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RST Apology to Tasmanian Aboriginal people 2021.

Voices from the Other Side of the Colonial Sea Frontier

Lectures and Events

Summary

Tasmania – 2018 Launceston Lecture Series

 

Dr Patsy Cameron AO

Voices from the Other Side of

the Colonial Sea Frontier

in the Meeting Room, QVMAG at Inveresk I
1.30 pm Sunday 23rd September 2018

Admission: $6 General Public,

$4 QVMAG Friends, members of Launceston Historical Society and Students

Free for members of The Royal Society of Tasmania

 

Patsy Cameron grew up on Flinders Island and traces her Tasmanian Aboriginal heritage through her mother’s line to the northeast Coastal Plains Nation and the east coast Oyster Bay Nation. For over forty years Patsy has been a passionate champion for Aboriginal education and the promotion of cultural heritage and traditional practice.  Patsy has a Bachelor of Arts with major studies in Archaeologyand Geography and a Master of Arts in Aboriginal History. Her MA thesis Grease and Ochre: The blending of two cultures at the colonial sea frontierwas published by Fuller’s Bookshop in 2011. She was inducted into the Tasmanian Women’s Honour Roll in 2006 and received a prestigious honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of Tasmania in August 2016 for her outstanding contribution to the Tasmanian community. In June 2017 Patsy was awarded an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) on the Queen’s birthday honour list.

Most accounts of early contact relations between the Straitsmen and their Aboriginal wives, with whom they made homes on the small islands of Bass Strait during the first decades of the 1800s, are permeated with characterisations of slavery and savagery. Much of the colonial record was written from afar, and many who did observe the sea frontier at close quarters had reasons to present biased viewpoints. This presentation, at stark counterpoint to those white masculine colonial narratives that pervade understandings of Tasmanian Aboriginal history, allows the voices of Islanders from the other side of the sea frontier to finally be heard.

 

GENEROUSLY SUPPORTS THE PRESENTATION OF THIS LECTURE

 

Date:

September 23, 2018

Time:

12:00 am

Region:

North

Location:

North

Speaker:

Dr Patsy Cameron

Acknowledgement of Country

The Royal Society of Tasmania acknowledges, with deep respect, the traditional owners of this land, and the ongoing custodianship of the Aboriginal people of Tasmania. The Society pays respect to Elders past, present and emerging. We acknowledge that Tasmanian Aboriginal Peoples have survived severe and unjust impacts resulting from invasion and dispossession of their Country. As an institution dedicated to the advancement of knowledge, the Royal Society of Tasmania recognises Aboriginal cultural knowledge and practices and seeks to respect and honour these traditions and the deep understanding they represent.

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On 15 February 2021, the Royal Society of Tasmania offered a formal Apology to the Tasmanian Aboriginal people.