More aborigines in Australia

What is the story of Australian history if aborigines in Australia are 20 million in 1788 when Europeans arrived in Australia and aborigines have an advanced civilization.

Would Australia be a mixed race country instead of white country in OTL?

Would Australia be a 3rd world country instead of 1st world country in OTL?

Joseph Solis in Australia said:

What is the story of Australian history if aborigines in Australia are 20 million in 1788 when Europeans arrived in Australia and aborigines have an advanced civilization.

Would Australia be a mixed race country instead of white country in OTL?

Would Australia be a 3rd world country instead of 1st world country in OTL?

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Well, how is the big question?

Not even the slow march to agriculture can give that many.

And of course, in the Americas, disease and war wiped out so many that the natives are still just a trickle. But with more Aborigines, expect more wars.

HueyLong said:

And of course, in the Americas, disease and war wiped out so many that the natives are still just a trickle. But with more Aborigines, expect more wars.

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Depends on what part of the Americas you're talking about... South of the United States, indigenous ancestry is still a huge part of the population. Mestizos are a major percentage of the population in most New World countries. In some countries, like Bolivia, Guatemala, Peru, Mexico, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Greenland, indigenous peoples who have retained their ancient cultures are still a large demographic factor.

pa_dutch said:

Depends on what part of the Americas you're talking about... South of the United States, indigenous ancestry is still a huge part of the population. Mestizos are a major percentage of the population in most New World countries. In some countries, like Bolivia, Guatemala, Peru, Mexico, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Greenland, indigenous peoples who have retained their ancient cultures are still a large demographic factor.

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But this is English colonization. In a fairly favorable temperate climate.

My guess is that if there were a significant number of indigenous Australians at settlement there would be a very different racial policy towards them than OTL.

As a rule, Australia's policies towards indigenous have been of the assimilationist racism sort (stolen children, forced assimilation etc). I think that with more of them it would be considered that they were un-assimilatable so they would be more of segragationist racism (apartheid, Deep South of the US, etc).

I can't give you figures, but there was a sizable pre-European aboriginal population of Australia, much more than what most people think. They mostly lived in the temperate, wetter areas of the East Coast, not the deserts where a lot of people normally associate their way of life with. It's just that lots of them got wiped out by disease etc., and the survivors were usually the most isolated ones, in areas Europeans couldn't settle.


For a POD, perhaps settlement of the East Coast by East Asian or Polynesians?
Of course they would have to get there somehow, and I cannot think of a plausible reason why they would choose to go to Eastern Australia and settle.

This would also make the native Australians (predominantly) not aboriginal.

Alternatly you could have agriculture and metal tools traded with East Asian peoples and spread south-east into the more fertile parts of Australia. Domestic animals and subsequently disease may also follow, resulting in a larger aboriginal population, and one better suited to deal with (ie survive) the European settlers.

The result of such a native population?
Well, I think that the European settlers would still see the aboriginals as very primitive. Their contempt towards them may be lesser if they see they have more advanced tools than OTL and perhaps a greater population. But only marginally.

A larger number of Aboriginals would survive into the 20th and 21st century, would they be more a political force? Perhaps, maybe following the example of the Maori people in New Zealand, and demanding a return of their old lands and reperations etc.

Even an Australian Aboriginal Treaty of Waitangi?

Guns, Germs and Steel. Go consult the bible of societal population growth factors please.

There would have to a lot to get the Aboriginal population up that high. New foods, better climate, Muslim immgration?, and a lot of other things would have to converge...

It'd probably be something like South Africa (i.e. British colonisation with a large native population). You'd have some sort of Apartheid/Segregation, with whites on top and aborigines on the bottom.

Nicksplace27 said:

Guns, Germs and Steel. Go consult the bible of societal population growth factors please.

There would have to a lot to get the Aboriginal population up that high. New foods, better climate, Muslim immgration?, and a lot of other things would have to converge...

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Muslim immigration wouldn't help the Aboriginals much - Islam did not become the dominant religion in Indonesia until about the 15th century (less than two centuries before the Europeans begin to develop a presence in the region), and it would be pretty hard to get enough Muslim immigrants in Australia before the 15th century...

Now, if we could get, say, the Javanese, to establish a few settlements in easern Australia during around 500 AD or so...

Isn't Australia low on water? Someone said the continent can only support 9 million people now at present levels of water consumption.

