Tongan Polynesia

During the nineteenth century all Polynesian nations were colonised for strategic purposes and remained under direct European rule except for Tonga which became a protectorate and retains its monarchy to this day. What POD would be needed so that most Polynesian nations could have a similar situation instead of being annexed and loosing their monarchies?
 
Should solve two major problem:

1. Europeans were technologically much more advanced than Polynesians.

2. European diseases were pretty devastating for Polynesians.

Tahitian and Hawaiian monarchies might be saveable but I am not sure about others. Hawaii probably should become protectocrate of United Kingdom.
 
You could possibly get a British protectorate over the North Island of New Zealand in a different Declaration of Independence of the United Tribes in 1835 or a different Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 and then have the South Island open for British colonisation. This could eventually lead to a unified Maori monarchy in the North and a British colony in the South. The only challenge is getting all the different tribes (iwi) of the North Island to agree to unification as there were heated civil wars between iwi during the 19th century with the introduction of muskets.
 
You could possibly get a British protectorate over the North Island of New Zealand in a different Declaration of Independence of the United Tribes in 1835 or a different Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 and then have the South Island open for British colonisation. This could eventually lead to a unified Maori monarchy in the North and a British colony in the South. The only challenge is getting all the different tribes (iwi) of the North Island to agree to unification as there were heated civil wars between iwi during the 19th century with the introduction of muskets.

There actually is a Maori monarch, and they would probably be more universally-recognised merely by tweaking the kingitanga movement rather than going all the way back to the United Tribes' DoI.

Anyway, to answer the OP: IMHO I think that the easiest way to do this would be to preserve the Tu'i Tonga Empire, which whilst not an empire in a conventional sense, was a Tongan hegemony over Tikopia; Wallis and Futuna; Tokelau; Niue; Tuvalu; Rotuma; Nauru; Fiji; Marquesas; Kiribati; Cook Islands; Samoa; and parts of the Solomon Islands. If you can preserve this dominance of the Oceanian archipelago/oes, with European contact catalysing greater political concentration of power as a result of population loss from disease, royal monopolisation of gunpowder weapons etc., you could have the Tongan king ruling a much larger area. The challenge would technically be filled, although that would be because one king rules all those territories, rather than each territory having their own king.
 
Y'all are overthinking things. Most of the Pacific annexations were totally useless so far as the colonizing power was concerned. With notable exceptions - especially Hawai'i and New Zealand, they were nothing more than expensive prestige projects flowing out of a very specific socio-political situation in Europe (and Japan's response to it). Change the situation in the Pacific as much as you like, the power differentials remain, and will take you to roughly the same place.

You have to rearrange Europe to get much further than preserving, say, the Hawai'ian monarchy under a British or American protectorate.

There are several options I see:

Eliminate the Raj. British India was huge, profitable, and outrageously prestigious - it and America were models for just about every colonial project of late colonialism. Without it, the late nineteenth century and early twentieth would probably lack anything like the Scramble for Africa. Colonialism would remain more based on need, profit, and settlement - taking most of the value out of most of the Pacific. The big late colonial rush would be more like the Scramble for Spheres in China.

Earlier European Decline. If the first of 2-3 European total wars starts in the late nineteenth century, there may not be energy to reach the peak of OTL colonialism. A lot of places in the African interior and Pacific might then slip through the cracks.

Free Aotearoa. If New Zealand isn't colonized, or at least isn't settler-colonized, that might reduce attempts to repeat the feat north and east of it.

Earlier Nationalism. If Germany and Italy unite a half century earlier, their urge to find a place in the sun may pass before Pacific colonization becomes practical.

Greater British Dominance. If Britain strips all other Europeans of their colonies - because the revolutionary French are never dislodged from Europe, for example - then there's no longer any competition. No one annexes anything to try to be like Britain, and Britain doesn't annex anything to keep it out of anyone else's hands. In that case you could easily see most of the Pacific with political continuity as nominal vassals of the Crown.
 
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