Lands of Red and Gold, Act II
- Thread starter Jared
- Start date
You'd have to ask the ATL author.
Seriously, though, this was one of those things that drew on a variety of inspirations. The Aururian legend of the Undying Prophet was just one big part of the mythos.
Oddly enough, no. The Windmill People have been slow off the mark to get involved in the eastern seaboard of Aururia, due to a combination of early exploration failures, giving too much heed to the other Aururian peoples who viewed the place as a backwater, and focus on places which were known to give excellent profits.
The Flat Land is now changing its views of the eastern coast of the Land of Gold, but in the case of *Yamba, someone else has beaten them to the punch.
Possibly the same people who used to hang around Brazil a lot?
Or will he keep apparently being killed, only to keep popping up again. Like the villain in an 80s Saturday morning cartoon show 
mojojojo
Gone Fishin'
Or will he keep apparently being killed, only to keep popping up again. Like the villain in an 80s Saturday morning cartoon show
Or i wonder if some enterprising "Raw man" might try to impersonate him , to take advantage of his followers.
Fun fact: if the Treaty of Tordesillas and its later counterpart (Zaragoza) is still in effect, then the anti-meridian to the Tordesillas line runs through eastern Australia, down the Gulf of Carpentaria a little west of Cape York Peninsula, and down through Australia from there.
Which means that the Spanish, not the Portuguese, would be entitled to claim eastern Aururia. Whether they are in a position to do so is a harder question to answer, of course, but who knows?
Or will he keep apparently being killed, only to keep popping up again. Like the villain in an 80s Saturday morning cartoon show
Rose the Prophet and fled his hosts by night,
And ever pushed Sir Jonah, league by league,
Past the sun-dying mirror of Glazkul-
Mount of gold overlooking the abyss-
Cast bolts of fire into night-clad ships;
Illumin'd in flick'ring flight e'er unheeded
Far from land of glass skulls and narrow coast
Lost in ever-shifting sand, drifting through
The phantom circle of a moaning sea.
First off, in case I was being too esoteric in my last post, that was a mangled version of Tennyson's Idylls of the King, specifically the final segment on the Passing of Arthur.
There's still a few raw men left alive who may provide some input. But still, what the theology they come up with will probably be about as compatible with common Christian belief as was that of that of the Younger Brother of Christ.
On another note entirely, is there anyone who's reasonably fluent in Maori? I'm trying to work out what a few suitable Maori words would be. If anyone would like to help, could you let me know here or by PM.
There's still a few raw men left alive who may provide some input. But still, what the theology they come up with will probably be about as compatible with common Christian belief as was that of that of the Younger Brother of Christ.
On another note entirely, is there anyone who's reasonably fluent in Maori? I'm trying to work out what a few suitable Maori words would be. If anyone would like to help, could you let me know here or by PM.
The Sandman
Banned
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the ones selling muskets in eastern Aururia are of, perhaps, a more amphibian disposition.
Also, the English are likely to come out of their own conquistadorial disaster in better shape than the Dutch, simply because they can disavow Totney as an utter lunatic and actually mean it.
Also, the English are likely to come out of their own conquistadorial disaster in better shape than the Dutch, simply because they can disavow Totney as an utter lunatic and actually mean it.
A possibility. French commerce with Asia was slow to develop in OTL - in part because the Dutch and Spanish stomped on it when they could - but the additional lure of Aururian gold and spices may motivate them to get more organised sooner than they did historically.
Of course, there are other potential players besides these, too.
That they might. And Daluming being divided in its own civil war could help too - provided the English back the right faction.
You could say that. It was the belief of someone who started the Taiping Rebellion, the bloodiest conflict in human history until the Second World War.
Lands of Red and Gold #83: The Book of Secrets
Lands of Red and Gold #83: The Book of Secrets
This post gives an overview of the Proxy Wars, both summarising those parts of the wars which have been previously described, and giving an overview of what has been happening in other parts of Aururia during this period. It brings the timeline up to 1660, and future updates (except for occasional flashbacks) will focus on what happens from 1660 onwards.
* * *
“They have sacrificed their souls on the Altar of Reason.”
- Francis Boyd
* * *
From: “Flying the Crimson Flag”
By Earle Duke III
5. Identity and Solidarity: The Road to Panollidism in the Third World
The Proxy Wars marked a series of conflicts across the continent of Aururia, with some small involvement elsewhere in the Third World, multiple wars provided some commonality with the involvement, openly or covertly, of other powers using the indigenous powers as proxies for their own undeclared warfare. The majority of the wars involved European powers as the inspiring agents, but this was far from universal, with sometimes indigenous powers employing their own proxies, while sometimes wars that are classed as part of the Proxy Wars were truly struggles where the European powers were used to support indigenous interests.
The Proxy Wars are well-studied as the defining period when European colonialism became entrenched in Aururia. Except where some minor earlier conflicts are classified within the broader schema of the Proxy Wars, they are usually dated as lasting from the initiation of undeclared hostilities between the English East India Company and its Dutch counterpart via the bombardment of English fortifications and vessels at Gurndjit [Portland, Victoria] in 1642, and concluding when England and the Netherlands commenced formal hostilities with the outbreak of the First Anglo-Dutch War...
Traditional nineteenth and early twentieth-century European historiography views these struggles as a result of undeclared wars fought between European colonial powers, principally the Dutch and the English, inciting the indigenous Aururian peoples to fight each other for European aims, that is to say to establish informal (and sometimes formal) European control over their sovereignty, and for control of commercial routes involving both the supply of Aururian commodities to the wider world, and the import of Asian and European goods to the Aururian markets.
However, this historiography was founded in two-fold ignorance. Mainstream European historians, separated by barriers both of language and understanding, focused on European accounts of the warfare, without access to most contemporary Aururian sources regarding the wars, and on the whole disregarding even those few sources which were available in the Old World. Equally significantly, this traditional historiographical analysis neglected the truth that colonialism in Aururia pre-dated European contact, for the Nangu had maintained a colonial presence, both formal and informal, in the continent for two centuries or more prior to European irruption. While the Nangu colonial empire itself collapsed during the Proxy Wars, due to European competition and more meaningfully European diseases, the Nangu successor state of the Nuttana began to develop its own colonial system during the later stages of the Proxy Wars.
Such is the lack of insightfulness of traditional historiography that even the name of the struggle is fraught with dilemma. Proxy Wars is the traditional label, bringing with it the connotations of the wars as a contest where the Europeans used indigenous proxies, leading to all of the misconceptions aforementioned. The Undeclared Wars is a term sometimes advanced as an alternative, but which lacks credibility because in most thought not all cases, the wars between the Aururian states themselves were openly declared; the undeclared nature of the wars refers mainly to the European powers, with the exception that even two Aururian powers found some use for proxies to launch undeclared warfare against peoples with whom they were formally at peace...
Prince Rupert’s War (1645-1650) marked the largest single conflict in the Proxy Wars, and attracted the most attention both in contemporary European accounts of Aururia, and in subsequent historiography, due to what must be called the preponderance of narratives of this war and its aftermath by Europeans who were directly or indirectly involved in the conflict. In part due to reliance on these foreign accounts of the war, the traditional view of Prince Rupert’s War was of a European-influenced struggle using indigenous pawns; however, this is a relic of the colonial era, for contemporary documents from the four Aururian states involved in the war (Tjibarr, Durigal[i.e. the Yadji], Gutjanal and Yigutji) demonstrate that the latest struggle was simply a continuation of their own history of warfare, supplemented by European weapons and auxiliaries where available, but where the primary motivation remained their own indigenous ambitions. Indeed, when considering the policies and actions of Tjibarr during this period, it is difficult to determine whether Prince Rupert’s War should be considered as the Dutch and English using Tjibarr and Durigal as proxies, or Tjibarr using both Dutch and English as proxies to support its own interests...
Engagement of proxies was not confined to European powers seeking hegemony over their desired markets, but remained a tactic recognised and wielded by Aururian powers on their own terms; Tjibarr had a history of using indirect means to counterbalance Durigal’s greater population, and continued to use the same tactics during the Proxy Wars where opportunity permitted, while the Nuttana came late to the colonial push during the Proxy Wars, their predecessors among the Nangu had their own history of wielding indirect influence through economic means, and the Nuttana applied these same tools to build their own sphere of influence.
