Origins

Drakenburg Palace, May 1747.

The origin of the aboriginal human inhabitants of the islands of New Jerusalem was discussed at the spring meeting of the Drakenburg Acadamy Of Sciences.  The two leading theories are original settlement by the Lost Tribes of Israel, and by survivors from Atlantis. 

Discussion rapidly became heated, and we are sorry to report that the meeting was adjourned without a final settlement of the matter under discussion.  Followers of natural philosophy will, on the other hand, doubtless be delighted to learn that Professor von Sauerwitz is expected to make a full recovery from his wounds.

Population, Pre-History, and a Lost Continent

Just playing with a few ideas:

• Total population in 1750 is far less than Europe's - say about 40 million as opposed to about 120 million for Europe.
• Our seed European population in the 1170s is a couple of thousand, of which only a couple of hundred are nobility..
• but including a wide range of trades and skills.  Clearly, their original plan included some aspect of colonization.
•  and aware of iron production and three-crop rotation.
•  There is a base population on the island; exactly the size I will have to work out
• Bronze age technology
• but superlative sanitation in their near-abandoned ancient cities.
• and major domestic animals along with the rest of the  fertile crescent crop package, especially wheat.
• The local nobility is rapidly displaced (and merged) with the European
• agricultural yields go up with improved crop rotation and iron-shod plows.
• the excellent sanitation is adopted with enthusiasm by the Europeans
• leading to a burst of population growth, although probably still with a preindustrial population curve. 

Geographically, I am thinking of a substantial landmass of varied geography  surrounded by something of an archipelago.  Many would be obvious former volcanic calderas, such as scaled up versions of this small Hawaiian island with fertile areas generated by extended erosion. This lets us have significant Naval operations; but still the area we have is large enough that some at least would be isolated from maritime interference.

Windows and Places

Here's a place where we can deposit our Utopia.  The Kingdom of Jerusalem controlled Aquaba from early in the 12th century through to about 1187.  We can imagine our Europeans departing somewhere in the 1150s, perhaps deciding to escape the civil war that afflicted the kingdom of that time.

The Portuguese began to explore our little corner of the Indian ocean in the 1530s.  That gives us around 350 years for initial development of our little community, and a further 200 from that rediscovery until our period of interest; a bit longer before the expansion of exploration makes discovery unavoidable later in the 18th century.



Records from the middle ages are scant enough to allow the disappearance of hundreds or even thousands of people to go unnoticed.  We can put the last 200 years down to the work of the Society of New Jerusalem.  The early explorers who returned to report small desert islands in the area came back wealthy -- and carefully watched -- men.