Polynesian-American Long Term Trade Routes

I've recently been studying the incredibly likely occurrence of Polynesians visiting South America, and probably Southern California as well between 1500 and 800 years ago.
In OTL all this did was send the sweet potato to several Western Polynesian islands (the sweet potato's in the Eastern Polynesians appear to have come from the Spanish the other way), gave Peru the chicken, and a Polynesian style boat and fishhooks to California, along with a couple of loan words.
Now is it possible for some sort of consistent,long term trading to come about? It appears that historically there were only occasional visits between the Polynesians and America, and nothing that could be reliably counted upon.
Could the Incans, Chavins, Moche, etc, have traded copper, guinea pigs, cotton clothing, gold, silver and many other things, and in return gotten new types of bark cloth (it was a main trade item to Europeans from Hawaii in the 19th century), Sago, pigs, pearls, exotic feathers, and spices?
Or was it simply too far away to reliably get back and forth?
 
Hmmm. Tricky.

My guess is that there weren't sufficiently valuable and portable trade goods to make the trips worthwhile.

Most neolithic and bronze age trading was like a game of telephone. One group passes to another group passes to another group, with adjustments of value at each step of the way.

Trading for the most part wasn't a key motivator. There were relatively few mobile groups that defined themselves and their livelihoods as traders. Mostly, trading was something that happened on the peripheries of your subsistence economics.

But Americas/Polynesian trade would have to be a dedicated effort. ie, people would be undertaking a major activity for the sole purpose of trading, rather than as a supplement or peripheral.

Thinking out loud, and having kicked around a lot of the Polynesia stuff in my "Empire of Mu" thread, I would say that its tough.

My own impression is that the problem with the Polynesians networks was that they were largely homogenous and self sufficient - each Island culture pretty much had the same basket of resources, so there was very little to sustain long term trade. What are you trading for that you don't have at home?

There does seem to have been ceremonial exchange networks and trade in high value ceremonial items, like sea turtle shells and things like that. These may have been remnants of older more robust trading networkds.

But by the time of European contact, large scale trade and communication seems to have largely disappeared, and had been in decline for centuries.

As to a regular trade network for the Americas, I think you'd have to have a regular sustained trading network and trading culture within polynesia first.

If the polynesians were supporting a caste of regular and dedicated traders, then I could see such a caste looking to or developing regular routes to the Americas.

The key is that there'd need to be enough value - high value, low volume goods.
 
I agree, the extensive trade being posited requires a dedicated long-haul merchant fleet which the Polynesians certainly didn't have, not least of which because they didn't have the concept of currency per se. I'd suggest some kind of Polynesian Badjao, the nomadic so-called Sea Gypsies who make (or rather, made) their living trading and fishing. But again, what would they trade for? Especially when making a complete circuit of the Pacific Rim would probably take ages.
 
Its very difficult to trade with early boats for a long time. you need to get to a much higher level of boat building then what either cultures had. However the Tongva or Chumash did have plank boats so if whatever caused them to learn how to build those happened earlier, got significantly better and spread southwards really fast, you might see a little bit of trade. maybe.
 
Have Polynesians settle the Galapagos Islands. They could serve as a link between Polynesia and Peru. The Galpagoans could become rich by controlling trade between the two.
 
You need a Polynesian Empire to invade the Americas! That will get trade flowing!

Though in my Chinese Discover America and make Aztecs and Incas Protectorates of the Ming Dynasty timeline it is the word of the Polynesians of the exsistance of the Americas that sends the Ming explorers westward with curiosity.
 
What you really need in Polynesia is an unequal distribution of high value fungibles which would give rise to a long term trading network. All indications are that as the island economies flattened, the trading network withered.

If you have that in Polynesia, and you have high value fungibles in the Americas, then the Polnesian network would inevitably extend to the Americas.

I'm thinking perhaps the key would be Polynesian discovery of China, and the establishment of trade routes with china and Indochina.
 
Another issue is that on Polynesia's eastern fringe - or at least, its southeastern fringe - you have very low populations. Mangareva, the Marquesas, Rapa Nui, and Pitcairn-Henderson only support a few thousand people altogether. Smaller groups produce fewer merchants and trade goods. I also agree with some other posters that incentives need to be found to make the trip. Then again, we're still not totally clear or in agreement on what the incentives were to settle Polynesia in the first place, so some sort of "because it's there" reason could be devised.

