Mostly empty Polynesia

No Polynesian expansion as we know it.

That's actually pretty easy. The initial expansion seems to have involved small numbers. A plague, a typhoon or two, a massacre, and it doesn't happen. Let's kneecap the Lapita culture. They stay a fringy group occupying the sands and mangrove swamps along the edge of Melanesia, eventually dwindling to nothing. The Polynesian navigational package dies a-borning.

Now, the Melanesians are no dummies, and they were already all over the Bismarcks and Solomons 10,000 years before the first pot-spinning Lapita showed up. It's not hard to island-hop east from there. So, New Caledonia and Fiji still get settled, and so -- a bit further north -- does Palau. By 1500 AD they've gotten as far as Samoa. The rest of the Polynesian Triangle stays empty, though, as does Micronesia. We'll say nobody drifts west from South America, nor east from the Philippines to the Marianas.

[chews lip thoughtfully]

You know, it's surprising how little effect this has before the 18th century. I think the Enlightenment still comes up with the Noble Savage concept -- that drew on North America more than Polynesia.


This is a "no surfing" TL, which kinda sucks.


Other hand, birds! A couple of hundred different species, all extinct OTL. Everything from flightless owls to dinosaur-like 5-meter monsters in New Zealand. Also that monstrous super-eagle thing. Many will go extinct anyway when Europeans show up in force, but at least some should survive.

European colonization won't get going until the 19th century. Assuming European history is much the same as iOTL, it'll be almost entirely British: they have sixty years head start on the Americans, the French were never that interested in settler colonies in the Pacific, and the Dutch will have their hands full with Indonesia.

So, llittle British settler colonies on all the high islands -- Guam, Pohnpei, Hawaii, and of course New Zealand. Start as whaling stations, turn loose some cattle and pigs to run wild. After a while there are farmers. Export... copra, sandalwood from Hawaii, salt beef and hides. No sugar, or at least not at first -- too far from labor sources and markets. (OTL sugar didn't start catching on in the Pacific until the steamship-and-telegraph era.)

I'd expect the low islands and atolls to be settled much later; they're not going to be very attractive to 19th century Europeans, and while low islands are lovely, they can be quite challenging to live on. A rogue typhoon washes seawater over the whole atoll. Your crops got salted; everybody dies. A bad El Nino means the rainy season doesn't come this year; your cisterns didn't hold two years of fresh water, everybody dies. A shift in the currents makes the fish go away... you get the idea. I'd expect at least one Croatoan-style complete wipeout on an atoll somewhere.

So, half a dozen mini-New Zealands. Hawaii becomes a sort of warm Falkland Islands.

Hum.

Thoughts?


Doug M.
 
This is an interesting suggestion.

Without the Maori, New Zealand probably receives more and earlier British colonists, so may have a slightly higher population today, although the other high islands may draw some of this off.

Hawaii (or the Sandwich Islands, as they will be known in TTL), will probably be much more than a Pacific Falklands, as they can simply carry a much larger population. You may see a significant Chinese or Indian population imported in the later 19th century as labourers, who may or may not be shipped home at some point.

This probably prevents American expansion into the Pacific, so the Spanish retain the Philippines for longer. Spanish decline means that they won't keep them, but who takes them? Germans or Japanese I'd predict. Given what happened to the Herero, I'd speculate that any rebellion against the Germans would be met with much unpleasantness, although with 8-9 million natives such a policy may backfire.
 
This is an interesting suggestion.

Without the Maori, New Zealand probably receives more and earlier British colonists, so may have a slightly higher population today, although the other high islands may draw some of this off.

Hawaii (or the Sandwich Islands, as they will be known in TTL), will probably be much more than a Pacific Falklands, as they can simply carry a much larger population. You may see a significant Chinese or Indian population imported in the later 19th century as labourers, who may or may not be shipped home at some point.

This probably prevents American expansion into the Pacific, so the Spanish retain the Philippines for longer. Spanish decline means that they won't keep them, but who takes them? Germans or Japanese I'd predict. Given what happened to the Herero, I'd speculate that any rebellion against the Germans would be met with much unpleasantness, although with 8-9 million natives such a policy may backfire.

Good points about Hawaii, but given that we seem to be operating with a minimal butterfly affect, Spain and the USA may still come to blows, since it was originally about Cuba. Perhaps the US decide to rule the Phillipines despite the distance, or set up a client country more quickly. I don't know much about the attitudes of the time.

Germany or Japan are indeed prime candidates to move in. Isn't it a bit unfair to judge German rule by the single worse moment in German colonial history? Especially given the rather poor conduct of the Americans in the earliest parts of their stay, and the complete lack of reference to the bad reputation of Japanese rule (in Korea's case, well before the war).

To Doug, I love the concept! So many people focus entirely on geopolitics. Its been a while since I've seen anyone consider anything like the effect of Pacific immigration on western European philosophy, and its that diversity of scope that makes AH such a great field.
 
Good points about Hawaii, but given that we seem to be operating with a minimal butterfly affect, Spain and the USA may still come to blows, since it was originally about Cuba. Perhaps the US decide to rule the Phillipines despite the distance, or set up a client country more quickly. I don't know much about the attitudes of the time.

I think that, in this era of coal fired ships, the Americans simply can't get to the Philippines fast enough.

Germany or Japan are indeed prime candidates to move in. Isn't it a bit unfair to judge German rule by the single worse moment in German colonial history? Especially given the rather poor conduct of the Americans in the earliest parts of their stay, and the complete lack of reference to the bad reputation of Japanese rule (in Korea's case, well before the war).

True, however, the nastiness of Japanese colonial rule seems more generally known and unremarkable.
 
Didn't the Spanish come across some of these islands? Surely they'd still take some for the Manilla trade, no?

I mean, I know nobody stopped there but you get the idea.
 
Didn't the Spanish come across some of these islands? Surely they'd still take some for the Manilla trade, no?

I mean, I know nobody stopped there but you get the idea.

I believe that while the Spanish may have come across a few islands, along the route the Manila Galleons regularly took they don't come within hundreds of miles of any islands that would be a source of fresh water or of any great size. They were making a basic straight line between Manila and Acapulco. Tho they may have made landfall as far north as San Diego.
 
No -Mutiny on The Bounty- and it takes longer to import Breadtrees to the West Indies. It also take longer to export Pineapples to the Pacific.
think that, in this era of coal fired ships, the Americans simply can't get to the Philippines fast enough.
Dewey and the Asiatic Squadron was based in Hong Kong till about three weeks before war was declared. He then moved to avoid questions of Neutrality and Interment.

I think ITTL the Asiatic Squadron may not exists, and all the US attention would go to Cuba, leading to Annexation.
 
Urusai[InFi];2150671 said:
I believe Guam was a refueling station for Spanish Galleons.

Thats right.

Micronesia was not officially part of Spain until 1875. Then it was sold to German in 1899 since Spain did not care to control such small islands. Also, the Germans wanted them and might have taken them. Palau included. The islands were conquered by the Japanese in WW I.

This NY Times of the article of the 1800's when Spain planted there flag on the Carolines and German objection to it: http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9906E2DB153FE533A2575AC2A96E9C94649FD7CF

Here a map of the Spanish East Indies.

Spanish_Provinces_in_the_Pacific.jpg
 
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