New Holland

Southland (English, Australia) is the world's only land to hold all of a single greatland. The Southlandish greatland lies between the Indish and Peaceful Great Seas. Southland is a folkdom.

The First Southlanders came to Southland many thousandyears ago, where they lived by hunting and gathering. In the nineteenth hundredyear, the British started sending their outlaws to live their. Now most of the folk of Southland are of European roots, with English being the leading tongue.

In the mid 1600s the ships of European seafarers ran along the Southland's north-west shoreline whilst on the way to their settlings in Asia. However Dutch, Portuguese and English alike were sadly let down at what they saw.

Dutchman Abel Tasman, whilst on his far-reaching seafarings, saw little that would bring wealth to his backers. And William Dampier later wrote of New Holland,".....as barely fruitful enough to keep alive the most wretched folk on Earth."

In 1770, Head Shipman James Cook and the wiscraftmen aboard "Endeavour" were less scathing. Wondrous at the sight of such strange wight-life and wort-life there on the Southland's eastern seaboard's green, seemingly endless fields, Cook went on to say that he believed it to be a Land ready to bear, in time, a thriving folkdom. And of the First Southlanders, Cook also had some kind words, " They may seem to some to be the most wretched folk on Earth, but in truth they are happier than we Europeans." Cook took ownership of the Southland's eastern seaboard landmass in the name of Englands's King George 111, on many a score, but for more than less to thwart the will of other European powers thinking of setting up their own settlings there.

In 1788 the (First Fleet), with its leader Arthur Phillip, came from England to build a settling to hold the unwanted lawbreakers of Great Britian and Ireland. The 750 lags and their 252 warders, harmen of the newly -named New South Wales Fighting Body, who were there to see that law and frith was kept and, if need be, by the harshest means, made landfall near nowaday Sydney on 26th, January 1788. Of the some 500,000 First Folk already living there, in the mind of Besteerer Phillip, they had all but lost their right to the Land. Whether this was within the law did not weigh heavily on his mind; it could be dealt with later. However, it was settled some twenty years later by a wont for land by a steady stream of newcomers flowing into the young settling.

The British, leader or lag alike, thought that their way of life was far better than that of a wild folk, barely out of the Stone Eldth. Yet there were times together of words fairspoken, and friendly meeting with some thought for each others'life ways. But it was not long before misunderstanding grew, bitter feuding spread, and with ill-will and pay-back feeding the fire of foehood, the wilds of New South Wales and Van Dieman's Land, by the 1830s, saw the First Southlander dying in their thousands.

The coming of the White Man upset their hunting ways by inclosing their hunting grounds, and their sheep and cattle fouled the waterholes. The First Southlander's answers to the unwanted incoming and over-running of their land were sundry. Some were willing to try to learn more of the ways of the strange newcomer, trying new food like bread and sugar; others hunted new wights such as cows and sheep; a few tried to fight back, and many sought safety in the bush.

Overall the First Southlanders tried to take the White Man into their way of life in trading of goods, hunting, wayfaring and guestliness. But they seemed to have little wish to become like or live like white folk. Instead they looked to a time when the outborners would move on or begin to follow their way of life. It soon dawned upon them that the newcomers wanted to own the land, not share it. There was little hope of getting a fair deal from them. The chawn between the two folks' life ways was too great, and the newcomers had the might and the weapon hoard needed to win any fight-out. They were here to stay.

By the 1900s some white folks began to listen to the First Southlander's tale of their way of life throughout some seventy thousand years adwelling in the Land. The First Southlanders holy lore tells us that their world was made in the Dreamtime, when a body of godly beings adwelled on the Earth and made all the shapes of the landscape and gave souls to all living beings. These godly beings were the forebears of the First Folk and all livings things,as well. Sometime manlife, sometime wightlife, they had the power to work wonders. Their eldtime deeds, and folkways have been passed down from kith-end to kith-end by word of mouth in folktale, dance and song from a time beyond the mind and underpinned by hallowed ways of worship.

The First Southlanders were not a thede as we would understand meaning of the word, but rather a manifold of folk made up of many kindreds. Each adwelled in "homelands" and each spoke a tongue and had a set of folkways that were not wholly the same as those of its neighbours. A kindred could have as few as a hundred folk or as many as fifteen hundred. A kindred could cleave furtherly into two or four smaller sibsets (clans) who lived, hunted and gathered food together.

