Genocide in Tasmania: British Colonization and Destruction of Aboriginal People

This article explores the colonization of Tasmania by the British and the genocidal practices and policies enacted against the Aboriginal people. It discusses the destruction of their culture and the ongoing debate about whether it constitutes genocide. The article also examines the impact of colonization on the Aboriginal population and the efforts to memorialize and remember the victims.

Running Head: Genocide 0
Aboriginal Australian History
5/16/2019

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The colonization of Tasmania genocide
The British colonization of Tasmania took place between 1803 and 1830, which were fought
among Aboriginal people and British colonists. It is indicated that the British enacted
genocidal practices and policies in the manner of the intended destruction of the people and
their culture. It is stated that Raphael Lemkin expressed the idea of “genocide” after the
Second World War to incorporate with the island’s violent colonial past. This was held after
the subsequent failure and implementation of conciliatory procedures, which were the vital
cause of the destruction of the several Tasmanian Aboriginal individuals. It is stated that the
professor Tom Lawson has made utilization of the term “genocide” in the respect of
Tasmania’s colonial battle in the early 1830s. A series of offensives is been directed against
Aboriginal individuals, paramilitaries, and Imperial soldiers were commonly engaged
(Docker, 2015)
Some parties were assigned Aboriginal auxiliaries and eventually involved the biggest
ground offensive in Australian colonial history Soldiers and military officers were provided
civil powers. The former soldiers were motivated to settle in Van Diemen’s Land and to
assist in quelling Aboriginal resistance. It is stated that settlers were issued with thousands of
round of ammunition & hundreds of guns and convicts who struggled against Aboriginal
individuals were rewarded. Civilian as well and military parties scoured the island for
Aboriginal people by taking killing others. The caches of weapons and Aboriginal campsites
were destroyed (Johnston, 2016)
It is quite evident that the ancient Aboriginal society was categorically disrupted by the
British expansion and invaders involving free and military colonists intent on developing an
agricultural economy and transported convicts. They developed the ways in which rapid
Aboriginal population has been portrayed by dispossession, extermination, genocide, and
most importantly extinction. Disputation has concentrated on Tasmania and it is regarded as
the only Australian instance of an entire race in the aspect of British colonization. Isolation
stimulated Europeans to seek the Tasmanian as a separate race from Australian Aborigines.
The Australians estimates vary from 350,000 to one million and depict to have colonization
over much of the extent (Lee and Richardson, 2017)
The invaders assumed that one race existed in Australia and one in Tasmania. It is quite
evident from Anthropologists, which stated that Aborigines did not define themselves in

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respect of race or colonial boundaries. The perceived differences among the influences of
colonization in Tasmania as several people did disappear mainly in temperate regions where
British occupation was concentrated (Dalley, 2018). Despite these catastrophic levels of de-
population, it is stated that historians of Australia have avoided the concept of genocide.
Those who have discussed the Australian genocide involve Dirk Moses and Tony Barta in
1987. The most prominent historian of Tasmania demonstrates the widespread destruction i.e.
Henry Reynolds argued that genocide did not occur in Tasmania. In recent years, it is noted
that Australian historians involve Ann Curthoys and Ben Kiernan have asserted that genocide
did not emerge in Tasmania. In addition, there are several disputed genocides in continent
Australia and four disputed genocides in Tasmania. Raphael Lemkin has stated that genocide
of hunter-gather and their subsequent extermination. The techniques of the destruction of
Aboriginal life is Tasmania recognized by Lemkin involves abduction of children & women,
the influence of imported disease, the killing of men, and exile form households (Dwyer and
Ryan, 2016)
It is stated that the Lemkin delineation of an international pattern of European colonization
and its genocidal influence on the colonized underpins, which presents Indigenous studies. It
is been depicted that the word genocide made emphasis on the intense dispute in public
discourse in Australia (Kapellas and Jamieson, 2016). The word prominence, not in the
aspect of colonial invasion in all Australian states involving children and women. Both
federal as well as state government due to the reason that the high extent of population
increase among Aborigines that poses a threat to the White Australian Policy orchestrated the
removals. The expectation of placement and removal with white families would result in
widespread inter-racial marriage and need to maintain the assumed purity of the white
Australian race (Grewcock, 2018).
The utilization of the term genocide depicts dispossession loss of land, mass killing, exile to
offshore islands, abduction of women, and disintegration of the Aboriginal community. It is
stated that by the mid-1830s every Tasmania involving Aboriginal habitants lived on small
islands and others at the Aboriginal Establishment. The government has provided effective
care to the Aboriginal people were removed from their ancient homelands in the colony by
unfair means. As regarded from the legacies of dispossession and death, the colony left a
legacy of intentional forgetting (Docker, 2017). It is seen that even today people of Australia
quibble over nation’s colonial conflicts, which are termed as wars. Regardless of any
differences, conflicts prosecuted in the colonies of Australia share strong similarities with the

