The courts decided they have jurisdiction over Aboriginal people because Cook discovered Australia under First Discovery. This is clear when analysing the details of landmark cases in early criminal case law – summarised in the image below (this is a photoshopped adaptation of Davey’s proclamation of the same era);
Under First Discovery principles, the discovering Crown has a duty (fiduciary duty) to protect the rights and interests of the people of the discovered land. This duty was used by the courts as a hook to pass laws regarding Aboriginal people.
The duty only applies to areas of First Discovery, hence why in Bonjon – a case in Port Phillip which is outside of Cook’s First Discovery claim – the court did not decide on jurisdiction, shrugged their shoulders and handed Bonjon over to the “protector”.
Most of “Australia” was acquired by the British through a “settlement” (as in a legal settlement/agreement) with the Dutch. The settlement was concluded with respect to native inhabitants (article 14 in the treaty) in 1830, hence why the courts walked away from R v Murrell, which was before this date.
First Discovery does not apply over most of Australia. It only applies in pacific flowing water catchments (and historically appeared to apply to the Murray Darling basin). There is no Crown fiduciary duty over most of Australia.
This was confirmed in the Hindmarsh Island case where the courts decided they can pass discriminatory laws against our interests.
This means that unlike other peoples under settler colonial subjugation who have had fiduciary duty recognised and had at minimum lip service paid to it – we have not. Crown conversely has no right of preemption. This means we can treaty with literally any nation in the world. We owe the Crown nothing.
I’m posting an audio-only preview of the next installment of my video series on the Doctrines of Discovery. I also post here a few of the more important, relevant graphics.
As I pointed out in a previous post, the Privy Council advice in 1889 did not make a decision on how sovereignty was acquired. All they said was that the land was “without settled inhabitants or settled law” for the purposes of figuring out how English law can be smoothly applied in the territory.
Today I realised I am not the only one who has noticed this. Judge Jacobs picked up on this 5 April 1979 (Coe v Commonwealth 24 ALR 118),
“I go now to the third part of the proposed statement of claim. This is in parallel with the second part. Whereas the second part is based upon the assumption that New South Wales was a settled colony of the Crown, the third part is based upon the allegation that the colony was conquered territory. I do not think that paragraphs in this alternative form ought to be struck out. The view has generally been taken that the Australian colonies were settled colonies; but, although that view was expressed in Cooper v Stuart (1889) 14 App Cas 286 and in Randwick Municipal Council v Routledge (1959) 102 CLR 54, there is no actual decision of this court or of the Privy Council to that effect. The plaintiff should be entitled to rely on the alternative arguments when it comes to be determined whether the aboriginal inhabitants of Australia had and have any rights in land.”
Judge Jacobs, dissenting opinion
The majority opinion says this;
For the purpose of deciding whether the common law was introduced into a newly acquired territory, a distinction was drawn between a colony acquired by conquest or cession, in which there was an established system of law of European type, and a colony acquired by settlement in a territory which, by European standards. had no civilized inhabitants or settled law. Australia has always been regarded as belonging to the latter class: see Cooper v Stuart (1889) 14 App Cas 286 at 291
This confirms what I wrote in my other post. Without settled inhabitants or settled law (the wording in the Privy Council advice) means without law from Dutch settlers. It does not mean without established law. It does not mean sovereignty was acquired on the basis that the territory was considered a terra nullius.
“Australia was settled” – this is another made-up doctrine, like terra nullius was. It has never been confirmed with any authority.
I made these timelines for the video. Please watch the video for commentary.
I am posting these timeline images in full resolution in case anyone wants to use them in their own research, copyright free.
Something else I didn’t mention in the video – but the appointment of Governor Darling was done in an interesting way – time-wise.
Notice that Governor Brisbane was recalled very shortly after repealing martial law at the end of 1824. Yet it took almost a year before he was actually replaced. The Crown waited for the treaty closure/settlement date on 1 March 1825 to pass before the letters patent for Darling’s commission were issued.
Governor Darling had two separate commissions. On the way from London he stopped at Van Diemen’s Land to .proclaim it a separate colony. Darling lands in Van Diemen’s Land AFTER Governor Brisbane has left Port Jackson. Darling then proceeds to Port Jackson to start his governing up to the 129E mark.
Looking at how this played out in timing with the treaty and with Furneaux’s secret discovery of the Bass Strait, I wonder if Van Diemen’s Land was ever properly part of New South Wales to begin with.
Most people would assume ‘settlement’ in the above context means building some towns and moving in. But there is another definition of settlement – as in a legal agreement usually done out of court to end a dispute between some parties.
The Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 was a settlement in this sense – it ended some long-going territorial disputes between the Dutch and the British in the East Indies.
Looking at the actions the British made before and after the time of this treaty, it looks like the British believed that as a result of the treaty, the territory known as New Holland was then fully under British sovereignty. After the treaty, they started setting up proper courts and parliaments, expanded their territorial borders, and ran cases through their courts to test their jurisdiction over Aboriginal people and Aboriginal land in different parts of the land.
Obviously, this interpretation of the treaty having ceded New Holland to the British is sketchy – due to the obvious fact that the Dutch did not have radical title, nor the power to cede radical title of the territory known as New Holland. Only Aboriginal nations have that power.
What happened to our Law?
There’s an oversimplified narrative that British did not recognise Aboriginal law because they are backward and uncivilised. But I think the courts have a different underlying logic to suppress our law. Before the treaty, the courts used their test cases to first tie the concepts of law with land/property (law of the land principle, R v. Ballard 1829). They recognised our law in this 1829 case. The case was held just before the expiry of the 6 year grace period we had under the treaty article XIV to dispose and vacate our ceded lands. Then after the eviction grace period expired in 1830 – they ran some more test cases (eg. R v. Murrell) this time under the shifted paradigm where we don’t own the land due to the treaty ceding our territory. Since the courts previously linked law and land/property – and we lost our land/property in the treaty – our law is no longer the law of the land. The courts said we are fully subject to British law. Later the British made every attempt they could to destroy our law, language, culture etc. It’s not because our law is backward – it’s because it is the true law of the land which must be suppressed.
Read the Privy Council advice below carefully;
“[t]he extent to which English law is introduced into a British Colony, and the manner of its introduction, must necessarily vary according to the circumstances. There is a great deal of difference between the case of a Colony acquired by conquest or cession, in which there is an established system of law, and that of a colony which consisted of a tract of territory practically unoccupied, without settled inhabitants or settled law, at the time when it was peacefully annexed to the British dominions. The Colony of New South Wales belongs to the latter class. … There was no land law or tenure existing in the Colony at the time of its annexation to the Crown
Privy Council 1889
Note from the first few words – this is about how to import British law into a colony – not about sovereignty claims over territory. Horse before carriage. The sovereignty issue (horse) is already sorted out by the 1824 treaty. This paragraph is about how to import the law into that newly acquired colonial territory (carriage).
The Privy Council have set up a false dichotomy between 1. territory acquired by conquest or cession and 2. territory without settled law. But it is possible to have territory that is ceded or conquered AND ALSO uninhabited and/or without settled law. That is the case here.
When the Privy Council are talking about lack of settled law – it is an observation that the Dutch never bothered to settle their own Dutch laws in New Holland. The Privy Council are not saying it’s a terra nullius! They are saying there’s no settled law* – or no local Dutch law that has been received to the land that the British must first accommodate when they import their own law on top. So by British logic, since the land is scarcely inhabited by settled Dutch people staying there after the peaceful annexation, they can import their British law wholesale without having to worry about treading on Dutch local customs or – most importantly – Dutch land tenure law. That’s how the British got their jurisdiction over land tenure – because they rightly observed the lack of Dutch land tenure laws, outright ignored Aboriginal land tenure laws, then stuck their own obnoxious law on top .
(* normally settled law has another meaning that makes no sense in this context, but this term’s positioning in the original text next to settled inhabitants, and in contrast to the term established law used earlier – makes it clear to me what is meant.)
Makarrata: Sovereignty acquired by settlement
Makarrata is the culmination of our agenda: the coming together after a struggle,
Uluru Statement from the Heart
Settlement: In law, a settlement is a resolution between disputing parties about a legal case, reached either before or after court action begins.
Makarrata sure sounds like another word for the legal term – settlement.
The 1824 treaty was also a settlement in this sense, and it is how the British acquired sovereignty over the territory.
Perhaps Makarrata is the culmination of their agenda to right the mistake of the British treating with the Dutch instead of simply treating with us in the first place. Perhaps one purpose of Makarrata is to replace the 1824 treaty as the mechanism that the British/Australia acquire sovereignty over the territory. A retrospective acquisition of sovereignty through settlement.
From that point it goes full circle. Settlement still has that other meaning – people establishing themselves in a new region. If Aboriginal people arrived from somewhere else 60,000 years ago as implied in the Uluru Statement, then they too are settlers. If Aboriginal people are the “First Australians” – then Australia was settled 60,000 years ago and has the oldest continuing governance system in the world. “Young and free” – yeah that’s gotta change… Yes they want to ground themselves in our history, legacy and legitimacy, but it has to fit into their framework – so we have to be settlers too, despite our actual belief systems.
