Book review of ‘Me Write Myself’: The Free Aboriginal Inhabitants of Van Diemen’s Land at Wybalenna, 1832-47

At the beginning of her book Me Write Myself, Leonie Stevens imagines Tasmanian history 5 studies as a room filled with over two centuries of writing: books, reports and archives line the walls and spill onto the floors. I find it an evocative image, for it reminds me of my own little writing room, where the shelves and archive boxes are likewise filled with the books and records on that very subject.

Tasmanian history, and Tasmanian Aboriginal history in particular, has a uniquely long 10 and unbroken tradition of research and writing. Historians began to reflect on Tasmania’s frontier war even as it drew to a close in the 1830s and they have continued ever since. The topic has stirred intense debate and more than half a dozen new publications since the turn of this century.