Janszoon, A Dutch Australia TL

Apologies to all who followed my south america TL, but it is now on hold until after my exams, it is very labour intensive and I am very busy.

Down but not out, I have been thinking of projects that would be less work and still fun, this is one of them.

I have learned a lot form my last TL and from reading others on the board.

The POD is Abel Tasman veers north instead of heading east after discovering Tasmania.

This is the story of the continent of Janszoon. Enjoy.

How far are you going with this?

Unknown said:

How far are you going with this?

Click to expand...

Up to the present day if I can, I will try to break down history into 10 year segments where convenient. I have the world story planned up until the industrial revolution.

I had Tasman make three voyages to Australia in my book. The map's floating around the map thread. East from Tasmania wasn't until the Third Voyage. He effectively circumnavigated Australia on his Second Voyage.

Jared will be of major help in this timeline, methinks.

Favourable winds.

1642-1652

On 24 November 1642 Abel Tasman sighted the west coast of Tasmania, north of Macquarie Harbour. He named his discovery Van Diemen's Land after Antonio van Diemen, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies. Tasman anchored to the North of Cape Frederick Hendrick just North of the Forestier Peninsula. Tasman then landed in Blackman Bay – in the larger Marion Bay. The next day, an attempt was made to land in North Bay; however, because the sea was too rough the carpenter swam through the surf and planted the Dutch flag in North Bay. Tasman then claimed formal possession of the land on 3 December 1642. It was a warm up for the bounty that was to come. Our explorer headed due north, deciding to brave a strong gale that would have deterred a lesser captain.

On the 4th of December land was sighted by Tasman. As a small party strode to shore the officers gathered in the captains office, they decided to name the new land Janszoon, after the former admiral of the Dutch Defence fleet and discoverer of a land called Nueva Guinea, (actually Janszoon). A warm sunset greeted the men in the ship, as the Dutch flag fluttered over their new claim (the landing was near Bega bay) Tasman legendarily uttered "A new land for a New nation, May the Dutch people flourish here, as they do everywhere !".


Able Bay, the first landing site on Janszoon
A history of Janszoon and its people. 1996

The expedition continued to leapfrog up the eastern coast of Janszoon, it landed no more than 14 times, cataloguing and claiming bay after bay, until sailing west to Batavia, with news of the momentous discovery.

The discovered land was hot and fertile, though no expeditions ever ventured a kilometre from the coast. The new lands also hosted people, a dark skinned race who were hostile to Able's men, though it was quickly realised a few shots of cannon would disperse them rather fast. They named them Beachniesians, as they thought they had discovered the hallowed continent of Beach.

this was to be the first sign of the trauma that the Dutch would inflict of the Beachniesians in the centuries to follow. - The history of Pacific peoples 1946

During the rest of the 1640's and the first two years of the 1650's the rest of Janszoon's coast was mapped and catalogued by Tasman and his navigator François Visscher, they also noted the good geography and clime of the eastern part of the continent as being similar to that of the New Netherlands. The council of the Indies claimed all of this land, and the central government of the Netherlands soon received word of this vast new continent. And with reasonable confidence that perfidious Albion was too preoccupied with he French and Spanish in the new world to care about the Indies, began to draw up plans for a larger scale expedition. As no westerner had ventured more than 5 kilometres inland.

Tasman's voyages had set in motion something far grader than even he could have imagined.

i would love someone to design a flag for the Dutch east Indian company's new discovery.

Feedback rants and comments would be rad.

A Murky Sunrise.

1652-1662

Java 1654

Light exploded through Batavia, shimmering out across the sea, the shimmering canals that ran through the city cast aesthetically pleasing patters on the walls of otherwise dull and imposing buildings, the most powerful city east of India, that's what they called it. As governor Van Diemen rose from his long sleep, he looked out into the harbour, looked at the tall, sweeping sails of his fleet, his mighty brave fleet that was about to embark on a dangerous and ambitious mission to a new land, His land. The VOC was the most powerful force in the region, and it was the VOC fleet that was leading the expedition. Its purpose was twofold:

To probe the interior of Janszoon, to discover potentially rich Aztec like civilisations for easy plunder.

To establish a small trading post at Abel Bay, for the purpose of re-enforcing the companies position on Janszoon and acting as a staging post for any future operations on the continent. (this was ordered by the government of the Netherlands proper, as about 400 political prisoners were send on ships, amongst unlucky slaves from Java and Formosa.


Antonio Van Diemen driving force behind the Diemen voyage that settled the first Dutch in Australia. - The Dutch people. 2013

The fleet was vast, 26 VOC ships and 18 ships from Dutch government. carrying:
1073 sailors and soldiers (some brought their families, they are included in this total)
400 Indentured servants, and their guards (from all around the Empire, (VOC and United provinces))
1274 Dutch citizens

The fleet also carrier firearms, ammo, thousands of wheat seeds and tonnes of processed wheat and live cows, chicken and pigs.The fleet departed from Batavia on the 29th of September 1654.