The Doctrines of Discovery in Australia is a video series I am slowly working on.
The goal of this video series is to go through the process of colonisation in Australia, chronologically from the start to the present, and to examine what happened in context of the Doctrines of Discovery. The Doctrines of Discovery being understood to be a protocol between European Crowns. Elements of the doctrines are still being ‘imported’ into domestic law in current times, even though the doctrine is supposed to be dead 60 years ago.
I think that in Australia, there is a oversimplification on how the doctrines of discovery functioned and how they were applied in the colonisation of Australia.
It is either “Captain Cook is a hero and discovered Australia” or “the evil British invaded the First Australian nations”. But it is a lot more complicated than this. If you ask an Australian “when did Australia become an independent nation” you may get five different answers. The reason is because there are multiple layers of the colonisation process going on. Going through chronologically and examining colonisation in context of Doctrines of Discovery and of International law unpacks the layers one by one.
This video is part 2. It is about the period from the First Fleet to about 1830. During this time, the land underwent a territorial change from being Dutch to being British. A bloodless frontier line moved across the land. This is important background because it means the British did not acquire sovereignty in a uniform way across the whole land.
This has very important implications that I will draw on later in the series. The pattern of territorial acquisition has affected every high-profile major High Court case on Aboriginal issues – from Mabo, Kartinyeri, Wik. These cases are all hand-picked – the way the British acquired sovereignty over the lands in question will lead to a specific outcome. What is special about Mer Island, Hindmarsh Island and Cape York? Why did the Myall Creek massacre lead to a criminal trial but not other massacres? It’s all to do with how they were claimed and colonised in a technical, territorial sense in the first place.
I recently read the treaty again and noticed this;
Article XIV
All the inhabitants of the territories hereby ceded shall enjoy for a period of 6 years from the date of the ratification of the present Treaty, the liberty of disposing, as they please, of their property, and of transporting themselves, with out let or hindrance, to any country to which they may wish to remove.
FYI the ratifications were on 30 April 1824 for Britain and 2 June 1824 for the Dutch, with instruments exchanged on 8 June.
So the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 says that inhabitants of ceded lands have 6 years to remove themselves.
Well it was 6 years and 5 months after the treaty – that the Black Line started!
Black Line, October–November 1830 The Black Line consisted of 2,200 men: about 550 soldiers—a little over half of the entire garrison in Van Diemen’s Land—as well as 738 convict servants and 912 free settlers or civilians. Arthur, who maintained overall control, placed Major Sholto Douglas of the 63rd Regiment in command of the forces. Separated into three divisions and aided by Aboriginal guides, they formed a staggered front more than 300 km long that began pushing south and east across the Settled Districts from 7 October with the intention of forming a pincer movement to trap members of four of the nine Aboriginal nations in front of the line and drive them across the Forestier Peninsula to East Bay Neck and into the Tasman Peninsula, which Arthur had designated as an Aboriginal Reserve
I’ve been doing some mapping trying to see the progression of the Dutch/British territorial frontier. From what I can tell, the Forestier Peninsula and Tasman Peninsula are still not British territory at this time. If you look at where the British settlements and military posts are and how they were placed, and look at where Tasman claimed possession – this corner of Van Diemen’s Land is still Dutch. (I’m doing a video soon on this frontier line, and more detail will be in there)
I figured this frontier line out before I actually noticed that George Arthur had designated it as an Aboriginal reserve! I was shocked (and validated) when I read that!
No, it’s not an “Aboriginal reserve” – it is Dutch territory that was claimed by Abel Tasman. Aborigines are being treated as if they are Dutch subjects, and being pushed onto that land. Once they are all in that area, they are removed out completely.
In 1797 – so about 10 years after the First Fleet – Bass and Flinders made a series of shorter expeditions from Port Jackson. This post I’m going to write about what I think was the overall strategy behind these expeditions.
Bass 1797-1798
The first of these short expeditions was by Bass. In 1797-1798 he followed the coast line southwards from Port Jackson almost all the way to current-day Melbourne.
The world was historically divided by European colonisers into two hemispheres. The Treaty of Saragossa runs through the New Holland continent, and Alexander Darlymple’s writings show the British had their eyes on parts of New Holland that lay in the western hemisphere.
The Treaty of Saragossa is where the border that separates two hemispheres is described. There are two descriptions of the line given in the treaty text. One description gives a number of leagues west of the Maluku Islands. Another description says it runs through the Islands of the Sails – and these are today called the Mariana Islands where Guam is.
