Why did the Dutch choose not to colonise Australia upon discovering it?
Your basic understanding is on the money-the Dutch were interested on the already established markets of spices, dyes and fabrics from Asia, esp. SE Asia and the Aboriginal people had nothing they were interested in and no trading centres or culture of trading (to European eyes, although continental trade links did in fact exist for ochre, stone and certain plant extracts). There were also very few good anchorages on the west coast for them to settle around even if they wanted to settle and exploit the region as the British later did. The only trade with non Aboriginal people was much further north, with sea cucumbers (trepangi) being traded for rice and other food stuffs, and even this contact with Malay and Indonesian fisherman is debatable. Whaling, the first industry set up on the WA coast in 1826, might have been appealling, but compared to the profits to be made on spices and the danger and effort involved it just wasn’t appealling enough. Try looking up the Dutch East Indies com
