Pacific Thalassocracy

[Captain Jack]

The problem you always have with China trade is that there really isn't anything Asia wants except possibly precious metals. It's possible to have a China-India trade, but neither really has much to import from anywhere else in the world.

Not even jade? Mesoamerica had a fairly extensive jade working culture, and rich deposits of jadeite. While China traditionally places more value on white jade, a form of nephrite which does not occur in Mesoamerica, they still valued green jade which could be supplied from Mesoamerica. Perhaps a market would develop for Olmec Blue jade, if this thalassocracy developed pre-Mayan collapse?

Additionally, there are some high value agricultural products that could be worth trading to China. Cacao/chocolate beans could be one, for obvious reasons. Vanilla could be another potential high value trade good to jump start the trade routes. Of these, vanilla might be the more effective, as chocolate can be grown in Indonesia so an indigenous production might pop up, undermining the trade routes. Vanilla, on the other hand, can only be produced naturally in the region it originated in. Elsewhere it has to be polinated by hand and in a very specific manner. IOTL it took hundreds of years to work that out, so if they want vanilla they'll need to trade for it. China was perfectly happy to trade for ginseng IOTL from American merchants, so I don't see why they wouldn't accept other "spices" ITTL. And of course, if the Chinese really won't take anything other than precious metals, well the native peoples of the Andes and Mesoamerica have plenty of gold and silver to exchange for whatever it is they want.

If China really is an impossible market, the trade routes can connect to Indonesia instead. All of the above products could find a market there, plus coca leaves might fit well into cultures which already use betel nut.

The Polynesian islands are all pretty resource-poor one way or another, but things like shells or parrot feathers work fine as a medium of exchange in the Americas if they're exotic enough. Lack of trade goods isn't the issue with Polynesians, it's population.

I'm not too familiar with Polynesian history and culture, so I'm genuinely curious as to your reasoning here.

 

[Burton K Wheeler]

Not even jade? Mesoamerica had a fairly extensive jade working culture, and rich deposits of jadeite. While China traditionally places more value on white jade, a form of nephrite which does not occur in Mesoamerica, they still valued green jade which could be supplied from Mesoamerica. Perhaps a market would develop for Olmec Blue jade, if this thalassocracy developed pre-Mayan collapse?

Additionally, there are some high value agricultural products that could be worth trading to China. Cacao/chocolate beans could be one, for obvious reasons. Vanilla could be another potential high value trade good to jump start the trade routes. Of these, vanilla might be the more effective, as chocolate can be grown in Indonesia so an indigenous production might pop up, undermining the trade routes. Vanilla, on the other hand, can only be produced naturally in the region it originated in. Elsewhere it has to be polinated by hand and in a very specific manner. IOTL it took hundreds of years to work that out, so if they want vanilla they'll need to trade for it. China was perfectly happy to trade for ginseng IOTL from American merchants, so I don't see why they wouldn't accept other "spices" ITTL. And of course, if the Chinese really won't take anything other than precious metals, well the native peoples of the Andes and Mesoamerica have plenty of gold and silver to exchange for whatever it is they want.

If China really is an impossible market, the trade routes can connect to Indonesia instead. All of the above products could find a market there, plus coca leaves might fit well into cultures which already use betel nut.

[The Polynesian islands are all pretty resource-poor one way or another, but things like shells or parrot feathers work fine as a medium of exchange in the Americas if they're exotic enough. Lack of trade goods isn't the issue with Polynesians, it's population.

I'm not too familiar with Polynesian history and culture, so I'm genuinely curious as to your reasoning here.[/QUOTE]

I wouldn't say "impossible". It's certainly appealing for my undetermined mariners to sail to China and trade, just hard to figure why China would want to sail to Mesoamerica and trade.

Interestingly, since I'm leaning towards the Zapotecs as a candidate for a Mesoamerican sea power, you should know that the region just on the other side of Tehuantapec is a major center of vanilla growing...

 

[Richard V]

This region and period isn't one I've studied in detail, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt, but one thing in particular occurs to me: All of the thalassocracies that come to mind were powerful because they controlled the trade in a key product, or products. Whatever that product was, it was so important that people were willing to pay for it, and controlling access to it gave the thalassocracy power. Particularly, I'm thinking of Venetian and later Portuguese domination of the spice trade, Phoenician and Carthaginian control of the trade in tin ore, and Hanseatic control of timber, fur, and other agricultural commodities from the Baltic. I suppose the Delain League would be a counter example, but I would argue it emerged in different circumstances that explain its outlier status.