What I think Bass was doing on this expedition was surveying to find the southern-most point of the New Holland mainland that is still in the western Hemisphere. Bass turned his boat around when he reached the same longitude of Guam, and headed back to Port Jackson.
Flinders 1798
In 1798, Flinders also went on an expedition in the Bass Strait and around the Furneaux Islands.
I think this expedition was to answer some questions raised by Tobias Furneaux’s voyage. Tobias Furneaux was the captain of the Adventure – the second ship on Cook’s second voyage. This voyage by Flinders seems to retrace parts of the path that I hypothesised (pink line in the chart) Furneaux to have taken.
Flinders+Bass 1798-1799
Flinders and Bass then together went on a longer voyage where they circumnavigated Van Diemen’s land. They charted some sections in a lot of detail, up in the Derwant River (near Hobart) and the Tamar River (leads to Launceston).
These specific sections of survey have been chosen to scout out places for future settlements that will help quarter up Van Deimens land into chunks, to shrink Dutch territory and displace Tasman’s first discovery.
1799 Flinders “Queensland” expedition.
Flinders was off again – this time for less than a month where he visited two areas in particular on what is now the Queensland coast (although at the time Queensland didn’t exist). Here is a rough map of the entire voyage – in just over a month. Note how much other coast was just skipped-over, and the voyage made a bee-line to two areas.
The first area was Moreton Bay – where Brisbane is today. The fruit/milk icons shows the places he stopped.
Moreton Bay.
The white line is the exact halfway latitude between Cape York – the northernmost point of Australia and South Cape – the southernmost point of Tasmania. Flinders even went inland and climbed up some of the Glasshouse Mountains. He named Redcliffe as some cliffs near the current-day bridge, but today the whole peninsular is called Redcliffe. This area ended up becoming a penal colony which was later relocated up the Brisbane River to the current Brisbane CBD.
The second area was Hervey’s Bay – today called Hervey Bay – on the west side of Fraser Island. The white line on this chart marks exactly half way between the latitude of Cape York and Wilsons Promontory. Wilsons Prom was surveyed by Bass (1797 voyage) to be the southern-most point of New Holland that lay in the western hemisphere of the world.
The reason to survey these areas of Moreton Bay and Hervey’s Bay is to find strategic places just in case of a conflict with the Dutch. For example – by placing a settlement in Moreton Bay makes a northern boundary marker in case the territory is halved along a north-south Dutch-British line. If Van Diemen’s Land is lost to the Dutch, a settlement near Hervey’s Bay would serve the same purpose.
Remember Michael Mansell’s idea for a seventh state?
Well, it’s not much different to what the Uluru Statement asks for.
What is a state anyway?
To answer this – lets go back to the federation of Australia in 1901.
The word Federation – comes from Latin “foederatus” roughly meaning “treaty”.
In 1901, 6 British colonies of the Australasia region concluded a treaty with each other – the Federation of Australia. The federation treaty is about sharing powers over the land. It is a written treaty. The powers are divided up and written in the constitution of each of the parties to the treaty. For example – the Queensland Constitution lists the powers that Queensland has. The Australian Constitution act lists the powers that the federal government has.
The ongoing problem with the arrangement is that all of the colonies still act in the right of a foreign crown. It doesn’t matter how complicated their government is – or how they shift the deck chairs on the ship – it doesn’t change the fact that they act in the right of the Crown of England, and that Crown does not have the right to speak for country.
How can this ‘problem’ be fixed?
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have the right to speak for country. If their right to speak for country (their Voice) is also enshrined into the federation, then the federation will inherit the power to speak for country.
For this to happen, firstly the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people need to form a new state. To do this – they need to have their own constitutional convention to write their own constitution. This has already happened during the 2017 First Nations Constitutional Convention at Yulara. The next step is for the new First Nations state to become a party to the already existing treaty of federation.
Voice, Treaty, Truth. The Treaty is the federation. And it’s already negotiated, and has been in effect since 1901. First Nations can join in though a legitimate international process in accordance with Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties called “Accession”.
But most people wrongly think that a state must have it’s own land-base. But that is not true. There is such thing as non-territorial federalism. This already exists elsewhere in the world – for example French and Dutch speaking communities in Belgium have their own states, and the Saami people in Scandinavia also have their own state. But these states have no land, they are just representation of ethnic groups.
States don’t have to have any land at all.
Because most people don’t know this, they don’t recognise that the Voice is a state.
The Voice will have no land and barely any power. It will be reduced to a token mouthpiece to give the Australian federation the right to speak for country.
2. Declaration of Recognition/Independence
The second major part of the Uluru Statement is the Declaration of Recognition. This is in the Referendum Council Final Report, and it is an idea that came out of the think-tank Uphold and Recognise.
