More aborigines in Australia

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.

Have to agree with you mostly. However, if there were more Aboriginals and if somehow they were at least semi-agricultural wouldn't there still be an incentive for white settlement, ie cheap agricultural labour (OTL Sth Africa Zimbabwe, etc).
 
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?

You really need to specify how this condition came about. Food crops, etc.

I could see the possibility of a Chinese or Indonesian seed culture there.
 
There is no way Australia's Aboriginal population could reach 20 million. Britain's didn't get past 6.5 million until the 1700s and they had the benefit of large array of domesticated animals and plants as well as the most effective technology in the world at the time. If the Aboriginals, with a farmed crop, got to the Mayan level they'd be kicking arse. That would perhaps get 3-4 million people in Australia, most of them SE of the WW2 Brisbane line.

However if they did get to the level of the Maya or Aztecs I think there would be more contact with the outside world since Ausrtalia's SE isn't as isolated as Mexico and Peru. This could perhaps lead to greater tolerance of disease, so the American model of depopulation wouldn't occur.
 
If Australia is part of Dutch East India, There would be more aborigines in Australia, maybe 80% are aborigines and 18% are whites.

Actually, if all of Australia (particularly the fertile eastern coast) was permanently incorporated in the Dutch East Indies, then we'd propably see a lot of Javan, Malay, Chinese and even (subcontinental) Indian settlers.

Due to the fact that there are not nearly as much Dutch as British, the numbers of Dutch settlers would indeed be smaller than the number of British settlers.

However, as soon as plantations and mining becomes important and lots of manpower is needed to run the mines and plantations, then its very likely that there'll be an influx of contract labourers etc. from east Asia, along with some Dutch and other Western European settlers.

And one of the more likely outcomes of that scenario would be that this Dutch Australia becomes another Suriname; a country that is dominated by large minorities like the Chinese, Javans and Indians.

It is possible that there will also be a large and politically significant Dutch/European minority due to the different circumstances and climate in Australia (Tasmania and southeast Australia are a lot more attractive to European settlers than Suriname is).

But the Aboriginals will almost inevitably end up as a small and politically insignificant native minority.

In such a scenario, we propably wouldn't see any attempts to assimilate the Aboriginals like in OTL Australia, but they'd still be a small and marginalized minority, just like the Amerindians in Suriname.
 
If Australia became part of Dutch East Indies, Australia could have significant Javan, Malay, Indian settlers aside from aborigines but you must remember that there would be more aborigines in Australia if Dutch East Indies is the colonizer than the British in OTL.
 
Joseph, putting aside that the point of this thread is that there are way more Aboriginies in Australia at the time of the 1st European colony than IOTL for the moment.

Do you think that if the Dutch colonised Australia, presumably during the later 1600s, that the Aboriginal population wouldn't decline from about 1,000,000 to about 75,000 in in the first 150 years? If so why do you think this?
 
Joseph, putting aside that the point of this thread is that there are way more Aboriginies in Australia at the time of the 1st European colony than IOTL for the moment.

Do you think that if the Dutch colonised Australia, presumably during the later 1600s, that the Aboriginal population wouldn't decline from about 1,000,000 to about 75,000 in in the first 150 years? If so why do you think this?

Yes, there would be more aborigines in Australia if Dutch is the coloniser because Dutch are only few than the British.

And if Dutch colonise Australia, Aborigines would not decline to 75,000 but it would decline to 500,000 aborigines.
 
Yes, there would be more aborigines in Australia if Dutch is the coloniser because Dutch are only few than the British.

And if Dutch colonise Australia, Aborigines would not decline to 75,000 but it would decline to 500,000 aborigines.

And why is that ? And I don't understand your first point as well. The Dutch can BREED too, y'know ?
 
Then I don't think it'd make much difference between english and Dutch, you would have had the same numbers succumbing to disease.
 
If the Dutch did the colonising perhaps the spread of disease would be a bit slower, and/or travel in different ways. But I'd think that after 150 years you'd still get close to 90% die-off.

One aspect of a Dutch, and thus presumably earlier colonisation, would be that much of Australia's development would happen long before the industrial revolution. I think the result of this would less environmental impact of colonisation simply because the Dutch could do in the 1700s what the Brits did in the 1800s with their steam-powered machinery.
 
