20 - Genocide in Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania), 1803–1871

Summary

The British colonisation of Van Diemen’s Land (later Tasmania) began in 1803. There was an estimated 6,000 Aborigines (Palawa) living on the island with a history dating back over 40,000 years. By 1835, there were just over 100 Palawa living in forced exile on one of Tasmania’s smaller offshore islands. Only two residents remained when the government closed the Aboriginal Settlement in 1871. This chapter traces the history of Tasmania’s colonisation from 1803 to 1871 and finds that the British committed acts against the Palawa that meet the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide: killings, child removals, and creating conditions unconducive to sustaining life. Tasmania has been cited as one the ‘classical’ cases of genocide, but the finding has also stirred debate. This chapter surveys the historiography of Tasmanian genocide including Raphael Lemkin’s 1940s finding of a clear case of genocide; Henry Reynolds’ 2001 counter evidence of gubernatorial humanitarianism; and the subsequent histories that recognise genocide within the structure of settler colonialism. This chapter concludes that the British committed genocide in Tasmania with intent, but reported and framed that crime within the rhetoric, and even the guidelines, of contemporaneous humanitarian policies.