The 1828 Proclamation of Demarcation was issued by George Arthur, governor of Tasmania, and ordered the white colonial populations and Tasmanian Aboriginal populations be temporarily separated from each other.[1] Arthur clarified that the proclamation would not limit Aboriginals from traveling through Tasmania to shellfish hunting territories, provided a passport was coordinated with their leaders.[2] The proclamation was justified as protecting Aboriginals from violence from colonists, and to protect the colonists from "repeated and wanton barbarous murders and other crimes" by the Aboriginals.[3]

The proclamation established a line of military outposts separating the declared Aboriginal and colonial territories, which the Aboriginals were forbidden to pass.[3] Tasmanian Aboriginals were pressed into remote areas of Tasmania, and eventually relocated to Flinders Island; scholar Rod Edmond notes that the pretext of "protecting" the Aboriginals served as a mechanism to clear desirable land for colonial use.[4]

References

  1. ^ James Bonwick (1870). The last of the Tasmanians: or, The Black War of Van Diemen's Land. Johnson Reprint Corp. pp. 78–.
  2. ^ Dr Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll (28 April 2014). Art in the Time of Colony. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. pp. 92–. ISBN 978-1-4094-5596-7.
  3. ^ a b Sharon Morgan (11 December 2003). Land Settlement in Early Tasmania: Creating an Antipodean England. Cambridge University Press. pp. 151–. ISBN 978-0-521-52296-0.
  4. ^ Rod Edmond (30 November 2006). Leprosy and Empire: A Medical and Cultural History. Cambridge University Press. pp. 193–. ISBN 978-1-139-46287-7.
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