I'm not aware of any product that could fill that role in the Pacific. Any ideas as to what could fill that role? The things I can think of are jade from Mesoamerica to East Asia or guano from South America to Asia and northern parts of the Americas. Maybe refined metals and/or spices from the Asian side back across to the Americas? Maybe agricultural staples could be shipped to the Peruvian coast from further North or South, if the civilizations/ciy-states of that region are able to grow beyond their local production. That seems more likely as a product of a thalassocracy establishing these trade routes than a cause though.

There is indeed such a product - sandalwood. Today most of it is sourced from western Australia, but back in early 19th century Hawaii was a major supplier of sandalwood to China. So much so that this almost devastated the island's ecosystem and conservation laws had to be implemented. The Hawaiians were after gun powder from China, until they figured out they had all the ingredients to make their own. Sea otter fur from California also stopped in Hawaii on the way to China. The trade was so important Kamehameha even sent a Hawaiian ship all the way to Canton.

 

[Burton K Wheeler]

There is indeed such a product - sandalwood. Today most of it is sourced from western Australia, but back in early 19th century Hawaii was a major supplier of sandalwood to China. So much so that this almost devastated the island's ecosystem and conservation laws had to be implemented. The Hawaiians were after gun powder from China, until they figured out they had all the ingredients to make their own. Sea otter fur from California also stopped in Hawaii on the way to China. The trade was so important Kamehameha even sent a Hawaiian ship all the way to Canton.

Sandalwood is definitely going in the idea file. I rejected the idea of a North Pacific fur trade bringing furs to China, since Siberia is right there, but forgot that sea otter fur is uniquely valuable and requires North Pacific trade.

 

[B-29_Bomber]

That's what I said their sailing technology was rather primitive-good for short term coastal trading but not the open pacific.

I like to think had the Indians been given more time to develop independently they might have achieved such technology at some point or another.

Maybe, but they'd need to reason to and not just, "there are some crazy bastards that we're not even aware of yet coming to fuck our collective shit up".

That also brings up the question as to why New World peoples didn't develop at a similar pace as the Old World, but that's a separate thread altogether.

 

[Zachariah]

Here's my list of some of the most lucrative products which the region of Polynesia (incl. Melanesia) has to offer- Agarwood, Sandalwood, Vanilla orchids (of which there are at least ten species in the region and twenty in the vicinity, any of which could be cultivated by a tribe of natives at any stage and subsequently adopted by your thalassocracy in the same manner as OTL's Aztecs adopted it from the Totonacs- vanilla's proven IOTL that it flourishes across the region), Birds of Paradise feathers (which can be marketed as 'Phoenix feathers' to the non-Natives of the Old World), Pomelos, Candlenuts, Indigo, Cloves, nutmegs and mace (of course- with the Maluku islands lying east of both the Wallace and Weber lines, they're Melanesian- and since the distinction between Melanesia and Polynesia is exclusively racial, effectively Polynesian products). Along with that staple IOTL, sugar (archeological evidence shows that sugarcane was first cultivated on New Guinea, more than 6,000 years before the Indians discovered how to crystallize sugar in 350AD; surely the thalassocratic Pacific Empire in your TL could beat them to it?)

 

[Zachariah]

Also worth honorable mentions; Palaquium trees, which have their centre of diversity in the Philippines and have a range which extends eastwards across most of Oceania, can be tapped for gutta-percha latex, which could also be quite lucrative as an electrically insulating waterproof natural thermoplastic. If marketed earlier, how lucrative could gutta-percha products be as historical trade commodities? Could they have the potential to usher in a pre-industrial 'age of plastic'?

 

[Captain Jack]

I wouldn't say "impossible". It's certainly appealing for my undetermined mariners to sail to China and trade, just hard to figure why China would want to sail to Mesoamerica and trade.

Perhaps thinking about it a different way would help? Most of the posts in the thread seem to be about why this group or that group would want to cross the Pacific and forge a thalassocracy based on that trade.

But maybe that's putting the cart before the horse, to an extent. Instead of the chosen thalassocracy being the ones to create the cross-Pacific trade, they'd likely come about because of it, after it began. If we look at other thalassocracies they tended to take control of and then improve on existing trade routes more than they pioneered new ones. Which makes sense, really. You're more likely to devote the effort to controlling trade that you know is profitable than to go galavanting off hoping you find something new.

