Alternate Australia

What if Australia had been colonized not only br British but also by Dutch, Portuguese, French, German and Spanish? What would be the scenario? Colonies would be:

British: New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory
Dutch: Northern Territory
Portuguese: Western Australia
French: Victoria and Tasmania
Spanish: Queensland
German: South Australia
 
What if Australia had been colonized not only br British but also by Dutch, Portuguese, French, German and Spanish? What would be the scenario? Colonies would be:

British: New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory
Dutch: Northern Territory
Portuguese: Western Australia
French: Victoria and Tasmania
Spanish: Queensland
German: South Australia

what a crappy country, seriously, the aboriginals would be in 100 times deeper shit if the dutch got their hands on them. although they might have done alright in the french and portugese territories
 
what a crappy country, seriously, the aboriginals would be in 100 times deeper shit if the dutch got their hands on them. although they might have done alright in the french and portugese territories

I don´t know which one would be best, it depends really on when and how many arrive. If say Portugal would have claimed it, that might be good given there´d be fewer colonizers.
 

Riain

Banned
The states as we know them will not exist, much like North America Australia will be colonised along geogaphical/date of discovery lines. Whoever gets the Murray-Darling basin will be able to dominate any other countries established on the rest of the continent.
 
The states as we know them will not exist, much like North America Australia will be colonised along geogaphical/date of discovery lines. Whoever gets the Murray-Darling basin will be able to dominate any other countries established on the rest of the continent.

no daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah
 
This is a very interesting topic and one I was thinking about just a while ago.

I remember reading an article about what Australia would be like if it had all been colonised by the French. It was said that Aust would be a unitary state rather than a federal system like it is now. OTL UK is a unitary state, but Anglo political culture was more open to a decentralised structure whereas 19th century Napoleonic France was far more centralised.

Also there would be major differences in indigenous policy. The French Republican ideal has always been in favour of universalistic nationalism rather race. There would be less racism in a French Aust early on but there would also be no land rights in the late 20th century (the French political system has traditonally not recognised race as a legitimate category to base public policy on, and this would presumably be the case in this ATL).
 

Riain

Banned
Well that means that the Portuguese would dominate the country since they discovered the SE in 1527. The Dutch would get the vast majority of the rest which they mapped between 1616 and 1644. The Spanish would get the tip of Qld after Torres' jaunt and the British would get everything west of the Great Dividing Range thanks to Cooky, unless the French can do the sneako and establish a colony.
 
I think that a lot of these colonies will end up being abandoned; it costs a lot of money to run a place that isn't able to export anything of real value. You’ll probably just end up with one or two countries on the continent and the rest being absorbed later on.
 
I think that a lot of these colonies will end up being abandoned; it costs a lot of money to run a place that isn't able to export anything of real value. You’ll probably just end up with one or two countries on the continent and the rest being absorbed later on.


Exactly what I was thinking. Australia was not a very valuable place. It's not like Africa, where some profit could be made from trade. At this point Spain isn't really interested in colonization any more, and the smaller nations' colonies would get annexed during the first war involving that country.
 
what a crappy country, seriously, the aboriginals would be in 100 times deeper shit if the dutch got their hands on them.

Care to explain exactly why the Aboriginals would be so much worse off under us Dutch?

Due to the smaller numbers of Dutch, there'd be far fewer Dutch settlers, and in this scenario, the Dutch only acquire Northern Territories, which is not exactly the most interesting part of Australia.

If Northern Territories would have become a Dutch colony, then it would have become a sparsely populated backwater - which might even be good (as in; less bad) for the local Aboriginals.
 
I figure that Tasmania has more of a British climate and the rest of Australia would be more suitable for France, Savoy, Spain (Sicilian colonists?), Portugal, Venice (in payment for some Spanish or Portuguese debt?), etc.
As soon as someone brings over those Spanish marinos, the quest for an export is settled.
 
Australia is too barren to support that many countries, TBH. It's likely to end up with the Portuguese colony in Western Australia centered around the SW and the French or British in the SE, depending on who wins. Northern Territory and South Australia are probably a net loss as colonies; too far away for too little gain.
 
Well that means that the Portuguese would dominate the country since they discovered the SE in 1527. The Dutch would get the vast majority of the rest which they mapped between 1616 and 1644. The Spanish would get the tip of Qld after Torres' jaunt and the British would get everything west of the Great Dividing Range thanks to Cooky, unless the French can do the sneako and establish a colony.

What if the gold reserve in Victoria is more plenty than in OTL and the colonizer in Victoria area is Portuguese, Would Portugal bring their citizens to Victoria area since the gold reserve is more plenty or the Portuguese bring East Asians to Victoria?
 
Care to explain exactly why the Aboriginals would be so much worse off under us Dutch?

Due to the smaller numbers of Dutch, there'd be far fewer Dutch settlers, and in this scenario, the Dutch only acquire Northern Territories, which is not exactly the most interesting part of Australia.

If Northern Territories would have become a Dutch colony, then it would have become a sparsely populated backwater - which might even be good (as in; less bad) for the local Aboriginals.

Perhaps he thinks about Afrikaners, and apartheid, although Suriname (which is the spelling in vogue at the moment) also wasn't that pleasant to be in for natives, or Africans for that matter.

ould Australia grow out to some kind of second Europe, with the continent split up into several? Ofcourse, noone wants to live in the desert (apart from the aboriginals, which is good for them), so you might end up with a Greenland situation (only the coast matters).
 
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