Not only men and women were kindred. Wights, birds, fish also were believed to be by the First Southlanders ghostly kin. Each kindred and sibset(clan) had two or more tokens and shown on them might be a wight,a wort or something of the wordly landscape such as the Moon, while each sibling had their own token. Hard to understand kinship laws set out ways and rights of wedlocking and kithships deeds.

A wayfaring folk they had few wordly belongings. They did not live in fixed houses, but instead built makeshift shieldings from lowly wind breaks of boughs, bark and stone to a fairly strong, long hut sitting on poles, overlaid with sheets of bark, and a lifted floor, where underneath a fire could be lit to keep away gnats and bloodflies.

Their kind of food would have been well-rounded and healthful, held in sway only by the reach of food brought forth by the earth in their kindred landships. Folk meeting was a time of great happiness with merrymaking, trading, worship, singing old and new songs, welcoming old friends and settling old scores.

The First Southlanders were also skilled huecrafters, folk-gleeman and folktellers. Huecrafting on bark, rocks, or godkindly tokens were all link to worship, song and dance. They spoke many tongues, and a tongues might have many by-tonguess, more so if it was spoken over a wide landship. Speechlorers believe that there were some 250 unsame tongues spoken by mainland First Folk.

Throughout the thousandyears of the First Southlander's adwelling on the Great Southland, they have followed a way of life friendly to the Earth. Their knowledge of the land, skill in hunting and food gathering lets them live-on, even in the harshest, almost rainless, sandy steads where daily life was always a struggle. And before the coming of the European it is fair to say that wherever they lived, from the sandy steads of the hinterland to the green, food-rich fields and streams of the eastern seaboard their life was sound and happy. Kindred ways and set-up let each folk have a feeling of worth and might with the right to share in all things.

With the loss of her settlings in North America, Great Britian had to find a new overseas lock-up for its lawbreakers. In 1788 with the landing of the First Fleet near nowaday Sydney, Great Britian had found that stead. Between 1788 and 1868 more than 160,000 lags were sent to Australia. Theft was their most often lawbreaking deed in a Britian and Ireland where the unevenness of wealth, and neediness made the do-wells uneasy of even lesser unlawfulness. Other wrongdoers had lead folk-gatherings in "The Shires" calling for a better deal in life, and some had even had the boldness to set up workers' guilds. Many were Irish folk seeking to throw off the yoke of the accursed Saxon from their homeland, and were unwilling to bow down meekly, but ready to stand and fight for the freedom of the "Green". After a while in Australia many misdoers began to see themselves only as short-time bondfolk, not lifelong serfs. Freedom for many brought a new beginning in a settling feeding itself, and gave them a gleam of hope for a better life. Once free they could work for fee, or even farm their own land. But for scofflaws there was greater dretch to undergo, such as unsparing flogging and further outcasting to "Earthly Heavens of Utmost Dread" at Norfolk Island in the Great Sea of Frith", Port Arthur in Van Dieman's Land, or Moreton Bay at nowaday Brisbane. And the outcome of a lag-woman's further, oft-time wrongdoings brought work-wearying toil in the "Workhouse" at Parramatta, some 25 miles from Sydney.

With a folk blend of lag and free settler, qualms and fears saw the settling's folksettish weave at times a little tattered in the early days. Besteerer Phillip was soon asking for more free settlers to come and live in New South Wales. In between time freed lags were being let land to take up farming and, also finding work in many other fields. The rights of bairns born to lags was another asking needing a quick and straightforward answer. More farsighted fellows like John Macarthur, rose to wealthiness and lasting good standing through his setting-up of the sheep business. It was Macarthur who brought the first merino sheep into Australia.

The first great mootish ordeal in the young settling arose with a test of strength between the headmen of the NSW Fighting Body, more so John Macarthur and the Land's Besteerer William Bligh. Bligh had dealt strongly with the harmen of the Body and their dealings; above all in their hindering the folkdom's fee flow by paying workers in rum, rather than fee, and the sending lags to do work mostly on farms belonging to the settling's better known do-wells. The step taken by Bligh in 1808 to have Macarthur put in the town's lock-up led to an uprising by some harmen. The happening is known as the Rum Uprising.

A leading player in the settling's folkbinding, growth, building boom and overall thriving was Besteerer Lachlan Macquarie. Coming to New South Wales in 1810, his sway saw a wending of the settling from a lagstead to one for free folk also; a step most weighty in the shaping of the after-time folkdom. Notwithstanding harsh forsaying of his leadership by reeves in London, his good name went on growing even after his death, more so amongst freed lags and their afterbears. On the headstone of his grave on Scotland's Isle of Mull are carved the words, "Father of Australia".

