Re: Ill Bethisad (was Re: Rant: Defending Indonesian)

Wesley Parish wrote:


>This is the transcript of someone else's attempt to do an Ill Bethisad for
New
>Zealand, based on the premise that the early Portuguese explorers convinced
>their kings and queens to colonize New Zealand.  It was printed as an
article
>in the Christchurch Press, from which I nabbed it.
>
>Maybe I should take you up on this offer?  Reserve a spot in Ill Bethisad
for
>me, if so!  Portugal in Australasia.  Portugal as the colonizer of the
island
>of New Guinea.  Portugal as the colonizer of the South Pacific islands!
(snip interesting speculation)

Could be a very mixed blessing.... Yes, the Port. did some nice
architecture, they were far less racist than the Germanics and less fanatic
than the Spaniards, so I suppose that counts in their favor.  But as
colonial masters, they seem to have been, shall we say, inept, or perhaps
overly benign to put it more nicely. :-)

Their Asian colonies in particular turned out to be total back-waters. They
got to Indonesia a century before the Dutch, but never managed to establish
a presence, except in poor little Timor.   Perhaps in Ill Bethisad they'll
have better luck.

(Part of the problem was (IIRC) that during much of the 16th C. (or was it
the 17th?) Portugal was (unwillingly) "united" with the Spanish crown--
that's probably something that needs to be fixed)

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