Today, there are no Tasmanian men, women, or infants, since the British have systematically wiped out the entire population. In several of our posts, we have discussed that Black people were the first humans on this planet, and that Black people were originally found in every corner of the world. Black peoples have been indigenous or migrated in Europe, Asia, America and other parts of the world. But as we begin to dig deeper into history, we learn that Caucasians set up and murdered many of these indigenous Black cultures, in some cases wiping out the entire indigenous population. We’re talking of mass executions and genocide by European invaders!!! Tasmania was/is an island slightly larger than the size of West Virginia, in the United States of America, and is also situated 200 miles off Australia’s southeast coast. The tale of the “Black” Tasmanian people of Australia is no different. Archaeological discoveries and history estimate that on an ancient bridge linking Tasmania to the mainland of Australia, these black indigenous people crossed into the island. The Palawa people were Tasmania’s first indigenous people. They were known for their curled hair, sometimes close, and skin colors ranging from reddish-brown to black.
Their long noses, large faces, and sets of deep brown eyes were among their most prominent features, giving them an ancient and medieval look. They are called the Black Aborigines of Australia. They were not pygmies, but they were short, and some of them, with their limited body fat, could easily be passed on to pygmies, which made them a little plump. Records hold that about 35,000 years ago, they landed on the island. Eventually, when their bridge was engulfed in water due to rising sea levels, they were cut off from the rest of the planet. And they have existed alone, without any contact with the outside world, for over 10,000 years. The arrival of Europeans in Tasmania In December 1642, when the first Europeans landed on the island, after anchoring off the Tasmanian coast, the peace, and calmly enjoyed by the Aborigines of Tasmania for more than 10,000 years were broken.
The one who led the expedition was a Dutch navigator named Abel Jansen. And in a European way, he was swift to name the island after Governor-General Anthony Van Diemen of the Dutch East Idia Company. He gave the island its name, Van Diemen. And without the permission of the landowners, until the year 1855, they continued to name the island of Van Diemen. Before 1855, on January 28, 1777, the British, as they scoured the globe for lands to conquer and plunder, entered the island.
The British occupied the land in their normal way and converted Tasmania into a settlement for their inmates and convicted criminals. Now we’re talking about the individuals in British culture with the worst attitudes and characters—criminals, rapists, murderers, and demons. These were the individuals who were brought to Tasmania to live. And they were cruel and inhumane in their dealings with the Aborigines, as history tells us. When the number of troops, missionaries, captives, and officials was out, it was discovered that over 65,000 Black-hating Caucasians had landed and settled on Tasmania by the British. By 1804, the British colonial government and its convicts began to slaughter and destroy the Tasmanian Aborigines in cold blood, The Slaughter And Near Genocide Of The Tasmanian People By The British By 1804, the British colonial government and their convicts began to slaughter and murder the Tasmanian Aborigines in cold blood.
They will abduct them, kill them and enslave them. They followed the lies of European scholars who distorted human origins, placing Caucasians at the top of the pyramid and placing Black people at the bottom, since they did not consider the Aborigines to be total humans. They were very sadistic and cruel in their treatment of the Tasmanian people, just as we found them doing to Africans at that point in time. The complete extinction of the Black race was their task, and they lost no time in decimating the population of Tasmania. The Europeans on the island (the British and their genocide partners) bound the Black men of Tasmania to trees and used them for target practice shooting.
They captured the women as they were being handcuffed and raped them. The colonial and military officers even gave the criminals and convicts the power to hunt the Aborigines for fun, shooting, clubbing, and killing the men with spears. To top it all off, they had fun as they were roasting the Aboriginal babies alive. The Black War Of The Land Of Van Diemen Not only did the Tasmanian aborigines sit back and watch the invaders kill them. They put up a heavy resistance. But we fear that their resistance hasn’t been adequate. And if that were it, they’d all be around until now. But there’s none of that nation left today. The British declared war on the Tasmanian Aborigines in their normal way, and called the genocide “The Black War of Van Dieman’s Land.”
