So, I'm calling off my regular French Australian timeline, but I'm thinking of starting a replacement TL with the following premise: The French establish a penal colony in Western Australia around OTL's Perth in the 1820s before the British can. From my research, I've found that the Coastal Plain has very sandy, infertile soil (except for the banks of the Swan River), but that areas further inland is well-suited for wheat growing and livestock raising. So, how might a French colony in Western Australia that began as a penal colony develop? What types of convicts would be sent there, and how many? How many free settlers would settle in Western Australia, and of course what would be the name of this colony? This will be a TL soon, so any help would be greatly appreciated.
Terre Australe: A history of France's Colony in Western Australia
- Thread starter Gabingston
- Start date
ThirdMan2005
Banned
Perhaps the Dutch could have already colonised Cape York and around Darwin and the Gulf of Carpentaria?
Part 1: Come Sail Away
Part 1: Come Sail Away
28 December 1824
Bordeaux
This was an important day in not only the history of the Australian continent, but in the history of the French motherland as well. Six French colonization ships, carrying not just convicts but also clergy, merchants, scientists and normal civilians are about to leave the port of Bordeaux for a long voyage to the other end of the world. About 800 settlers are aboard the ships, as well as dozens of crew members. 3/5ths of the colonists were male, as while efforts had been made to attract females to join the settlers, women weren’t as likely to leave everything behind and come sail away. The settlers celebrated christmas mass, said goodbye to their families, and set an open course for the virgin seas (Styx references galore).
3 March 1825
Southwestern Coast of Australia
After over three months on the high seas, the French fleet arrived at the Swan River, or Rivière des Cygnes as it was known in French. Alas, early in the morning on the Third of March in the Year of our Lord Eighteen Hundred and Twenty Five, the first fleet of French colonists and convicts disembarked on the sandy shore of the Swan River Mouth. Nearly immediately, parties of explorers were sent out to survey the area and see if a more appropriate place for a settlement could be found.
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I always believed that Western Australia would be a far better colony for the Dutch, since that was actualy very close to the Dutch traderoutes towards the DEI. Northern Australia was not that interesting for the Dutch, especialy if the Indonesia was so close (and it took quite awhile for the Dutch to gain all of Indonesia under their control).
Part 2: Setting Up Shop
Part 2: Setting Up Shop
So, there was now no going back. The 800 settlers that left Bordeaux were now down to 785, as fifteen people had perished on the journey, and although 98% had survived, those 98% now faced a new challenge: surviving in this foreign land. The flora and fauna down under looked nothing like they did back in France, and no one knew the terrain. So, as previously mentioned, scouting parties went out from the coastal camp to see what the area around the Rivière des Cygnes. After dragging their boats across the sandbar that blocked large boats from sailing upstream, the river opened up into a large basin resembling a lake, which got the name of Lac des Cygnes (English: Swan Lake). The “lake” narrowed again, with a hill on one side and a piece of land jutting out on the other. The hill was used as a vantage point for getting a better view of the area, and thus the hill took the name of Mont Avantage. Traveling further upstream, a good spot for an agricultural settlement was found, as the soil along the river became fertile enough to grow crops. The settlement was named Saint-Germain after a suburb of Paris. Being at the confluence of the Rivière des Cygnes and another river, which was named the Rivière Saint-Germain after the new settlement. Vineyards were planted along the river, and crops such as vegetables, fruit and potatoes were planted.Meanwhile, back at the coast, the colony of Louisport was getting off of the ground. A simple dock was constructed for fishing (which was the main food source for now), along with simple fortifications and a small church built out of local limestone. Priests that had come along from France learned the local native languages, and negotiated the purchase of land around the Swan River, as long as Aborigines could still hunt, fish and hold ceremonies in the area.
After a bit of time in the area, it was found out that South Western Australia has a Mediterranean climate with hot, dry summers and mild, rainy winters. During the winter, floods weren’t uncommon, such as in 1830, and flood walls were constructed by convicts in Louisport and Saint-Germain. On another note, about 1000 colonists (450 free settlers and 550 convicts) were leaving for Australia per year from 1826-1835 (90-95% surviving the voyage), with transport being paid for and land grants being given for new settlers, and convicts working as indentured labor in construction and farm labor.
