Black War

Period of violent conflict between British colonists and Aboriginal Australians in Tasmania

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Black War

Part of the Australian frontier wars

An 1833 painting of Aboriginal Tasmanians attacking John Allen's Milton Farm near Great Swanport
| Date| Mid-1820s–1832

|

Location|

Tasmania

Result|  British control of Tasmania
Belligerents
British Empire|  Aboriginal Tasmanians
Casualties and losses
Dead: 219
Wounded: 218
Total: 437[1]|  600–900 dead

The Black War was a period of violent conflict between British colonists and Aboriginal Tasmanians in Tasmania from the mid-1820s to 1832. The conflict was fought largely as a guerrilla war by both sides; some 600 to 900 Aboriginal people and more than 200 British colonists died.[2][3]

When a British penal settlement was established in Tasmania (then called Van Diemen's Land) in 1803, the Aboriginal population was 3,000 to 7,000 people.[4] Until the 1820s, the British and Aboriginal people coexisted with only sporadic violence, often caused by settlers kidnapping Aboriginal women and children. Conflict intensified from 1824, as Aboriginal warriors resisted the rapid expansion of British settlement over their land. In 1828, the British declared martial law and in 1830 they unsuccessfully attempted to force hostile Aboriginal nations from the settled districts in a military operation called "The Black Line". In a series of "Friendly Missions" in 1830 and 1831, George Robinson and his Aboriginal negotiators secured the surrender of the Aboriginal belligerents. Martial law was revoked in January 1832.[5]

Almost all of the remaining Aboriginal people were removed from mainland Tasmania from 1832 to 1835, and the 220 survivors were eventually relocated to the Wybalenna Aboriginal Mission on Flinders Island. Infectious diseases and a low birth rate cut the Aboriginal population at Wybalenna to 46 when the mission was closed in 1847.[6]

The frequent mass killings and near-destruction of the Aboriginal Tasmanians are regarded by some contemporary historians as genocide by the colonists. Others, however, argue that the colonial authorities did not intend to destroy the Aboriginal population.[7]

## Etymology[edit]

The terms "Black War" and "Black Line" were coined by journalist Henry Melville in 1835.[8][9] In the early 21st century, historian Lyndall Ryan has argued that the conflict should be known as the "Tasmanian War". She has also called for a public memorial to be commissioned to honour the dead on both sides of the war.[10]

## Early conflict[edit]

Although commercial sealing on Van Diemen's Land had begun in late 1798, the first significant European presence on the island came in September 1803 with the establishment of a small British military outpost at Risdon Cove on the Derwent River near present-day Hobart.[11][12]

Natives on the Ouse River, Van Diemen's Land by John Glover, 1838

The British had several hostile encounters with Aboriginal clans over the next five months, with shots fired and an Aboriginal boy abducted. David Collins arrived as the colony's first lieutenant governor in February 1804 with instructions from London that any acts of violence against the Aboriginal people were to be punished. But he failed to publish those instructions, leaving an unclear legal framework for dealing with any violent conflict.[13]

On 3 May 1804, soldiers, settlers and convicts from Risdon Cove fired on a hunting party of 100 to 300 Aboriginal people. The British commanding officer stated that he thought the Aboriginal group was hostile. Witnesses to the massacre stated that between three and fifty Aboriginal men, women and children had died.[14][15][16]

By 1806, the British had founded two main penal settlements on the sites of modern Hobart and Launceston.[17] Violence increased during a drought in 1806–7 as tribes in the south of the island killed or wounded several colonists in six incidents mostly sparked by competition for game. There were only three hostile encounters recorded in the northern settlements before 1819, although John Oxley stated in 1810 that convict bushrangers inflicted "many atrocious cruelties" on Aboriginal people which led to Aboriginal attacks on solitary white hunters.[18]

The Tasmanian settlements grew slowly up to 1815, with the population reaching 1,933 people that year. Growth was mainly through the arrival of 600 colonists from Norfolk Island between 1805 and 1813, and 149 male convicts from England in 1812. Former convicts and the Norfolk Islander settlers were given small grants of land. By 1814,12,700 hectares (31,000 acres) of land was under cultivation, with 5,000 cattle and 38,000 sheep. Conflict with Aboriginal people increased, mainly due to sporadic murders and colonists hunting game and kidnapping Aboriginal women and children for domestic work and sexual purposes.[19][20][21]

Between 1815 and 1830, the colony expanded rapidly. The British population grew from 2,000 to 24,000, the number of sheep increased to 680,000 and cattle to 100,000. The settled districts—mainly in the midlands, east coast and north-west of the island—accounted for almost 30 per cent of its land area.[22][23] The expansion of the colony over Aboriginal hunting grounds led to increased conflict which, according to Nicholas Clements, developed into an Aboriginal resistance movement.[24][25][26] Aboriginal attacks on colonists averaged 1.7 per year over the 1803–1823 period, but increased to 18 per year over 1824–1826.[23]

Particularly from the late 1820s, the Aboriginal people were also driven by hunger to plunder settlers' homes for food as their hunting grounds shrank, native game disappeared, and the dangers of hunting on open ground grew.[27]

Clements states that the main reasons for frontier violence against Aboriginal people were revenge, killing for sport, sexual desire for women and children, and suppression of the native threat. Male colonists outnumbered females six to one in 1822 and Clements argues that a "voracious appetite" for Aboriginal women was the most important immediate trigger for the Black War. However, after 1828 settler violence was mainly motivated by fear of Aboriginal attacks and a growing conviction among those on the frontier that extermination of the Aboriginal population was the only means by which peace could be secured.[28]

## Crisis years, 1825–1831[edit]

From 1825 to 1828, the number of Aboriginal attacks on colonists and their property more than doubled each year. Clements states that although the colonists knew they were fighting a war, "this was not a conventional war, and the enemy could not be combated by conventional means. The blacks were not one people, but rather a number of disparate tribes. They had no home base and no recognisable command structure."[29]

Tasmanian tribes at the time of first European contact

George Arthur, governor of the colony since May 1824, had issued a proclamation on his arrival that placed Aboriginal people under the protection of British law and threatened prosecution for anyone who murdered them. Two Aboriginal men were hanged in September 1826 for the murder of three colonists and Arthur hoped that this would deter further attacks on colonists. But between September and November 1826 six more colonists were murdered, taking the number of colonists killed in the conflict to 36 since 1823. The Colonial Times newspaper advocated the removal of all Aboriginal people from the settled districts to an island in the Bass Strait, warning: "if not, they will be hunted down like wild beasts, and destroyed!"[30][31]