In 1813 Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth found a way through the Blue Fells and, quickly, an unhindered flow of folk followed seeking land to till and stock with sheep. The Folksteer could do little to stop squatters from settling upon the land and farming it.

New settlings were founded at Hobart (1803), Brisbane (1823), Perth (1829), Melbourne (1835), and Adelaide (1836). The Adelaide and Perth settlings were founded by free settlers, although from 1846 to 1868 the settling on the Swan Ea in Western Australia rested heavily on lags to do most of the burdensome work. In these settlings the hope for a fairer and even deal for the Southland's First Folk lasted only until settlers hungry for land found them in the way.

By the 1840s the Australian settlings were wending otherwisely. The calling for the incoming of free settlers only, spoke of an Australian thede with a fairer and more even folkset than that of Britain. For those of the well-to-do kind, a new way forward brought uneasiness in a Land of lags and their bairns.

British reevedom's thoughts about the Australian settlings were shaping anewly. In 1819 its reeve, John Bigge, sent to Australia to find out about the standing of things in N.S.W. had put a great deal of weight in his write-up upon the need to keep a stark asunder between the right of the freeman and lag. For lags, he said, a much tighter handling and fuller and better use of their work-time was needed to offset the outlay for their upkeep. Bigge dressed Macquarie down for his leadership shortcomings and his ill-founded step to bring back into the folkset's fellowship former lawbreakers, by giving to them work of standing with some power in the folkset. Futhermore Bigge seethed at Macquarie's welcoming of former lags to gatherings at Folksteer House. Yet some twenty years afterwards, a British Find-out Body said that lagship had lessened the worth of freeman and lag alike, and called for the forthwith ending of outcasting of lawbreakers to the Settlings in Australia.

However any fear of going forth that the folk of the settlings might have had, stemmed not from some unworthy laggish blackmark, but from the high-handed deeds of the the British Folksteer in London. Drawn to mind is its call in 1848, without talking to the settlers in Sydney, to start-up once more the outcasting of lawbreakers to N.S.W.

In 1851 the finding of gold firstly in New South Wales and shortly after in Victoria, turned the settlings upside down. As gold seekers from all over the world streamed into Victoria, it became a lawless folkset with bigger towns such as Melbourne emtying of folk, and men living in cloth-huts and makeshift dwellings without the soothing thereabouts of kith and kin. About 2% of the indwellers of Britian and Ireland sailed to NSW and Victoria. Also tens of thousands of folk from China came. Their being on the goldfields sparked mistrust and saw them set upon at times by white gold diggers.

Gold brought sudden wealth for a few, and some of Australia's nowaday wealthiest folk, mark the Gold Rush years as the start-up time of their thrivedom.

Many of the gold seekers stayed on in Australia, and within a few years there were more free folk than lagfolk in the settlings. Angry at such high fees for a gold-digging letwrit, harsh dealings by law-wardens and the false deeds by worthless folksteer reeves, a manifold of diggers from many Lands took a stand for a better deal by building a stronghold near Ballarat in 1854. More than thirty diggers, armed with only small weapons, were killed in a bloody fght-out when harmen and law-wardens stormed their stronghold in the early hours of the morning of December 3rd, 1854. In early 1855, in the Head-Lawhouse at Melbourne, they were put before a body of their fellows, who would not and did not deem them guilty of any wrongdoing.

The fight-out at Ballarat, (English: the Eureka Stockade) and the uproar that followed thereafter helped bring about fairer folk rights. In 1855 the settlings of NSW, Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania were given full rikeling-hood with upper and lower house folkmoots. Within a year, in 1856, Australian workers were the first in the world to win an eight hour working day.

The Gold Rush brought about a quicker inflow of folk, from almost all the thedes on Earth into Australia, and scores of new towns and hamlets sprung up throughtout Victoria and New South Wales. Almost forgotten throughout all these happenings, and doomed by many as a "dying folk", were the Southland's homegrown indwellers who had all but withered away with only some 60,000 living on.

The swift growth which followed the Gold Rushes gave birth to a time of thrivishness, which went on for more than forty years, only coming to an end with the "Land Bust" of the 1880s. Melbourne grew at great speed, becoming Australia's biggest town, and for a while was the second most folkfilled town under British wield. This time saw the building of the framework of Australia's Head Towns. In 1870 arose a deep feeling of aloneness as a folk of an Anglo-Saxon outstead -12,000 miles from their ilk in Britian- when fears of a Russian inslaught saw the hasty building of strongholds along Australia's south eastern shoreline.