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Spoiler Alert: This is what much of Southwestern Australia is going to look like ITTL
Part 3: Looking For Land
With more settlers and convicts (who would do their time as indentured servants) arriving and the limited fertile land around the Swan River, settlers soon started searching for better places to farm. On the one hand, more settlements were founded along the southwestern coast, such as Péronville, Port Orléans, Port Leschenault and Vasse, which was found to have relatively good farmland and grew to become a major grain growing area. Speaking of agriculture, one of the crops that could grow in the sandy coastal soils were grapes, and it just so happened that the French love wine. Wine became the main product in the French colony (name TBD), and was sold en masse to British Australia after the British found out about the French colony on the west coast. We’ll get to that in a future update, though.Meanwhile, expeditions were also being sent across the hills to the east (please suggest a name) in order to find good farmland, following various tributaries of the Cygnes to the other side of the hills. There, they found a large savanna that they found had agricultural potential, especially for the growing of grain, which was needed since not many grains grew in the sandy coastal soil. The first frontier settlement, called Douigie (coming from a native name for the area) was founded in 1837, followed by Beaulieu in 1840.
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How will Franco-Aborigine relations be in Western Australia? On the one hand, the French (at least in North America, probably not in Africa) treated the natives a bit better than the English did (likely due to the small amount of French settlers, in contrast to the massive waves of settlement in the Thirteen Colonies and later Manifest Destiny in the United States), but on the other hand there are so many rich resources in the Outback (gold, iron, uranium, nickel, alumina etc.) that will lead to inevitable land conflicts between French settlers and Aborigines. The question is, on a scale from Maoris in New Zealand (decent enough, but still didn't end well for the Maoris) to King Leopold's Congo (mass enslavement and death), how bad will it be for the Aboriginals in French Australia?
Part 4: Les Anglais
Part 4: Les Anglais
It is the year of our lord 1827, and the British are exploring the west coast of Australia. Led by Captain James Stirling, the Brits are scouting out the area due to rumors that the French have settled in the Swan River. While sailing towards the Swan River mouth, fishing boats were sighted with European-looking men on board. As they sailed closer, the saw basic fortifications and a small dock for boats. It was concluded that this must be a French colony, and thus after establishing that they weren’t there to invade, the British shared pleasantries and returned to inform the Eastern Colonies that the French were colonizing Western Australia. So, with the British aware of France’s colony, the immediate priority became determining the border between the two colonies. The French claimed the border to be the 137th parallel, while the British claimed it to be the 129th parallel, so in the end they split the difference and decided that the border would be the 133rd parallel, almost splitting the continent directly down the middle.With a mandate over the western half of Australia, the French went about expanding their reach throughout the 1840s. The southern coast of Australia began being colonized during the 1840s, with Cap Lionne being founded in 1841, followed by Espérance in 1843 and Quingarling in 1847. These south towns survived on hunting and fishing as their main food sources, while also having large wine growing (they’re French, so that shouldn’t be a surprise) and whaling industries (before petroleum, whale blubber was the main source of oil, used often for lamps). Meanwhile, the coast north of the Riviére des Cygnes was also being settled, with Tricolore being founded in 1849. During the time between 1835 and the end of the 1840s, a steady stream of settlers arrived in Australia, averaging about 1000 a year (including convicts).
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Part 5: Luck of the Irish
It was now 1845, and a survey found the White population of Western Australia (name poll coming) was 25,755, who were 90 plus percent of French origin, the largest amount coming from the Atlantic coast of France. However, the demographics of the colony were about to shift dramatically, due to a catastrophe on a certain emerald island…
During the later half of the 1840s, Europe was hit by a massive failure of potato harvests that crippled crops across the continent. However, the hardest hit region in the potato blight was definitely Ireland. Ireland had become almost completely dependent on potatoes for their food source, as the average Irish peasant had been pushed onto smaller and smaller plots of land, and the only crop that could feed a family in such a condensed space was the potato. Ireland, despite considerable emigration before the famine had seen a population boom before the famine, reaching a population of eight million just before the famine broke out. With a rapidly growing population dependent on one volatile crop, Ireland was a ticking time bomb, and that bomb exploded in 1845.
While the emerald isle had experienced potato blights before, including in the preceding years before the famine, this was a disaster that simply hadn’t been seen before. During the years between 1845 and 1850, over one million Irishmen died and another million emigrated, one of the sharpest population drops in human history, as well as a massive humanitarian tragedy.
In said 1845 survey, four percent of the population, or a total of 1,030 people were of Irish origin, making the Irish the largest foreign ethnic group (of course, 1,030 is by no means a large amount, but it’s still the second largest ethnic group). As soon as the news of the famine reached Western Australia, the small Irish community there lobbied the French government to do something to help the Irish famine victims.