On 29 November 1826, Arthur issued a notice authorising settlers to treat hostile Aboriginal groups as open enemies and to use arms to force them from the settled districts. He also deployed additional soldiers and police to these areas. The Colonial Times saw this as a declaration of war on Aboriginal people in the settled districts.[32][33] Historian Lyndall Ryan argues that Arthur intended to force the surrender of the hostile Aboriginal tribes.[34] Clements states that the November proclamation failed to clarify when it was legal for settlers to kill Aboriginal people.[35]

Over the summer of 1826–27, warriors from the Big River, Oyster Bay and North Midlands nations killed a number of stock-keepers on farms. The colonists responded with reprisal raids, in which many Aboriginal people were killed.[36] On 8 December 1826, a group led by Kickerterpoller threatened a farm overseer at Bank Hill farm at Orielton, near Richmond; the following day soldiers from the 40th Regiment killed 14 Oyster Bay people and captured another nine, including Kickerterpoller.[37]

In April 1827, two shepherds were killed at a farm at Mount Augusta, south of Launceston, and a pursuit party launched a reprisal attack at dawn on an Aboriginal camp, killing up to 40 Aboriginal men, women and children.[38] In May 1827, a group of Oyster Bay Aboriginal people killed a stock-keeper at Great Swanport near Swansea. A pursuit party of soldiers, police and civilians later attacked an Aboriginal camp killing at least six people.[39][40]

Samuel Calvert's depiction of Aboriginals attacking a shepherds' hut as released in The Illustrated Melbourne Post.

In June 1827, at least 80 to 100 members of the Pallittorre clan from the North nation were killed in reprisals for the killing of three stockmen.[41][42] From December 1826 to July 1827, at least 140 Aboriginal people were killed,[42] and Ryan suggests that the figure might be over 200 for their killing of 15 colonists.[43]

In September 1827, Arthur appointed another 26 field police and deployed another 55 soldiers into the settled districts to deal with the rising conflict. Between September 1827 and the following March, at least 70 Aboriginal attacks were reported on the frontier, taking the lives of 20 colonists. By March 1828 the death toll in the settled districts for the 16 months since Arthur's November 1826 official notice had risen to 43 colonists and up to 350 Aboriginal people.[44]

Although Arthur received reports that Aboriginal people were more interested in plundering huts for food than in killing colonists, settlers also reported Aboriginal warriors shouting, "Go away, go away!", burning crops and huts, and stating that they intended to kill every white man on the island.[45] Clements states that much of the Aboriginal violence in the early stages of the war was targeted revenge for killings and abductions by the colonists, but that the arson and killing of livestock were clearly acts of resistance.[46]

Arthur reported to the Colonial Office secretary in London that the Aboriginal people "already complain that the white people have taken possession of their country, encroached upon their hunting grounds, and destroyed their natural food, the kangaroo".[47] In January 1828, he proposed settling the Aboriginal people "in some remote quarter of the island, which should be reserved strictly for them, and to supply them with food and clothing, and afford them protection ... on condition of their confining themselves peaceably to certain limits". His preferred location for the reserve was Tasmania's northeast coast and he suggested they remain there "until their habits shall become more civilised".[48]

On 19 April 1828, Arthur issued a "Proclamation Separating the Aborigines from the White Inhabitants". The proclamation aimed to remove Aboriginal Tasmanians from the settled districts of eastern, central and north-western Tasmania as a precursor to negotiations with them for a reserve in the northeast region which was largely uncolonised and was traditionally visited by many Aboriginal groups for its abundant native game and other foods.[49][50] The proclamation authorised colonists to use violence to expel Aboriginal people from the settled districts in defined circumstances. However, the restrictions on violence were unclear and difficult to enforce and the settled districts were not well defined.[51][52] Historian James Boyce states that in practice: "Any Aborigine could now be legally killed for doing no more than crossing an unmarked border that the government did not even bother to define."[53]

Arthur admitted that the British were "the first aggressors" but thought continued violence could only be prevented by enforcing the ban on Aboriginal people entering the settled areas.[54] He deployed almost 300 troops from the 40th and 57th Regiments at 14 military posts along the frontier and within the settled districts. This measure appeared to deter Aboriginal attacks. Through the winter of 1828, few Aboriginal people appeared in the settled districts, and those that did were driven back by military parties. Among them were at least 16 Oyster Bay people who were killed in July at their encampment in the Eastern Tiers by a detachment of the 40th Regiment.[55][56]

### Martial law, November 1828[edit]

Proclamation board labelled "Governor Davey's Proclamation" painted in Van Diemen's Land about 1830, in the time of Governor Arthur. Nailed to trees, proclamation boards were designed to show Aboriginal people the benefits of living in peace with colonists under an idealised equal British justice.

Violence escalated from August to October 1828, with the Oyster Bay, Big River, Ben Lomond and Northern peoples launching raids on stock huts during which 15 colonists were killed in 39 attacks. From early October, Oyster Bay warriors also began killing white women and children. On 1 November, Arthur declared martial law against the Aboriginal people in the settled districts, who were now "open enemies of the King". Arthur's move was effectively a declaration of war. Soldiers were authorised to arrest any Aboriginal person in the settled districts without warrant and to shoot those who resisted.[57][58] However, the proclamation also stated:

> ... that the actual use of arms be in no case resorted to, if the Natives can by other means be induced or compelled to retire into the places and portions of this Island herein before excepted from the operation of Martial Law; that bloodshed be checked, as much as possible; that any Tribes which may surrender themselves up, shall be treated with every degree of humanity; and that defenceless women and children be invariably spared.[59]

Martial law would remain in force for more than three years, the longest period in Australian history.[57] Although the proclamation authorised only the military to shoot Aboriginal people in the settled districts on sight, in practice other colonists did so with impunity.[60][61] Only one colonist was ever prosecuted for killing an Aboriginal person.[62]

About 500 Aboriginal people from five clan groups were still operating in the settled districts when martial law was declared and Arthur's first action was to encourage civilian parties to capture them. On 7 November, a party operating from Richmond captured Umarrah—a leader of the North Midlands nation—and four others including his wife and a child. Umarrah remained defiant and was jailed for over a year.[63]