How about a more centralized and organized empire based in Tahiti? You could get a higher population and the possibility of a trading class. Again, that leaves the question of just what they'd be trading.

FWIW, I wrote on this scenario for the relatively ASB-filled world of Ill Bethisad for my fictional Easter Island civilization, Henua. It's here: http://sites.google.com/site/ibhenua/history-1/savedcivilization, if anyone is interested. Fair warning, though, IB is mainly a platform for fictional cultures; it's not supposed to be proper alternate history.
 
FWIW, I wrote on this scenario for the relatively ASB-filled world of Ill Bethisad for my fictional Easter Island civilization, Henua. It's here: http://sites.google.com/site/ibhenua/history-1/savedcivilization, if anyone is interested. Fair warning, though, IB is mainly a platform for fictional cultures; it's not supposed to be proper alternate history.

So in your scenario, do the Polynesians also trade with Asia? Because IOTL Polynesians were also devastated by disease. The Hawaiian royal family's delegates all died when they went to London, for instance.
 
Ok, so having any long term trade would be difficult and highly unlikely with OTL. That's kind of what I thought. Thanks for the responses.

How about a more centralized and organized empire based in Tahiti? You could get a higher population and the possibility of a trading class. Again, that leaves the question of just what they'd be trading.

I think what we need is the Meso-Americans to get interested in sea trade and exploration.

I like these two ideas. If one side or the other was a little more advanced, the Polynesians socially, or the Meso-Americans nautically, that is one possibility. Because both sides had things to trade, just not in large enough volumes to make it worthwhile at their levels.

Have Polynesians settle the Galapagos Islands. They
could serve as a link between Polynesia and Peru. The Galpagoans could become rich by controlling trade between the two.
I love the idea of a Galapagos Trade Empire. Thanks for thinking it. Mind if I steal it?
 
Conceivably, some trade goods would be valuable enough to justify ocean trading. For instance, metal tools for woodworking or agriculture. Ceramics.

But these would come outside of Polynesia. Most likely from Asian trade routes.

The key, I think is to find something equivalent to the spice trade. One of the first Dutch spice expeditions sailed for a year, lost two of their four ships, but the spices they returned with were so valuable that they were instantly wealthy.

You have to have something of that sort of extreme value.
 
So in your scenario, do the Polynesians also trade with Asia? Because IOTL Polynesians were also devastated by disease. The Hawaiian royal family's delegates all died when they went to London, for instance.

Yes, the idea was a much stronger network from Asia to South America, with major nodes at Yap and Fiji, among others. It's definitely a stretch and IMO unacceptable from an AH standpoint. I wrote it largely to help explain the fact, already established in that world, that most Native American societies had done much better than in OTL.

Thanks for your interest, and thanks for reading.
 
Here's a thought. Suppose that on one of the polynesian Islands, there was a plant which, when properly dried and treated, became an intense euphoric, possibly with medicinal qualities.

This plant would become a key part of Polynesian exchange rituals, and you might see long voyages to reach the islands where the plant is cultivated.

The plant would also amount to a viable trade good, allowing the Polynesians to trade with the closest asian societies, acquiring metals, ceramics and other goods. A formalized trading economy, and trading voyages and networks would emerge.

These would then extend eventually to trade routes with America.
 
It already exists, actually. It's called Kava, and it's great stuff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kava

However, while it is widespread across the Pacific, it never made the leap onto the mainland on either side. I suspect this partly due to the fact that the actual Kava-water mixture one imbibes tastes godawful.
 
Conceivably, some trade goods would be valuable enough to justify ocean trading. For instance, metal tools for woodworking or agriculture. Ceramics.

But these would come outside of Polynesia. Most likely from Asian trade routes.

The key, I think is to find something equivalent to the spice trade. One of the first Dutch spice expeditions sailed for a year, lost two of their four ships, but the spices they returned with were so valuable that they were instantly wealthy.

You have to have something of that sort of extreme value.

Maybe the black pearls of the Cook Islands would be considered valuable enough. But you're right it would have to be really good.

It already exists, actually. It's called Kava, and it's great stuff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kava

However, while it is widespread across the Pacific, it never made the leap onto the mainland on either side. I suspect this partly due to the fact that the actual Kava-water mixture one imbibes tastes godawful.
I wonder how that would taste with vanilla flavouring, or pineapple juice. And thanks for the link, saved a bit of time.
 
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