Aboriginal people of Tasmania were driven off their land so white settlers could produce fine wool for the English textile mills. By the time Truganini died in 1876, they were considered to be extinct.
Yet like so many other claims about them, this was wrong. Far from disappearing, the Tasmanian nations actively resisted settler colonialism from the outset and have consistently campaigned for their rights and recognition as a distinct people through to the present.
Lyndall Ryan tells the story of the Aboriginal people of Tasmania, from before the arrival of the first whites to current political agendas. Tasmania has been the cradle of race relations in Australia, and their struggle for a place in their own country offers insights into the experiences of Aboriginal people nation-wide.
[Tasmanian Aborigines] tells the extraordinary and dramatic story of the Tasmanian Aborigines with passion and eloquence. It is a book that will inform and move anyone with an interest in Australian history.— Professor Henry Reynolds, University of Tasmania
This is an important contribution to Aboriginal history.— Bruce Elder, journalist
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