Would the British even bother to colonize it if the place had large numbers of indigenous people? Of all the places the British Empire colonized, Australia was pretty low on the priority list.

tallwingedgoat said:

Isn't Australia low on water? Someone said the continent can only support 9 million people now at present levels of water consumption.

Would the British even bother to colonize it if the place had large numbers of indigenous people? Of all the places the British Empire colonized, Australia was pretty low on the priority list.

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Yeah, but they also colonized America. Most of their original colonies and plans backfired and the place also had tons of natives, as well as being across an ocean that was (from all the reports I've read) difficult in perfect conditions to cross at first. If you combine the mentality of expansionist European powers (in this case Britain) + guns + germs, you merely have a larger number of natives to kill off and (officially or not) enslave. Hey, if Columbus could do it and get away with it, then these guys can.

There was a thread a while ago called something like 'Red Yam', where a single farmable crop was introduced into Australia millenia ago and was used by the Aboriginies. When combined with improved wetlands like in Condah, Victoria (which even without a farmable crop had high population densities around imoroved swamps) many areas would have sizable popluations living much like people in the Americas prior to Columbus. Of course they would have similar problems with disease that the Americans had.

I doubt the doctrine of terra nullius would be promulgated when the locals lived in villages, farming yams and eels/fish and fighting to maintain their lands. Perhaps a treaty of Waitangi would ensue.

What if Australia would have 25 million whites in 1900, 112 after 1788 and aborigines are 20 million people without persecution of aborigines by the whites, without stolen generation, without White Australia Policy. Who would dominate Australia in 21st century isn't the whites or the aborigines.

IOTL Australians were not threatened by a large number of aborigines. If White settlers were a minority, most likely something along South Africa's apartheid system would emerge.

Again, could Australia sustain 45 million people with their water problem? It's over populated now as is. If there are 20 million aborigines and they dont die off in large numbers from diseases and genocidal policies, then it's unlikely 25 million Whites would move to Australia as there would not be as much arable land left to settle.

Even if Australia would have 45 million people, Australia is still not overpopulated and Australia should reach 500 million people to consider Australia as a overpopulated.

I don't think we can water more than 25 million or so, and even then we'll need to make some serious changes to our water use. I'm strongly against modifying rivers for farming, every time they've tried it the results have been bad, but they keep suggesting it.

Joseph Solis in Australia said:

Would Australia be a mixed race country instead of white country in OTL?

Would Australia be a 3rd world country instead of 1st world country in OTL?

Click to expand...

No and no.

Why you may ask.

The British would do the same thing in Australia they did in North America. 20 million natives lived in what is now the United States. The British started a trend with the first wave of settlers. Kill them off. The United States kept this up after indepence. One word genocide.

In fact you should know that Australian natives were wiped out in much the same way that their Asiatic counterparts were in the Americas. If you weren't white you weren't human. Sad, sick, and true.

NomadicSky said:

No and no.

Why you may ask.

The British would do the same thing in Australia they did in North America. 20 million natives lived in what is now the United States. The British started a trend with the first wave of settlers. Kill them off. The United States kept this up after indepence. One word genocide.

In fact you should know that Australian natives were wiped out in much the same way that their Asiatic counterparts were in the Americas. If you weren't white you weren't human. Sad, sick, and true.

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Too true.
I imagine they'd have killed them off with even less thought, as they'd be darker...

NomadicSky said:

No and no.

Why you may ask.

The British would do the same thing in Australia they did in North America. 20 million natives lived in what is now the United States. The British started a trend with the first wave of settlers. Kill them off. The United States kept this up after indepence. One word genocide.

In fact you should know that Australian natives were wiped out in much the same way that their Asiatic counterparts were in the Americas. If you weren't white you weren't human. Sad, sick, and true.

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Crap If that was true Southen Africa and India would have European majority today, the only place the Europeans settled in large enough group to become a majority, where places populated by hunter-gatherer and where the west majority died of disease when Europeans arrived (even there they usual didn't end up as a majority). Australia would be neither if it had twenty millions people it would a overpopulated diseased-filled hellhole by European stardards, where only a small group of European adminstrators and soldiers would live. It also quite likely that it would be part of Dutch East India, instead of part of the British empire.

If Australia is part of Dutch East India, There would be more aborigines in Australia, maybe 80% are aborigines and 18% are whites.