Arthur established military patrols from the 39th, 40th and 63rd Regiments that scoured the settled districts for Aboriginal people, whom they should capture or shoot. By March 1829, about 400 troops were deployed in the settled districts and about 200 soldiers patrolled the area in 23 parties of eight to ten men. Patrols usually included convict police who were familiar with the area and sometimes included Aboriginal guides from outside the settled areas. Settlers also formed patrols whose official role was to capture Aboriginal people.[64]

The main tactic of the military and settler patrols was to execute dawn raids on Aboriginal camps and there are many reported massacres of six or more Aboriginal people in these raids. The patrols reportedly killed 60 Aboriginal people and captured from 20 to 30 in the two years from November 1828. Ryan, however, estimates the Aboriginal death toll was at least 200 by March 1830.[65][66]

Samuel Thomas Gill's depiction of a night-time punitive raid on an Aboriginal camp

In the first six months of 1829, the Oyster Bay people killed eight convict workers in the Pitt Water district. This was followed by a lull in fighting before a wave of attacks in the spring and summer. Overall, 33 colonists were kill in 1829 compared with 27 the previous year.[67][68]

In mid-1829 Arthur estimated that there were 2,000 Aboriginal people in the colony. Other estimates by the colonists ranged from 500 to 5,000. Settlers reported that the Oyster Bay people were moving in considerably smaller groups, but sightings of the Big River people in groups of 100 or more continued. It is likely that the massacres, privation and a falling birth rate had reduced the Aboriginal population to under 1,000 and that less than 300 remained in south-eastern Tasmania.[69][70]

Arthur also pursued conciliation. In March 1829, he established an Aboriginal mission on Bruny Island in the hope it would attract Aboriginal people from the settled districts. He also commissioned "proclamation boards" with drawings meant to show Aboriginal people the benefits of living peacefully with the colonists under an ideal British justice in which whites would be hanged for killing blacks and blacks hanged for killing whites.[71]

Violence, however, did not abate. There were 60 Aboriginal attacks on colonists from November 1829 to March 1830, most of them in the Clyde, Oatlands and Richmond police districts. Settlers reported arson attacks on buildings and crops which threatened the viability of their farms. In late 1829, one police magistrate informed Arthur that he needed three times his allocation of soldiers to protect local settlers. In February 1830, settlers and the press launched a campaign for increased military protection on the frontier and the removal of hostile tribes to the Bass Strait islands.[72][73]

The predominant mood among colonists on the frontier was fear and panic mixed with anger and a desire for revenge. Although by the end of 1829 the number of Aboriginal people in the war zone had greatly diminished, this was not widely known and the threat that the remaining hostile Aboriginal groups posed to frontier farms was real.[74]

in November 1829, Arthur established an Aborigines Committee to inquire into the causes of the Aboriginal violence and make policy recommendations. The following February, he introduced a bounty of £5 for every captured Aboriginal adult and £2 for each child. He also sought the help of other colonies in increasing the military presence in Van Diemen's Land but without success.[72] In April 1830, he advised London that an increase in the convict population in remote frontier areas would help protect settlers and asked that all convict transport ships be diverted to Van Diemen's Land.[75]

### Aborigines Committee[edit]

Archdeacon William Broughton, who headed the Aborigines Committee

In March 1830, Arthur appointed Anglican Archdeacon William Broughton as chairman of the six-man Aborigines Committee inquiring into the conflict. Sixteen months had now passed since the declaration of martial law in November 1828 and in that time there had been 120 Aboriginal attacks on settlers, resulting in about 50 deaths and more than 60 wounded.

Among submissions it received were suggestions to set up "decoy huts, containing flour and sugar, strongly impregnated with poison", that Aboriginal people be rooted out with bloodhounds and that Maori warriors be brought to Tasmania to capture the Aboriginal people for removal to New Zealand as slaves. Settlers and soldiers gave evidence of killings and atrocities on both sides, but the committee was also told that despite the attacks, some settlers believed very few Aboriginal people now remained in the Settled Districts. The inquiry was conducted in the context of a further escalation in hostilities: in February alone there were 30 separate incidents in which seven Europeans were killed.[76]

In its report, published in March 1830, the committee noted that "It is manifest that (the Aboriginal people) have lost the sense of superiority of white men, and the dread of the effects of fire-arms" and were now on a systematic plan of attacking the settlers and their possessions. The committee's report supported the bounty system, recommended an increase in mounted police patrols and urged settlers to remain well armed and alert.[77] Arthur, in turn, forwarded their report to Secretary of State for War and the Colonies Sir George Murray, pointing out that although "lawless convicts" and convict stock-keepers had acted with great inhumanity towards the black natives, "it is increasingly apparent the Aboriginal natives of this colony are, and have ever been, a most treacherous race; and that the kindness and humanity which they have always experienced from the free settlers has not tended to civilize them to any degree."[76] Murray responded in a letter that it was possible that in the near future the entire "race" of Tasmanian Aborigines would extinct, and any lines of conduct aimed at the declared or occult extinction of the native population could leave an indelible stain on the British government's reputation.[78][79]

News of friendly encounters with Aboriginal people and a season decline in attacks prompted Arthur on 19 August to issue a government notice expressing his satisfaction "a less hostile disposition" being displayed by the indigenous population and advising that settlers cautiously "abstain from acts of aggression against these benighted beings" and allow them to feed and depart. But still the attacks continued, however, and as public panic and anger mounted, the Executive Council met a week later and decided a full-scale military operation would be required to force an end to what threatened to become a "war of extermination" between settlers and the Big River and Oyster Bay people. Martial law was extended to the whole of Van Diemen's Land on 1 October[80] and every able-bodied male colonist was ordered by Arthur to assemble on 7 October at one of seven designated places in the Settled Districts to join a massive drive to sweep "these miserable people" from the region. The campaign, which became known as the Black Line,[81][77] was greeted enthusiastically by the colonist press. The Hobart Town Courier said it doubted settlers would need persuading "to accomplish the one grand and glorious object now before them".[82]

