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You obviously didn't open your eyes in your travels. There are abandoned homesteads and small farming townships all over Australia. Even your own evidence puts climate first ahead of hostile aborigines - and this was for a single attempt, not a pattern of settlement.

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How about the maps of actual farm usage? Compared to the evidence you thought was relevant - the prime example being a single letter from the 1800's containing the uninformed opinion of a single observer, the second example being a modified map that deliberately excluded the key information, this puts me miles ahead of you in the evidence game, and that only took me a few minutes.

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Again Falah, you have the evidence, but turn rational itnerpretation on its head. Suitability for agriculture should be judged by the success of agriculture. Attempts that turned into failures indicate that it is not suitable for agriculture, especially when you own evidence lists climate as the main cause for a specific example. This is a consistent pattern over the NT that is not confined to the areas you attribute to aboriginal hostility.

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Falah, how is this any more of an informed opinion than your incredibly naive use of the colour on google earth as an indicator of suitability for european farming methods?

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Falah, this entire continent is full of examples of land that appeared rich and fertile in it's virgin state but turned out to be very poor in practice. Rather than having genuinely fertile soils, what little nutrients were present were locked up in the existing vegetation and was quickly depleted by farming. Jared Diamond gives a few examples in his book 'Collapse', but it is a common theme in Australian agriculture and even fisheries.

Were you unaware of this, or are you being deliberately deceptive by using uninformed pre-agriculutural assessments above the wealth of evidence and experience from actual attempts at farming this land?

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Why is it more 'pertinent'? Where did the Maccassans tend to come ashore in the Broome area? Given that you only have two examples to go by, surely you should make as much use as possible of what little evidence you have in attempting to assign cause and effect, rather than tossing half of it aside?

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Was this also a result of hostile aborigines?

freediver wrote on Jun 5^th, 2012 at 7:54pm:



I have found abandoned homesteads in various parts of Australia.

However, unlike Arnhem Land, none of them was abandoned due to an inability to exterminate Aborigines. In fact, in the places I have found abandoned homesteads, the Aboriginal populations have been removed from the land.

My research into these homesteads' collapse has shown that the cause was due to the homesteads being in regions with too little rain, or being too small.

There were also many farms that went out of business in the mid 20^th century due to a series of events such as the severe drought across most of Australia from 1918-1920, rising Australian currency in the mid 1920's s due to Britain devaluing their own pound, and subsequent commodity price crashes in Britain in the late 1920's and 1930's, drought across Eastern Australia from 1937-1947, and then Australia's main export market, Britain, joining the Common Market - many small and marginal farms never recovered from these events.

These events do not apply to the settlement of Arnhem Land in the 19^th century and beginning of the 20^th century.



freediver wrote on Jun 5^th, 2012 at 7:54pm:



Freeliar did you even bother to read all the evidence I provided?

Journals of British explorers saying how rich and fertile Arnhem Land was, and how suitable it would be for cattle grazing.

Matthew Flinders said he had never sen an area so close the equator that so suited to cattle grazing as he found in Arnhem Land.

There are similar reports from other exploratory expeditions sent by the British government and also by private individuals.

The scores of attempts by Europeans to settle in Arnhem Land - which were all attacked by the Indigenous inhabitants - demonstrate that people interested in farming felt that Anrhem Land was indeed suitable for farming.

The fact is that Aborigines putting up a fight was at least a substantial factor in the failure of every attempt to settle Arnhem Land.



freediver wrote on Jun 5^th, 2012 at 7:54pm:


According to your logic the entire continent of Australia should be deemed unsuitable for farming because the Japanese failed to implement their farming techniques here in the 1940's.


freediver wrote on Jun 5^th, 2012 at 7:54pm:

No, failed attempts in fertile land demonstrate successful self-defence of Indigenous Australians.



freediver wrote on Jun 5^th, 2012 at 7:54pm:


Freeliar, that is nonsense. If climate was a factor then why are there farms in the Kimberley region and Darwin area. According to your climate excuse there should be no European farms anywhere in northern Australia.

Every attempt to settle Arnhem Land met resistance from Indigenous Australians - every attempt - and there were dozens.

