Foreword to John Bowen and the Founding of Tasmania by Reg Watson
Keith Windschuttle
Published by the Anglo-Keltic Society, Lindisfarne, 2003

Tasmanians are more conscious of their history than any other Australians. The large number of books, journals, societies and sites dedicated to preserving the historical record of the island is the most obvious evidence of this. Their output is much greater than any other similarly-sized community in Australia . Moreover, any outside author who ventures into Tasmanian history soon realizes that he has to take great care when discussing people and places in the early nineteenth century. There are so many of their descendants still living in the state, and they have such a detailed familiarity with the lives and times of their ancestors, that they will not take seriously an author who gets his facts about them wrong. Tasmanians are the most knowledgeable of all Australian about their own history and they expect high standards of those who write it.

Hence it was a surprise to learn that the current state gov­ernment was trying to ignore the most important event in Tasmanian history, the founding of the first British settlement at Risdon Cove in September 1803. Instead of a bicentenary in September 2003, the government had decided it would commemorate the founding of Hobart at Sullivan's Cove in February 1804 and the first settlement in the north at York­town on Port Dalrymple in December 1804.

At the same time, however, I was heartened to hear there were some history-conscious Tasmanians who were planning their own citizen's celebration of the state's two hundredth birthday on its true date. It was an honour to be asked to write these words to introduce a book commemorating the original settlement at Risdon Cove and its founder, Lieuten­ant John Bowen of the Royal Navy. I congratulate Reg Watson on undertaking such thorough research and for pro­ducing this work about both Bowen and his achievements.

The first British colonists were remarkable people. It took them as many months to sail from England to Australia as it would take to journey to Mars today. They went to a loca­tion almost as alien to them as another planet would be to us. They had to create their own habitable environment literally from scratch. They well knew from the history of the other European colonies around the world that their lives were constantly at risk, especially in the voyage outwards and in the early days of the new settlement. Thanks to his diligent research, Reg Watson is able to reproduce many original quotations that let them speak to us in their own words to give us an insight into how they thought and what they felt.

I was also pleased to write a foreword to commemorate yet another of the many historical works about Tasmania that have been produced outside the realm of the professional historians in our universities. Without authors like Reg Watson, not only Tasmania but Australian history as a whole would be very much the poorer. For very little personal return, many of these writers have done more to preserve both our collective heritage and proper standards of scholar­ship than those professionals employed to do the job.

It gives me no satisfaction to say it, but for the past thirty years, Australians have not been well served by our academic historians. With a few notable exceptions, most university-based historians of Australia have seen their role less in terms of scholarship and more in terms of political activism. In the words of the most influential historian of Aboriginal Austra­lia, Henry Reynolds, they have regarded their work as “ines­capably political”. In pursuit of the goal of radical change to both our national identity and political structures, they have engaged in the “interest group” politics of gender, race and class. Instead of a story of the growth of civilization and modernization, they have sought to re-write Australian his­tory as a tale of exploitation and mistreatment of groups such as immigrants, women and, especially, Aborigines. Australia, a country that once regarded its liberal democratic politics, its economic prosperity and its social mobility as a model for the world, is today told it is a nation fatally flawed by events deep in its past.

It is the acceptance of this story that lies behind the Tas­manian government's remarkable reluctance to celebrate the state's true bicentenary. In 1995, a previous administration had handed over the seventy hectares at Risdon Cove to a group representing Tasmanian Aborigines. At the time, the government was pursuing a policy of reconciliation with in­digenous people and Risdon Cove was deemed to be of great significance to them. This was largely because Aboriginal activists had identified it as a “massacre” site, even a location of what some termed Aboriginal “genocide”. They claimed that as many as one hundred of the local Aborigines were killed there on May 3, 1804, in a clash with British soldiers.

The historical record, however, reveals something else en­tirely. As I argue in my recent book, The Fabrication of Abo­riginal History: Volume One, Van Diemen's Land 1803–1847 , the scale of violence in this incident was, in comparison to the outlandish claims made about it today, relatively minor. The original records show that a large group of Abo­rigines on a kangaroo hunt blundered into the British settlement. The sol­diers mistakenly thought they were under attack and killed either two or three of the intruders. This version has long been accepted even by some academic historians, such as Lloyd Robson and Lyndall Ryan, who have otherwise grossly exaggerated the incidence of violence in the colony. The claim that this inci­dent was a massacre, let alone that one hundred Aborigines were killed there, has no support in any historical record. It is pure invention. Yet, because this par­ticular interest group has backed its own interpretation of events with public protests and political complaints, govern­ments on both sides of poli­tics have caved in and acceded to their demands.

The result is that the founding site of British colonization of Tasmania is now in the hands of people who regard it with disdain. What was once a heritage site open to the pub­lic now lies unkempt, bristling with signs declaring: “ Private land : no public access beyond this point”. What was intended as a gesture of reconciliation from whites to blacks has been turned into a symbol of the triumph of political activism, of the politics of demonisation and victimization.

It is because this book takes a stand against such a mislead­ing brand of political correctness that makes it so important. Those many Tasmanians who still care about the accuracy of their history should welcome its publication. It is a valuable step in rescuing their past from political activists who want to turn it to their own ends. Reg Watson deserves the gratitude of all of us who care about the history of this country.