So. Maybe the way to get your Pacific thalassocracy isn't to find a group, be it the Javanese, Japanese, or Chincha who will cross the Pacific on their own but to create a cross-Pacific trade that the chosen group can capitalize on and exploit. Basically, it would start as a chain of intermediaries each handing goods off to each other, a lot like the way the Silk Road functioned. As you've said, the Polynesians lack the population for sustained contact, especially the East Polynesians who'll be responsible for the actual contact part of this. Richard V's sandalwood idea sounds like a way to achieve that. Southeast Asian traders pushing discovering that there's sandalwood in Polynesia doesn't sound like too difficult a task, and from there they'd push further into the region in search of more. This intercourse could boost Polynesia's population due to increased access to the rest of the world and potentially more agricultural options. Rice being (re)introduced to Polynesian cultures could make a big difference on that front. It can be grown in Hawaii, so I assume it can be grown through most of Polynesia if you can get enough water for it. Anyway, this gets you a slow wave of heightened wealth and population moving East across the Pacific as each group of islands starts buying sandalwood from their Eastern neighbors and selling it westward in exchange for Asian products. That gets you the population levels required for sustained contact between the easternmost Polynesian Islands and the Americas. It would likely start along the Andean coast given OTL's contact and then follow the existing Pre-Columbian routes North to Peru and eventually Mesoamerica. Given the distances involved, I doubt the scale contact would ever be huge, but large enough to be regular and enough to gather meaningful quantities of trade goods on both sides.

From there, American products would follow the existing trade routes back across the Pacific until Southeast Asian sandalwood traders run into them, and carry them back to the Asian trade networks. From there its just a matter of traders following the known routes until they find the source of whatever good they're searching for and of the political process of a polity coming to dominate said trade.

snip

Excellent ideas.

since the distinction between Melanesia and Polynesia is exclusively racial

Is it? I thought it was at least as much a linguistic and cultural distinction as it was a racial one.

 

[Zachariah]

Is it? I thought it was as at least as much a linguistic and cultural divide as it was a racial one.

Yeah, you're right- sorry, I was still stuck thinking about what the situation was like back before the birth of Christ.

 

[Burton K Wheeler]

Yeah, you're right- sorry, I was still stuck thinking about what the situation was like back before the birth of Christ.

BC is good with me, like I said. It's interesting how much stuff that you'd normally take for granted can get butterflied away.

 

[Richard V]

Also worth honorable mentions; Palaquium trees, which have their centre of diversity in the Philippines and have a range which extends eastwards across most of Oceania, can be tapped for gutta-percha latex, which could also be quite lucrative as an electrically insulating waterproof natural thermoplastic. If marketed earlier, how lucrative could gutta-percha products be as historical trade commodities? Could they have the potential to usher in a pre-industrial 'age of plastic'?

Indeed, and even today used in dentistry and fixing cracked horse hooves. The biggest application IMO would be shoe soles, everybody need shoes. Well I guess some didn't, but a lot of people wore them.

Another Mesoamerica commodity I'm surprised no one has mentioned - chili pepper. Modern day Indians, Chinese, SE Asians simply can't live without it.

 

[Zachariah]

Indeed, and even today used in dentistry and fixing cracked horse hooves. The biggest application IMO would be shoe soles, everybody need shoes. Well I guess some didn't, but a lot of people wore them.

Another Mesoamerica commodity I'm surprised no one has mentioned - chili pepper. Modern day Indians, Chinese, SE Asians simply can't live without it.

That's more of a commodity which they could bring back with them from the Americas though, once trans-Pacific trade's been established, rather than one which can expand the trade network to reach the Americas in the first place. Something else which I'm surprised that no-one's even considered the possibility of though- does this thalassocracy have to be established on the western Pacific rim, on the Eastern fringes of the Old World, and push westwards across the ocean? Or could it potentially be established on the eastern Pacific rim instead, by the Native Americans? It'd be a considerably steeper challenge, I know. But could it be borderline possible, with an early enough POD?

For added context, here's a basic, simplified map of the ocean surface currents, centered on the Pacific:

And here's one of prevailing wind currents:

As such, wouldn't it be a lot easier to island-hop across the Pacific, and establish this thalassocracy, from the American Pacific coastline rather than from the Asian or Australian Pacific coastlines? Especially if you're looking to avoid voyaging through the polar regions...

 

[Captain Jack]

Another Mesoamerica commodity I'm surprised no one has mentioned - chili pepper. Modern day Indians, Chinese, SE Asians simply can't live without it.

Another good idea. Personally, I always forget chili pepper is native to Mesoamerica since it's such a key component of so many Old World cuisines.