It lasted for 27 years, from 1803 to 1830. And in those poor years, Tasmania’s black population fell from over 5,000 to fewer than 75 people. Two years before the end of the so-called war, to elevate the genocide, the British government proclaimed martial law in 1828 and gave the white authority in Tasmania to kill the Black people on sight. For the Aborigines, it was the last resistance. With clubs, spears, arrows, and numerous other weapons, they defended themselves and their ground. But their firearms were not adequate to equal the British guns and firepower. Truly cruel, ruthless, and barbaric were the British. As the two years progressed, the British created a black people bounty scheme and called it “black catching,” which then became a big business for Tasmanian Europeans. For each Aboriginal adult, and 2 pounds for the kids, they gave the bounty hunters 5 pounds. For the white people, several other choices made available for the genocide were to enslave and sell the aborigines, capture, and poison, as well as chase them with dogs. But the bounty hunting option ended with them.
The British rounded up the remaining Aborigines after the so-called war and placed them in concentration camps because they no longer posed a threat to the British. The Last Tasmanians And How They Disappeared A man called William Lanney, who was widely known as King Billy, was the last full-blooded Tasmanian. In 1835, Lanney was born and grew up on Flinders Island. He and the rest of his people were transferred to a concentration camp, called Oyster Cove when he turned 13. He grew up and became a sailor and for some years, he also went whaling. Lanney was believed by the world to be the last male Tasmanian to be a human relic, the last of an indigenous tribe, murdered by the British.
William Lanney In the year 1860, Prince Albert was introduced to Lanney. One would wonder what the use of glorifying him with royal visits to European monarchs was when his entire ethnic group was murdered by the same Europeans. He later died on March 2, 1868, after returning ill from one of his February 1868 whaling voyages. He died in a room in Hobart, Tasmania, where he was staying at The Dog and Partridge Public House. Europeans began to scramble for his body until he died. It was in the habit of European scientists at the time to use Black people’s bodies for experiments. A group of people was bargaining for his bones while he was still in one of the colonial hospitals.
They said that they were members of Tasmania’s Royal Society. A surgeon went into the mortuary where Lanney was held the night before he was buried, and skinned his head and removed his skull. His skull was then replaced by another dead person’s skull, in which the skin of his head was re-stitched. They dismembered him after the Royal Society found out that his skull had been removed. His hands and feet were cut off and were shared with them. And as usual, no one lifted an eye-lid, no government or authority was disturbed by the genocide of their people. No one has been punished and no one considers bad what has happened. And just like that the last Tasmanian to live, Lanney, was discreet and gone forever.
The Ordeals of One of the Last Tasmanians-Truganini The encounter, pain, and torture suffered by Truganini can be said to be a complete account and biography of the Tasmanian people’s persecution and genocide. On May 7, 1876, at the age of 73, Truganini died. Her tale is one that’s going to shake you to the bones. She had to watch two Europeans drown her intended husband, and after that, his killers raped her. Her mother had been stabbed to death by one of the many vicious Europeans on the island in cold blood. They also abducted her sister and after raping her, possibly killed her. She made the most touching plea to the doctor as she was on her death-bed. She said, “Don’t let them cut me up.” This meant that it was then a tradition for the few remaining Tasmanians to be cut up and used for experiments or other evil and dark practices Black people’s skeletons were used for. As she had expected, after her death, the Europeans exhumed her body and placed her skeleton in a box, and put her on display in the Tasmanian Museum, and she would stay there until 1947. Finally, in 1976, her body was cremated and her ashes were scattered by the sea.
Conclusion
It is never possible to estimate the true figure of ancient people and cultures, wiped out by Europeans over the curse of human history. This is because Europeans committed hundreds of years, mostly Black people, to the murder and genocide of indigenous people around the world. We are always shocked by our bones in our reading and compilation of these numerous studies, by the kind of evil that the heart of the British might conceive. And then we ask: Are these people human indeed? Our greatest hope is that these things can be read and understood by the majority of Black people worldwide, so they can better appreciate the world they live in and how far they have come as a race. With such understanding, our people will be driven by how to react to Europeans’ love or hostility in this age and period.