Tasmanian Aboriginal country

Tasmanian Aborigines continue to celebrate their culture and spirituality, despite the actions of British colonial authorities who exiled many of their people, including leader Mannalagenna, to Flinders Island.

Setting the scene

Theresa Sainty, pakana (Tasmanian Aborigine), 2014:

[People say,] oh ... they’ve lost so much. But I think … hang on a minute. Isn’t it wonderful that we have so much culture that we have retained. To be taken from country … taken to those islands where you’ve got nowhere to go — prisoners almost … And yet, they [our ancestors] made sure information is passed down through their families. Against all odds.

Manalargenna

In the early 1830s authorities exiled 134 Tasmanian Aborigines to Wybalenna on Flinders Island in Bass Strait, about 50 kilometres north of the Tasmanian mainland. The people worked to keep their culture strong, but their sense of loss was profound.

Mannalargenna was leader of the Cape Portland people from north-east Tasmania. He had negotiated with George Augustus Robinson, the Protector of Aborigines, for his people to remain in their country in return for assisting Robinson.

In about 1834 Mannalargenna and his people were exiled to Flinders Island. Although Mannalargenna had kept his word, Robinson had not.

Aunty Patsy Cameron, Tasmanian Aboriginal elder, 2014:

On the boat taking him away, Mannalargenna paced the deck like an emperor … looking through his spyglass at his country for the last time. Just off Flinders Island he cut his beard and his ochred hair, which showed his status as a bungana, a leader of his people ... Within five weeks he was dead.

Mannalargenna is recognised as the ancestor of many Aboriginal people today.

Clyde Mansell, palawa elder, 2014:

The minute I look at that [portrait of Mannalargenna] I immediately within myself reaffirm who I am.

Neptune [Merape] & Moriarty

Artist John Skinner Prout created a series of intimate portraits in early 1845 at Wybalenna Aboriginal Station on Flinders Island. Merape (meaning 'hailstones') was from Circular Head in north-west Tasmania.

Enduring poor living conditions, disease and neglect, many at Wybalenna sickened and died. In 1846 people from Wybalenna petitioned Queen Victoria about the appalling conditions there.

By 1847 when Wybalenna was abandoned, only 47 people remained.

Leonie Dickson, Tasmanian Aboriginal elder, 2014:

At Wybalenna they were so homesick they used to climb to the top of the hill and think that they could sort of fly off and … see Tasmania in the distance.

For Tasmanian Aborigines today, there is both strength and sorrow in remembering this time.

Greg Lehman, palawa, descendant of trawulwuy people, 2014:

These portraits … are a testament to the strength, not just of the Aboriginal spirit but also the human spirit, which allows people to survive these sort of things, whether they occur in Van Diemen’s Land in the 1830s or whether they occur in Europe in the 1930s, only a hundred years later.