Much Earlier Maori-European Contact?

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Malaria Prevented Any Maori Colonisation of Eastern Australia

The answer is the humble anopheles mosquito in Eastern Australia,
which may have meant that any wakas that strayed too far west
and landed there wouldn't have made it home. Hmmm. So if one
fiddled with the climate, or introduced an anti-anopheles virus or
bacteria into the mix, that wouldn't have happened.

NB: Sorry, but the early introduction of quinine is a step too far
into incredulity for me. What about the rest of you

Craig
 
We can sit here and speculate or wait for Look To The West to provide with great example of one... :D

But sirously, that would be really really cool.
 
Um... Why? Muskets are multitudes more effective than clubs or crossbows, and the Dutch would want to sell the best they can get to the Maori in order to get the most opitmal profit in return, IMO.
Maoris loved to fight and took pride in their sheer strength. They have been known to say that a musket would fire real well first shot, then they made poor clubs. If the Dutch had invented Dale Carnage training back then and learned to listen to their clients they would have known that and found a tool more suited to the general Maori mentality of the time.
There is a story of Maoris leading the British deep into the hills, eventually the British are ready to pack it up and go home because they are almost out of food.
The Maori send a few warriors under truce with lots and lots of food.
They tell the British not to leave and disappoint them by not engaging in battle. Eat tonight we fight tomorrow.
 
Something I thought of: when the Musket War(s)s die down, and Aoteroa is united and somewhat modernized, they are going to look to their west (;)) and see much weaker Aboriginals in Austria, not far from New Zealand.
So what if the Maori invade, subjugate, and colonize eastern Australia?

There is the one problem of the thousand miles between the South Island and the eastern coast of Australia. Maybe if the Maori trade to get more advanced shipbuilding techniques it could happen... but I don't know how likely that is.
 
New Zealand has placer gold. Lots of placer gold. If you can trade merchandise for gold, you can haul lots of wood back with you because of all the empty space.
 
There is the one problem of the thousand miles between the South Island and the eastern coast of Australia. Maybe if the Maori trade to get more advanced shipbuilding techniques it could happen... but I don't know how likely that is.

IOTL they already invaded a neighbouring island post European contact but its name escapes me. It was filled with people closely related to the maori but peaceful.
They did it by chartering a European ship.
 
What if Juan Fernandez persuaded either the Chilean Captain General or the Viceroy of Peru to commit to further exploration/colonisation of the lands he may/may not have discovered during his voyage of 1575?

There were Spanish missions of settlement in the Pacific around this time and I am sure Aoteroa would have made a good destination advancing European-Maori contacts by a good 200 years or so. The church certainly would have promoted contact and the rewards could have been staunch Maori followers of the faith and loyalty to the Spanish royal family.

Given the nature of the country and Maori in New Zealand maybe there wouldn't have been the widespread development of the encomiendos but farming haciendas and a fairly prosperous colony could be possible. Given the distance from other Spanish territories any settlement would have been pretty much self relient and always alert and on defensive of both the Maori and other Europeans. However Maori awareness of the benefits of trade and the earlier discovery of gold would have speeded up European involvement in the archipelago.
 
Couple thoughts:

-As others have said, there really isn't anything in New Zealand to make it a valuable colony for anybody. The British mainly grabbed it because it was there and they were afraid someone else might snatch it up; that's not going to be a concern earlier. Climate/resource-wise, it's like New England but much further away from anything useful. Even Australia is a considerable distance away. The Dutch, French and English have more valuable lands to claim. The Spanish and Portuguese definitely have much more valuable areas to settle/conquer. You might see some missionary activity, but that's about it.

-Before we go into visions of Maori wakas creating a vast empire, remember that even when they finish fighting the Musket Wars, European diseases will devastate their population. While they haven't been isolated as long as the Native Americans had, they have still been isolated long enough that OTL brought massive death tolls from epidemics. That (and the relatively small Maori population to start with) is going to limit their expansion even if they do somehow become a unified expansionist state.
 
The Dutch, French and English have more valuable lands to claim. The Spanish and Portuguese definitely have much more valuable areas to settle/conquer.
Even if the discover doesn't colonize could it be used as a bargaining chip somewhere?

Given away to another country for something.
 
After a set of Musket Wars a Shogun type leader emerges and uses his power to get an European Captain to help build ships for his power to protect his Islands and take on Empire who would try to take out his power. This Anjin-San type guy could be his ticket for colonies of his own. :D
 
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