### North-west conflict[edit]

Violence in the island's north-west, where the colonists were servants of the Van Diemen's Land Company, erupted in 1825, fuelled by disputes over Aboriginal women, who were often violated or abducted, and the destruction of kangaroo stocks. An escalating cycle of violence broke out in 1827 after white shepherds attempted to force themselves on black women; a shepherd was speared and more than 100 sheep killed in retribution and in turn a white party launched a dawn attack on an Aboriginal campsite, killing 12. The conflict led to the Cape Grim massacre of 10 February 1828 in which shepherds armed with muskets ambushed up to 30 Aboriginal people as they collected shellfish at the foot of a cliff.[83]

On 21 August 1829 four company servants shot an Aboriginal woman in the back, then executed her with an axe at Emu Bay, near present-day Burnie. Violence continued in the region, with three company men fatally speared in July and October 1831 and heavy losses inflicted on sheep and oxen. The population of North West clans fell from 700 to 300 through the 1820s, while in the North nation—where shepherds vowed to shoot Aboriginal people whenever they saw them—numbers had plummeted from 400 in 1826 to fewer than 60 by mid-1830. Violence ceased in 1834 but resumed between September 1839 and February 1842 when Aboriginal people made at least 18 attacks on company men and property.[83][84]

### Military strategy and tactics[edit]

Aboriginal warriors conducted a guerrilla war against the British.[85][86] They mostly used three weapons: spears, rocks and waddies. They almost always attacked during the day in war parties of ten to twenty men. Although they favoured ambushes and hit-and-run raids against isolated shepherds and settler huts, sieges of huts for up to a day were not uncommon. Warriors often lit fires or used women to lure colonists out of their huts and into an ambush. They quickly learned that muskets could only be fired about once every 30 seconds, so they often encouraged colonists to fire then closed in for an attack. War parties would sometimes divide into separate diversionary and main attack groups and then disperse after an attack to make pursuit more difficult. Attacks on livestock and arson of buildings and crops were also common but were not used systematically as a major war strategy.[87]

The main British military response involved official pursuit parties and roving parties. Pursuit parties mostly consisted of soldiers and convicts whose task was to track down Aboriginal groups presumed to be responsible for a particular attack. They were usually in the field for 12 to 48 hours. Roving parties were groups of soldiers, convicts and authorised civilians who patrolled the frontier for 12 to 18 days at a time with the aim of dispersing hostile Aboriginal groups. The main tactic of the official parties was to attack at night after campfires had revealed the position of the Aboriginal groups. Although their instructions were to capture hostile Aboriginal people where possible, in practice a successful ambush of a campsite almost always led to lethal violence. The main weapons used in ambushes were the Brown Bess musket, bayonets and clubs.[88]

Vigilante groups mainly consisted of convicts but settlers and their employees were often involved. They generally used the same weapons and tactics as the official parties but probably inflicted more deaths on Aboriginal groups.[89]

## Black Line, October–November 1830[edit]

"Black Line" redirects here. For other uses, see Blackline.

The Black Line consisted of 2,200 men: about 550 soldiers—a little over half of the entire garrison in Van Diemen's Land—as well as 738 convict servants and 912 free settlers or civilians.[90] Arthur, who maintained overall control, placed Major Sholto Douglas of the 63rd Regiment in command of the forces.[91] Separated into three divisions and aided by Aboriginal guides, they formed a staggered front more than 300 km long that began pushing south and east across the Settled Districts from 7 October with the intention of forming a pincer movement to trap members of four of the nine Aboriginal nations in front of the line and drive them across the Forestier Peninsula to East Bay Neck and into the Tasman Peninsula, which Arthur had designated as an Aboriginal Reserve.[92][93][81]

The campaign was beset by severe weather, rugged terrain, impenetrable scrub and vast swamps, inadequate maps and poor supply lines and although two of the divisions met in mid-October the hostile terrain soon resulted in the cordon being broken, leaving many wide gaps through which the Aboriginal people were able to slip. Many of the men, by then barefoot and their clothes tattered, deserted the line and returned home. The campaign's single success was a dawn ambush on 25 October in which two Aboriginal people were captured and two killed. The Black Line was disbanded on 26 November.

Ryan estimates that barely 300 Aboriginal people were still alive on the entire island, including 200 within the region in which the Black Line was operating. Yet they launched at least 50 attacks on settlers—both in front of and behind the line—during the campaign, often plundering huts for food.[94]

## Surrender and removal[edit]

Colonists' hopes of peace rose over the summer of 1830-31 as Aboriginal attacks fell to a low level and the Colonial Times newspaper speculated that their enemy had either been wiped out or frightened into inaction. But the north remained a dangerous place: on 29 January a Dairy Plains woman was murdered—three months after her husband had died in a similar attack—and in March a mother carrying her infant was fatally speared while working in her garden on the East Tamar. Though the number of attacks in 1831 was less than a third of those the previous year—a total of 70, compared with 250 in 1830—settlers remained so fearful that many men refused to go out to work.[95]

George Augustus Robinson

Yet, as the Aborigines Committee discovered in a new series of hearings, there was some positive news arising from the work of evangelical humanitarian George Augustus Robinson, who in 1829 had been appointed storekeeper at a ration depot for Aboriginal people on Bruny Island. From January 1830 Robinson had embarked on a series of expeditions across the island to make contact with Aboriginal people and in November he secured the surrender of 13 of them, prompting him to write to Arthur claiming he could remove "the entire black population", which he estimated to be 700.[96] In a new report on 4 February 1831, the Aborigines Committee praised Robinson's "conciliatory mission" and his efforts to learn the local languages and "explain the kind and pacific intentions of the government and the settlers generally towards them". The committee recommended that Aboriginal people who surrendered should be sent to Gun Carriage Island in Bass Strait.[97] But the committee also urged settlers to remain vigilant, recommending that parties of armed men should be stationed in the most remote stock huts. In response up to 150 stock huts were turned into ambush locations, military posts were established on native migratory routes and new barracks were built at Spring Bay, Richmond and Break O'Day Plains.[96]