Colonialism had been a Nangu speciality since they had mastered the craft of blue-water navigation, pursuing profit across the waves via trading outposts, colonial settlements, and economic hegemony, which was a legacy that their Nuttana descendants inherited in full as they pursued their own economic interests within the Third World and beyond. Early in their intercontinental explorations, the Nuttana had established trade with Japan, where jeeree [Aururian lemon tea] demonstrated extreme worth as a trade commodity, a prospect which the Nuttana were swift to take advantage of; Japanese-made muskets and powder were as cherished by Aururians as jeeree was in turn by the Japanese, the Nuttana valuing muskets both for their own defence and as superb trade goods within Aururia to obtain further commodities and to arm their clients against rivals. The founding of the Nuttana had involved a pact with the Kiyungu to supply labourers to the Nuttana trade ports, a trade which grew even during the typhus plague that struck during that era, but the Kiyungu had no immediate fear of warfare and would pay only moderate prices for guns, so the Nuttana instead traded the weapons further south, in fractured Daluming where the kingdom was riven by three-way civil war, foreign incursion and rebelling vassals, choosing the weakest side in the civil war as this would allow them to demand premium prices for the foreign weapons. The northernmost Daluming city, Ngutti [Yamba], was ruled by Prince Nyiragal, the weakest of the contenders for the throne, who eagerly accepted the offered trade in guns for coastally-grown jeeree and other local spices, which in turn the Nuttana shipped back to Japan for increased profits, thus beginning both the jeeree-arms trade which would prove so valuable to the Nuttana, and the first Nuttana use of proxies and economic hegemony. As the Orb War [Daluming civil war] progressed, the Nuttana continued to supply Nyiragal’s faction with arms, allowing the previously weakest contender to extend his influence throughout the Cottee valley [Clarence River], and then develop trade links to the northern Loo Gwanna confederacy in the Northern Pepperlands [New England tablelands / northern tablelands], supplying sweet peppers and other spices for the Nuttana to export, extending that power’s hegemony still further, and demonstrating that the Proxy Wars were not merely a European pastime...
Locked in its endless cycle of warfare with Durigal, Tjibarr used all resources available to weaken its chief rival, even when they were officially at peace, and found proxies witting and unwitting to suit its purposes; Tjibarri engagement with the highlanders of the Southern Pepperlands commenced before Prince Rupert’s War, seeking to use the highland tribes to raid into Durigal and thus divert military efforts from the main frontier, and after the main war ended Tjibarr continued to use proxies to weaken Durigal’s interests wherever it proved feasible, including more highland support, encouraging the Dutch to aid rebels within Durigal’s restive eastern provinces, and sending gifts to Maori chiefs in Aotearoa to ensure that some of their raids fell on Durigal. European irruption did not lead merely to proxy warfare by Tjibarr, for Prince Rupert’s War itself showed the first Aururian awakening of the growing need for solidarity, as Tjibarr, Gutjanal and Yigutji set aside their own ancient feuds to declare alliance against Durigal...
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The Proxy Wars involved many conflicts, mostly linked by a common trend of European influence or arms supply, though not all of the wars involved foreign backing. Later historians would earn many publication credits arguing with each other about which wars should be properly considered part of the Proxy Wars, and about the primary motivations and influence of each of the participants. In so far as there is a coherent list, though, these are the conflicts that formed part of the Proxy Wars:
- The Spanish/Portuguese (Portugal still being joined to Spain) raid on the VOC trading post of Fort Nassau [Fremantle] in 1631. This is the most contentious inclusion of the Proxy Wars, since it is outside of the regular time period, but it is included by some historians.
- The Council War / The Sister War. These are the most common names given to the intermittent warfare fought between the Mutjing city-states of the Seven Sisters [Eyre Peninsula] from approximately 1635 to 1648. The earlier bouts of warfare were also outside the regular time period for the Proxy Wars, but are usually considered as related; the main phase of warfare was from 1643-1648 and ended with the Dutch-backed city-state of Luyandi establishing a council that dominated the peninsula. The Seven Sisters became a formal Dutch protectorate in 1659.
- The Cannon War (1645-1648) between Dutch-backed Tjunini and English-backed Kurnawal in the Cider Isle [Tasmania], with a Kurnawal victory. Followed by the War of the Ear (as it is euphemistically translated) in 1657-1658 between Dutch-backed Tjunini and English- and French-backed Kurnawal.
- Prince Rupert’s War / Bidwadjari’s War / Fever War (1645-1650) between Dutch-backed Tjibarr and English-backed Yadji, with other kingdoms of Gutjanal and Yigutji as Tjibarri allies. The war was broadly a Yadji victory.
- The Dutch-backed uprisings in the Yadji’s eastern provinces, in 1653 involving the Kurnawal (eastern-most people), and in 1656-7 involving both the Kurnawal and Giratji (east-central provinces). Result: revolts quelled.
- The highlander raids on Gutjanal, Yigutji and (particularly) the Yadji from 1644 until approximately 1655, marked by an interlude of Prince Rupert-led invasion of the highlands in 1646-8. The highlanders were in part Tjibarri proxies, although this was never substantiated at the time, and would not be proven until it no longer mattered.
- The Pakanga (Maori) raids on eastern Aururia and the Cider Isle, starting in 1654 and continuing even after the conventional end date for the Proxy Wars. These were mainly indigenously inspired, but Tjibarr motivated raids on Yadji territory, and the French motivated raids on peoples who backed their colonial rivals. The Pakanga raids also struck targets outside Aururia.
- The Daluming [Coffs Harbour and environs] raid by the English in 1648, leading to the Prophet’s regime and subsequent Orb War (civil war). Foreign backers: multiple. Result: a mess (see below).
- The English-provoked wars and rebellions amongst the city-states of the Cumberland Plains / Sydney basin, amongst both Putanjura (southern) and Rrunga (northern/western) peoples. These started following the establishment of an EIC outpost in Port Percy (Port Jackson / Sydney Harbour) in 1646.
- The Blood-Gold Rebellion in 1655-6, by English-backed Atjuntja subjects against both the King of Kings (Atjuntja Emperor) and his Raw Men (Dutch) backers. The result, like any good relationship status, can best be described as “it’s complicated” (see below).
- The Tea-Tree War (1653-7) fought by the Dutch-backed Yerremadra around Hammer Bay (Jervis Bay) to conquer their neighbours and rivals. The VOC initially supported the Yerremadra because they wanted to establish the great bay as a resupply point for voyages along the east coast, but they later sought to develop a trade in “lemon tea” (jeeree) using Hammer Bay as one of their main sources of supply.
- The Nowhere War (approximately 1645-1660), so-called as an English corruption of the indigenous name Nuwwar, a hunter-gatherer people in northern Aururia, in the western half of the Gulf of Carpentaria. This was not a single war, but a series of power struggles and violent clashes amongst societies disrupted by Old World plagues and Portuguese-supplied weapons. The Portuguese established two mission outposts in the region during this period, and in 1655 this had the unfortunate consequence of marking the first introduction of (Old World) influenza to the continent.
This classification omits several smaller conflicts where European-supplied weapons or particularly the death toll from Old World diseases led to localised warfare that was not directly influenced by Europeans, as the plague-ravaged peoples fought over what was left in the wake of the great dying.
* * *
Prince Rupert’s War was fought from 1645 to 1650, divided by a two-year truce for half-time. It was the largest of the Proxy Wars, involving as it did four states which between them contained almost half of the Aururian population. When it ended, though, Tjibarr and the Yadji still had opposing backers who were fighting their own undeclared war. No party to the final peace treaty – Yadji, Tjibarr, Gutjanal, Yigutji, the English East India Company (EIC) or the Dutch East India Company (VOC) – expected the peace treaty to last forever. The question was whether the peace would last as long as the Proxy Wars. In the meantime, there were plenty of other places within Aururia where the Dutch and English could fight each other.
As it happened, the Yadji and the Five Rivers states were too exhausted by the war and plagues to be willing to re-start a major war. So with the conclusion of Prince Rupert’s War, the EIC and VOC reached a tacit understanding that each could not dislodge the other from its primary role as backer of the Yadji and Tjibarr. Both companies still made some efforts to disrupt the other’s influence in outlying parts of their proxy state’s territory: the Dutch supported the rebellions in the Yadji’s eastern provinces, while the English struck at the Dutch opal trading outpost at Dogport [Port Augusta] in nominal Tjibarri territory, as part of the broader tit-for-tat raids on each other’s factories throughout the Orient. But the main focus of the Proxy Wars moved to the eastern seaboard and the Cider Isle, where the two companies sought control of gold and spices.
