In 1800 there may have been 20,000 Aborigines living on Tasmania. Three generations later the last black woman on the island died. Genocide? Yes, but not always intentional. This poignant story tells of the destruction of that ancient people and depicts some of the many facets that led to the tragedy. In particular it highlights the character of the white man trusted by the Aborigines, whose character flaws accelerated their destruction. Meanwhile in Western Australia another expansion into native lands was occurring. In Soaring With Cockatoos, Trevor Steele take us there and leave us with some of the most memorable characters you will meet...The last decades of the nineteenth century. European powers are colonising the whole planet and seem unstoppable. In the British colony of Western Australia white settlers ignore the rights of the Aborigines, murder them or chase them from their land, or perhaps readmit them to work as unpaid labourers on newly created properties.
The story is seen from both sides: a naive, decent young Englishman named Billy Dixon, a loner, does not get rich from gold-digging, but he wins the friendship of the talented young Aborigine Yungaburra, who has been expelled from his tribe for breaking sexual taboos. However, their friendship is doomed by the war being waged between the races. Yungaburra has to pay a high price to be readmitted to his tribe, but immediately becomes a resistance hero who succeeds in halting the white invasion for some years.