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The Forum > Article Comments > Australia v Australie: a photo finish > Comments

Australia v Australie: a photo finish : Comments

By Bob Ryan, published 25/1/2013

How close did Australia come to being a French rather than English possession?

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Interesting little exercise but it is rendered completely pointless by the fact La Perouse disappeared off the face of the Earth. No one in France would have known he even visited Botany Bay if the British weren't there. As an aside though it is thought by some historians that the French started hostilities with the Aborigines and fired muskets at them, killing and injuring some. As a retaliation the Aborigines later killed a convict, Peter Burn, who was the first casualty of occupation. When the French left the Aborigines destroyed a burial site for a Frenchman who died while they were camped in Botany Bay. It would seem the Aborigines got a bad impression of white people from the French.
Posted by minotaur, Tuesday, 29 January 2013 9:12:09 AM
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How would Phillip have obtained information of La Perouse's presence
at Manilla on his arrival at the Cape ?
La Perouse would have to be in Manilla for a long time for a Spanish
ship to have reached the Cape.
However Spanish ships went east to Panama from the Philippines and
transshipped their cargoes there.
At some point they may have started using the route via the Cape.

La Perouse could not have founded a colony as he was not equipped for
such a project and did not have the personal to leave behind.
Posted by Bazz, Tuesday, 29 January 2013 1:21:24 PM
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Well, whether it was the English, French, Spanish, Portuguese or Dutch, it was the end game for Aboriginal Australia.

Australia Day is seen by many as Invasion Day. Rightly so. The English are complicit in one of the nastiest invasions and eliminations of an existing culture in the history of humanity.

But if they hadn’t done it, one of the other European powers would have, in much the same way… wouldn’t they?

An interesting thing to ponder is whether the French or any other European colonising power would have been more or less ruthless with the Aborigines, and with the natural environment, as they sought to expand agriculture and mining and grow their population, and how these factors might have led to a better or worse Australia in the 21st century.
Posted by Ludwig, Tuesday, 29 January 2013 9:36:33 PM
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