The fleet moored in Abel bay 3 weeks later, and began to unload their quarry of materials and humans onto the calm sandy beach. Although there were far better natural harbours around the coast Abel bay allowed easy access to Van Deimens land and eastern Janszoon, This is what was needed at the time.

As the troops set off inland (they walked to Wagga Wagga and gave up after finding no sign of civilisation, 'not even any coin or swords' remarked one soldier ) the colonists began to set up a small settlement a few kilometres inland, at a confluence of two rivers, and a port with a road connecting the two, slaves and prisoners build the settlement whilst the colonists got to work planting fields and building pens for their livestock. After five moths of work the town of Abel was set up and declared part of the VOC's newest creation, a joint venture with the Dutch government called the Pacific settlement company, The government ships would ship men and material as far as Cape colony, then VOC ships would make the rest of the trip, with all exports going first through the VOC, and anything undesirable being shipped to Ceylon to be picked up by the Government ships or traded with the Indians.


The first flag of the Pacific Settlement company and the De-facto flag of Janszoon in 1658. - Maps and flags of the empires. 2014

As 1662 Began the colonists had been on Janszoon for 8 years, their existence was self sustaining and ships occasionally came past the colony to pick up anything interesting the locals had produced and sometimes to drop 30 or 40 VOC prisoners off (prisoners after serving their term could buy land cheaply from the PSC), the Abel's population now stood at 1853 souls, though this was about to change dramatically. Because news had just filtered back tot he Netherlands through rumour and word of mouth, the the Deiman expedition had discovered something even more significant than a great civilisation.

Though the establishment of the Abel settlement was one of the greatest pieces of history generated by the Deiman expedition, it was not THE greatest. For a soldier, when walking dissapointedly back from Wagga Wagga saw a glint in the dusty soil, he reached down and out of the ground he pulled a small nugget of gold.

A map

Here is the Oranje outpost in 1662, it is the only settlement in Janszoon. the green areas are land that is owned privately and used for farming or livestock. The outpost has 1853 people living and working there (including slaves), this number doesn't include the 200 soldiers and 324 prisoners who occupy the area around the port.


A History of the Dutch. 1931
(town was renamed to Oranje in 1791, this map was a result of a misprint, the printers were sued by the authors)

little nitpick, the concept of belgian at that time didn't exist yet.

furthermore, it was rather unusual for the UP to ship prisoners to the indies (and if there were political prisoners, these were usually high ranking/upper class and small in numbers)


and i truly doubt if at this time a town would be called oranje, in the UP 1650-1672 was the first stadholderless era, so the oranjes are not in power.

wietze said:

little nitpick, the concept of belgian at that time didn't exist yet.

furthermore, it was rather unusual for the UP to ship prisoners to the indies (and if there were political prisoners, these were usually high ranking/upper class and small in numbers)


and i truly doubt if at this time a town would be called orange, in the UP 1650-1672 was the first stadholderless era, so the oranjes are not in power.

Click to expand...

Ahh thanks for the info, would it just be Flemish and Walloon then ? I will make all the necessary amendments. I will talk more about the prisoners next update, there are prisoners from all around the Dutch empire, regardless of ethnicity, the only difference is when a white convict does his time he gets set free, when an Asian gets set free he becomes a slave to a white family, more next update !.

the whole shipping of prisoners to the colonies was rather unusual (probably because it wasn't profitable), so maybe if they were local prisoners from the indies (maybe mutineers, or some other rabble) and a lower number,indentured slavery in the netherlands was not practiced. the relation VOC and slavery is rather peculiar, as they actually had reinstated all roman laws with regards to slaves (which means the same level of legal protection too).
the whole thing was closer to slavery in the roman empire, than the chattel slavery found in the americas. the slaves found in the indies in general were servants and such, only in one area slaves were used for production (the bandas).
there is one group you are forgetting in the numbers, the soldiers.
i would suggest remove the '400 prisoners' and replace that with 400 soldiers.
(as an indication 60-70% of the VOC personnel in the east were soldiers)
to compare things, a returnship like the batavia would carry 341 people, of this 100 were soldiers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batavia_(ship)

A gentle breeze

1662-1672

Janszoon, a hot morass of uninhabitable desert, impenetrable jungles and uncrossable mountains and parched valleys. Only fools would visit and only lunatics would try to make a life there, yet they still go, go in search of a new life or go like moths to a candle, in search of gold. - Governor of the PSC William Jonckneer. 1663.

