Cultural Genocide in Tasmania

Angela Melville

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Van Dieman’s Land

• 1800 approximately 30,000 Aborigines

• 1803 Tasmania becomes a British penal colony

• 1870 only 250 Aborigines still alive • 1878 Trugannini dies • One of the worse genocides in recoded

history

First contact

• Convicts started to clash with Aborigines

• Conflict worsened in 1818

• Aborigines did not follow “the rules of propriety”

• Local massacres, kidnapping of children, abduction of women

• The state warned against hostilities or taking of children

Black Wars (1823-1834)

• Demarcation Proclamation

• Removal was justified as protecting Aborigines from slaughter

• Monetary rewards for capture

• George Augustus Robinson: the “Reconciliator”

• “Resettlement” to islands

Escalating violence

• “…they will be hunted down like wild beasts and destroyed.”

• Roving parties

• Black line (although only one boy was captured)

• Massacres

Massacres

“It would be a waste of time even to condense, in the most succinct relation, all the incidents that occurred. Narrative is tedious by the monotony of detail, and the events themselves were recorded by those who witnessed them, with ominous brevity. Such crimes were of daily occurrence” (John West 1852)

Cultural removal

• Aboriginal people were not “civilised”

• Banned from using their language, or even their own names

“I gave names to some of the aborigines [sic], their adopted names being the most barbarous and uncouth that can be well imagined. The natives were highly pleased with the changes: it was what they desired…” (Robinson 1836)

RenamingOriginal name 1st change 2nd change Trowkebuner Rowlebanna Achilles Maleteherbargener Moutehelargine Ajax Wowwee Warwee Albert Moomereriner Long Billy Alexander Plerpleropa.ner Big Billy Alfred Memerlannelargenna Charley Algernon Woorrady Doctor Alpha Meenerkerpackerminer Big Jemmy Alphonso Tolelerduick Dray’s Jerry Andrew Wetilleetyer Jemmy Arthur Toyenroun Ben Augustus Pendeworrewic Ben Benjamin Tremebonener Little Jacky Buonaparte [Not identified] Dick Christopher Lenergwin Lenergwin Columbus Moreerminer Big Jacky Constantine

Why?

• Terra Nullius

• Protection of resources

• Social Darwinism

• Myth of the “dying culture”

• Colonialism is also denial of violence

Extinction myth

• By 1870 only 250 Aborigines were alive

• Trugannini died in 1878

• To be an authentic Aborigine you must be “full blooded”

• However, Palawa culture has continued

• Eg effort to reconstruct languages

Stolen Children

• Sir John Wilson, Bringing Them Home: The Stolen Children Report (1997)

• 1901-1972 official policy was to remove Aboriginal children from their families

• “Breeding out colour”

• Physical and culture assimiliation

• In Tasmania, children were removed from 1930s onwards

Stolen childrenI kept asking, ‘When are we going to see Mum?’ And no-one told us at this time. And I think on the third or fourth day they piled us in the car and I said, ‘Where are we going?’ And they said, ‘We are going to see your mother’.

But then we turned left to go to the airport and I got a bit panicky about where we were going ... They got hold of me, you know what I mean, and I got a little baby in my arms and they put us on the plane. And they still told us we were going to see Mum. So I thought she must be wherever they’re taking us.

Removal from Cape Barren Island, Tasmania, of 8 siblings in the 1960s. The children were fostered separately.

Child labour

• Many other Aboriginal children worked as domestics and labourers

• Paid in food: black tea & white sugar

• Aborigines could not be paid in money

Homes are sought for these children

I like the little girl in centre of group, but if taken by anyone else, any of the others would do, as long as they are strong.

Loss and grief

We may go home, but we cannot relive our childhoods. We may reunite with our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunties, uncles, communities, but we cannot relive the 20, 30, 40 years that we spent without their love and care, and they cannot undo the grief and mourning they felt when we were separated from them. We can go home to ourselves as Aboriginals, but this does not erase the attacks inflicted on our hearts, minds, bodies and souls, by caretakers who thought their mission was to eliminate us as Aboriginals.

Additional harm

• Loss of native title entitlements• Compared to children raised in communities,

stolen children are less likely to:– Have post-secondary education– Have stable living conditions– Be able to call on support during a crisis– Have a sense of Aboriginal cultural identity

• Also twice as likely to be arrested and have spent time in prison

“Sorry, and not sorry” (Barta 2008)

• In 2006, Tasmanian government paid compensation

• In 2008, Australian government apologised for past mistreatment, especially stolen children

• Sir Ronald Wilson: – “it was a mistake to use the word genocide”– created an “unnecessary distraction”

Continuing discrimination

• Aboriginal children are still 6 times more likely to be removed from their families than non-Aboriginal children:– High rates of poverty– Inadequate housing – Intergenerational effects of previous separations– Lack of access to support services

• Lack of recognition within the Constitution• Average life expectancy (2011)

Man Woman

Aboriginal 67 years 73 years

Non-Aboriginal 79 years 83 years

References

Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet (2012) Summary of Australian Indigenous health, 2011. http://www.healthinfonet.ecu.edu.au/health-facts/summary

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner (2011). Australian Human Rights Commission. Constitutional Reform: Creating a Nation for All of Us. http://humanrights.gov.au/constitution/reform/constitutional_reform2011.doc

Barta, T. (2008) “Sorry, and not sorry, in Australia: how the apology to the stolen generations buried a history of genocide” Journal of Genocide Research, 10, 2, 201-214.

Bonwick, J. (1869) The Last of the Tasmanians; or the Black War of Van Diemen’s Land (London: Sampson Low, Son, & Marston).

McCallum, D. (2007) “Informal powers and the removal of Aboriginal children: consequences for health and social order” International Journal of Sociology of Law, 35(1), 29-40.

Melville, A. (2006) “Mapping the wilderness: toponymic constructions of Cradle Mountain/Lake St Clair National Park, Tasmania, Australia” Cartographica 14, 3, 229-245.

Plomley, N. J. B. (1966) Friendly Mission: The Tasmanian Journals and Papers of George Augustus Robinson,1829–1834 (Hobart, Tasmania: Tasmanian Historical Research Association).

Ryan, L. (1981) The Aboriginal Tasmanians (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press).Turnbull, C. (1975) Black War: The Extermination of the Tasmanian Aborigines (Melbourne,

Australia:Lansdowne Press).Wilson, J. (1997) Bringing Them Home: The ´Stolen Children´ National Inquiry into the Separation of

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children fromTheir Families. Report:http://humanrights.gov.au/social_justice/bth_report/index.html

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