A bit of minor thread necromancy here, but hey, I've been away.

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

Yes, that book is essential reading, even if the guy did steal my name. But a word of caution is in order. Diamond is very good on the broader picture of how geography and ecology affects technological development. However, he is often wrong in some of the details. For instance, he is quite simply incorrect about Australia having no domesticable crops apart from the macadamia nut. There's actually a reasonable selection, and we would probably know about even more crops if so much of the accumulated Aboriginal knowledge hadn't been lost with European colonisation.

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

I'm skeptical about that figure. Even with the drought, Australia as a continent has enough water to sustain its population. There's just two problems with our current . Most of the rain is up in the north, where most of the people aren't. And European-style farming practices are ruining Australian soils to the point where it's going to be impossible to farm anything much at all due to things like salinity and topsoil erosion. It's possible - although by no means certain - that better farming practices would be sustainable. (Things like more use of perennials, for instance, and better dryland agricultural techniques rather than trying to run cattle.)

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.

I suspect that the British would colonise the continent, but it would be a different style of colonisation. At first it would be flag-planting and protectorates rather than treating the whole place as terra nullius. Of course, once diseases anti-decimate [1] the population, then some land-hungry colonists will probably start pushing in anyway.

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.

Guilty as charged, y'honour. Although to nitpick, the PoD of that thread was that a domesticable crop evolved in Australia, rather than being introduced.

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.

Yup. The diseases always going to be the big problem. And it's not something which can be avoided with an easy PoD.

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.

Or more probably a series of treaties with different groupings; Australia is rather bigger than NZ, after all. I'd also note that in the short term, the Maori didn't benefit all that much from the Treaty of Waitangi; they were still largely overrun through weight of numbers with the provisions of the treaty usually being disregarded on the ground. (Although they certainly put up a good fight along the way.)

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.

To be honest, I think that we can water more than 25 million. Australia has up until now treated water as essentially free, with no real attempts to conserve water. There are a number of simple steps which can reduce water loss both from irrigation and urban areas to a significant degree. (Rainwater tanks and water recycling for cities; and less leaky water transport systems for irrigation, for instance.)

Have to agree with you mostly. However, if there were more Aboriginals and if somehow they were at least semi-agricultural wouldn't there still be an incentive for white settlement, ie cheap agricultural labour (OTL Sth Africa Zimbabwe, etc).

In the early stages, it would probably be more about pushing the *Aboriginals away from the prime areas, I suspect. Not least because the large majority of them would die anyway, so trying to use them for cheap agricultural labour would be difficult.

There is no way Australia's Aboriginal population could reach 20 million. Britain's didn't get past 6.5 million until the 1700s and they had the benefit of large array of domesticated animals and plants as well as the most effective technology in the world at the time.

20 million may be a stretch, particularly without domesticated animals and a greater variety of plants, but I wouldn't hold Britain up as having the most effective agriculture to support a large population. Britain didn't even like to use the most high-yielding crops available at the time potatoes, maize, rice all yielded higher than wheat, which was the preferred British crop for large-scale agriculture. (At least amongst the landowners.)

If the Aboriginals, with a farmed crop, got to the Mayan level they'd be kicking arse. That would perhaps get 3-4 million people in Australia, most of them SE of the WW2 Brisbane line.

However if they did get to the level of the Maya or Aztecs I think there would be more contact with the outside world since Ausrtalia's SE isn't as isolated as Mexico and Peru. This could perhaps lead to greater tolerance of disease, so the American model of depopulation wouldn't occur.

I doubt that a Mayan or Aztec level of technology is going to make contact with other agricultural societies on their own. The navigation tech is a bit lacking.

How big a factor was disease in the fall of the aboriginal population?

The biggest single factor. A large percentage of the population wiped out directly, and the survivors were disrupted and often demoralised. The birth rate tended to drop to almost zero for a while, for instance.

And on a more general note, I've figured out a way to expand on my "red yam" idea and create an *Australia which has a population of 5-8 million at the time of first contact with Europeans (Dutch) in the early seventeenth century. Watch this space...

