Prologue
This volume introduces the strand that culminates in four of the Six Voyages that delivered an outline of the Northern coast.
A cursory glance at Australia's pre-settlement history reveals two dichotomies. We know but often choose to ignore the forty-, fifty- or sixty-thousand-year First Nations history. We also know and need to acknowledge the Dutch navigators' role in charting Australia's outline.
As James Cook tracked along the continent's east coast, he filled in missing and, arguably, relatively minor details. Dutch navigators had already delivered an outline of the continent from New Guinea's 'bird's head' to somewhere near Ceduna on the Great Australian Bight.
Six titles on my virtual bookshelf cover the rise of the Dutch seaborne empire in the east and its interaction with Australia's coastline. Put them together, and you have a single narrative that starts with merchants heading east to collect spices and other high-value commodities at their source. It ends when the quest for a passage to the Pacific ceases to be a priority, and the Dutch merchants set about close to three centuries of commercial exploitation.
This section of Antecedents seeks to provide the background to how a relatively small population in a marginal location engaged in an eighty-year struggle against Europe's superpower during a time of unprecedented religious turmoil and emerged as the continent's economic powerhouse.