All the early British explorers found Arnhem Land to be good fertile land, but all were attacked- Matthew Flinders, John Lort Stokes, and Philip Parker recorded very similar experiences in Arnhem Land.

The British government and British entrepreneurs  considered Arnhem Land fertile enough to warrant significant investment and dozens of attempts at settlements, all were attacked by Indigenous Australians.


freediver wrote on Jun 5^th, 2012 at 7:54pm:


Freeliar, every part of the Northern Territory that is not Aboiginal Land is farmland apart from the swamps  around Darwin.


Have a look at the map which you posted. Even the less suitable area surrounding Darwin is mostly used for grazing!

Darwin is surrounded by swampland!

Arnhem Land is much better quality land, yet look at the map you provided grazing exists in most of the land around Darwin except for the worst swampland.



freediver wrote on Jun 5^th, 2012 at 7:54pm:


I just explained. Macassan influence was strongest in Arnhem Land. If we want to examine the effect of Macassan cultural exchange it would be make sense to look at the area where that exchange was strongest felt. Can your feeble grasp this concept is that to challenging for you?


freediver wrote on Jun 5^th, 2012 at 7:54pm:


Freeliar, Macassan campsites have been identified all over the Kimberley coast, some of the earthernware and firearms are centuries old.

Europeans recorded seeing Macassans across the coast, and Indigenous folklore records there presence.


If you are interested in reading about the identification of historical Macassan sites I suggest you read Professor Campbell Macknight's work on the topic. He is considered an expert on the topic and gave me advice on my thesis.

His book Voyage to Marege is very interesting.
His research is concentrated more on Arnhem Land.



The work of T Burns records numerous finds of Macassan sites on the Western Australian coast. If you are interested you could read  National Survey for the Register of Macassan/Indonesian Earthernware Pottery-shard Collections from the Northern Australian Coast:basis for the study of historical links between Australia and south-east Asia, a report for the Western Australia Heritage Committee, Department of Geology,
University of Western Australia, 1989.

http://books.google.com.au/books/about/National_Survey_for_the_Register_of_Maca....

http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/34410802?q&c=book


French explorer, Frecycinet, recorded seeing 26 Macassan ships on the Kimberley coast in 1802.

Otherwise the work of historian Ian Crawford contains anecdotal evidence and folklore from Indigineous people in the Broome region.



British explorers in this region found Indigenous Australians displaying behaviour that demonstrated an understanding of foreigners such as approaching their ships and wanting to trade. Behaviour unheard of amongst Indigenous people in non-Macassan trade areas.



 

freediver wrote on Jun 5^th, 2012 at 7:54pm:





I suggest you read the work of Dr Ian Crawford. His excllent book, We Won the Victory, explains how the Indigenous people in the area resisted European invasion.

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Falah, can you explain why the plain is treeless?

Also, what do you think is the key difference between a cow and a water buffalo?

falah wrote on Jun 6^th, 2012 at 9:06pm:


I see you missed the point. It's the water. Buffalo can handle it, but cattle farms and swamps don't really mix, especially tropical swamps.

Indigenous folk grazing cattle in Arnhem land Freeliar:

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How many successful water buffalo farms do you know of? How is this any different from your argument that the existence of farms in Indonesia demonstrates the viability of the land for European immigrants? Why would someone go all the way to the frontier to try an experimental farming method of a product for which there is no market?

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Falah, the example you gave previously of the farm from that TV show would have over ten times as many cattle. It supports one family. It is hardly a gold mine for european farmers and would have been even harder in the past. I think it's great that the aborigines are working their way up in the world, but don't read too much into it.

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How many of these came from farmed buffalo?

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Interested? This is 2012 - more than a century after the time you are talking about. More than a century after the evidence you have presented, which largely consists of people talking about the farming potential of this land. And still they are merely talking about it? What does that tell you about the potential profits involved?

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Again Falah, you seem to prefer to go by what people say the land can support rather than what it can actually support. In this case the guy is not even claiming the land could support that many cattle on a long term basis. It is land on the margins of what was settled by immigrants that, as your article explains, happened to temporarily be suitable for large numbers of cattle at a time when there was a glut of cattle on the market. Even so, the guy was only willing to bring cattle in if the government paid for it. What does that tell you about the potential profits involved?