This presentation explores the history of the idea of Tasmanian Aboriginal ‘extinction’ – why it was so significant to British and Australian societies and how it was resisted by Indigenous Tasmanians from the 19th century. Taking these questions to a wider context, this presentation also considers how ideas about Indigenous extinction have shaped the way Europeans understand their imperial past, and how they continue, problematically, to influence contemporary discourses about climate change and language loss.
Rebe Taylor explains that Tasmanian Aboriginal ‘extinction’ was an idea of deep consequence to British and Australian societies. The passing of Trukanini, the so-called ‘last Tasmanian’ in 1876, represented to a contemporaneous British society the tragic fate that presumably awaited all colonised Aboriginal people. A century later, Trukanini was asked by white Australians to ‘stand’ for a national history of colonial genocide. Now, in 2020, the idea of Tasmanian Aboriginal extinction has itself become history. The Tasmanian Aboriginal community have, through hard-won struggle, been recognised as having survived since the early 1970s. They have since gained rights to land, repatriated ancestral remains and led a vibrant cultural resurgence.
Associate Professor Rebe Taylor is a historian and writer who works at the University of Tasmania. She has more than twenty years of experience researching and writing the histories of southeast Australian Indigenous peoples and European settlement for academic and literary publications, web resources and museums. Her most recent book, the award winning 'Into the Heart of Tasmania', was published by Melbourne University Press. She is currently researching an international history of European imperial extinction discourse and Indigenous cultural resurgence.