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Name
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Cape Barren Reserve
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Type of carceral site
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Reserve, Station, or Mission
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Dates of use
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1881 – 1951
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Quote
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There is no-one to teach me the songs that bring the Moon Bird, the fish or any other thing that makes me what I am.
No old woman to mend my spirit by preaching my culture to me -
No old man with the knowledge to paint my being.
The spectre of the past is what dwells within -
I search memory of early days to try to make my presence, real, significant, whole.
Memoir.
West, Ida, and Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. Pride against Prejudice : Reminiscences of a Tasmanian Aborigine. Repr. with additions., Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, 1987, pp. vi.
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As time progressed in those island families, on Badger and Cape Barren, there was an interesting way of life that developed, that I was talking about with my great-grandmother and grandmother and their generations and earlier that they had, an interesting way of talking, all these idiosyncrasies of these [...] Aboriginal [...] families around the islands. This really beautiful community that they had. They were in a way protected from what was happening outside, and so they've gone from being these places where they have been left and incarcerated, to these havens of culture, and of life, and of community. Then the Cape Barren Reserve came in, and that, in part, helped to preserve some of that. But then there was this assimilation agenda by the State - remove all these services from the island, we want people now to assimilate. We were outside the forces of assimilation, and so our community was strong, our culture was strong.
Interview Transcript
Thompson, Adam. Interview. By Dashiell Moore. 15 Jun. 2026. Video interview.
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When you think about Palawa duration, we've been here since the dawn time, that's our belief. Scientists will tell you 42,000 years based on archaeological evidence. After the last ice age and the waters rose, around 12,000 years ago, we've been disconnected from mainland Australia as we call it. For at least 30,000 of those years, or two-thirds of the duration we've been here, we've been connected to the mainland. The little islands were connected, they were the tops of the land mass. [...] they are islands now, but they haven't always been. So much of our culture has evolved. And if you think of that deep time, our connection to these islands has changed. [...] I see islands as this shifting, changing concept. Because we have come and gone, they have been islands and not been islands, it's ephemeral.
Interview Transcript
Thompson, Adam. Interview. By Dashiell Moore. 15 Jun. 2026. Video interview.
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Authority
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Cape Barren Island Reserve Act TAS 1912
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Contact
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Dashiell
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identifier
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SITE-CBR