George Augustus Robinson was the son of a builder who emigrated to Hobart Town from the United Kingdom in 1824. He soon became involved in efforts to support Lieutenant-Governor George Arthur’s desire to seek conciliation with Tasmanian Aboriginal people, who were violently resisting the invasion of their lands. This began with the supply of rations to Aborigines on Bruny Island. In 1829 Robinson convinced Arthur to appoint him to establish a mission with a view to pacifying the resistance and assimilating the First Nations of Tasmania into colonial life.
Robinson’s Tasmanian journals cover his travels throughout the colony, and his role as Commandant of the Wybalenna Aboriginal settlement over the next ten years. Edited and published by Brian Plomley in 1966 and 1987, they provide the most extensive account of the Tasmanian Aboriginal experience of colonisation ever written. The journals include naïve, but detailed records of languages and cultural knowledge. His writing continues to be a unique resource used by Aboriginal people today in the restoration of Aboriginal culture and language following what is now recognised as an attempted genocide, of which ironically, Robinson was an intrinsic part.
– Dr. Greg Lehman
