced as they were by unpleasant interactions with Europeans, will easily dwarf any population of foreigners unless they are outright mass murdered.

Ok, so 5% pre-1900 whites and 10% mestizos. But the American-Vietnamese scheme in Santo around the turn of 1960's and 70's do you think 100,000 Americans would've come if the project were allowed?
Btw, according to wikipedia, quinine bark extracts have been used to treat malaria at least since 1632.
 
Ok, so 5% pre-1900 whites and 10% mestizos. But the American-Vietnamese scheme in Santo around the turn of 1960's and 70's do you think 100,000 Americans would've come if the project were allowed?
Btw, according to wikipedia, quinine bark extracts have been used to treat malaria at least since 1632.

The only way you can get 100,000 Americans to go there is if they're literally forbidden to return to the United States. You simply aren't going to get many Americans in that era to go to a bunch of tropical islands with a sketchy scheme like that. Most would probably fail to make much money and promptly return home to a more reliable job in the US.
 
The only way you can get 100,000 Americans to go there is if they're literally forbidden to return to the United States. You simply aren't going to get many Americans in that era to go to a bunch of tropical islands with a sketchy scheme like that. Most would probably fail to make much money and promptly return home to a more reliable job in the US.

So, it was just a wild estimate on the part of businessman who proposed it. Oddly, local authorities still took it seriously and prevented the legislation that could've allowed selling land in order to protect the natives. It was one of the reasons that led to Vema(/e)rana rebellion in 1980, that Europeans wanted to settle more native lands but the British authorities of the condominium of New Hebrides were unwilling to allow it while French less so, and independent Vanuatu least so.
But do you think that if they'd allowed unrestrained immigration since WWII or aven after creation of the condominium (1906) still the number of whites in northern New Hebrides (my Quirosia) would be ~5% today and mestizos 10%?
 
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