Well, at this point, the Western Australia colony was 3/5ths male, which meant that there were over 5,000 more men than women in the colony. The population was growing at a rate of 2.5%, even though the average woman in the colony had seven children, of which five survived to adulthood (which would be 3.2% annual growth excluding immigration) due to the male-female disparity. As a result, between 1847 and 1855 5,000 Irish women, usually between the ages of 16 and 24 were recruited to move to Western Australia in order to (mostly) solve the gender disparity and to marry single men who couldn’t find a wife in Western Australia. These women, nicknamed the “filles de la famine” or girls of the famine were mostly married within two years of arrival and quickly assimilated to the Francophone West Australian culture, the only difference being their Irish accents. In the same timespan, 9,000 other Irishmen arrived, as well as 14,000 Frenchmen and 2,000 other Europeans, showing the first significant non-French migration to Western Australia.
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I'm gonna be reworking population numbers, as I have a target population for the present day in mind and I don't think that the current numbers could get there.
Part 6: I Wish I Was Better At Coming Up With Titles...
Part 6: I Wish I Was Better At Coming Up With Titles…
It was now 1855, and the 1855 population survey found that the White population of Western Australia was now 74,411. Irish immigration had dropped since the famine, but 1/5th of the population was now of Irish origin, including a growing population of Franco-Gaels (French/Irish mixed). Despite that, Western Australia got a positive reputation as a place to emigrate to, and thus about 15% of European settlers to Western Australia were Irish between 1855 and 1880. Several towns were founded by Irish immigrants, such as Biantry (named for a town in County Cork), Tralie (named for a town in County Kerry) and Clouanmelle (named for a town in County Tipperary), and in these Irish enclaves, the Gaelic language was spoken for decades after the fact.
In other news, what had been fledgling outposts in 1825 were now becoming actual, full-fledged cities in 1855. Louisport now had a population of over 7,000 people, and it now had basic infrastructure such as a full-fledged dock, a small port, a decent sized church and various shops and houses. The first railroad in Western Australia was constructed between 1853 and 1854. Port Leschenault was home to 2,500 people, being the third largest town in the colony after Louisport and Saint-Germain.
Between 1857 and 1860, 12,000 Frenchmen arrived in Western Australia, as well as 4,000 other Europeans (mainly Irish). Between 1860 and 1870, an average of 3,000 settlers arrived annually, with 70% being French, 15% Irish and 15% other. By 1870, the population had grown to 181,725, an increase of over 100,000 in only fifteen years.
twovultures
Donor
I lean towards King Leopold's Congo being the likely outcome sadly, looking at how the French treated the Kanaks of New Caledonia in that region of the world. There are a few potential mitigating factors, though. The need to use Aboriginal trackers to find sandalwood groves when that becomes a thing will force the French in that industry to play nice, just as French trappers had to play nice with the Canadian Natives. Less immigration overall would certainly help the Aborigines, though as you're still working the numbers I don't know if that will be a thing in this timeline. Generally though, the French were never in as much of a hurry to get out of France as the English were to get out of England.
Part 7: In The Tropics
Part 7: In The Tropics
The population of French Australia was over 180,000 by 1870, and basically entirely in the Southwestern corner of the continent. It was now the late 19th century, the golden age of imperialism, so that was bound to change. Fearing eventual Dutch settlement in French-claimed territory (even though the Dutch weren’t that interested in Australia, much less the hot, termite-infested north of the continent), the French went about founding a set of outposts along the Northern coast of Australia. In 1872, the town of Couiniardoux was established at the mouth of the Rivière des Buissons. The river only flows above ground for about 1/3rd of the year, but a large aquifer was found to supply water and grow small amounts of crops in the hot, arid climate.
Meanwhile, along the north coast, home to ungodly heat, an erratic monsoon, sterile soils and giant termite mounds, the French went about founding an outpost in a large bay, giving it the name Gantheaume after a geographic landmark that had been named on an early 19th century French expedition. The French only initially founded Gantheaume in order to secure control, but it was found that the waters around Gantheaume was rich with pearls, which became the main economic foundation of the town. While initially attempting to use local Aborigines as… um… unpaid labor, that quickly failed and the French turned to using indentured servants from Asia, notably from Japan (which had a long history of pearling).
Speaking of Asia, the French presence in Southeast Asia was growing and a new naval base was needed for the French fleet in Asia. The north coast of Australia was chosen as the site, specifically the top end. With the exception of the British settlement of Port Darwin, there was nothing in this ancient and dangerous land (except for ancient Aboriginal paintings and lots of crocs). However, in 1878 that changed, as the French naval base of Port Thiers was established, named for the recently-deceased former president. Not only did this serve as a naval base, but it also served as a port for trade with Asia, and Asians made up a large proportion of the cities’ population.
A new mode of transportation was revolutionized how people traveled, and that is something I am going to talk about soon...