As a result of the Diemen expedition the VOC had founded a small settlement on the coast of the continent called Abel. This was the only European outpost on the continent, it was a very low key operation to establish a presence. The PSC was not interested in having a presence in the region, they wanted control. The PSC council met at their headquarters in Batavia, to discuss the situation. The meeting was chaired by the president of the company William Jonckneer, it went as follows. The year was 1663.

Gentlemen, we have something here, imagine the new Netherlands without the pesky natives, French and those ghastly Englishmen to deal with. [heads nodded around the table, and the gentlemen began to murmur, they were quickly silenced by their superiors powerful voice] This situation is good, but will not last if we don't act, to use this area we need time, the beachies will not be able to threaten us [some heads shook, there was still a belief amongst some older council members that there was a beachie kingdom inland.] The main problems are the other nations of Europe; England and France. They will know of Janszoon from spies in our organisation and by word of mouth. We need to seal off the east coast, as that is the only area we are capable of doing anything useful economic wise with. I propose this, we draft settlers from the UP and found two new outposts, on on the northern tip on Janszoon to guard the Dutch strait, and one at the great bay halfway down the east coast, as it will be a great place to moor up a fleet if need be. I also propose publicising the fact that gold has been discovered abroad, in the HRE and Sweden, as their people seem so keen to leave to the new Netherlands, we should entice them east. Any counter suggestions, no ? then gentlemen, lets proceed.



William Jonckneer, PSC President and Artist credited with the first painting painted in Janszoon Artists of the colonial Era. 2013

Orders were dispatched and expeditions were made to determine the exact sites of the two settlements. The Dutch Strait settlement was to be called New Zeelandia, and the Great bay settlement was to be called Fort Union. The former was founded on December 24th 1665 and the latter was founded on January 1st 1666. each was founded by a party of troops and soldiers to man a garrison and explore the surroundings, and around 450 settlers. over the coming 5 years both settlements grew to have populations of over 1000 by the year 1772.

The real grower was the town of Abel, Abel's population at the beginning of 1662 was 1853, by, 1666 this was 2112, but because of the recruitment efforts of the PSC in Europe this had grown in to over 4000 people living and working around Abel bay, in Abel itself, or in one of the several smaller towns that had sprung up around it.

This brings the European population up to 6512 souls in 1672. The next decade the united provinces would be at war, and young price named Oranje would immortalise his own name.

Society

Authors note. This section will get bigger and bigger once the continent gains more people

The colonial Society is dominated by landowners, who buy grants of fertile land from the PSC and employ families from the small towns. the richest landowners held several slaves each. The farms provided all of the food the colony needed, to sustain its people and garrisons, each outpost had a governor who was appointed by the PSC. Abel is the largest town, with over 2000 inhabitants, so some commerce occurs in the forms of shops selling clothes and bags for people going on gold expeditions north. The explorers and gold hopefuls would go on long treks for many weeks, carrying their supplies with them, or using donkeys [introduced in 1668], some men found riches in the hills, and their storeys only encouraged more trekkies, to head to Janszoon in search of riches.

Prisoners are held overnight, and are sent to work in farms during the day, they are treated far better than slaves if they are white, but if they are coloured they can expect random beatings at the hands of their guards and farmers who oversee their work. at this time the population is 10% African and Asian, and 7% slaves.

thanks for the advice wietze, its been a great help.

The state of Eastern Janszoon in 1672.

Deiman. A new Start. And a brief Interlude

They knew what they were doing and they knew how to do it. the Explosion of the Deiman colony created the first functional colony in the south pacific, an provided an axis from which all future PSC operations could be based. - The colonization of the pacific. 2001

A bold move, offering people from Europe a new start, an escape from the massive war that raged around them, any sensible man would have left, and leave they did, 20,000 souls, ragged and tired, made it to Deiman's coasts in 20 years. They genius was the company encouraged this, and while the population of the Janszoon outposts increased during the turmoil, it was nothing like the boom that occurred on one small island.
Companies of Trade. 1901


Deiman 1672-1692

The Deiman boom turned the south pacific into a home for the Dutch people, a state was created, hammered out of the earth, on the small and neglected island. The colony was created by the company for two reasons-

An outpost could be destroyed by a navy or even a single ship, but a whole colony could produce its own ships and men to defend itself with, the location of Deiman meant it was easy to defend and allowed control of the Deiman straights.

The colony would create demand and allow an economy to start up in the south pacific. the people could send food and supplies to the smaller outposts, and the presence of a large population base means more outposts can be founded.


The legitimacy of the new colony (whose settlement is shown in the below map, was cemented when the PSC moved their HQ to the town of Neiuw Hoorn. A great tragedy occurred in 1674 when William Jockneer's ship was wrecked off the coast of eastern Deiman, killing him and all of the crew/settlers.