You may have never heard of it because it has flown under the radar in the Uluru Statement campaign. But it is in the Referendum Council Final Report as a key recommendation. It was in the media before the Yulara Convention and was promoted by Noel Pearson. But since Yulara it is very rarely discussed in the media. It is part of the Uluru Statement because it is in the Referendum Council Final Report.
In 1986, Australia passed the Australia Acts. The Australia Acts made Australia administratively independent. This means that the Crown can’t interfere in the administration of Australia. But the Crown is still the ultimate source of authority for the Australian governments. The Crown is like a robot automatically approving anything the Australian people wish for, but the approval stamp is still needed for everything they do.
You can tell this because when representatives are sworn into parliament – they swear allegiance to the Crown – not to the Australian people. When someone is prosecuted of a crime, they are prosecuted by Crown prosecutors. It’s not like in America where it’s like “The people of the State of California vs. blah”. In Australia it’s in the right of the Crown “R. vs. blah”. A automatic, robo-Crown sits right at the top and ultimately signs off on everything.
The biggest problem for the colony is not that it is embarrassing to have a foreign, robo-Crown head-of-state – but that it means Australia has not decolonised. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are still under “alien subjugation, domination and exploitation”, and therefore they have the right under international law (A/RES/1514(XV)) to become independent in their own right if they so choose. If Aboriginal people figure out how to leverage these international laws on decolonisation – the colony will be under a lot of pressure.
To make sure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people do not exercise their rights as colonised peoples and overthrow or otherwise upset the Australian status-quo, the Uluru Statement reform package includes the Declaration of Recognition to pre-empt Aboriginal people’s right to decolonise on their own terms.
The Declaration of Recognition is an international declaration on behalf of three groups of people; First Nations people, White-Australia/colonial Australians, and later migrant Australians. The declaration asserts authority of those people over the land. As First Nations people are included – the declaration will be a legitimate form of decolonisation. It will give the three waves of people together as one unit – the source of authority to speak for country. This authority can replace the foreign crown, and make Australia fully independent and able to stand in it’s own power. It paves the way for a truly democratic society without the robo-Crown middleman – but throws Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples under the bus while doing to.
There were two ships on on James Cook’s second voyage. But you hardly ever hear about the second ship – and for good reason.
Cook’s second voyage was after the “discovery of Australia”, and involved exploring very far south towards Antarctica. Tobias Furneaux was the captain of the second ship, the Adventure. In Antarctic fog, the Adventure was separated from Cook’s ship the Resolution, and Adventure made a rendezvous in Van Diemen’s Land. This post is an analysis of the movements of the Adventure on this detour to Van Diemen’s land.
After the voyage in 1777, a chart and account of Furneaux’s adventure in Van Diemen’s Land were published. At the time of publication, the only ships recorded to have visited Van Diemen’s land were Tasman’s and Furneaux’s. So Furneaux’s accounts were published before anyone else had visited Van Diemen’s Land to verify them in terms of geographical accuracy.
At the time of Cook’s second voyage, there was a high strategic motive for the British to verify the existence or non-existence of the Bass Strait. Evidence from Cook’s first voyage suggests likelihood of a strait. In 1642, Abel Tasman formally claimed possession of Van Diemen’s Land by the planting of a flag. If Van Diemen’s Land and New Holland are connected, then Tasman has also planted a flag on New Holland – as it is a single contiguous land mass. If Van Diemen’s Land and New Holland are separated by a strait, this means the Dutch have never formally claimed possession of New Holland. The existence of the strait implies New Holland large is still unclaimed.
As Furneaux was in the area and given the strategic importance, it is likely he was there to verify the existence of a strait. The published written accounts of Furneaux were not a day-by-day log, but a summary of the voyage. This means small details could be much easier controlled and fabricated after-the-fact. In these accounts, Furneaux does not find the Bass Strait despite him saying he was looking for it, and it existing in reality.
Furneaux’s published chart and accounts make sense on their own, but the moment these accounts are evaluated against current knowledge of the real coastlines – they are full of anomalies. The most obvious anomaly can be seen by simply looking at Furneaux’s chart and comparing it to a modern map of Tasmania. Furneaux’s chart is too skinny. I think this and other anomolies are evidence that Furneaux sailed through the Bass Strait in secret.
If this is true and the British knew of the existence of the Bass Strait before the First Fleet, this might be an important detail in terms of Aboriginal sovereignty. So important – I think it is the origin of the terra nullius doctrine and is evidence for premediated genocide.
