1828 Proclamation of Demarcation

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. 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.