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conflicts of New Zealand. Imperial soldiers and British colonists battle against Indigenous
people who took up power to prevent their sovereignty, families, and resources. Colonists
depict their Indigenous opponents in a different manner. It has been claimed that the British
colonization of Tasmania has resulted in the genocide of the native aborigines of Tasmania.
They had been separated from the Australian Aborigines for approximately 9,000 years. It is
stated that when the British began their colonization in 1803, there were around seven to
eight thousand people who are fighting from disease, which have been contracted from
explorers, sailor, and seal hunters (Andrew and Neath, 2018).
Additionally, it is noted that several people have been left infertile by the disease with the
initiation of brutal conflicts, technologically developed, and sympathetic sellers committed
towards misery. Around 7000 native people were killed during a colonization period lasting
approximately 24 years. It is to be noted that the currently, the notion of extermination is
connected with the memorial for the lost Tasmanians over the return of the human capital
(Brodie, 2018) It could be argued that utilizing the word genocide changed their environment
with the help of managing the resource, possible technological peak in some extents. They
have also not spent their times in economic events but also engages in different areas, which
involves warfare, reproduction, leisure, education, investment, administration, &
management, ritual, religion, and learning-by-doing. Depending upon customary values and
laws, indigenous communities need to maintain effective communication as a need to
enhance life experience, common language, and sharing of initiation rites. It could be argued
that there is a genocidal consensus that connects every people of the society as well as British
state in the concept that there was no future for people in the colony (McMillan and Rigney,
2018)
In the middle post era, it is stated that cultural consideration is greatly enhancing and
currently it is slightly difficult to disentangle. Australian historiography clearly committed
towards the memorial discourses around genocide in Tasmania. Bernard Porter effectively
maintains communication with the British genocide, which is too fragmented to rationalize
the conflict against Indigenous Tasmanians. It is stated that the violence had contributed to
genocide in Tasmanians, which have identified a tendency to memorialize and domesticate
colonial violence in Britain. During the period of the 1820s, it is to be noted that Van
Diemen’s Land underwent immense territorial and demographic expansion. It is seen that
migrants have been increased from Britain, which direct a territorial expansion that pursued

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to resist the usurpation of their land. The conflicts become progressively violent leading
towards the continuous depopulation of the Indigenous nations (Ross, 2017)
It is stated that the strict sense of racial hierarchy depicted the replacement of an Indigenous
population. Indigenous Tasmanians and their decline contribute towards the vision of the
world that had an immense influence on Indigenous culture. When Tasmanians and other
Indigenous people failed to accept the worth of the settler civilization, it requires indication
for the certainty of their demise. It depicts a more aggressive idea of the world that depicts
the extermination of the Indigenous communities as a need to generate positivity. Bonwick’s
thoughts of Indigenous Tasmanians deliberated the position within the debate of the origins
of the human capital (Henry, 2018)
It is quite evident that genocide in Tasmania has become an integral part of developing
success and profitability. Charles has first depicted the failure of the Tasmanians population
and indisposed towards the extinction of the Aboriginal people. The idea of the
‘extermination’ is an integral part of all the representatives. The term Genocide is described
as a decisive validation of the inferiority of Indigenous Tasmania. There has been a constant
pressure of scholarship and anti-imperial policies to highlight the iniquities of imperial
success. The idea of genocide seems to be a barrier to the Tasmania Aboriginal community,
which certainly develop the myth of extinction. It has been found to eliminate specific
genotypes from the possibility of scientific exploration due to the reason that those genotypes
would be excluded to define and investigate the species. It is often impossible to depict a
clear boundary between state terrorism, war, genocide, and political terrorism (Chalmers,
2016)
Furthermore, it is stated that Australians levied fear through genocide and mass terror in
order to attain political and economic objectives without any obstacle. These acts of terrorism
were controlled and governed by the administration of Australia. It is claimed that the state
offers protection from external and domestic violence, which have been involved in
maintaining structures, the domination of society, and the administration of privileged
hierarchy (Madley, 2017). It is stated that they are facing the issue of cheap and free labour
expanded because of the desire to reduce the cost of the production, enhance the profit rate,
accumulation of wealth, and generate the national interests. This need was achieved through
genocide, racial slavery, colonialism, and terrorism. The war on terrorism is being utilized as

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a continuation of the conflict on social justice concerning the economic weapons of global
financial undertaking.
The Tasmania Indigenous individual was also destroyed and terrorized as it is stated that the
genocide of the indigenous Tasmanians was regarded to be the only true genocide, which
organizes and direct the government sustainability of the indigenous population. Several
frameworks of genocide and terrorism can be utilized against indigenous Australians, which
involves ethnocide, disease, cultural destruction, rape, shooting, and burning. It is to be noted
that genocide can happen in several ways as to disintegrate social as well as political
institutions, national feeling, the culture of the people, and religion. It can be accomplished
by developing liberty, personal security, dignity, and health. The English colonial settlers and
descendants in Australia have utilized this framework to decrease crimes and maintain
humanity. It is stated from the fact that Aboriginal people were inhibited by violent racism
and settling society (Madley, 2015).
In conclusion, it is stated that Raphael Lemkin has depicted the fact that colonial genocide
was a structured process that incorporated the destruction by the subsequent extermination
and invader of the colonized. There is a specific distinction between colonial genocide and
crimes defined by Australia. It seemed that the colonial genocide determines both outcome
and process and disappeared as a direct result of colonial occupation by the British. In a more
general sense, it is noted that Tasmanians disappeared because of the invasion of their
country and critical instruments in the sanction of the utilization of force against Aborigines.

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