The eastern seaboard had long grown spices that were not available – or just much harder to grow – in the more populous societies further west. The east coast used many flavours, including a substantial number which were only consumed locally. The main spices which attracted export interest were the leaf spices which Europeans called verbenas, and which another history would call myrtles: lemon, cinnamon, aniseed and curry myrtles. There were also a few aromatic eucalyptus leaf spices, most notably strawberry gum, and two species of sweet peppers which were not grown much elsewhere: purple sweet peppers in the Patjimunra lands (Hunter Valley) and bird-peppers (Dorrigo peppers) in the Daluming highlands.
In the contest for east coast spices, there were three main potential supply sources: the Kiyungu city-states, the kingdom of Daluming, and the Patjimunra. Daluming and the Patjimunra had long been supplying spices to western Aururia, while the more isolated Kiyungu mainly consumed their own production. The English and Dutch interest in the eastern coast was aroused thanks to 1630s voyages of exploration, and so they spent the following decades seeking to control the spice trade.
Daluming was the most populous east coast state, and attracted most of the early interest. The first European contact with Daluming, Baffin’s voyage, led to what could broadly be described as a cultural clash, and an Englishman’s skull interred behind glass in the Mound of Memory. The EIC despatched a further expedition in 1648, whose purpose was two-fold: a punitive raid to avenge the earlier English deaths, and to force access to Daluming spices. This mission was usurped by Thomas Totney, the Captain-General of Jehovah, who established his own short-lived regime in the Daluming capital, Yuragir (Coffs Harbour).
The Daluming monarch had died of typhus shortly before the English expedition arrived. This death combined with the foreign invasion led to a three-way civil war within the kingdom, with each of the three sons of the late king commanding a faction: Aray’marra, the eldest son; Wandana, second son and with the most supporters; and Nyiragal, the youngest son and with fewest supporters. The three factions negotiated a truce of sorts while they evicted the Prophet. They then began their own bloodier civil war, a contest which went on for much longer than any side could have anticipated; the formal peace was in 1654.
During the civil war all three factions received foreign aid at times: Aray’marra from the English and then the Dutch, Wandana from the Dutch and then the English, and Nyiragal from the Nuttana. The two elder princes both changed their backers in pursuit of better deals, as they sought to crush their main rivals, i.e. each other. The youngest prince quickly gave up any prospect of conquering the entire kingdom, focusing on building his own power base in the Highwater valley/ Cottee River [River Clarence] and using Nuttana-supplied muskets to arm his forces and deter his rivals. When Wandana’s forces finally subdued the eldest prince’s armies in 1654, his battered armies were in no condition to defeat Nyiragal, and so the two princes agreed to a five-year truce. For their part, the English were fortunate enough to have been the latest suppliers of weapons to Wandana’s armies, and thus gained access to the Daluming spice trade. This was less of a boon than they had expected, though, for the bloodshed and disruption of the civil war meant that spice production would take years if not decades to recover.
The Patjimunra of the Kuyal Valley (Hunter Valley) were the other main ancient source of spices. Naturally, this meant that the European trading companies sought access to their markets as soon as they first came into contact with the Patjimunra (the English in 1636, the Dutch in 1639). More precisely, both the Dutch and the English sought exclusive access to Patjimunra spices. This proved to be rather more of a problem.
The Patjimunra had a long history of selling spices to anyone who wanted to buy them: imperial merchants and later Five Rivers merchants by land, and Nangu and Maori by sea. They were perfectly willing to sell spices to European traders, too. What they were not willing to do was give preference to any one trading company over another. Unofficial and then official emissaries from both the EIC and VOC met with the Patjimunra monarch, and received the same answer: they could trade with any merchants who were willing to sell, but the king flatly rebuffed any discussion of protectorates, trade treaties, or indeed any documented agreement. As the king is reputed to have said to one particularly persistent Dutch emissary: “We will sell you our spices, as we have always done, and leave the world beyond our borders to the skinless.”
The Patjimunra expressed only limited interest in European weapons, mostly once Daluming raids picked up after 1656, and even then they bought far fewer than the European trading companies wanted. Despite the most determined efforts of European powers – the English, Dutch and eventually the French – the Patjimunra avoided involvement in the Proxy Wars simply by refusing to favour one Raw Men company over another.
The Kiyungu of the Coral Coast (Sunshine Coast/Gold Coast, Queensland) had long been the northernmost agricultural people in Aururia, until the Nuttana migrated north in the 1630s and 1640s. While they grew many spices for their own consumption (with the notable exception of sweet peppers), the long sailing times and poor land-based links to the more populous states meant that they exported very little of their spice production.
The Kiyungu’s first ongoing contact with foreign peoples came from Nangu traders, beginning with Werringi the Bold’s circumnavigation of Aururia in 1629-30, and then with the Nangu trading association that grew to become the Nuttana. The Kiyungu supplied labourers to the northern Nuttana trading posts, and grew to become a supplier of spices for the Nuttana to on-sell to the Dutch in Batavia and the Japanese via the Ryukyus.
With this firm friendship with the Nuttana, the Kiyungu were much less interested in giving Europeans any preferential access to spices. The Dutch and English made several attempts, and did sell a few in exchange for European goods, but had much less success in converting the Kiyungu into proxies. The Kiyungu had little interest in fighting each other, and while they did buy a few guns from both Europeans and Nangu, were not generally inclined to start wars with each other or to give preference for spices. Where there were disputes between Kiyungu city-states, the Nuttana proved adept at defusing them, much as their Nangu predecessors had managed similar feats among the Seven Sisters for so long. The Nuttana retained the best access to the Kiyungu spice markets throughout the Proxy Wars.
Thus, despite the depredations of the Proxy Wars, and a growing trade in spices, two of the three most populous eastern coast peoples who supplied spices did so without surrendering much control to foreign powers. This did not prevent the European powers from employing proxies where they could, or fighting each other directly over access to the trading posts and resupply ports which made the trade possible. Thus the EIC established an outpost at Port Percy (Port Jackson/Sydney Harbour) and set about establishing influence amongst the locals, while the VOC adopted a similar strategy at Hammer Bay (Jervis Bay), together with a few smaller struggles elsewhere on the east coast where the opportunity arose.
The most notable of these opportunities was the first area where the Dutch achieved exclusive control over a source of eastern coast spices. Strangely enough for the era, this was achieved peaceably enough that it did not require a proxy war. The Loomal people of Narranuk (Taree) lived in a fertile river valley, the River Lumbarr (Manning River), with a suitable climate for growing spices. Being less populous than either their neighbours north (Daluming) or south (Patjimunra), and lacking the same easy routes across the mountains, they did not export many spices inland. Still, they grew spices of their own, and had been perennial victims of Daluming head-hunting raids in the past. This gave them an interest in acquiring foreign backers, and the commodities to make foreign trade worthwhile.
The VOC achieved what was for it a rare feat on the eastern coast: diplomatically outmanoeuvring the English. Because the EIC had established more influence over Daluming, the VOC succeeded in negotiating a pact where they supplied arms to the Loomal in exchange for exclusive control of spice exports. The Loomal spice production was not large – even the share that the Dutch could buy from the Patjimunra was larger – but all the same, the VOC welcomed the monopoly.
Besides the struggle for east coast spices, the other main region where the VOC and EIC struggled during the second decade of the Proxy Wars was in the Cider Isle (Tasmania). Here the ancient rivalry between Tjunini of the north coast, and Kurnawal of the east coast, give plenty of opportunity for the rival companies to find proxies. The European trading powers had little interest in the gum cider that had been the island’s most valuable export in recent pre-Houtmanian times, but they had much interest in the gold mined on the Cider Isle. The island’s cooler climate was also well-suited for the common form of sweet peppers (mountain peppers); while those did not have quite the same intensity of flavour as the more northerly varieties, they were still eminently suitable for export to India, Cathay and Europe [1].