Timeline
Abel Tasman 1642
3 December (Tasmania)
Tasman raises a Prince-Flag at Fredrick Henry Bay (Latitude 43° South, Longitude 167 degrees 55 minutes°)[1]
19 December (New Zealand)
Tasman in Murderer’s Bay (Latitude 40° 50′, Longitude South , 191° 41′ )[1]
A longitudinal offset between Fredrick Henry Bay and Murderer’s bay can be calculated as 23 degrees, 43 minutes
James Cook’s first voyage 1770
1 April (New Zealand)
Cape Farewell in the Latitude of 40 degrees 30 minutes South and Longitude 185 degrees 58 minutes West from Greenwich[2]
18 April (Tasman Sea)
James Cook was on route between NZ and New Holland. One day before hitting the NH coast, Cook writes in his journal[2], that he is one degree to the west of the east coast of Van Diemen’s Land. So at this point, Cook calculates he is already directly above Van Diemen’s Land based on the longitudinal offset from Tasman’s coordinates. But he is not.
19 April (East Coast Australia)
Cook hits Point Hicks in the Latitude of 38 degrees 0 minutes South and in the Longitude of 211 degrees 7 minutes West[2].
Longitudinal offset from Cape Farewell to Point Hicks is 25 degrees, 9 minutes
31 August (PNG)
Cook leaves uncharted lands and locates a known point “Caep Walsche” in New Guinea. (possible mistranslation of Dutch “Caep Valsche” meaning False Cape – because the feature is an island). Caep Walsche Latitude 8 degrees 24 minutes South, Longitude 222 degrees 55 minutes West
Longitudinal offset from Caep Walsche to Point Hicks is 11 degrees 48 minutes
Furneaux on Cook’s second Voyage 1773
11 March (Tasmania)
Furneaux lands in Adventure Bay. “Just after we anchored, being a fine clear evening, had a good observation of the star Antares and the moon, which gave the longitude of 147° 34′ East, being in the latitude of 43° 20′ South.”
16-19 March (Tasmania)
Furneaux claims to proceed up the east coast of Tasmania to the Furneaux Islands
4 April (New Zealand)
Furneaux proceeds eastward across the Tasman sea where he “made the coast of New Zealand in 40° 30′ South, having made twenty-four degrees of longitude, from Adventure Bay, after a passage of fifteen days.” [3]
Furneaux’s charts are VERY odd
Furneaux’s chart has the southern coast of Tasmania perfectly positioned in relation to Point Hicks. Yet he has the east coast of Van Diemen’s land and the Furneaux Islands wrongly positioned in relation to Point Hicks, it has a longitudinal error of about 20 minutes.
Furneaux’s chart overlayed on Google Earth. Aligned using the coordinate grid on his chart.
At a glance of the chart alone and with no context, this looks like a classic longitudinal problem showing in a composite of two different charts.
But the navigational methods Furneaux used are the best high-tech methods available and should not produce such an error. Furneaux had a dedicated astronomer using celestial navigation by almanac method. He likely also used the brand new, game-changing technology – a chromometer. It is recorded that Cook’s second voyage carried 4 chronometers in total – so presumably the Adventure would carry at least one. Chronometers were insanely expensive at the time, so it would be very stupid to put all 4 chronometers on one ship lest that ship have an accident and sink. Furneaux’s measurements and charts should be very accurate with the gadgets he has on board.
The error makes even less sense when considering Furneaux’s accounts of travelling. Longitudinal problems arise when travelling long stretches eastward or westward while in open sea without reference points. Furneaux claims he left Adventure Bay (which is far south in Van Diemen’s land) and proceeded up the east coast of Van Diemen’s land – keeping visual sight of the land along the entire way. Upon leaving Adventure Bay, Furneaux somehow acquired an instant half a degree longitudinal problem whilst in sight of the coast, with a chronometer, an astronomer and up-to-date almanacs on board. Even if Furneaux had lost all of his navigational equipment – this error should not have happened.
I will leave this chart here for reference – this is from Furneaux and has a line showing his alleged path of travel. If you want to really appreciate how BS his story is, you can read his account here. Try following his story with modern maps and you will see the problem, there is something very wrong with his story.
Furneaux’s chart – raw. Published February 1777. Cook was in Adventure Bay January 1777 – without modern communication tools Cook was too late to add correction.
What really happened?
Below is what I think happened – in 10 steps – see also the map with the 10 steps marked.
Furneaux uses Tasman’s chart to attempt to find Fredricks Henry Bay, approaching from the south west corner of Van Diemen’s Land
Furneaux fails, because Tasman’s chart strategically obscures a massive harbour system lying in “Storm Bay”. Furneaux goes into the wrong bay.