Montpelliatta

Arthur's conciliatory approach and his support for Robinson's "friendly mission" brought widespread condemnation from colonists and the settler press, which intensified after a series of violent mid-winter raids launched by evidently hungry, cold and desperate Aboriginal people in the Great Western Tiers in the island's northern highlands. Those raids, headed by resistance leader Montpelliatta,[98] culminated in the murder of Captain Bartholomew Thomas and his overseer James Parker at Port Sorell on the north coast on 31 August 1831. The killings would, in fact, turn out to be the last of the Black War, but they triggered an unprecedented surge of fear and anger, particularly because Thomas—the brother of the Colonial Treasurer—had been sympathetic towards Aboriginal people and had made attempts to conciliate the local indigenous population. The Launceston Advertiser declared that the only course left was the "utter annihilation" of Aboriginal population, while another newspaper expressed fears that the natives would resort to even greater atrocities in the coming season. Several weeks later a group robbed huts at Great Swansea, causing panic, and in late October 100 armed settlers formed a cordon across the narrow part of Freycinet Peninsula in an attempt to capture several dozen Aboriginal people who had passed on to the peninsula. The cordon was abandoned four days later after Aboriginal people slipped through and escaped at night.[99]

Tongerlongeter

On the 31st of December, 1831, Robinson and his group of about 14 black envoys negotiated the surrender of 28 members of the Mairremmener people, an amalgam of Oyster Bay and Big River tribes. The tiny group of 16 men, nine women and a child, led by Tongerlongeter and Montpelliatta, was all that remained of what had once been one of the island's most powerful clans and much of Hobart Town's population lined the streets as Robinson walked with them through the main street towards Government House.[99] They were sent to the Wybalenna settlement on Flinders Island, joining another 40 Aboriginal people who had previously been captured, although another 20 interned on the island had earlier died. By late May many more, including Kickerterpoller and Umarrah, had also contracted influenza and died.[100]

The December surrender effectively brought to a close the Black War. There were no further reports of violence in the Settled Districts from that date, although isolated acts of violence continued in the north-west until 1842.[101]

Martial law was revoked in January 1832, two weeks after the well-publicised surrender, and the bounty on captured Aboriginal people was scrapped on 28 May 1832.

In February, 1832, Robinson embarked on the first of several expeditions to the west, north-west and the Launceston area to secure the surrender of remaining Aboriginal people, believing the strategy was "for their own good" and would save them from extermination at the hands of settlers while providing them with the benefits of British civilisation and Christianity. Warning that they faced violent hostility without protection,[102] he persuaded several small groups to be transported to the Wybalenna Aboriginal Establishment on Flinders Island—where many died of pneumonia, influenza and catarrh[103]—but from early 1833 began to use force to capture those who still lived freely in the north-east, despite the cessation of violence. Both Hunter Island, at Tasmania's north-west tip, and penal stations on islands in Macquarie Harbour, on the west coast, were used to detain captured Aboriginal people, where many succumbed quickly to disease and the mortality rate reached 75 percent. Robinson noted of conditions in the Macquarie Harbour penal stations: "The mortality was dreadful, its ravages was unprecedented, it was a dreadful calamity." In November, 1833, all surviving Aboriginal people were moved from Macquarie Harbour to Flinders Island.[104][105]

By early 1835 almost 300 people had surrendered to Robinson,[102] who reported to the colonial secretary: "The entire Aboriginal population is now removed", although in 1842 he located one remaining family near Cradle Mountain, who surrendered.[106] Men on the island were expected to clear forest land, build roads, erect fences and shear sheep, while women were required to wash clothes, attend sewing classes and attend classes. All were expected to wear European clothes and many women were given European names.[107] A high rate of infectious disease at the Wybalenna settlement on Flinders Island cut the population from about 220 in 1833 to 46 in 1847.[108]

## Death toll[edit]

Estimates of Tasmania's Aboriginal population in 1803, the year of the first British arrivals, range from 3,000 to 7,000. Lyndall Ryan's analysis of population studies led her to conclude that there were about 7,000 spread throughout the island's nine nations;[109] However, Nicholas Clements, citing research by N.J.B Plomley and Rhys Jones, settled on a figure of 3,000 to 4,000.[110]

Phase  | Aboriginal people
killed (est.)  | Colonists
killed  | Total

|
|
|

Nov 1823—Nov 1826  | 80  | 40  | 120
Dec 1826—Oct 1828  | 408  | 61  | 469
Nov 1828—Jan 1832
(martial law)  | 350  | 90  | 440
Feb 1832—Aug 1834  | 40  | 10  | 50
Total | 878 | 201 | 1079

But Aboriginal numbers began dropping almost immediately: violent encounters were reported in the Hobart region, while at Port Dalrymple in the colony's north, Lieutenant-Governor William Paterson is thought to have ordered soldiers to shoot at Aboriginal people wherever they were found, leading to the virtual disappearance of North Midlands clans in that region after 1806 [citation needed]. In 1809 New South Wales surveyor-general John Oxley reported that kangaroo hunting by whites had led to a "considerable loss of life among the natives" throughout the colony. One settler, the convict adventurer Jørgen Jørgensen, also claimed that Aboriginal numbers were "much reduced during the first six or seven years of the colony" as whites "harassed them with impunity". By 1819 the Aboriginal and British population reached parity with about 5,000 of each, although among the colonists men outnumbered women four to one. At that stage both population groups enjoyed good health, with infectious diseases not taking hold until the late 1820s.[111]

Ryan accepts a figure of 1,200 Aboriginal people dwelling in the Settled Districts in 1826 at the start of the Black War,[112] while Clements believes the number in the eastern part of Tasmania was about 1,000.[113]

Historians have differed in their estimates of the total number of fatalities in the Black War and acknowledge that most killings of Aboriginal people went unreported. The Colonial Advocate newspaper reported in 1828 that "up country, instances occur where the Natives are 'shot like so many crows', which never come before the public'."[110] The table above, depicting fatalities among Aboriginal people and colonists, is based on statistics in Ryan's account of the conflict in the Settled Districts.[114]

About 100 Tasmanian Aboriginal people survived the conflict and Clements—who calculates that the Black War began with an indigenous population of about 1,000—has therefore concluded 900 died in that time. He surmises that about one-third may have died through internecine conflict, disease and natural deaths, leaving a "conservative and realistic" estimate of 600 who died in frontier violence, though he admits: "The true figure might be as low as 400 or as high as 1,000."[113]

## Historiography[edit]

### Conflict and depopulation[edit]

Writing in 2002, Keith Windschuttle argued that the Aboriginal population in 1803 was only about 2,000, that only about 220 Aborigines were killed in the conflict with British settlers, and that the conflict was an outbreak of criminality rather than a war.[115][116] His arguments have been challenged by numerous authors including James Boyce,[117] Henry Reynolds,[118] Lyndall Ryan[116] and Nicholas Clements[119] who conclude that the conflict was an Aboriginal war of liberation in which 600 to 900 Aboriginal Tasmanians were killed.