The Cider Isle saw two distinct wars during this era. The Cannon War (1645-1648) saw the English-backed Kurnawal reclaim a considerable swathe of territory from the Dutch-backed Tjunini. The Cider Isle suffered a severe death toll during this war, partly from combat but mostly from a typhus plague. Post-war, the Cider Isle’s economy was notably restructured as gum cider production collapsed, while both of the farming societies ramped up sweet pepper production despite the shortage of labourers.
When their economies had stabilised, and when the Kurnawal had found additional foreign support from the Compagnie d’Orient, the War of the Ear (1657-1658) followed. The result was a bloody stalemate; both states had done well in adopting those parts of European military technology which favoured the defensive. As a result, while both sides proclaimed victory (and the Tjunini kept the offending body part), the War of the Ear ended with status quo ante bellum.
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The Blood-Gold Rebellion (also translated as the Red-Gold Rebellion) was an uprising in the Middle Country / Tiayal (the Atjuntja realm) in 1655-1656. The trigger for the revolt was a decision by the King of Kings Manyal Tjaanuc to institute labour drafts for work in the gold mines around Golden Blood / Timwee [Kalgoorlie]. This practice was contrary to established custom, for previously only slaves had been used to mine gold in the harsh desert climate of Golden Blood. The institution of slavery was rare in Aururia, but gold mining in the Middle Country was seen as detestable enough that being sent there was viewed as a deserving punishment.
However, due to the death toll from plagues and rat-induced famine, there was a shortage of suitable criminals to be sent to the mines as slaves, and the demand for gold was ever-growing. Trade with the Dutch meant that an ever-growing amount of bullion was sent overseas in exchange for European and Asian goods. The Middle Country thus faced a worsening shortage of specie. Worse, the Atjuntja had adopted the practice of coinage from the Dutch, with the first coins being struck – showing the image of the King of Kings, naturally – soon after the defeat of Nyumbin’s rebellion in 1633.
The lack of currency caused not only problems with the Dutch, but also growing discontent from the aristocratic and mercantile classes (these two classes being largely synonymous in the Middle Country). So the King of Kings opted to use drafted labourers, a practice common for other forms of work, to increase gold production.
The result was a genuine rebellion by people who viewed this practice as abhorrent and against all custom; being sent to the gold mines was seen as tantamount to a death sentence, for slaves were rarely permitted to return. The rebellion broke out near Corram Yibbal [Bunbury], but soon spread to much of the country, as rumours of the practice spread fear. The EIC, which so far had been excluded from the Middle Country, sought to discreetly supply the rebels with arms.
The rebellion found its leadership in the original rebels around Corram Yibbal. Unusually for Aururian rebellions of the time, the main leaders of the rebellion were agricultural labourers rather than aristocrats or the middle classes. Genuine “peasant’s revolts” in Aururia were relatively rare, being more commonly led either by nobles or the larger social groups of non-farmers (middle classes / urban workers) permitted by perennial agriculture. The rebels took the unusual step of nominating their own council of a few respected people to act as leaders for the rebellion. This council did not control the entire rebellion – several other rebel groups appeared in other areas who were inspired by word of the revolt – but the other rebels did broadly follow their lead.
The outcome of the rebellion was a careful royal exercise in saving face. Several early battles were fought to defend the key garrison-cities and the roads. However, the sheer scale of the revolt soon made it clear that defeating it would be more expensive than would be worthwhile. The King of Kings chose to deploy enough troops to win a couple more battlefield victories, to show that he was acting from a position of strength. He then issued a new series of royal proclamations that expanded the range of crimes which would be punishable by being sent to the mines, and quietly dropped any mention of labour drafts being used for gold miners. Without ever publicly admitting that he had changed his mind, he sent private reassurances to the rebel leaders that they would not be punished provided that they ceased their revolt. The main council did agree to do so, though a few holdouts continued the rebellion in a couple of regions. Those holdouts were crushed and (naturally) the defeated rebels sent to the gold mines.
* * *
From: “The World Historical Dictionary”
Donkey Vote: A term which originated in the Atjuntja realm during the Blood-Gold Revolt. Despite the coincidence of names, the revolt was distinctive in early Aururian revolutionary history in being driven not by the Blood or the Gold, but by the Ordinary. Since they did not rely on traditional models of authority, the rebels used the ancestral mode of election to determine their leaders, unbound by heredity.
The rebels set a property qualification as a prerequisite for participating in the election of their council: the criterion of ownership of a donkey. This was in truth a progressive action for the period, inspired in part by foreign examples of Dutch and British elections (largely misinterpreted) and the ancient Aururian principle for elective monarchies.
Despite the equitable nature of this requirement in the context of the times, in later Aururian parlance this led to derision. The requirement for a donkey was seen as elitist in excluding those who could not afford an imported animal, and thus excluding much of the Ordinary from participation.
Hence, the phrase “donkey vote” passed into the Aururian political lexicon (especially in Teegal) as meaning favouring a disproportionate, illegitimate influence of the Gold, particularly the Real. For instance, a comment about “out to win the donkey vote” would be an insult to a political figure by implying that they were seeking support based on wealth or privacy rather than genuine solidarity.
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Historically, the French were relatively slow to become major players in European trade with the Orient, when compared to the Dutch or English or (especially) the Portuguese. Some French ships ventured into the Indian Ocean, and there were several foundations of companies to trade with East Asia. However, intense competition from the Dutch and Spanish stopped many of the early attempts. While there were earlier companies operating, the main French involvement in Asia began in the 1660s when Louis XIII chartered the French East India Company.
Allohistorically, the tale of French involvement in the Orient follows a different path. France in this history is both stronger and weaker than it was historically. The Aururian plagues have taken a heavy toll on its manpower, as indeed it has on every nation in the Old World. However, France has been spared from the severe economic and demographic toll imposed by the historical War of the Mantuan Succession and in the later direct involvement in the Thirty Years’ War. Without these distractions, and with the tales of even greater wealth in gold and spices coming from the Far East, there was more scope for colonial ventures. In this history, Louis XIII was spared death from the tuberculosis that would have killed him in 1643, and he founded the Compagnie d’Orient in 1642. This company took several years to build up a presence in the Third World, but by the later stages of the Proxy Wars the French played a minor role in supporting some of the native powers in their wars, most notably the Kurnawal in the Cider Isle and some Maori in Aotearoa.
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The Proxy Wars were, of course, only one part of the broader undeclared war between the VOC and the EIC. Control over what the Dutch called the Great South Land or the Great Spice Island, and what the English called the Land of Gold, was an important part of the struggle, but only one element of the wider contest for control of the wealth of the Orient. The spices of the East Indies were still the single most valuable prize, and during the course of the unofficial war the VOC was successful in pushing the English out of the Indies entirely. While the Dutch did not control all of the East Indies – that was a feat that they would not accomplish historically for several more centuries – they were willing and able to strike at all English outposts they found there.
For their part, the EIC began the war with fewer ships and more limited shipbuilding than their Dutch rivals. Their main successes were due to a few strokes of good fortune. The Yadji were alienated against the Dutch because of a would-be conquistador, and thus the EIC opened trade relations with the most populous state on the continent. The Yadji had a great amount of gold mined both within their borders and traded across from the Cider Isle, and EIC traded for much of that bullion. In addition, the EIC was generally more successful in obtaining access to the spices of the eastern seaboard, and the massive sweet pepper production possible in the command economy of the Yadji.
The EIC invested much of this wealth in shipbuilding and funding the war elsewhere in the world. While they were unsuccessful in gaining any footholds in Ceylon, they were rather more successful in mainland India, driving the VOC out entirely except for Pulicat.
The intense commercial rivalry, including commerce-by-force, had diplomatic consequences. The English began to drift closer to France and Spain as their struggle with the Dutch gradually overcame their religious differences with the Catholic powers. This rivalry also benefited Portugal due to unintended consequences; both the Netherlands and England viewed the Portuguese as a secondary target and so not worth antagonising. Portugal even conducted some exploration of northern Aururia, which was tolerated because the Dutch viewed that part of the continent as largely worthless, and so did not contest it.
In time, and after England’s internal political situation was resolved, the Dutch and English moved from unofficial to official war...
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[1] The Aururians cultivate three species of sweet peppers. By far the most widespread are those that are historically called Tasmanian peppers or mountain peppers (Tasmannia lanceolata); despite the name, they are widespread in the wild not just on the mainland but in the wetter parts of south-eastern Aururia. Allohistorically, these will be cultivated widely throughout the farming societies of Aururia (with several different breeds), so that Europeans will call them common (sweet) peppers.
