First Tasmanians

Shortlisted for the 2026 Prime Minister's Literary Award in Australian History

The history of the First Tasmanians is a story of ingenuity, adaptation and resilience. In First Tasmanians historian Shayne Breen traces the 40,0000 years of Aboriginal exploration, land settlement, hunting practices and controlled burning on the island. The First Tasmanians were committed to the terms of life set down by creation ancestors, their hunting and gathering skills a source of wonder to observant colonists. These skilled practitioners of land management universally respected local autonomy, and their seasonal journeys enhanced social interaction as they negotiated momentous changes in climate, vegetation and topography. Social cohesion was fostered through singing, dancing and storytelling around the evening campfire, and rituals and networks were maintained across life on earth and the afterlife.

In thirty short years of the nineteenth century, this carefully nurtured collective life was destroyed by an imperial power, to be replaced by a narrative of Aboriginal resistance, struggle and protest. Multiple genocidal policies left contemporary First Tasmanians with a complex legacy of historical grief, chronic disadvantage and intergenerational trauma, a legacy that endures to this day.

First Tasmanians is the first interdisciplinary account of Tasmanian Aboriginal history told in three movements: the deep hunter-gatherer past; the collective life at the time of the British invasion; and the recent past. It is a story of courage, continuity and an unwavering commitment to revitalising connections between country, culture and community.