Geoffrey Blainey and Josephine Flood argue that although Aboriginal deaths in the conflict were devastating, the major cause of Aboriginal depopulation was disease.[120][121] Ryan and Boyce, however, argue that the Aboriginal death rate from disease was low before 1820 and that Aboriginal Tasmanians were more likely to die from disease after they had surrendered to the British.[122][123]

### Academic discussion of genocide[edit]

Part of a series on

Genocide

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* In relation to Colonialism / War
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* Prevention
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Related topics

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The near-destruction of Tasmania's Aboriginal population has been described as an act of genocide by historians including Robert Hughes, James Boyce, Lyndall Ryan, Tom Lawson, Mohamed Adhikari, Benjamin Madley, and Ashley Riley Sousa.[124][125][126][127][128][129][130] The author of the concept of genocide, Raphael Lemkin, considered Tasmania the site of one of the world's clear cases of genocide[131] and Hughes has described the loss of Aboriginal Tasmanians as "the only true genocide in English colonial history".[124] However, other historians - including Henry Reynolds, Richard Broome, and Nicholas Clements - do not agree that the colonial authorities pursued a policy of destroying the Indigenous population, although they acknowledge that some settlers supported extermination.[132][133]

Boyce has claimed that the April 1828 "Proclamation Separating the Aborigines from the White Inhabitants" sanctioned force against Aboriginal people "for no other reason than that they were Aboriginal". However, as Reynolds, Broome and Clements point out, there was open warfare at the time.[132][133] Boyce describes the decision to remove all Aboriginal Tasmanians after 1832—by which time they had given up their fight against white colonists—as an extreme policy position. He concludes: "The colonial government from 1832 to 1838 ethnically cleansed the western half of Van Diemen's Land and then callously left the exiled people to their fate."[134]

As early as 1852 John West's History of Tasmania portrayed the obliteration of Tasmania's Aboriginal people as an example of "systematic massacre"[135] and in the 1979 High Court case of Coe v Commonwealth of Australia, judge Lionel Murphy observed that Aboriginal people did not give up their land peacefully and that they were killed or forcibly removed from their land "in what amounted to attempted (and in Tasmania almost complete) genocide".[136]

Historian Henry Reynolds says there was a widespread call from settlers during the frontier wars for the "extirpation" or "extermination" of the Aboriginal people.[137] But he has contended that the British government acted as a source of restraint on settlers' actions. Reynolds says there is no evidence the British government deliberately planned the wholesale destruction of indigenous Tasmanians—a November 1830 letter to Arthur by Sir George Murray warned that the extinction of the race would leave "an indelible stain upon the character of the British Government"[138]—and therefore what eventuated does not meet the definition of genocide codified in the 1948 United Nations convention. He says Arthur was determined to defeat the Aboriginal people and take their land, but believes there is little evidence he had aims beyond that objective and wished to destroy the Tasmanian race.[139] In contrast to Reynolds' argument, historian Lyndall Ryan, based on a sample of massacres taking place in the Meander River region in June 1827, concludes that massacres of Aboriginal Tasmanians by white settlers were likely part of an organised process and were sanctioned by government authorities.[140]

Clements accepts Reynolds' argument but also exonerates the colonists themselves of the charge of genocide. He says that unlike genocidal determinations by Nazis against Jews in World War II, Hutus against Tutsis in Rwanda and Ottomans against Armenians in present-day Turkey, which were carried out for ideological reasons, Tasmanian settlers participated in violence largely out of revenge and self-preservation. He adds: "Even those who were motivated by sex or morbid thrillseeking lacked any ideological impetus to exterminate the natives." He also argues that while genocides are inflicted on defeated, captive or otherwise vulnerable minorities, Tasmanian natives appeared as a "capable and terrifying enemy" to colonists and were killed in the context of a war in which both sides killed noncombatants.[141]

Lawson, in a critique of Reynolds' stand, argues that genocide was the inevitable outcome of a set of British policies to colonise Van Diemen's Land.[142] He says the British government endorsed the use of partitioning and "absolute force" against Tasmanians, approved Robinson's "Friendly Mission" and colluded in transforming that mission into a campaign of ethnic cleansing from 1832. He says that once on Flinders Island, indigenous peoples were taught to farm land like Europeans and worship God like Europeans and concludes: "The campaign of transformation enacted on Flinders Island amounted to cultural genocide."[143]

## See also[edit]

* List of massacres of Indigenous Australians
* Trugernanner and Fanny Cochrane Smith
* Manganinnie, an Australian 1980 film
* The Nightingale, an Australian 2018 film
* Tunnerminnerwait
* Conflict in Van Diemen's Land