The two other species of sweet peppers have a much more limited distribution, both in the wild and in their domesticated form. One species will be allohistorically called bird-peppers; this is historically known as Dorrigo pepper or northern pepper (Tasmannia stipitata). It is native to the Daluming highlands (New England tablelands), and will be mostly cultivated there, with only very limited cultivation elsewhere. The other species is historically known as broad-leaved peppers or purple peppers (Tasmannia purpurascens); allohistorically it will be called purple (sweet) pepper. It is native to a couple of very restricted highland regions near the Kuyal Valley (Hunter Valley), and will be cultivated only in that valley.
Of the three species, common peppers have the mildest flavour (though still intense), bird-peppers are slightly stronger, and purple peppers are the most pungent of all. The Aururians draw a distinction between the three varieties in flavour, with purple peppers being the most sought-after. Initially, European traders will sell mostly common sweet peppers, and due to the lack of comparison these will still be well-favoured in both India and Europe. Once there is a bigger export market, and overseas consumers can distinguish between the varieties, bird-peppers and especially purple peppers will command premium prices when compared to common peppers.
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Thoughts?
This post gives an overview of the Proxy Wars, both summarising those parts of the wars which have been previously described, and giving an overview of what has been happening in other parts of Aururia during this period. It brings the timeline up to 1660, and future updates (except for occasional flashbacks) will focus on what happens from 1660 onwards.
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“They have sacrificed their souls on the Altar of Reason.”
- Francis Boyd
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From: “Flying the Crimson Flag”
By Earle Duke III
5. Identity and Solidarity: The Road to Panollidism in the Third World
The Proxy Wars marked a series of conflicts across the continent of Aururia, with some small involvement elsewhere in the Third World, multiple wars provided some commonality with the involvement, openly or covertly, of other powers using the indigenous powers as proxies for their own undeclared warfare. The majority of the wars involved European powers as the inspiring agents, but this was far from universal, with sometimes indigenous powers employing their own proxies, while sometimes wars that are classed as part of the Proxy Wars were truly struggles where the European powers were used to support indigenous interests.
The Proxy Wars are well-studied as the defining period when European colonialism became entrenched in Aururia. Except where some minor earlier conflicts are classified within the broader schema of the Proxy Wars, they are usually dated as lasting from the initiation of undeclared hostilities between the English East India Company and its Dutch counterpart via the bombardment of English fortifications and vessels at Gurndjit [Portland, Victoria] in 1642, and concluding when England and the Netherlands commenced formal hostilities with the outbreak of the First Anglo-Dutch War...
Traditional nineteenth and early twentieth-century European historiography views these struggles as a result of undeclared wars fought between European colonial powers, principally the Dutch and the English, inciting the indigenous Aururian peoples to fight each other for European aims, that is to say to establish informal (and sometimes formal) European control over their sovereignty, and for control of commercial routes involving both the supply of Aururian commodities to the wider world, and the import of Asian and European goods to the Aururian markets.
However, this historiography was founded in two-fold ignorance. Mainstream European historians, separated by barriers both of language and understanding, focused on European accounts of the warfare, without access to most contemporary Aururian sources regarding the wars, and on the whole disregarding even those few sources which were available in the Old World. Equally significantly, this traditional historiographical analysis neglected the truth that colonialism in Aururia pre-dated European contact, for the Nangu had maintained a colonial presence, both formal and informal, in the continent for two centuries or more prior to European irruption. While the Nangu colonial empire itself collapsed during the Proxy Wars, due to European competition and more meaningfully European diseases, the Nangu successor state of the Nuttana began to develop its own colonial system during the later stages of the Proxy Wars.
Such is the lack of insightfulness of traditional historiography that even the name of the struggle is fraught with dilemma. Proxy Wars is the traditional label, bringing with it the connotations of the wars as a contest where the Europeans used indigenous proxies, leading to all of the misconceptions aforementioned. The Undeclared Wars is a term sometimes advanced as an alternative, but which lacks credibility because in most thought not all cases, the wars between the Aururian states themselves were openly declared; the undeclared nature of the wars refers mainly to the European powers, with the exception that even two Aururian powers found some use for proxies to launch undeclared warfare against peoples with whom they were formally at peace...
Prince Rupert’s War (1645-1650) marked the largest single conflict in the Proxy Wars, and attracted the most attention both in contemporary European accounts of Aururia, and in subsequent historiography, due to what must be called the preponderance of narratives of this war and its aftermath by Europeans who were directly or indirectly involved in the conflict. In part due to reliance on these foreign accounts of the war, the traditional view of Prince Rupert’s War was of a European-influenced struggle using indigenous pawns; however, this is a relic of the colonial era, for contemporary documents from the four Aururian states involved in the war (Tjibarr, Durigal[i.e. the Yadji], Gutjanal and Yigutji) demonstrate that the latest struggle was simply a continuation of their own history of warfare, supplemented by European weapons and auxiliaries where available, but where the primary motivation remained their own indigenous ambitions. Indeed, when considering the policies and actions of Tjibarr during this period, it is difficult to determine whether Prince Rupert’s War should be considered as the Dutch and English using Tjibarr and Durigal as proxies, or Tjibarr using both Dutch and English as proxies to support its own interests...
Engagement of proxies was not confined to European powers seeking hegemony over their desired markets, but remained a tactic recognised and wielded by Aururian powers on their own terms; Tjibarr had a history of using indirect means to counterbalance Durigal’s greater population, and continued to use the same tactics during the Proxy Wars where opportunity permitted, while the Nuttana came late to the colonial push during the Proxy Wars, their predecessors among the Nangu had their own history of wielding indirect influence through economic means, and the Nuttana applied these same tools to build their own sphere of influence.
Colonialism had been a Nangu speciality since they had mastered the craft of blue-water navigation, pursuing profit across the waves via trading outposts, colonial settlements, and economic hegemony, which was a legacy that their Nuttana descendants inherited in full as they pursued their own economic interests within the Third World and beyond. Early in their intercontinental explorations, the Nuttana had established trade with Japan, where jeeree [Aururian lemon tea] demonstrated extreme worth as a trade commodity, a prospect which the Nuttana were swift to take advantage of; Japanese-made muskets and powder were as cherished by Aururians as jeeree was in turn by the Japanese, the Nuttana valuing muskets both for their own defence and as superb trade goods within Aururia to obtain further commodities and to arm their clients against rivals. The founding of the Nuttana had involved a pact with the Kiyungu to supply labourers to the Nuttana trade ports, a trade which grew even during the typhus plague that struck during that era, but the Kiyungu had no immediate fear of warfare and would pay only moderate prices for guns, so the Nuttana instead traded the weapons further south, in fractured Daluming where the kingdom was riven by three-way civil war, foreign incursion and rebelling vassals, choosing the weakest side in the civil war as this would allow them to demand premium prices for the foreign weapons. The northernmost Daluming city, Ngutti [Yamba], was ruled by Prince Nyiragal, the weakest of the contenders for the throne, who eagerly accepted the offered trade in guns for coastally-grown jeeree and other local spices, which in turn the Nuttana shipped back to Japan for increased profits, thus beginning both the jeeree-arms trade which would prove so valuable to the Nuttana, and the first Nuttana use of proxies and economic hegemony. As the Orb War [Daluming civil war] progressed, the Nuttana continued to supply Nyiragal’s faction with arms, allowing the previously weakest contender to extend his influence throughout the Cottee valley [Clarence River], and then develop trade links to the northern Loo Gwanna confederacy in the Northern Pepperlands [New England tablelands / northern tablelands], supplying sweet peppers and other spices for the Nuttana to export, extending that power’s hegemony still further, and demonstrating that the Proxy Wars were not merely a European pastime...
Locked in its endless cycle of warfare with Durigal, Tjibarr used all resources available to weaken its chief rival, even when they were officially at peace, and found proxies witting and unwitting to suit its purposes; Tjibarri engagement with the highlanders of the Southern Pepperlands commenced before Prince Rupert’s War, seeking to use the highland tribes to raid into Durigal and thus divert military efforts from the main frontier, and after the main war ended Tjibarr continued to use proxies to weaken Durigal’s interests wherever it proved feasible, including more highland support, encouraging the Dutch to aid rebels within Durigal’s restive eastern provinces, and sending gifts to Maori chiefs in Aotearoa to ensure that some of their raids fell on Durigal. European irruption did not lead merely to proxy warfare by Tjibarr, for Prince Rupert’s War itself showed the first Aururian awakening of the growing need for solidarity, as Tjibarr, Gutjanal and Yigutji set aside their own ancient feuds to declare alliance against Durigal...