Furneaux charts the wrong bay – Adventure Bay, which he thinks is either Fredrick Henry Bay or a bay directly adjacent to Fredrick Henry Bay. Evidence of this is Furneaux’s description and chart of the “Maria Islands” – which are actually hills on the west half of the Tasman Peninsular. This deception becomes obvious when looking at a modern topographic chart of the Tasman peninsular – Furneaux looked at the hills on the peninsular through a telescope from a distance in Adventure Bay, and wrongly assumed they were Maria Island. He fabricated the Maria Islands using these distant observations without sailing near them. Furneaux writes that he stays in Adventure Bay “wooding and watering” for 5 days which is a total lie – he spends the 5 day alibi looking for the Bass Strait.
Furneaux departs Adventure Bay and heads WEST, not east as he claims. He sails up the WEST coast of Van Diemen’s Land. When he reaches Hunter Island in the north west corner of Van Diemen’s Land, he then dead-reckons towards “Point Hicks”.
Along the way across the Bass Strait, he spots Wilson’s Promontory – which he marks on his chart at the correct latitude, but incorrect longitude (as putting it in the correct place would blow his cover story). You can see this on Furneaux’s chart as a little phantom land mass at the same latitude as Wilsons Prom.
Furneaux locates and surveys the “Point Hicks” area. He is aware that Cook has fudged it’s location, and would have a ‘real’ chart to identify the right place. The colonial brains trust later uses this survey as a known reference area to correctly position parts in the final chart.
Furneaux dead-reckons a return towards to Adventure Bay, expecting to fall upon the east coast of Van Diemen’s Land on the way because he wrongly believes Adventure Bay is on the east coast.
During this dead-reckoning, he discovers Flinders Island/Furneaux Island group from the west side.
Furneaux hits the north coast of Van Diemen’s land and heads east. He follows the coast down along the Bay of Fires, St Helens etc. until he starts seeing landmarks that were described by Tasman.
Once he is sure he is on Tasman’s course, he plagiarises the rest of his chart down to Adventure Bay using Tasman’s chart, and doesn’t bother actually sailing the whole route. He is caught-out because he has missed Tasman’s Peninsular. He then goes to New Zealand.
After going back to England and crunching the data, and plotting the coordinates on a chart, the brains trust would have looked at the resulting plot and realised something was off.
The resulting Van Diemen’s Land plot would look too “fat” compared to Tasman’s skinny chart. Tasman’s chart has no problems so far, so there is no reason not to trust it. Besides, unlike Furneaux, Tasman actually went up around the bottom of Van Diemen’s Land – so Tasman’s account might be thought to be more reliable than coordinates from new and unknown technology, and the second-choice/second-class navigators (perhaps sub-par) on the second ship.
The overly “fat” chart manifests as a 20 minute ‘gap’ in longitude between Adventure Bay and the east coast. The colonial brains trust put Van Diemen’s Land on a weight-loss diet and make skinnier by 20 minutes. The south-west coast is positioned in relation to fake Point Hicks which Furneaux actually surveyed. The east coast and Furneaux Islands are shifted rather arbitrarily westwards to remove the 20 minute longitude gap and to put Adventure Bay on the east coast where it is supposed to be. This shift of the east coast of Van Diemen’s Land is coyly obscured in Furneaux’s longitudes when he hits the coast of New Zealand.
The problem is – the 20 minute fatness is not an error, and Van Diemen’s Land really is fatter. The British don’t realise that Tasman hid the Storm Bay harbour making all of Van Diemen’s Land skinnier than it really is. Furneaux would have known that if he had sailed up the east coast as he claims he did.
Cook came along later to Adventure Bay on 26 January 1777 in his third voyage, and I think he figured out what happened upon seeing the harbour in Storm Bay. He did his best to cover for Furneaux. But by that time, Furneaux’s fudged narratives and chart had already been published. The damage has already been done. A cleanup job was needed.
The Cover-up
Luckily for the British, Furneaux’s little adventure to Van Diemen’s Land was easily overshadowed by the celebrity of Cook. Perhaps the task of cover-up is as easy as emphasising other voyages, and allow this fraud to melt into obscurity.
Matthew Flinders came along later and smoothed things over by renaming a random bay near Hobart “Fredrick Henry Bay” which carries the name to this day. This is not Tasman’s Fredrick Henry Bay, but a bay that matches Furneaux’s story of lying north of Adventure Bay. But it is impossible to sail out of Flinders’ fake Fredrick Henry Bay, head north, and into the Tasman sea – as Tasman did from the real bay. The fake bay is landlocked in that direction. This rename helps confuse things for anyone trying to match up Furneaux’s stories with maps. If you know where Tasman’s Fredrick Henry Bay really is, and you read Furneaux’s story, you know Furneaux’s story is complete rubbish.