## References[edit]

1. ^ Clements 2013, pp. 343
2. ^ Clements 2014, p. 1
3. ^ Ryan 2012, p. 143
4. ^ Ryan 2012, p. 11-17
5. ^ Ryan (2012), p. 141
6. ^ Reynolds 2001, p. 71
7. ^ Clements 2014, p. 4
8. ^ Ryan 2012, p. 372 fn 28
9. ^ Melville, Henry. The History of Van Diemen's Land From the Year 1824 to 1835. pp. 89, 90.
10. ^ Ryan 2012, pp. xxvi, 145–146
11. ^ Boyce 2010, pp. 18–21
12. ^ Hughes 1987, p. 122
13. ^ Ryan 2012, p. 48
14. ^ "Centre For 21st Century Humanities: Risdon Cove massacre". c21ch.newcastle.edu.au. Retrieved 9 December 2023.
15. ^ Ryan 2012, pp. 49–51
16. ^ Clements 2014, p. 35
17. ^ Boyce 2010, p. 21-43
18. ^ Clements 2014, p. 36
19. ^ Ryan 2012, pp. 58–64
20. ^ Boyce 2010, pp. 53, 105–06
21. ^ Clements 2014, pp. 19–22
22. ^ Ryan 2012, pp. 74–75
23. ^ a b Reynolds 2012, p. 51-52
24. ^ Clements 2014, p. 59
25. ^ Broome 2019, p. 42
26. ^ Reynolds 2012, p. 51
27. ^ Clements 2014, pp. 58–67
28. ^ Clements 2014, pp. 20, 42–50
29. ^ Clements 2014, p. 42
30. ^ Ryan 2012, pp. 78–80
31. ^ Clements 2014, p. 43
32. ^ Reynolds 2012, p. 59
33. ^ Ryan 2012, pp. 80–83
34. ^ Ryan 2012, p. 80
35. ^ Clements 2014, pp. 53–54
36. ^ Ryan 2012, pp. 89–91
37. ^ Ryan 2012, pp. 87–88
38. ^ Ryan 2012, p. 88, 90
39. ^ Ryan 2012, pp. 90–91
40. ^ "Colonial Frontier Massacres in Australia, 1788-1930: Sally Peak (1)". The Centre of 21st Century Humanities, University of Newcastle, Australia. 2022.
41. ^ Ryan 2012, pp. 93–95
42. ^ a b "Site List Timeline, , Colonial Frontier Massacres in Australia, 1788-1930,". Centre for 21st Century Humanities, University of Newcastle, Australia. 2022. Retrieved 5 June 2024.
43. ^ Ryan 2012, p. 95-96
44. ^ Ryan 2012, pp. 97–100
45. ^ Ryan 2012, p. 89, 94, 97-100
46. ^ Clements 2014, pp. 59–64
47. ^ Ryan 2012, p. 100
48. ^ Boyce 2010, pp. 262–63
49. ^ Boyce 2010, pp. 263–64
50. ^ Ryan 2012, pp. 101–102
51. ^ Boyce 2010, pp. 262–265
52. ^ Clements 2014, p. 54
53. ^ Boyce 2010, p. 265
54. ^ Reynolds 2001, p. 64
55. ^ Ryan 2012, pp. 101–103, 123
56. ^ "Eastern Tiers, Colonial Frontier Massacres in Australia, 1788-1930". Centre For 21st Century Humanities, University of Newcastle, Australia. 2022. Retrieved 7 June 2024.
57. ^ a b Ryan 2012, pp. 103–105
58. ^ Calder 2010, p. 175
59. ^ Clements 2014, p. 54
60. ^ Boyce 2010, p. 196
61. ^ Johnson & McFarlane 2015, p. 139
62. ^ Johnson & McFarlane 2015, p. 130
63. ^ Ryan 2012, pp. 106–107
64. ^ Ryan 2012, pp. 108–11
65. ^ Ryan 2012, pp. 109–12, 121
66. ^ Johnson & McFarlane 2015, p. 136-140
67. ^ Ryan 2012, pp. 112–17
68. ^ Johnson & McFarlane 2015, pp. 138–39
69. ^ Ryan 2012, pp. 112, 115
70. ^ Johnson & McFarlane 2015, p. 140
71. ^ Ryan 2012, pp. 113–115
72. ^ a b Ryan 2012, pp. 117–120
73. ^ Boyce 2010, pp. 194–95
74. ^ Clements 2014, pp. 95–101
75. ^ Boyce 2010, p. 270
76. ^ a b Boyce 2010, pp. 268–270
77. ^ a b Ryan 2012, pp. 121–126, 134
78. ^ Letter to Arthur of 5 November 1830.
79. ^ Hughes 1987, Chapter XI, § 6.
80. ^ Calder 2010, p. 181
81. ^ a b Boyce 2010, p. 273
82. ^ Calder 2010, p. 182
83. ^ a b Clements 2014, pp. 180–189
84. ^ Ryan 2012, pp. 168–174
85. ^ Clements 2014, pp. 79, 83–84, 87
86. ^ Ryan 2012, pp. 82–83
87. ^ Clements 2014, pp. 40, 82–90
88. ^ Clements 2014, p. 45-48, 71-75
89. ^ Clements 2014, pp. 75–79
90. ^ Calder 2010, p. 183
91. ^ McMahon, JF (2005). "Douglas, Sholto (1795–1838)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. ISBN 978-0-522-84459-7. ISSN 1833-7538. OCLC 70677943. Retrieved 1 April 2015.
92. ^ Ryan 2012, p. 131
93. ^ Clements 2014, pp. 141–144
94. ^ Clements 2014, pp. 133–143
95. ^ Clements 2014, pp. 155–159, 176
96. ^ a b Clements 2014, pp. 161–164
97. ^ "Report of the Aborigines Committee". Parliamentary Papers, House of Commons and Command, Volume 19. 4 February 1831. p. 76. Retrieved 4 April 2015.
98. ^ Reynolds, Henry; Clements, Nicholas (2021). Tongerlongeter. Sydney: NewSouth. ISBN 9781742237770.
99. ^ a b Clements 2014, pp. 164–168, 174, 177
100. ^ Ryan 2012, pp. 198–202
101. ^ Clements 2014, p. 180
102. ^ a b Lawson 2014, pp. 84–86
103. ^ Calder 2010, p. 224
104. ^ Ryan 2012, pp. 199–216
105. ^ Boyce 2010, pp. 299–306
106. ^ Ryan 2012, pp. 198, 203–216
107. ^ Ryan 2012, pp. 226–227
108. ^ Reynolds 2001, p. 71
109. ^ Ryan 2012, pp. 14, 43
110. ^ a b Clements 2013, pp. 324, 325
111. ^ Ryan 2012, pp. 54–57, 71
112. ^ Ryan draws her figure from an estimate made by the Colonial Times newspaper on 11 February 1826. See Ryan, page 142.
113. ^ a b Clements 2013, pp. 329–331
114. ^ Ryan 2012, p. 143
115. ^ Windschuttle, Keith (2002). The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, Volume One: Van Diemen's Land 1803–1847. Macleay Press. ISBN 1-876492-05-8.
116. ^ a b Ryan 2012, p. xx—xxvi
117. ^ Boyce 2010, pp. 10–11
118. ^ Reynolds, Henry (2003). "Terra Nullius Reborn". In Manne, Robert (ed.). Whitewash : on Keith Windschuttle's fabrication of Aboriginal history. Melbourne: Black Inc. pp. 109–138. ISBN 0975076906.
119. ^ Clements 2014, pp. 5–6
120. ^ Blainey, Geoffrey (1980). A Land Half Won. South Melbourne, Vic.: Macmillan. p. 75.
121. ^ Flood 2019, p. 109-11, 116
122. ^ Ryan 2012, pp. 71, 144
123. ^ Boyce 2010, pp. 64–65
124. ^ a b Hughes 1987, p. 120
125. ^ Boyce 2010, p. 296
126. ^ Ryan 2012, p. xix, 215
127. ^ Lawson 2014, pp. xvii, 2, 20
128. ^ Adhikari, Mohamed (25 July 2022). Destroying to Replace: Settler Genocides of Indigenous Peoples. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. p. xxix. ISBN 978-1647920548.
129. ^ Madley, Benjamin (2004). "Patterns of frontier genocide 1803–1910: the aboriginal Tasmanians, the Yuki of California, and the Herero of Namibia". Journal of Genocide Research. 6 (2): 167–192. doi:10.1080/1462352042000225930. S2CID 145079658.
130. ^ Sousa, Ashley Riley (2004). ""They will be hunted down like wild beasts and destroyed!": a comparative study of genocide in California and Tasmania". Journal of Genocide Research. 6 (2): 193–209. doi:10.1080/1462352042000225949. S2CID 109131060.
131. ^ Reynolds 2001, p. 50
132. ^ a b Broome 2019, p. 44
133. ^ a b Clements 2013, pp. 110–112.
134. ^ Boyce 2010, pp. 264, 296
135. ^ Lawson 2014, p. 8
136. ^ Reynolds 2001, p. 29
137. ^ Reynolds 2001, pp. 52–54
138. ^ Reynolds 2001, p. 59
139. ^ Lawson 2014, pp. 15, 78, 85
140. ^ Ryan, Lyndall (6 November 2008). "Massacre in the Black War in Tasmania 1823–34: a case study of the Meander River Region, June 1827". Journal of Genocide Research. 10 (4): 479–499. doi:10.1080/14623520802447834. S2CID 145287373. Retrieved 8 March 2022.
141. ^ Clements 2014, pp. 56–58
142. ^ Lawson 2014, p. 14
143. ^ Lawson 2014, pp. 51, 205

