Furore as author calls the Aboriginal genocide in Tasmania a myth

The genocide of Aborigines in Tasmania is a myth, perpetrated by left-wing apologists and based on distorted or fabricated historical evidence, according to a controversial new book.

In The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, historian Keith Windschuttle argues that the number of Aborigines who were deliberately killed in the 19th century by British soldiers, settlers and emancipated convicts has been wildly exaggerated.

His claims have sparked a furore, with anger from the 6,000 Tasmanians who claim Aboriginal ancestry today.

Mr Windschuttle argues that although widely accepted as historical fact, there was no deliberate extermination of about 5,000 Aborigines who the British first encountered when they settled in what was then called Van Diemen's Land in the early 1800s.

While accepting that 'full-blood' Tasmanian Aborigines were all but wiped out by the 1870s, he says that was largely due to accidentally introduced diseases and the fact that Aboriginal women prostituted themselves and gave birth to mixed-race children.

'The British officials who were posted to Tasmania were enlightened humanitarians,' he said. 'The idea of killing Aborigines would have mortified them.'

He argues that while the end result was the virtual extinction of Aborigines on the island, 'genocide is a matter of intention. The British had no idea that the diseases they introduced would have the result that they did'.