Map showing fake Fredrick Henry Bay as named by Flinders, and real Fredrick Henry Bay as named by Tasman. Note it is only possible to sail north and out into open ocean from the real bay. Real Fredrick Henry Bay is not due north of Adventure bay as Furneaux claims he saw on his journey.
Another cover-up was the release of Burney’s chart[4]. Burney was the second in command on the ship. Apparently, he made his own chart for his own private use. The story goes – the Royal Navy etc. had no problem with him taking it home and showing all his friends. I call BS – normally there are specific voyage instructions that journals and charts are confiscated on return to home port as they may contain valuable strategic information. Burney’s chart has an inexplicably ‘fat’ Van Diemen’s Land. Below is an overlay where I have aligned the grid coordinates on Burney’s chart on Google Earth to show the chart is ‘fat’ like the real Van Diemen’s Land. Burney also has a margin with a list of handwritten coordinate points. Notably – these coordinates do not match coordinates published officially before Cook’s third voyage nor match anything resembling Furneaux’s written published accounts or chart. They are fabricated after-the-fact simply to make Van Diemen’s Land fat again.
Burney, the second-in-command. His chart for private use looks more accurate than the official chart.
The Maria Islands and Adventure Bay are misplaced, but everything else lines up better than the official chart with the real-life satellite image. At first I thought this could be an unadulterated raw data chart as it matches the satellite well, but the position of Adventure Bay is so off that it makes me think otherwise.
Here is Burney’s chart (red coastline) and Furneaux’s chart (blue coastline) overlayed using the coordinate grids on their charts. As both should be working from measurements from the same voyage, their charts should not be so different. But there are no points that line up. You would think at the least that Adventure Bay would line up, as they reckon they stopped for 5 days, and should have had plenty of time to do decent astronomical observations.
Chart from Furneaux (blue coast) and Burney (red coast) overlaid using coordinate grids in each chart. These two were on the same ship at the same time, but no coastline coordinates line up!
Why is this relevant to sovereignty?
The reason this matters is because it shows the British knew about the existence of the Bass Strait before the First Fleet. This means in 1788 the British knew that New Holland is not the same land as Van Diemen’s Land.
Tasman was instructed to claim lands under certain conditions. Abel Tasman implied that Van Diemen’s Land had no sovereign – as his instructions were to only claim by flag where 1. there is no sovereign or 2. with the consent of the sovereign or peoples. In case 2, Tasman was instructed to record details/names etc on obtaining consent. As he recorded no names, Tasman effectively declared that land terra nullius on behalf of the Dutch crown. This is in contrast to Tasman’s actions in New Zealand where he had diplomatic interaction with Maori and did not plant a flag. The British followed this lead of recognition – this is why the Maori got a treaty and we didn’t.
Furneaux – upon visiting Adventure Bay – perpetuated the story that the natives were “a very ignorant and wretched set of people”, or – without an effective sovereign. Furneaux also wrote that he believes there is no strait despite it’s existence and Furneaux admitting to looking for it. James Cook swung-by Adventure Bay on his third voyage (26 January 1777) before he was killed in Hawaii. Cook’s surgeon William Anderson claimed that the natives in Van Diemen’s Land used the same word Kangaroo as the natives in the Endeavour River in north Queensland. This was done to fabricate anthropological evidence that there was no strait between New Holland and Van Diemen’s Land. This helped set a narrative that we; the natives of Van Diemen’s Land and New Holland alike, are all a single wretched set of ignorant sub-humans with no sovereignty and impossible to treat with.
So upon the arrival of the first fleet in 1788, settlement was made without any treaty. A treaty was not necessary – because Abel Tasman and the Dutch have effectively already declared the single land (Van Diemen’s + New Holland joined) a terra nullius. So British figure they can blame the Dutch for the terra nullius ‘error’. However – the British cannot do this if they have prior knowledge of the Bass Strait. This is why the British denied the existence of the Bass Strait until after settlement had begun – when they sent Bass out to fake first-discover it.
British invasion was fully premeditated – there is no accidental misunderstanding. The British never had any intention to treaty with us from the start. This is a secret that remains to this day to save the Crown’s arrs – because it still needs to stay secret until the unfinished business of the “Aboriginal Problem” is solved.
References
[1] Dirk Rembrantse, A short Relation out of the Journal of Captain Abel Jan Tasman, upon the Discovery of Terra incognita ; not long since published in the Low Dutch. *This is the source of Tasman’s journal that Cook used
