The Black War – Fear, Sex and Resistance in Tasmania | Nicholas Clements | 2014 [SC]

Between 1825 and 1831, close to 200 British colonists and around 1,000 Aboriginal Tasmanians died violently in what became known as the Black War — the most intense and sustained frontier conflict in Australian history.

Nicholas Clements takes a different approach to this history from most accounts. Rather than focusing primarily on policy, politics or colonial administration, he looks at the experiences and attitudes of the people who were actually there — contrasting the perspectives of colonists and Aboriginal Tasmanians to give a human-level account of the conflict. He draws on raw personal accounts to document the tribes, families and individuals involved, and examines the role of fear, sexual violence and resistance in shaping how the war was fought and experienced on both sides.

At 268 pages with colour illustrations and a full index, this is one of the more considered recent accounts of the Black War — neither dismissing its violence nor reducing the people involved to victims or perpetrators. It sits naturally alongside the Fabrication of Aboriginal History and The Vandemonian War for anyone working through the contested historiography of this period.

BOOK DETAILS

• Softcover.
• 268 pages, indexed.
• Colour illustrations.
• Published 2014.

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