Abel Tasman did discover good land in Australia

In 1642 ordered the Gouvernor General of Batavia, ANthiny van Diemen, Abel Tasman to set up an expedition to find the misterous ''South land''.
Earlier there were accidentaly discoveries of what later is known as the North side an West side of this '' South land''.
Tasman had order to charter and discover the coast of New Guinee and other islands of the''Southland'' his map maker was Francois Vissher who plot the journey.
This first jouney ended in BAtavia in 1643 and was very succesful, howevre the maps Tasman showed to Van Diemen reavealed lots of un know earea's so a second expedition was organized.
Van Diemen had three missions;
-Find out if New Guinee is an island or part is of Australia
-Find out if Van Diemensland ( Tasmanie) is part of Australia or an island
this mean after the first mission Tasman had to follow the Eastcoast of Australia.
-If these misions were not posible due to bad weather he have to charter the North coast of Australia.
In OTL Abel Tasman chose the easist mission and even that he screwed up. There are not know explanations why he chose the last mision while according to his journal there was no reason not to go ahead with the primary missions.
What is he did go for his primary mission, he discovers the passage between New Gunee and his small expedition fleet get traped behind the Great barrier reef forced to follow the East coast and discover green habital land only inhabited by a few stone age nomads.
Would the VOC the Dutch East India Company showed intersed or when the news of a distand new land trigger people from the Netherlands, even if it was to dumb pitty criminals and beggars like the English did almos 150 years later?
Abel Tasman's voyages;
red 1st expedition
orange 2nd expedition OTL
green 2nd expedition ATL

Unless they found something that could make money for them (spices, sugar, fur, people to trade with, etc) I don't think the Dutch would realy care. They already have places to settle, the New Netherlands and South Africa. Maybe if they would find gold or something, but I don't think there is much the Dutch care for.

There could of course apear a small settlement of religious outcasts and adventurers or something like that that would grow into a large enough settlement later on. This could even convince the British to keep out of part of Australia, because they consider it within the Dutch sphere of influence. Of course if the French revolution isn't butterflied away the British would occupie it, but if it is ouside the British sphere of interrest (if the British have no colonies in Australia or on the other side of Australia or if the Dutch colony is on new Zealand or Tasmania) they would probably return it. But I

Since even on the East coast of Australia were not much valuable crops growing or the aboriginals had nothing of interest to trade, expect them self as slave maybe. The VOC had a small slave trade. I do not expect much enthiousiam of this trading company. In South Africa the VOC did not encouraged setlement either.
Let asume later at the end of the 17th century VOC mentality changed regarding this new South land, when crops as sugar cane was introduced or other plantations as thee or coffee ( do not know if it can grow in Australia) was started.
The small slave station at Oester Baai ( OTL Sidney) grew to a small city surrounded by sugar plantations. The mainpopulation were free burghers, VOC administrators, contract workers ( convicts from the Netherlands) and slaves ( Aboriginals, Asians and Africans).
Around 1710 a second setlement was established more South ,called Simonshaven ( OTL Melborne) after his founde Simon Janszoon. Not hindered by restrictions and the monopoly of the VOC this setlement grew very fast and atracted considerable colonist from the Netherlands especialy when the economy got in decline and the political tensions in the Republic grew, later in the 18th century.

I was going to suggest a religious colony, but by this time the fire has gone out of most well-to-do religious extremists, or they've already established their own New Zion (thinking of the English Puritans).

If this land is found though I could see the English trying to start up a colony on the far side of the world, even it is was strategically useless if you say "riches of the East" enough eventually you'll be able to have a go for a colony (it worked later on, when the British settled Australia with convicts).

Or maybe the French. When was the French East Indies Company established? Perhaps a French East Indies colony, done for the same vague, yet strangely compelling strategic reasons that the English eventually settle in Australia.

The Dutch are always an option. Two thing that Australia does have over the East Indies is that there isn't malaria everywhere, and the natives are a push-over. Farming colony, or perhaps settled just so no one else can? Maybe Tasman mismeasures some stuff, and the good bits of Australia seem way close to the East Indies then they really are?

