Editing Tasmania (section)

==== Removal of Aboriginal people ====

[[File:Truganini and last 4 tasmanian aborigines.jpg|thumb|Four elderly full-blood Tasmanian Aboriginal people, {{circa|1860s}}. [[Truganini]], for many years claimed to be the last full-blood Aboriginal person to survive, is seated far right.]]

After hostilities between settlers and Aboriginal peoples ceased in 1832, almost all of the remnants of the Indigenous population were persuaded by government agent [[George Augustus Robinson]] to move to [[Flinders Island, Tasmania|Flinders Island]]. Many quickly succumbed to infectious diseases to which they had no immunity, reducing the population further.<ref>{{Citation | last=Ryan | first = Lyndall | title = Tasmanian Aborigines  | publisher = Allen & Unwin | year = 2012 | pages=1199–216|location = Sydney | isbn = 978-1-74237-068-2}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|last= Clements|first= Nicholas|title= Frontier Conflict in Van Diemen's Land (PhD thesis)|year= 2013|publisher= University of Tasmania|pages= 329–331|url= http://eprints.utas.edu.au/17070/2/Whole-Clements-thesis.pdf|access-date= 23 April 2015|archive-date= 18 May 2015|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20150518103925/http://eprints.utas.edu.au/17070/2/Whole-Clements-thesis.pdf|url-status= live}}</ref> Of those removed from Tasmania, the last to die was [[Truganini]], in 1876.

The near-destruction of Tasmania's Aboriginal population has been described as an act of genocide by historians including [[Robert Hughes (critic)|Robert Hughes]], [[James Boyce (author)|James Boyce]], [[Lyndall Ryan]] and Tom Lawson.<ref name="hughes121" /><ref>{{Citation | last=Boyce | first = James | title = Van Diemen's Land  | publisher = Black Inc | year = 2010 | location = Melbourne | page=296| isbn = 978-1-86395-491-4}}</ref><ref>{{Citation | last=Ryan | first = Lyndall | title = Tasmanian Aborigines  | publisher = Allen & Unwin | year = 2012 | pages= xix, 215|location = Sydney | isbn = 978-1-74237-068-2}}</ref> However, other historians including [[Henry Reynolds (historian)|Henry Reynolds]], [[Richard Broome]] and Nicholas Clements do not agree with the genocide thesis, arguing that the colonial authorities did not intend to destroy the Aboriginal population in whole or in part.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Broome|first=Richard|title=Aboriginal Australians|publisher=Allen and Unwin|year=2019|isbn=9781760528218|edition=Fifth|location=Crows Nest|page=44}}</ref><ref name=":2">Clements, Nicholas (2013). pp. 110–12</ref> 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".<ref name=":3" /> However, as Reynolds, Broome and Clements point out, there was open warfare at the time.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" /> Boyce described the decision to remove all Tasmanian Aboriginal people after 1832{{mdash}}by which time they had given up their fight against white colonists{{mdash}}as an extreme policy position. He concluded: "The colonial government from 1832 to 1838 [[Ethnic cleansing|ethnically cleansed]] the western half of Van Diemen's Land."<ref name=":3">{{Citation | last=Boyce | first = James | title = Van Diemen's Land  | publisher = Black Inc | year = 2010 | location = Melbourne | pages=264, 296| isbn = 978-1-86395-491-4}}</ref> Nevertheless, Clements and Flood note that there was another wave of violence in north-west Tasmania in 1841, involving attacks on settlers' huts by a band of Aboriginal Tasmanians who had not been removed from the island.<ref>Clements, Nicholas (2013). pp. 264–65</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Flood|first=Josephine|title=The Original Australians, the story of the Aboriginal people|publisher=Allen and Unwin|year=2019|isbn=9781760527075|location=Crows Nest|page=107}}</ref>