Providing a final solution to the problem of the Tasmanian aborigines…
…all were reaching the conclusion that life in Tasmania would be much happier if there were no Tasmanians. The Reverend Thomas Atkins, after a visit to Van Diemen’s Land in 1836, conveniently rationalized the attitude in Christian terms. It was a universal law in the divine government, he wrote, that when savage tribes came into collision with civilized races of men, the savages disappeared. This was because they had not complied with the divine conditions for survival- “For God blessed them, and God said unto them, be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it…”
Hobart in 1830 was already a substantial seaport and whaling base, set delightfully in the shadow of Mount Wellington and looking across the wooded estuary of the Derwent River southward to the sea. From the sea it looked like a Jane Austen watering place, with the spire of St. David’s Church rising gracefully above the roofs and the tidy grid of streets running up the hill behind.
On the spot it was more rumbustious. It was full of ambitious merchants, sailors, soldiers, government officials- few of them gentlemen in the English sense of the word, but beginning to fall into patterns of social hierarchy. The big houses of the whaling magnates, often emancipated convicts, stood opulently at street corners or high above the sea at Battery Point, with carriages and stables and convict servants at the door.
In 1830 at Macquarie House, one of the grandest early houses of Hobart Town, began, as headquarters of a military operation, the largest ever conducted against the native peoples of Australia, that was intended to provide a final solution to the problem of the Tasmanian aborigines.
ADDENDUM:
Alternative interpretation. Revisionist history:
(see link at end)…Even though Tasmania probably saw more conflict than the mainland, the extent, the motivations and the outcome have all been distorted. A great example of the distortion is the “black line” of 1830. A myth has developed that the black line was responsible for the eradication of Aborigines from the state. The black line was an ̵
original hunt’ that cost £30,000, involved 5,000 men, and lasted for seven weeks. White historians have seized upon the figures to portray Tasmania’s colonisation as a holocaust of European savagery. One of these white historians is Jennifer Isaacs, a self-defined expert on Aboriginal culture who has set herself up as a consultant to government. In an emotional account, Ms Isaacs wrote in 1987:
“In Tasmania the white invasion and occupation was complete and the whole Aboriginal population was systematically annihilated. A few children survived to be secretly reared as stockmen on the mainland, but the survivors of the ‘Black Line’ led an isolated and heart-rending existence in forced exile in a small white supervised community on Flinders Island where they died one by one. Today a small stone church marks the spot on a cliff where the last of the Tasmanians sat in their Victorian costumes looking over the sea towards Tasmania.”
In reality, the black line was a complete failure and it did not result in the “systematic annihilation” of Aborigines, as Isaacs declared. Despite the cost, the time, and the manpower invested in it, the line only netted one man and one boy. In that regard, it was a bit like America spending billions of dollars on the invasion of Afghanistan, yet failing to eliminate Al Qaeda or catch Osama Bin Laden. In the context of war propaganda, America’s failure was demoralising for themselves, but inspiring for their enemies. Likewise, the ability of the two tribes to outwit their adversary was potentially far more inspiring history than that of a weak race passively going into oblivion. The fact that Isaacs choose to portray Aborigines as victims of the black line instead of victors over it, revealed a great deal about her ideology and moral character. Perhaps it also indicated her desire to tell a story in an emotional way for racist or commercial reasons, instead of an honest way for educational reasons. Read More:http://www.convictcreations.com/history/aborigines.html
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