## Bibliography[edit]

* Boyce, James (2010). Van Diemen's Land. Melbourne: Black Inc. ISBN 978-1-86395-491-4.
* Broome, Richard (2019). Aboriginal Australians: a history since 1788 (5th ed.). Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 9781760528218.
* Calder, Graeme (2010). Levée, Line and Martial Law. Launceston: Fullers Bookshop. ISBN 978-0-64653-085-7.
* Clements, Nicholas (2014). The Black War. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press. ISBN 978-0-70225-006-4.
* Clements, Nicholas (2013). Frontier Conflict in Van Diemen's Land (PhD thesis) (PDF) (Thesis). University of Tasmania.
* Flood, Josephine (2019). The Original Australians: the story of the Aboriginal People (2nd ed.). Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 9781760527075.
* Hughes, Robert (1987). The Fatal Shore. London: Pan. ISBN 0-330-29892-5.
* Johnson, Murray; McFarlane, Ian (2015). Van Diemen's Land: An Aboriginal History. University of New South Wales Press. ISBN 9781742234212.
* Lawson, Tom (2014). The Last Man. London: I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-78076-626-3.
* Reynolds, Henry (2001). An Indelible Stain?. Sydney: Penguin. ISBN 978-0-67091-220-9.
* Reynolds, Henry (2012). A History of Tasmania. Melbourne and New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521548373.
* Ryan, Lyndall (2012). Tasmanian Aborigines. Sydney: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 978-1-74237-068-2.

## Further reading[edit]

* Turnbull, Clive (1948), Black War, Melbourne: F.W. Cheshire Ltd

## External links[edit]

* Extract from James Bonwick, Black War of Van Diemen’s Land, London, pp. 154–155 Accessed 15 August 2009

* v
* t
* e

Australian frontier wars

* Hawkesbury and Nepean Wars (1795–1816)
* Battle of Richmond Hill
* Battle of Parramatta
* Risdon Cove massacre (1804)
* Tedbury's War (1804–05)
* Bathurst War (1824)
* Black War (Tasmania) (1828–32)
* Cape Grim massacre (1828)
* Port Phillip District Wars (1830–50)
* Yagan Resistance (1831–33)
* Convincing Ground massacre (1833/34)
* Pinjarra massacre (1834)
* Broken River (1836)
* Waterloo Creek massacre (1838)
* Myall Creek massacre (1838)
* Campaspe Plains massacre (1839)
* Blood Hole massacre (1839)
* Maria massacre (1840)
* Gippsland massacres (1840s)
* Eumerella Wars (1840s–1860s)
* Rufus River massacre (1841)
* Pelican Creek tragedy (1842)
* Evans Head massacre (1842)
* War of Southern Queensland (1843–55)
* Battle of One Tree Hill
* Darkey Flat Massacre (circa 1845)
* Avenue Range Station massacre (1848)
* Waterloo Bay massacre (1849)
* East Ballina massacre (1853)
* Hornet Bank massacre  (1857)
* Cullin-La-Ringo massacre (1861)
* Flying Foam Massacre (1868)
* Kalkadoon Wars (1870–90)
* Jandamarra Guerilla War (1894–97)
* Mowla Bluff massacre (1916)
* Forrest River massacre (1926)
* Coniston massacre (1928)
* Caledon Bay crisis (1932–34)

* v
* t
* e

Aboriginal anthropology in Tasmania

Aboriginal Tasmanians|

* Dolly Dalrymple
* Wauba Debar
* Daniel Geale
* William Lanne
* Luggenemenener
* Mannalargenna
* Michael Mansell
* Fanny Cochrane Smith
* Truganini

Tasmanian tribes|

* Toogee

Aboriginal history|

* Black War
* Cape Grim massacre

Tasmanian languages|

| Northern–Western|

* Tommeginne
* Port Sorell
* Peerapper
* Toogee

|

Northeastern|

* Pyemmairre
* Tyerrernotepanner
* "Norman"
* "Lhotsky/Blackhouse"

Eastern|

* Little Swanport
* Paredarerme
* Nuenonne
* Bruny Island

Constructed|

* palawa kani

See also: List of Indigenous Australian group names

By state or territory
New South Wales
Northern Territory
Queensland
South Australia
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