Authors note: this is just a brief interlude from the main story to keep the creative juices flowing. I love feedback so please lave some comments.

Really interesting timeline and a great map of Deiman, I'm looking forward to seeing where you take this.

I do have to ask where New Zeelandia is actually located on Cape York and if Deiman will be part of or seperate from the colonies of Janszoon?

I will be posting detailed outpost locations in the next update (tonight or tomorrow). and I think it may have and isle of man - UK style relationship with the main colonies.

Traders farmers and gold

1672-1682

The year 1672 is known in the Netherlands as the "Disaster Year" (Rampjaar). England declared war on the Republic, (the Third Anglo-Dutch War), followed by France, Munster and Cologne, which had all signed alliances against the Republic. France, Cologne and Munster invaded the Republic. a new stadtholder, William III, was also appointed.

Though the war didn't directly effect the PSC its indirect effects were huge, to repel the French invaders Dykes were broken across the Netherlands, destroying farmland and villages. The new stadtholder talked to the PSC chairman in Amsterdam about using the island of Deiman to Re-home the 'destitute masses' causing the Deiman boom discussed in the last update. The war created far more Refugee's than the companies settlements in Deiman could sustain though.

They could be roughly divided into 3 classes. (this is to mainland Janszoon, Deiman is classed separately at this point)

French protestants. Who have been expelled as they share the same religion as the Dutch.Most are going to a town called Port Louisa near where OTL Perth is, the own is developing a thriving Dutch/French Hybrid culture. Numbers -3100 over the time period.

Dutch peoples displaced by combat. . Many of them poor farmers and their families, but some artisans and clergymen made the journey as well. They founded several new forts and expanded the existing 3, founding several satellite towns. They are the most numerous group to come to Janszoon in this time. numbering -7050 over the ten years.

Old soldiers who were being paid with land parcels in the new world, as they revived the right to take a few people as servants from Batavia and the Indies they are the richest group f people on Janszoon, owning land when they arrived they can spend their money on labourers. They began to form a soldier aristocrat/frontier with military experience, the first major Beachie displacements began at this point. they number. 2450 (this doubles when including servants and workers brought along)

The development of Abel Bay and Union (the fort was dropped, sounded too nasty) into reasonable towns led to them forming councils to govern themselves, the names of the regions these councils governed (with PSC approval of course) were called (predictably) Union and Abel. These were the first two political units that were on Janszoon proper, and their establishment is still celebrated on federation day 100's of years later.



Society

The Society of Janszoon took a great leap with the founding of the two regional councils, this helped to tie together a bunch of disparate individuals into one semi functional unit, exporting gold and some grain to Batavia and stone to Deiman. Some inhabitants have started to refer to the Deiman colonists as dijklanders, claiming they have had it easy, their preferential treatments have lead to anger amougst the inhabitants of Janszoon, causing a few bar fights in Union and Abel bay.

Brief Update, Slow growth and the Deiman colony sucking in immigrants.

OCD date correction update.

1682-1700

A long and quite eventful period in Janszoonian history. The defining feature of this time is the formalisation of the Raad system of governance. its pretty complicated but I'll give it a go.

The PSC claims all of continental Janszoon. this claim is not disputed and cannot be disputed, as no other nation has the capabilities to challenge the PSC's parent company, the VOC.

Administering a continent is expensive, incredibly expensive in fact, and necessity is the mother of invention a system was developed to combat the rising costs of colonisation. This was the beginning of the Raad system, (council system). which allowed the peoples of an area to buy their land from the PSC, and administer it themselves. This was a very appealing option for merchants and landowners, who were both taxed heavily by the PSC. Each Raad consisted of an upper house of hereditary peers, these would be the descendants of the people who originally chipped in to buy the land. And a lower house, which was elected by the wealthy merchants and clergy and landowners who didn't contribute enough for a seat in the upper house.

The first two Raads were proclaimed at the towns of Abel and Union in 1682. these two were followed by Zeelandia in 1685 and Contrapondia in 1690, though this split in two following ethnic differences in 1692. The Newest Raad is Nieuw Rotterdam, which was declared in 1696. the Raad's can buy land from the PSC, though it costs twice as much as the original land purchase. This discourages Raads from growing too much and encourages the foundation of new Raad's. The newest Raad is called Zuiderzee, it will declare its existence on the 1st of January 1701.

The Raads are able to trade with the PSC who are entrenched on the densely populated island of Tasmania. where they operate out of the town of Nicas. And they export grain and other non tropical crops to Batavia. A shipbuilding company has also just started in Union, who sell their boats to the PSC and VOC.

Below is a map of Janszoon in 1700.