Going the other direction, a much earlier introduction of breadfruit to the Americas would be potentially interesting. Although it would be a byproduct of trade not a driver.


More significantly, cinchona bark, the natural source for the first anti-malarial quinine, would likely be brought back to Asia. I don't know when its medical properties were discovered by the Quecha, but it was apparently an established medicine in the Andes by the time of the Spanish Conquest.

 

[Richard V]

Here's a big game changer, what if the Polynesians spread the sweet potato to Melanesia, SE Asia and China in the Medieval era. That would create the population boom to sustain demand for trade goods across the region.

 

[PhilippeO]

So why wasn't there a Pacific version of Carthage or Venice or some other maritime republic?

This isn't good comparison, Carthage and Venice is Medditerranean Sea thassalocracy, which much much easier than Atlantic/Indian thassalocracy.

Many chinese cities (Fuzhou, Hangzhou, etc), Champa, Sakai (in Japan), Ryukyu, Malacca, Macassar and Sriwijaya is good trading power in South/East China Sea. so they are better equivalent for Venice/Carthage.

in Atlantic, Med Thassalocracy is unsuccessful in becoming Atlantic trading power.

Hanseatic Baltic / North Sea also unsuccessful in becoming Atlantic trading power.

so trading power in South China Sea / East China Sea is also likely to be unsuccessful in becoming Pacific trading power.

 

[SealTheRealDeal]

Could Champa fill that role as a sort of a Portugal expy? They already were extensively involved in maritime trade, perhaps they could have set up some outposts in the Philippines and from there done some exploring into the wider Pacific, although the issue there is that (without knowledge of the Americas) continuing south into the Malay Archipelago is more economically enticing than going east into Polynesia .

 

[Thesaurus Rex]

Were Papuans ever seafarers? I thought the high population densities were in the highlands and the coasts were actually settled from Indonesia. Melanesians from New Britain or the Solomons might be a candidate.

Sure dude. Had sailing multihulls and everything. Checkkitout:

Spoiler: Lakatoi watercraft

When you don't upgrade your units in Civ

Lakatoi sailing in a lake village

There was a South American trading culture based at Chincha in Peru that traded with Mexico. They probably used balsa rafts like the Kon-Tiki that Thor Heyerdrahl sailed from Peru to Polynesia in.

The winds and currents would normally take South American ships right through Polynesia towards the Solomon Islands, but if somehow they got blown off course north of the Equator, they'd get carried right towards the Phillipines, then catch the Kurosho Current which would take them past Japan and then back to the Pacific Northwest. Something like the Manila Galleon Route.

Hmm...Mexico is actually looking like a very good place for them, actually. I naysaid someone's suggestion for a Mexico/California sea trade route some time ago, but maybe I just wasn't being ambitious enough.

The problem with balsas is they have a time limit before the balsa wood gets waterlogged and sinks down to the point where it's nearly useless. In around 4 months, the cargo capacity more than halves and by 8 months it's at 3/10ths capacity (according to Wikipedia's citing of Dewan and Hosler's study). Nevertheless they were still very fast watercraft and did make round trips from South America to southern Mesoamerica (at least those are the destinations we know). It probably helps that they can land the rafts out of the water and wait for the winds to change in their favor for the return trip. If they're going out to the open ocean, it would help if they knew where they were going and how to get back. So it could still work, though for many reasons carries more risk than other watercraft.

 

[Burton K Wheeler]

Sure dude. Had sailing multihulls and everything. Checkkitout:

Spoiler: Lakatoi watercraft

When you don't upgrade your units in Civ

Lakatoi sailing in a lake village

The problem with balsas is they have a time limit before the balsa wood gets waterlogged and sinks down to the point where it's nearly useless. In around 4 months, the cargo capacity more than halves and by 8 months it's at 3/10ths capacity (according to Wikipedia's citing of Dewan and Hosler's study). Nevertheless they were still very fast watercraft and did make round trips from South America to southern Mesoamerica (at least those are the destinations we know). It probably helps that they can land the rafts out of the water and wait for the winds to change in their favor for the return trip. If they're going out to the open ocean, it would help if they knew where they were going and how to get back. So it could still work, though for many reasons carries more risk than other watercraft.

I think I mentioned upthread that balsas aren't a good base for anything other than what they were used for historically. If Peruvian sailors can apply their masts and navigation techniques to some other kind of boat, though, they'd be well set. I don't know enough about Mesoamerican shipbuilding to guess what, though Caribbean dugouts crossing Tehuantepec is an option.