Week Two Response

The Australian continent was the last habitable continent to at least partially come under the control of European influence. There were according to Manning Clarke a variety of reasons for this but he places the single most importance on the failure of early religious movements to venture into the unknown. This was chiefly aligned with a lack of technological advancement and enlightened thinking present in the societies that were attempting to explore and claim the great terra incognita.  For Clarke another contributing factor was the apparently harsh and worthless climate that early explorers found there. It was not until these earlier factors were overcome that successful voyagers took place.

For religious groups the unknown lands to the south were a land beyond civilisation. A place where humans were still doomed to wretchedness for their part in the original sin. A view widely held was that the peoples their failed to advance from barbarism as result. According to Clarke they believed that the lands where cold, snow filled and that it was inhabited by grotesque mutations of humans with abnormally large ears. It was this portrait that played a major role in dissuading many would be claimants to Australia. Clarke also asserts that some religious groups such as the Malays didn’t venture into the territories east of Timor because they didn’t feel the need and lacked suitable knowledge. It was this same attitude that was then passed on the early catholic explorers such as Vasco de Gama of Portugal. The primary interest of Catholicism was the domination of the spice trade and the search for gold. Since nether were said to be found further south there was no incentive to go there.  Indeed the Portuguese were far more concerned with elaborate plots to end the dominance of the Grande Turk.

The protestant English and Dutch sought to win souls for heaven, were the restorers of pristine purity. They desired herbs and spices for healing, but also believed that the sands and flies found in Australia were the result of a failure to repent their sins. The “very large tract of land, with a dry sandy soil, which was destitute of water” which Englishman William Dampier described evoked no desire in their respective motherlands to settle this desolate place.  According to Clarke it is these tales that were brought back to Europe that did much to discourage exploration of the southern land mass.

Clarke believes that with the coming of the enlightenment humanity was able to shrug off some of these religious shackles and engage in an even greater degree of commerce.  Commerce was the key to claiming power status in the new Europe, Britain and Holland rose supreme over nations like Sweden and Denmark. It was this quest for an extension of commerce that Clarke contends was the driving force behind a renewed interest in the South Seas. With new technologies such as improvements in ship building, aids in navigation and in the diet of seamen making exploration easier. Clarke argues that the success and favourable outcomes of these voyagers become more likely.

A map from the La Trobe Journal depicting the "Terra Australis nondum cognita", or the great unknown southern land. This was to prove the insurmountable frontier for many years and was only fully breached according to Clarke by the arrival of the men of the Enlightenment. http://www3.slv.vic.gov.au/latrobejournal/issue/latrobe-41/fig-latrobe-41P001a.html