February 26.
Artwork by Glenn Loughrey
Attitudes in Tasmania in 1830
Extermination.
Edward Curr, the director of the Van Diemen's Land Company, the colony's largest commercial undertaking, similarly argued that as the killing of white frontier workers continued, 'they must undertake a war of extermination', although it was 'dreadful to contemplate the necessity of exterminating the native' tribes. [1] The local newspapers discussed the need for a final solution, the editor of The Tasmanian declaring in February 1830 that 'extermination seems to be the only remedy'. [2]
E Curr, submission to the Aborigines Committee, TSA, CSO/1/1/323, pp. 373-74.
The Tasmanian, 26 February 1830.
Acknowledgment: Henry Reynolds, Forgotten War, pp. 139-40, 265 n.18, n.19.
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The multi-faced politics of war.
The Lieutenant Governor was advocating for the settlers of Van Diemen's Land to become militant: armed, active and ready to turn to paramilitary duties when required. While the bounty was new, [Governor] Arthur's tone increasingly echoed his plans for a local militia.
Further highlighting this government-sponsored settler militarism, the next day Arthur followed up with the Colonial Secretary about sending a specific letter to Vicary. Ordering 'a working party from Bothwell...to render every possible assistance to Mr Howells in erecting a shelter for his family', Arthur also took the opportunity to again impress upon the police magistrate the necessity of the settlers becoming militant:
it is in vain for the Settlers to expect that the Government alone can afford them protection, and that the most strenuous efforts must be made by the Colonists themselves. [1]
Also that day, Arthur instructed the Colonial Secretary to forward a notice to the government printer about a new 'Act to facilitate the apprehension of felons or other offenders illegally at large'. [2] It was a short Act, allowing settlers or their servants to 'apprehend without a Warrant' anybody reasonably suspected of being 'a Transported Felon or other Offender then illegally at Large'. While seemingly directed at convicts, the Act was also applicable to the capture of Aboriginal people.
The timing of the announcement of this new law is also telling. It was included in the Hobart Town Courier along with the government order about bounties for Aboriginal captives, and is another example of the way that the politics of the war infected many other elements of government business.
The publication of these notices is anything but coincidental, and to read them in isolation would be wilfully naïve. They were highly collaborative elements of a government agenda to motivate frontier settlers to arm themselves and act with fortitude, while also placating humanitarian qualms in Hobart. They also serve as hints of a regime focused on the important business of protecting the Lieutenant Governor's reputation. Arthur steered the committee away from the present to the past, distracting generations of historians in the process.
GO54/1/5, p. 234; CSO41/1/1, p. 371.
GO54/1/5, p. 235; Government notice 47, 26 February 1830, Hobart Town Courier, 27 February 1830, p. 2. It became law on 12 March: 11 Geo. IV, No. 2.
Acknowledgment: Nick Brodie, The Vandemonian War, pp. 154-155, 393, n.18, n.19.