Australia as a Sugar Planting Colony in the 17th Century

[darthfanta]

Indeed, immediately preceding the quote you cite the author lists cargoes routinely carried to Europe: 'On return trips to Europe, British ships carried cargo such as alum, tea, silver, China roots, and Japanese copper, as well as various kinds of silk, including damask, gelong and red and white brocade.'
the next sentence says 'among these asian goods, taiwanese sugar was in great demand in England and Iran' without having listed sugar as one of the goods int he first place, which is a clunky bit of writing. Just because a historian asserts something is sought after, that doesnt mean they shouldn't be demonstrating that in their material.
The following section deals with a ship that plied that route, and it notes it carried 'copper, gold and silver off the island'.

I dont dispute they may well have shipped sugar, but the source is very unclear on it and doesnt list it among the main cargoes even when mentioning it is sought after. There's no evidence in the source that there's widespread shipment, though of course they may well have been. Im not trying to argue for arguments sake, jsut to see how much we can extrapolate from this source as it stands, I hope thats clear!

Regardless, shipping sugar from taiwan to England is still an order of magnitude different to shipping it from Australia to Spain, which, lets bear in mind, is the point of this thread.

More sources.

Southeast Asian Exports Since the 14th Century

Southeast Asia, like other non-Western areas, has often been seen as economically static and self-sufficient until the arrival of late 19th century capitalism, for no better reason than lack of evidence to the contrary. This volume seeks to lay a basis for more solid analysis of the pre-colonial...

books.google.com.au

Sugar was exported to Europe not just from Taiwan but from the Dutch East Indies as well.The point is that if the VOC found it profitable to ship sugar from the Pacific to Europe, then enough of it must have been unspoiled.I see no reason why it’s any different to ship sugar from Queensland to Europe either.The Major problem I have come across is that it will most likely face cheaper competition in the form of Brazil and the Caribbeans.It’s a bit different to what the OP asked,but if there’s any European power that’s gonna colonize Australia in the 17th century,it’s most likely gonna be the Dutch. I’d presume that they’d have no problem storing all their sugar from Australia in Java before shipping them in bulk to Europe.

As different sources indicate however, the European powers need not ship the sugar to Europe to make it profitable. They can ship it to other locations like the Middle East and Japan to trade for other goods.

 

[FairlyUninformedGraduate]

I definitley think that shipping sugar between Australia and Japan/the middle east is the way to go for this. Turning one high value commodity into other high value commodities that dont have the risk of perishing (copper, gold, etc) and then shipping that to Europe. A sort of trade triangle without hte hideous slavery arm (though that depends how they are stocking their plantations).

 

[Polish Eagle]

I definitley think that shipping sugar between Australia and Japan/the middle east is the way to go for this. Turning one high value commodity into other high value commodities that dont have the risk of perishing (copper, gold, etc) and then shipping that to Europe. A sort of trade triangle without hte hideous slavery arm (though that depends how they are stocking their plantations).

I don’t think there’s any way to avoid slavery in a sugar plantation economy. The source of the slaves is more questionable—they could as easily be Polynesians or Filipinos or indentured Chinese as Africans, at least at first (until malaria and yellow fever become endemic).

Since sugar was already grown in India, the Middle East, and China and Taiwan, is there a strong market for exporting Australian sugar to those areas? I suppose economies of scale might make it cheaper to produce, given slaves.

 

[darthfanta]

I don’t think there’s any way to avoid slavery in a sugar plantation economy. The source of the slaves is more questionable—they could as easily be Polynesians or Filipinos or indentured Chinese as Africans, at least at first (until malaria and yellow fever become endemic).

Since sugar was already grown in India, the Middle East, and China and Taiwan, is there a strong market for exporting Australian sugar to those areas? I suppose economies of scale might make it cheaper to produce, given slaves.

From the looks of it,the supply of sugar in India and the Middle East isn’t enough to satisfy local demand.

 

[FairlyUninformedGraduate]

Polynesia is very remote though I know Easter Island was raided for slaves . I think we agree the Australian sugar plantation concept is pretty unlikely, but is just about possible if: a) it's the Dutch b) it involves selling sugar to Japan India and the middle East to get other valuables to ship to Europe c) it involves a local slave trade?

 

[Jürgen]

Honestly what about letting a late comer like the Ostend Company be the one doing it? The main problem with Australian sugar plant ages is that there’s better alternatives elsewhere. But most of those was in the hands of the English, French, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese by the 18th century. So the solution could be to go with a new comer like Ostend Company or minor players with trouble in expanding like the Danes or Swedes.

 

[Arkenfolm]

New Guinea is right next door as a potential source of labour, in addition to the obvious solution of transporting Asian indentured labour (if it's Spain, it'll be Filipinos and probably Mexicans and some Africans). Also, the East Australian Current and the Clipper Route should allow for relatively quick transportation to Chile or beyond to Argentina or Europe, or they could go north instead back to the Philippines and Mexico (via the Manila Galleon Route). Spain using the Clipper Route would be interesting. They'd come in contact with a lot of different Aboriginal groups as well as the Maori (early Musket Wars?) and I could see the Spanish setting up missions like they did on the fringe of their empire in places like the Southwest and Florida/Georgia. I think you'd also see early attempts at settling Tierra del Fuego as supply stops for their ships too.

But it's hard to avoid that it's very remote from other Spanish colonies (unless major investment is made) and would likely be seized by the Dutch (or otherwise abandoned).

 

[galanx]

Yeah, Melanesia rather than Polynesia, at least at first. There was a fair bit of 'blackbirding' going on. (I picked tomatoes in northern Australia years ago. The farm owners were Kanak ex-workers who had bought the farm from the white Australians who had originally owned it. The pickers were mostly Swedes and Dutch backpackers; it was funny to watch all the very black farmers riding tractors, checking off lists and generally supervising the very white pickers working at stoop labor in the rows.)