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The Proxy Wars involved many conflicts, mostly linked by a common trend of European influence or arms supply, though not all of the wars involved foreign backing. Later historians would earn many publication credits arguing with each other about which wars should be properly considered part of the Proxy Wars, and about the primary motivations and influence of each of the participants. In so far as there is a coherent list, though, these are the conflicts that formed part of the Proxy Wars:
- The Spanish/Portuguese (Portugal still being joined to Spain) raid on the VOC trading post of Fort Nassau [Fremantle] in 1631. This is the most contentious inclusion of the Proxy Wars, since it is outside of the regular time period, but it is included by some historians.
- The Council War / The Sister War. These are the most common names given to the intermittent warfare fought between the Mutjing city-states of the Seven Sisters [Eyre Peninsula] from approximately 1635 to 1648. The earlier bouts of warfare were also outside the regular time period for the Proxy Wars, but are usually considered as related; the main phase of warfare was from 1643-1648 and ended with the Dutch-backed city-state of Luyandi establishing a council that dominated the peninsula. The Seven Sisters became a formal Dutch protectorate in 1659.
- The Cannon War (1645-1648) between Dutch-backed Tjunini and English-backed Kurnawal in the Cider Isle [Tasmania], with a Kurnawal victory. Followed by the War of the Ear (as it is euphemistically translated) in 1657-1658 between Dutch-backed Tjunini and English- and French-backed Kurnawal.
- Prince Rupert’s War / Bidwadjari’s War / Fever War (1645-1650) between Dutch-backed Tjibarr and English-backed Yadji, with other kingdoms of Gutjanal and Yigutji as Tjibarri allies. The war was broadly a Yadji victory.
- The Dutch-backed uprisings in the Yadji’s eastern provinces, in 1653 involving the Kurnawal (eastern-most people), and in 1656-7 involving both the Kurnawal and Giratji (east-central provinces). Result: revolts quelled.
- The highlander raids on Gutjanal, Yigutji and (particularly) the Yadji from 1644 until approximately 1655, marked by an interlude of Prince Rupert-led invasion of the highlands in 1646-8. The highlanders were in part Tjibarri proxies, although this was never substantiated at the time, and would not be proven until it no longer mattered.
- The Pakanga (Maori) raids on eastern Aururia and the Cider Isle, starting in 1654 and continuing even after the conventional end date for the Proxy Wars. These were mainly indigenously inspired, but Tjibarr motivated raids on Yadji territory, and the French motivated raids on peoples who backed their colonial rivals. The Pakanga raids also struck targets outside Aururia.
- The Daluming [Coffs Harbour and environs] raid by the English in 1648, leading to the Prophet’s regime and subsequent Orb War (civil war). Foreign backers: multiple. Result: a mess (see below).
- The English-provoked wars and rebellions amongst the city-states of the Cumberland Plains / Sydney basin, amongst both Putanjura (southern) and Rrunga (northern/western) peoples. These started following the establishment of an EIC outpost in Port Percy (Port Jackson / Sydney Harbour) in 1646.
- The Blood-Gold Rebellion in 1655-6, by English-backed Atjuntja subjects against both the King of Kings (Atjuntja Emperor) and his Raw Men (Dutch) backers. The result, like any good relationship status, can best be described as “it’s complicated” (see below).
- The Tea-Tree War (1653-7) fought by the Dutch-backed Yerremadra around Hammer Bay (Jervis Bay) to conquer their neighbours and rivals. The VOC initially supported the Yerremadra because they wanted to establish the great bay as a resupply point for voyages along the east coast, but they later sought to develop a trade in “lemon tea” (jeeree) using Hammer Bay as one of their main sources of supply.
- The Nowhere War (approximately 1645-1660), so-called as an English corruption of the indigenous name Nuwwar, a hunter-gatherer people in northern Aururia, in the western half of the Gulf of Carpentaria. This was not a single war, but a series of power struggles and violent clashes amongst societies disrupted by Old World plagues and Portuguese-supplied weapons. The Portuguese established two mission outposts in the region during this period, and in 1655 this had the unfortunate consequence of marking the first introduction of (Old World) influenza to the continent.
This classification omits several smaller conflicts where European-supplied weapons or particularly the death toll from Old World diseases led to localised warfare that was not directly influenced by Europeans, as the plague-ravaged peoples fought over what was left in the wake of the great dying.
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Prince Rupert’s War was fought from 1645 to 1650, divided by a two-year truce for half-time. It was the largest of the Proxy Wars, involving as it did four states which between them contained almost half of the Aururian population. When it ended, though, Tjibarr and the Yadji still had opposing backers who were fighting their own undeclared war. No party to the final peace treaty – Yadji, Tjibarr, Gutjanal, Yigutji, the English East India Company (EIC) or the Dutch East India Company (VOC) – expected the peace treaty to last forever. The question was whether the peace would last as long as the Proxy Wars. In the meantime, there were plenty of other places within Aururia where the Dutch and English could fight each other.
As it happened, the Yadji and the Five Rivers states were too exhausted by the war and plagues to be willing to re-start a major war. So with the conclusion of Prince Rupert’s War, the EIC and VOC reached a tacit understanding that each could not dislodge the other from its primary role as backer of the Yadji and Tjibarr. Both companies still made some efforts to disrupt the other’s influence in outlying parts of their proxy state’s territory: the Dutch supported the rebellions in the Yadji’s eastern provinces, while the English struck at the Dutch opal trading outpost at Dogport [Port Augusta] in nominal Tjibarri territory, as part of the broader tit-for-tat raids on each other’s factories throughout the Orient. But the main focus of the Proxy Wars moved to the eastern seaboard and the Cider Isle, where the two companies sought control of gold and spices.
The eastern seaboard had long grown spices that were not available – or just much harder to grow – in the more populous societies further west. The east coast used many flavours, including a substantial number which were only consumed locally. The main spices which attracted export interest were the leaf spices which Europeans called verbenas, and which another history would call myrtles: lemon, cinnamon, aniseed and curry myrtles. There were also a few aromatic eucalyptus leaf spices, most notably strawberry gum, and two species of sweet peppers which were not grown much elsewhere: purple sweet peppers in the Patjimunra lands (Hunter Valley) and bird-peppers (Dorrigo peppers) in the Daluming highlands.
In the contest for east coast spices, there were three main potential supply sources: the Kiyungu city-states, the kingdom of Daluming, and the Patjimunra. Daluming and the Patjimunra had long been supplying spices to western Aururia, while the more isolated Kiyungu mainly consumed their own production. The English and Dutch interest in the eastern coast was aroused thanks to 1630s voyages of exploration, and so they spent the following decades seeking to control the spice trade.
Daluming was the most populous east coast state, and attracted most of the early interest. The first European contact with Daluming, Baffin’s voyage, led to what could broadly be described as a cultural clash, and an Englishman’s skull interred behind glass in the Mound of Memory. The EIC despatched a further expedition in 1648, whose purpose was two-fold: a punitive raid to avenge the earlier English deaths, and to force access to Daluming spices. This mission was usurped by Thomas Totney, the Captain-General of Jehovah, who established his own short-lived regime in the Daluming capital, Yuragir (Coffs Harbour).
The Daluming monarch had died of typhus shortly before the English expedition arrived. This death combined with the foreign invasion led to a three-way civil war within the kingdom, with each of the three sons of the late king commanding a faction: Aray’marra, the eldest son; Wandana, second son and with the most supporters; and Nyiragal, the youngest son and with fewest supporters. The three factions negotiated a truce of sorts while they evicted the Prophet. They then began their own bloodier civil war, a contest which went on for much longer than any side could have anticipated; the formal peace was in 1654.
