An Encounter with the First People of Northern Van Diemen’s Land
A Particularistic Mindset

Ian Pattie, July 2021

When Lieutenant-Colonel William Paterson brought a group of white settlers – soldiers, convicts, and farmers – to Port Dalrymple, Van Diemen’s Land, the English were in a mindset of domination or mastery over other races.

Britain was the world’s naval power, the coming industrial power, the greatest empire builders and affectionately described amongst themselves as the chosen people and the Protestant Protectors.

They were the great slave traders, the continuing justifiers of slavery, the explorers, and indefatigable claimants of territory and in all egotistical senses, the masters, even though they had lost part of North America to a group of rebels disparagingly called Americans.

Despite this loss, they had, in Hegelian terms, a concept of Self as superior, and a concept of Others as inferior and, in order of inferiority there were other Protestants, Roman Catholics light-skinned coloured races and black races.

The extension of the Master – Other mindset was that even white convicts of British birth, must be masters of black aboriginal people, wherever they were.

The political, theological, and commercial mindset of the British Master created the disturbing thesis called Terra nullius, not only in Australia but also in North America.

The failure of the British to fulfill the Hegelian ‘Self and Other’ contract was not only an unjust imposition on the First Australians but a lost opportunity to discover how to live at ease in a new land.

Read More Understanding how First People’s viewed their world

Tamar Valley Geology Determining the First Peoples Occupation of Northern Van Diemen’s Land

When William Collins sailed down the waterway now known as the Tamar, but which he called the Main Head in January 1804, he eventually reached and entered an Arm to the East, the North Esk, and wrote in his logbook1 that “the water is perfectly fresh and good”, it flowed over a flood plain and “the Soil on its banks is very good and there is a great extent of it.”

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Adequacy

It is tempting to apply modern terms like ‘sustainability’ to Indigenous practice however the key to understanding First People’s attachment to country is adequacy.
First Peoples did not expend energy on wasted accumulation but on a vast Estate that provided the needs of a robust population using minimal exertion. “It depended on preferring to reduce rather than increase material wants.”

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Cultural Advice

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this website contains images and names of people who have died. In addition, some articles contain terms or views that were acceptable within mainstream Australian culture in the period in which they were written but may no longer be considered appropriate. These articles do not reflect the views of the authors and sponsors.
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