[1] Note for pedants: "decimate" literally means "kill one in ten." Given that estimates of the die-off of indigenous peoples range up to 90%, "anti-decimate" seems like a reasonable way of saying "leaves one in ten alive."
 
Other cultures could make contact with Australia rather than the other way around. If these hypothetical farming Aboriginals get to Maya levels or so of technology that could easily include Inca, Maccasar or Polynesian type sailing craft. At the very least such Australians could make contact with PNG if not SEA.
 
Jared, I am glad to see you are reinvigorating your original thread, it was a really interesting exercise. I look forward to seeing what new ideas you have come with.

As far as this thread is concerned however, Australia (New South Wales) started as a penal settlement and remained one until 1823 not a colony of settlers. The first free settlers did not arrive until 1793 and even then only in very small numbers. Why would the British sail to the other side of the world to attempt to colonize a place that has this ATL level of technology and this population size? How could they possibly occupy and hold the land?

Indeed, why would any European state attempt colonization or succeed in conquest? The logistics of this attempt would be insurmountable. Trade and the establishment of trading outposts as happened in OTL China may have eventuated but not occupation or colonization. Even the establishment of an Australian version of the Raj would be unlikely since it was achieved in India only by good luck and the motivation of great wealth. Australia simply would not have any strategic use since it is not astride any trade routes nor would it be a potential danger to European interests in Asia or the Pacific.
 
That said however, an advanced Australian civilisation wouldn't wait until 1770 to have the SE coast mapped by Europeans. I'd think the Europeans would hear rumours of such a civilisation throughout the 16thC during their exploration of Asia and have a real go at finding it in the 17thC.
 
Other cultures could make contact with Australia rather than the other way around. If these hypothetical farming Aboriginals get to Maya levels or so of technology that could easily include Inca, Maccasar or Polynesian type sailing craft. At the very least such Australians could make contact with PNG if not SEA.

Making contact with PNG may not actually be that easy, depending on how far south the farming cultures are. A farming society in the north of Australia based on tropical crops would almost inevitably make contact with PNG (and probably other places). If the societies are using subtropical crops and based in the more southerly regions of Australia, though, they may remain relatively isolated.

As far as this thread is concerned however, Australia (New South Wales) started as a penal settlement and remained one until 1823 not a colony of settlers. The first free settlers did not arrive until 1793 and even then only in very small numbers. Why would the British sail to the other side of the world to attempt to colonize a place that has this ATL level of technology and this population size? How could they possibly occupy and hold the land?

The same way a few hundred conquistadors were enough to conquer any society they chose in the Americas. Disease wipes out a large majority of the population, and the technological edge is enough to let the Europeans win any battle they fight. The result is that the Europeans move in and take what they want. With an agricultural society, there are going to be more indigenous survivors - Mesoamerica rather than North America, by way of example - and descendants of the indigenous inhabitants may even form a majority of the population. But the upper classes will be European for a long while.

Indeed, why would any European state attempt colonization or succeed in conquest? The logistics of this attempt would be insurmountable. Trade and the establishment of trading outposts as happened in OTL China may have eventuated but not occupation or colonization. Even the establishment of an Australian version of the Raj would be unlikely since it was achieved in India only by good luck and the motivation of great wealth. Australia simply would not have any strategic use since it is not astride any trade routes nor would it be a potential danger to European interests in Asia or the Pacific.

Motivation is the key to which European nations would conquer*Australia, not logistics. (A few hundred men could do it, really.) Trading outposts may well be the first option, particularly if it's the Dutch who are doing the exploration. But given the penchant which European nations had for conquering any part of the world that they could reach during the nineteenth century, I think that some form of conquest is inevitable. The difference is that with an agricultural society, the *Aboriginal peoples are likely to retain a majority of the population.

That said however, an advanced Australian civilisation wouldn't wait until 1770 to have the SE coast mapped by Europeans. I'd think the Europeans would hear rumours of such a civilisation throughout the 16thC during their exploration of Asia and have a real go at finding it in the 17thC.

Yup. The Dutch would find them, if no-one else.
 
I read once, and I'll be buggered if I can find it now, that one of Francis Drake's tasks was to look for the southern continent of 'Beach' when he circumnavigated the world in 1572. So the suspiscion was there a good 200 years before Cooky and 30 before the Dyfluken.
 
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