The problem is, in french slang, it became a nickname for 'drunkard'...
they're layabout who can't walk straight who kick you when they get pissed off so.......
The problem is, in french slang, it became a nickname for 'drunkard'...
The first thing to realise is that the Dutch probably wouldn't be big enough to be able to colonize all of Australia exclusively. That is why I like the idea of a Dutch Western Australia. The settable area is just small enough for one good Dutch colony, without completely overstretching itself, which would certainly happen if all of Australia would be Dutch. Another thing about Western Australia is that it is close to the Dutch traderoute, which also would make it a relatively useful place for a colony. Eastern Australia is really out of the way of everything.
A Dutch Australian colony would probably need to be a settlement colony. I don't think that it could be turned into a sugar colony or something like that. So certainly at first it would mainly be a "white" colony, but after it started to develop more I could see more imigrants from Asia. Actualy I could even see Northern Australia become part of Indonesia itself.
So looking at your comparison to African colonization, what we probably would have today is an Australia made of several nation states is that right? I'd guess though that eventually all of them would have come together under one united government.
Northern Australia had enough of a value to ensure that any passing colonizer in Indonesia would pick it up. The rest can be largely unsettled.
Exactly. Southwest Australia (e.g. Perth) and most of the East Coast, they're worth settling (maybe growing wheat for your Indonesia colonies, say), but Northern Australia?I'm not sure that it did. Northern Australia is pretty desolate and devoid of immediately visible resources. It's basically harsher terrain than most of the Eastt Indies and so isn't really going to be too attractive- why go for Northern Australia when you can try and make inroads in Java or the Moluccas instead?
Why? Because its there. It's land and you want to stake your claim so another country does not.I'm not sure that it did. Northern Australia is pretty desolate and devoid of immediately visible resources. It's basically harsher terrain than most of the Eastt Indies and so isn't really going to be too attractive- why go for Northern Australia when you can try and make inroads in Java or the Moluccas instead?
I'm not sure that it did. Northern Australia is pretty desolate and devoid of immediately visible resources. It's basically harsher terrain than most of the Eastt Indies and so isn't really going to be too attractive- why go for Northern Australia when you can try and make inroads in Java or the Moluccas instead?
Why? Because its there. It's land and you want to stake your claim so another country does not.
Its also pretty unsuitable for any of the Indonesian agricultural packages in terms of soils and weather, there wasn't anything valuable and no way to maintain a population there, so the Indonesian polities not being idiots, ignored it.
Interestingly the Deccan crop package being suite to arid summers and monsoon winters might well have been more suited to Northern Australia than the tropical monsoon Indonesian crop package. Take a bit of a stretch for the Deccan powers to reach that far though. Perhaps a Chola or Chera empire which has expanded to at least partially control the Deccan but even thats a bit of a long shot.
How would West Australian Boers spread?
How would West Australian Boers spread?