During the civil war all three factions received foreign aid at times: Aray’marra from the English and then the Dutch, Wandana from the Dutch and then the English, and Nyiragal from the Nuttana. The two elder princes both changed their backers in pursuit of better deals, as they sought to crush their main rivals, i.e. each other. The youngest prince quickly gave up any prospect of conquering the entire kingdom, focusing on building his own power base in the Highwater valley/ Cottee River [River Clarence] and using Nuttana-supplied muskets to arm his forces and deter his rivals. When Wandana’s forces finally subdued the eldest prince’s armies in 1654, his battered armies were in no condition to defeat Nyiragal, and so the two princes agreed to a five-year truce. For their part, the English were fortunate enough to have been the latest suppliers of weapons to Wandana’s armies, and thus gained access to the Daluming spice trade. This was less of a boon than they had expected, though, for the bloodshed and disruption of the civil war meant that spice production would take years if not decades to recover.
The Patjimunra of the Kuyal Valley (Hunter Valley) were the other main ancient source of spices. Naturally, this meant that the European trading companies sought access to their markets as soon as they first came into contact with the Patjimunra (the English in 1636, the Dutch in 1639). More precisely, both the Dutch and the English sought exclusive access to Patjimunra spices. This proved to be rather more of a problem.
The Patjimunra had a long history of selling spices to anyone who wanted to buy them: imperial merchants and later Five Rivers merchants by land, and Nangu and Maori by sea. They were perfectly willing to sell spices to European traders, too. What they were not willing to do was give preference to any one trading company over another. Unofficial and then official emissaries from both the EIC and VOC met with the Patjimunra monarch, and received the same answer: they could trade with any merchants who were willing to sell, but the king flatly rebuffed any discussion of protectorates, trade treaties, or indeed any documented agreement. As the king is reputed to have said to one particularly persistent Dutch emissary: “We will sell you our spices, as we have always done, and leave the world beyond our borders to the skinless.”
The Patjimunra expressed only limited interest in European weapons, mostly once Daluming raids picked up after 1656, and even then they bought far fewer than the European trading companies wanted. Despite the most determined efforts of European powers – the English, Dutch and eventually the French – the Patjimunra avoided involvement in the Proxy Wars simply by refusing to favour one Raw Men company over another.
The Kiyungu of the Coral Coast (Sunshine Coast/Gold Coast, Queensland) had long been the northernmost agricultural people in Aururia, until the Nuttana migrated north in the 1630s and 1640s. While they grew many spices for their own consumption (with the notable exception of sweet peppers), the long sailing times and poor land-based links to the more populous states meant that they exported very little of their spice production.
The Kiyungu’s first ongoing contact with foreign peoples came from Nangu traders, beginning with Werringi the Bold’s circumnavigation of Aururia in 1629-30, and then with the Nangu trading association that grew to become the Nuttana. The Kiyungu supplied labourers to the northern Nuttana trading posts, and grew to become a supplier of spices for the Nuttana to on-sell to the Dutch in Batavia and the Japanese via the Ryukyus.
With this firm friendship with the Nuttana, the Kiyungu were much less interested in giving Europeans any preferential access to spices. The Dutch and English made several attempts, and did sell a few in exchange for European goods, but had much less success in converting the Kiyungu into proxies. The Kiyungu had little interest in fighting each other, and while they did buy a few guns from both Europeans and Nangu, were not generally inclined to start wars with each other or to give preference for spices. Where there were disputes between Kiyungu city-states, the Nuttana proved adept at defusing them, much as their Nangu predecessors had managed similar feats among the Seven Sisters for so long. The Nuttana retained the best access to the Kiyungu spice markets throughout the Proxy Wars.
Thus, despite the depredations of the Proxy Wars, and a growing trade in spices, two of the three most populous eastern coast peoples who supplied spices did so without surrendering much control to foreign powers. This did not prevent the European powers from employing proxies where they could, or fighting each other directly over access to the trading posts and resupply ports which made the trade possible. Thus the EIC established an outpost at Port Percy (Port Jackson/Sydney Harbour) and set about establishing influence amongst the locals, while the VOC adopted a similar strategy at Hammer Bay (Jervis Bay), together with a few smaller struggles elsewhere on the east coast where the opportunity arose.
The most notable of these opportunities was the first area where the Dutch achieved exclusive control over a source of eastern coast spices. Strangely enough for the era, this was achieved peaceably enough that it did not require a proxy war. The Loomal people of Narranuk (Taree) lived in a fertile river valley, the River Lumbarr (Manning River), with a suitable climate for growing spices. Being less populous than either their neighbours north (Daluming) or south (Patjimunra), and lacking the same easy routes across the mountains, they did not export many spices inland. Still, they grew spices of their own, and had been perennial victims of Daluming head-hunting raids in the past. This gave them an interest in acquiring foreign backers, and the commodities to make foreign trade worthwhile.
The VOC achieved what was for it a rare feat on the eastern coast: diplomatically outmanoeuvring the English. Because the EIC had established more influence over Daluming, the VOC succeeded in negotiating a pact where they supplied arms to the Loomal in exchange for exclusive control of spice exports. The Loomal spice production was not large – even the share that the Dutch could buy from the Patjimunra was larger – but all the same, the VOC welcomed the monopoly.
Besides the struggle for east coast spices, the other main region where the VOC and EIC struggled during the second decade of the Proxy Wars was in the Cider Isle (Tasmania). Here the ancient rivalry between Tjunini of the north coast, and Kurnawal of the east coast, give plenty of opportunity for the rival companies to find proxies. The European trading powers had little interest in the gum cider that had been the island’s most valuable export in recent pre-Houtmanian times, but they had much interest in the gold mined on the Cider Isle. The island’s cooler climate was also well-suited for the common form of sweet peppers (mountain peppers); while those did not have quite the same intensity of flavour as the more northerly varieties, they were still eminently suitable for export to India, Cathay and Europe [1].
The Cider Isle saw two distinct wars during this era. The Cannon War (1645-1648) saw the English-backed Kurnawal reclaim a considerable swathe of territory from the Dutch-backed Tjunini. The Cider Isle suffered a severe death toll during this war, partly from combat but mostly from a typhus plague. Post-war, the Cider Isle’s economy was notably restructured as gum cider production collapsed, while both of the farming societies ramped up sweet pepper production despite the shortage of labourers.
When their economies had stabilised, and when the Kurnawal had found additional foreign support from the Compagnie d’Orient, the War of the Ear (1657-1658) followed. The result was a bloody stalemate; both states had done well in adopting those parts of European military technology which favoured the defensive. As a result, while both sides proclaimed victory (and the Tjunini kept the offending body part), the War of the Ear ended with status quo ante bellum.
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The Blood-Gold Rebellion (also translated as the Red-Gold Rebellion) was an uprising in the Middle Country / Tiayal (the Atjuntja realm) in 1655-1656. The trigger for the revolt was a decision by the King of Kings Manyal Tjaanuc to institute labour drafts for work in the gold mines around Golden Blood / Timwee [Kalgoorlie]. This practice was contrary to established custom, for previously only slaves had been used to mine gold in the harsh desert climate of Golden Blood. The institution of slavery was rare in Aururia, but gold mining in the Middle Country was seen as detestable enough that being sent there was viewed as a deserving punishment.
However, due to the death toll from plagues and rat-induced famine, there was a shortage of suitable criminals to be sent to the mines as slaves, and the demand for gold was ever-growing. Trade with the Dutch meant that an ever-growing amount of bullion was sent overseas in exchange for European and Asian goods. The Middle Country thus faced a worsening shortage of specie. Worse, the Atjuntja had adopted the practice of coinage from the Dutch, with the first coins being struck – showing the image of the King of Kings, naturally – soon after the defeat of Nyumbin’s rebellion in 1633.
The lack of currency caused not only problems with the Dutch, but also growing discontent from the aristocratic and mercantile classes (these two classes being largely synonymous in the Middle Country). So the King of Kings opted to use drafted labourers, a practice common for other forms of work, to increase gold production.
The result was a genuine rebellion by people who viewed this practice as abhorrent and against all custom; being sent to the gold mines was seen as tantamount to a death sentence, for slaves were rarely permitted to return. The rebellion broke out near Corram Yibbal [Bunbury], but soon spread to much of the country, as rumours of the practice spread fear. The EIC, which so far had been excluded from the Middle Country, sought to discreetly supply the rebels with arms.
