Tasmania was the site of some of the most brutal conflicts in the country. The British arrived in 1803, setting up a penal colony on the island and decimating the palawa population through disease, dispossession and violence. The colonisers forced the remaining Tasmanian Aboriginals onto missions, where most died, and rounded others up onto a reserve on Cape Barron Island, one of the Furneaux Islands just off Tasmania’s north-east coast.

The blue hills of Cape Barren Island in the distance are a constant reminder of palawa history and culture (Credit: Jillian Mundy)

Until recently, it was taught in schools throughout Australia that there were no Aboriginal people left in Tasmania – that the last one, Trukanini, had died in 1876. But the truth is that the palawa people survived the cultural genocide and have had a continuous link to this stretch of coastline for tens of thousands of years, even if the government only officially recognised Aboriginal people as Tasmania’s First People in 1996….

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20230723-the-hike-making-australia-a-better-place