I guess you could have a port of call somewhere on the southwest coast, although the only good deep harbour before human intervention is at Albany, as the port at Fremantle needed to be dynamited before it was accessible to large-scale shipping. Anyway, a port of call for ships on their way to the East Indies is a possibility, as the Roaring Forties blows ships right into the western coast of Australia, as illustrated perfectly with the wreck of the Batavia in 1629, which is a most fascinating tale itself.

Besides that, as Matthais Corvinus indicated, it may be a good place for religious extremists to go to, although there is the problem of crops and farming. Farming in Australia is completely different to that of Europe, the seasons are all backwards, often the soil is very poor, etc. For instance, when the First Fleet landed at Botany Bay they nearly starved due to a lack of understanding about how to farm in Australia, and Governor Philip had to send a ship to Batavia [Jakarta] for supplies. Quite a distance.

Also with a port at Albany you could have a whaling industry set up, which would be about the only way that such a colony could survive. Although there are the Jarrah and Karri trees in the South West of Western Australia. IOTL they were exported around the world to be used for railway sleepers, shipbuilding and wharves. Jarrah is also termite resistant.

Therefore, you could have this little port on the south west of New Holland that is a stopping point on the way to the East Indies and one that exports wonderful wood for shipbuilding, along with whale related products.

As for the eastern states...eh, I'm not from there, so what do I know?

Lets see.
You could grow sugar in Queensland (they did IOTL, and it is still a major industry today), but Sydney is to far south, to 'temperate' (and I use the term loosely) But then again Queensland may be too far away and out of the loop for sugar production to be profitable in the 17th Century. Then there is the question of gold, which will come up eventually. All of the gold is inland, hardly easily accessible by the earliest explorers. To the best of my knowledge the local Aboriginal people did not have any knowledge of the gold, so there would be no natives pointing the way for explorers. If it is found, then it may cause a gold rush, or it may just fall into the hands of the local powers who use slave labour to mine it for them. That may cause a rush of settlers. Or not, who knows. I’m not familiar with the reactions to the discoveries of gold deposits in this time.

There isn’t that much gold anywhere near the coast in Western Australia. Rather the opposite in fact, as the gold in WA is located almost in the middle of the vast state, which happens to be mostly desert.

Just a few thoughts.

What I'd like to see is the Dutch discovering the Adeliade to Vic-NSW border coast before 1650, and then a Mediteranean power colonising it purely as a land grab for them. That way we could start with Med farming and have people settle up the Murray river basin.

Riain said:

What I'd like to see is the Dutch discovering the Adeliade to Vic-NSW border coast before 1650, and then a Mediteranean power colonising it purely as a land grab for them. That way we could start with Med farming and have people settle up the Murray river basin.

Click to expand...

The question is why a Mediterranean power colonise parts of Australia in the 17th Century.
1) The New World is a far better prosepect for either settlers or making money. It was far closer and had plantations and gold/silver mines. Australia had nothing that would attract such a large scale settlement, except MAYBE the scenario I described in my previous post.

2) Which 'Med power' would do the colonising? Venice? The Ottoman Empire? Spain (if it counts) ? The problem with the first two is getting out of the Mediterranean Sea, which Spain controls. The second problem is why they woudl colonise. "Purely as a land grab", the colonisation for prestige purposes is very much a 19th Century way of thinking, when states could waste money owning a thousand miles of jungle or a handful of pacific islands before someone else could get them. Colonisation in the 17th Century is for profit, or to prevent someone else getting all the good land, or to fight Spain better. If a colony fails, it dies. Look at early colonisation in America for example.

3) Mediterranean farming. Farming in Australia is very different to that of the Mediterranean. Some parts of Australia do have a Mediterranean-ish climate, including my current location of Perth, but the soil and native plants and animals are completly different. If the First Fleet almost died at the end of the 18th century, how would 17th Century colonies be able to survive in a style you are describing?