The rebellion found its leadership in the original rebels around Corram Yibbal. Unusually for Aururian rebellions of the time, the main leaders of the rebellion were agricultural labourers rather than aristocrats or the middle classes. Genuine “peasant’s revolts” in Aururia were relatively rare, being more commonly led either by nobles or the larger social groups of non-farmers (middle classes / urban workers) permitted by perennial agriculture. The rebels took the unusual step of nominating their own council of a few respected people to act as leaders for the rebellion. This council did not control the entire rebellion – several other rebel groups appeared in other areas who were inspired by word of the revolt – but the other rebels did broadly follow their lead.
The outcome of the rebellion was a careful royal exercise in saving face. Several early battles were fought to defend the key garrison-cities and the roads. However, the sheer scale of the revolt soon made it clear that defeating it would be more expensive than would be worthwhile. The King of Kings chose to deploy enough troops to win a couple more battlefield victories, to show that he was acting from a position of strength. He then issued a new series of royal proclamations that expanded the range of crimes which would be punishable by being sent to the mines, and quietly dropped any mention of labour drafts being used for gold miners. Without ever publicly admitting that he had changed his mind, he sent private reassurances to the rebel leaders that they would not be punished provided that they ceased their revolt. The main council did agree to do so, though a few holdouts continued the rebellion in a couple of regions. Those holdouts were crushed and (naturally) the defeated rebels sent to the gold mines.
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From: “The World Historical Dictionary”
Donkey Vote: A term which originated in the Atjuntja realm during the Blood-Gold Revolt. Despite the coincidence of names, the revolt was distinctive in early Aururian revolutionary history in being driven not by the Blood or the Gold, but by the Ordinary. Since they did not rely on traditional models of authority, the rebels used the ancestral mode of election to determine their leaders, unbound by heredity.
The rebels set a property qualification as a prerequisite for participating in the election of their council: the criterion of ownership of a donkey. This was in truth a progressive action for the period, inspired in part by foreign examples of Dutch and British elections (largely misinterpreted) and the ancient Aururian principle for elective monarchies.
Despite the equitable nature of this requirement in the context of the times, in later Aururian parlance this led to derision. The requirement for a donkey was seen as elitist in excluding those who could not afford an imported animal, and thus excluding much of the Ordinary from participation.
Hence, the phrase “donkey vote” passed into the Aururian political lexicon (especially in Teegal) as meaning favouring a disproportionate, illegitimate influence of the Gold, particularly the Real. For instance, a comment about “out to win the donkey vote” would be an insult to a political figure by implying that they were seeking support based on wealth or privacy rather than genuine solidarity.
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Historically, the French were relatively slow to become major players in European trade with the Orient, when compared to the Dutch or English or (especially) the Portuguese. Some French ships ventured into the Indian Ocean, and there were several foundations of companies to trade with East Asia. However, intense competition from the Dutch and Spanish stopped many of the early attempts. While there were earlier companies operating, the main French involvement in Asia began in the 1660s when Louis XIII chartered the French East India Company.
Allohistorically, the tale of French involvement in the Orient follows a different path. France in this history is both stronger and weaker than it was historically. The Aururian plagues have taken a heavy toll on its manpower, as indeed it has on every nation in the Old World. However, France has been spared from the severe economic and demographic toll imposed by the historical War of the Mantuan Succession and in the later direct involvement in the Thirty Years’ War. Without these distractions, and with the tales of even greater wealth in gold and spices coming from the Far East, there was more scope for colonial ventures. In this history, Louis XIII was spared death from the tuberculosis that would have killed him in 1643, and he founded the Compagnie d’Orient in 1642. This company took several years to build up a presence in the Third World, but by the later stages of the Proxy Wars the French played a minor role in supporting some of the native powers in their wars, most notably the Kurnawal in the Cider Isle and some Maori in Aotearoa.
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The Proxy Wars were, of course, only one part of the broader undeclared war between the VOC and the EIC. Control over what the Dutch called the Great South Land or the Great Spice Island, and what the English called the Land of Gold, was an important part of the struggle, but only one element of the wider contest for control of the wealth of the Orient. The spices of the East Indies were still the single most valuable prize, and during the course of the unofficial war the VOC was successful in pushing the English out of the Indies entirely. While the Dutch did not control all of the East Indies – that was a feat that they would not accomplish historically for several more centuries – they were willing and able to strike at all English outposts they found there.
For their part, the EIC began the war with fewer ships and more limited shipbuilding than their Dutch rivals. Their main successes were due to a few strokes of good fortune. The Yadji were alienated against the Dutch because of a would-be conquistador, and thus the EIC opened trade relations with the most populous state on the continent. The Yadji had a great amount of gold mined both within their borders and traded across from the Cider Isle, and EIC traded for much of that bullion. In addition, the EIC was generally more successful in obtaining access to the spices of the eastern seaboard, and the massive sweet pepper production possible in the command economy of the Yadji.
The EIC invested much of this wealth in shipbuilding and funding the war elsewhere in the world. While they were unsuccessful in gaining any footholds in Ceylon, they were rather more successful in mainland India, driving the VOC out entirely except for Pulicat.
The intense commercial rivalry, including commerce-by-force, had diplomatic consequences. The English began to drift closer to France and Spain as their struggle with the Dutch gradually overcame their religious differences with the Catholic powers. This rivalry also benefited Portugal due to unintended consequences; both the Netherlands and England viewed the Portuguese as a secondary target and so not worth antagonising. Portugal even conducted some exploration of northern Aururia, which was tolerated because the Dutch viewed that part of the continent as largely worthless, and so did not contest it.
In time, and after England’s internal political situation was resolved, the Dutch and English moved from unofficial to official war...
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[1] The Aururians cultivate three species of sweet peppers. By far the most widespread are those that are historically called Tasmanian peppers or mountain peppers (Tasmannia lanceolata); despite the name, they are widespread in the wild not just on the mainland but in the wetter parts of south-eastern Aururia. Allohistorically, these will be cultivated widely throughout the farming societies of Aururia (with several different breeds), so that Europeans will call them common (sweet) peppers.
The two other species of sweet peppers have a much more limited distribution, both in the wild and in their domesticated form. One species will be allohistorically called bird-peppers; this is historically known as Dorrigo pepper or northern pepper (Tasmannia stipitata). It is native to the Daluming highlands (New England tablelands), and will be mostly cultivated there, with only very limited cultivation elsewhere. The other species is historically known as broad-leaved peppers or purple peppers (Tasmannia purpurascens); allohistorically it will be called purple (sweet) pepper. It is native to a couple of very restricted highland regions near the Kuyal Valley (Hunter Valley), and will be cultivated only in that valley.
Of the three species, common peppers have the mildest flavour (though still intense), bird-peppers are slightly stronger, and purple peppers are the most pungent of all. The Aururians draw a distinction between the three varieties in flavour, with purple peppers being the most sought-after. Initially, European traders will sell mostly common sweet peppers, and due to the lack of comparison these will still be well-favoured in both India and Europe. Once there is a bigger export market, and overseas consumers can distinguish between the varieties, bird-peppers and especially purple peppers will command premium prices when compared to common peppers.
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Thoughts?
Minor thing: the Nuttana traders are buying guns from the Japanese. Is Japanese gun production higher than OTL? I am aware that they never entirely "gave up the gun" (just large-scale gunpowder armies), there always were some gunsmiths throughout the Edo period, but I dunno if they were exporting any OTL (on the other hand, I also dunno if anyone ever tried to buy).
Bruce
Bruce
Just got caught up, and I'm loving this TL!
Merci. The updates will keep coming, of course, as and when they get completed. I've learned not to try to set a strict schedule, because life keeps getting in the way too much.
Funnily enough, a few years ago an economist was asked (or asked himself) to come up with an economic value for the outback. He ended up deciding it was worth $0 per person, apparently on the basis that you can't export it.
I presume he wasn't counting minor details like the iron ore underground there.
Good update, and an interesting alternate meaning of "donkey vote".
Allohistory is full of these "false friends" where a person who heard them from our history would get very confused. This is just one more example.
(And, incidentally, part of the view of how different ideology and their underlying assumptions about history are in this timeline.)
Japanese gun production will probably creep up a bit from what it was OTL. At first, though, the Nuttana were only buying a very limited number of guns (200-300 at most) when setting up the trade.
I'm not aware if Japan ever exported guns much during this period, but then as you say there probably weren't many buyers, if any. ITTL, the import of one commodity which Japan likes (jeeree) means that they will still want to limit any loss of bullion or other commodity, so permitting some small manufacture of guns (strictly regulated, of course) would be a reasonable proposition.