Uploaded June 2024 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago
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Today 6.000 to 23.000 people identify themselves as Tasmanians. Their history goes a long way back and is quite unique. The first people arrived in Tasmania, a peninsula of Australia back then, 40.000 years ago. The region became an island around 6000 years ago and was cut off from the Australian mainland. This resulted in the Tasmanian people becoming completely isolated from the rest of the world for nearly 8.000 years, until the arrival of the Europeans.
While the first contact of the Palawa, as they named themselves, with European explorers took place in the 17th century, it was only in 1803 with the first arrival of British colonists that it became permanent. Back then it was estimated that around 3.000 to 15.000 Palawa lived and prospered in this rich island. In 1855 their number was 14.
While pre-colonial populations such as the Australian and Tasmanian Aborigines are many times regarded as homogeneous and are presented in popular culture as uncivilized - people of the Stone Age in many cases - the Palawa actually had developed an advanced society and an excellent relationship with their environment. When the British arrived, there were nine separate nations and at least 48 clans living in Tasmania, having a complex relationship with their country. They had developed agriculture that secured them a rich diet, they demarcated their territories, had clear social hierarchies, and a sophisticated net of tribal relations. It is, of course, difficult to know specifics because all of these functioning communal units were destroyed by the British.
#britishempire #theblackwar #tasmania #history #documentary
Sources:
Ferguson, Niall, Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power, Basic Books 2002.
Lawson, Tom, The Last Man: A British Genocide in Tasmania, I.B. Tauris 2014.
Madley Benjamin, “Tactics of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Massacre: Tasmania, California and Beyond”, in: Philip G. Dwyer, Lyndall Ryan (eds.), Theatres of Violence; Massacre, Mass Killing and Atrocity throughout History, Berghahn 2012.
Madley Benjamin, “From Terror to Genocide: Britain’s Tasmanian Penal Colony and Australia’s History Wars”, Journal of British Studies, 47:1 (January 2008), 77–106.
Ryan Lyndall, ‘Abduction and Multiple Killings of Aborigines in Tasmania: 1804–1835’, Yale Genocide Studies Program Working Paper no.35 (2007).
UN corrects 40-year error claiming Tasmanian Aboriginal extinction, News.com.au, https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/un-corrects-40year-error-claiming-tasmanian-aboriginal-extinction/news-story/a4756b1d5bd30e1e7dfed6007763d0b5, 29.08.2023.
Unesco removes ‘hurtful’ document claiming Tasmanian Aboriginal people ‘extinct’, The Guardian, 28.08.2023 theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/aug/28/unesco-removes-hurtful-document-claiming-tasmanian-aboriginal-people-extinct
http://static.tmag.tas.gov.au/tayenebe/makers/Trucanini/index.html
Copyright © 2023 A Day In History. All rights reserved.
DISCLAIMER: All materials in these videos are used for entertainment purposes and fall within the guidelines of fair use. No copyright infringement intended. If you are, or represent, the copyright owner of materials used in this video, and have an issue with the use of said material, please send an email to adayinhistory2021@gmail.com
Use our code adayinhistory at the link incogni.com/adayinhistory to get an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan.
Today 6.000 to 23.000 people identify themselves as Tasmanians. Their history goes a long way back and is quite unique. The first people arrived in Tasmania, a peninsula of Australia back then, 40.000 years ago. The region became an island around 6000 years ago and was cut off from the Australian mainland. This resulted in the Tasmanian people becoming completely isolated from the rest of the world for nearly 8.000 years, until the arrival of the Europeans.
While the first contact of the Palawa, as they named themselves, with European explorers took place in the 17th century, it was only in 1803 with the first arrival of British colonists that it became permanent. Back then it was estimated that around 3.000 to 15.000 Palawa lived and prospered in this rich island. In 1855 their number was 14.
While pre-colonial populations such as the Australian and Tasmanian Aborigines are many times regarded as homogeneous and are presented in popular culture as uncivilized - people of the Stone Age in many cases - the Palawa actually had developed an advanced society and an excellent relationship with their environment. When the British arrived, there were nine separate nations and at least 48 clans living in Tasmania, having a complex relationship with their country. They had developed agriculture that secured them a rich diet, they demarcated their territories, had clear social hierarchies, and a sophisticated net of tribal relations. It is, of course, difficult to know specifics because all of these functioning communal units were destroyed by the British.
#britishempire #theblackwar #tasmania #history #documentary
Sources:
Ferguson, Niall, Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power, Basic Books 2002.
Lawson, Tom, The Last Man: A British Genocide in Tasmania, I.B. Tauris 2014.
Madley Benjamin, “Tactics of Nineteenth-Century Colonial Massacre: Tasmania, California and Beyond”, in: Philip G. Dwyer, Lyndall Ryan (eds.), Theatres of Violence; Massacre, Mass Killing and Atrocity throughout History, Berghahn 2012.
Madley Benjamin, “From Terror to Genocide: Britain’s Tasmanian Penal Colony and Australia’s History Wars”, Journal of British Studies, 47:1 (January 2008), 77–106.
Ryan Lyndall, ‘Abduction and Multiple Killings of Aborigines in Tasmania: 1804–1835’, Yale Genocide Studies Program Working Paper no.35 (2007).
UN corrects 40-year error claiming Tasmanian Aboriginal extinction, News.com.au, https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/un-corrects-40year-error-claiming-tasmanian-aboriginal-extinction/news-story/a4756b1d5bd30e1e7dfed6007763d0b5, 29.08.2023.
Unesco removes ‘hurtful’ document claiming Tasmanian Aboriginal people ‘extinct’, The Guardian, 28.08.2023 theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/aug/28/unesco-removes-hurtful-document-claiming-tasmanian-aboriginal-people-extinct
http://static.tmag.tas.gov.au/tayenebe/makers/Trucanini/index.html
Copyright © 2023 A Day In History. All rights reserved.
DISCLAIMER: All materials in these videos are used for entertainment purposes and fall within the guidelines of fair use. No copyright infringement intended. If you are, or represent, the copyright owner of materials used in this video, and have an issue with the use of said material, please send an email to adayinhistory2021@gmail.com
