“They were saved, that was the message. They were leaving for an island where they would live as free people, and could devote themselves to thanking God and learning European ways. The old people had fallen quiet, perhaps because they explained everything in stories and they simply had no story for this preposterous idea.”

The Settlement is the sixth novel by award-winning Australian author, Jock Serong. In October 1831, Loftus the Surveyor accompanies a party of soldiers, convicts and indigenous people as they trek through the bush in north-eastern Tasmania, looking for the Big River mob, the Lairmairermener people. Mannalargenna, chief of the Oyster Cove mob, is meant to be leading them.

The settlers want the land cleared of natives, and evangelist George Robinson, referred to as “The Man”, is attempting to do this peacefully, although many of the stockmen can’t see any good reason for cumbersome negotiation when force works just as well. The Governor’s plan for the natives amounts to exile somewhere out of the way. Robinson intends to settle them on an island and civilise and Christianise them. He obsessively records (not quite) all for posterity in journals he expects to publish to great acclaim.

Robinson has promised that, for his help with locating the Lairmairermener and convincing them to quit their country, Mannalargenna’s people will later be permitted to return to country. But Mannalargenna is a shrewd chief, reluctant to search out his enemy without an audience with the Governor to secure said promise. All this, Loftus observes.

He takes particular note of two children, both apparently orphans: Whelk has been assigned to assist The Man since he was very young; the tiny girl they name Pipi, probably the daughter of a Big River woman found killed during a raid, is inseparable from Whelk. Loftus becomes especially concerned for them with the attention and interest shown by the facially disfigured (and thus frightening to children) Catechist who will oversee their religious education on Flinders Island.

It later proves his concern is not misplaced: this supposed Christian is cruel and nasty, while his wife turns a blind eye. Loftus, by then the settlement’s Storekeeper, sees what is happening, but lacks the courage to act. Until much later, that is.

On the island, now calling himself The Commandant, faced with increasing native mortality, Robinson and his crew of Surgeon, Sergeant, Overseer, Catechist and convicts demonstrate their complete lack of respect for this exiled population. This is perhaps not surprising from men who believe they are the only civilised ones, men who make no attempt to understand or give any value to culture and tradition, ignorant of, or casually dismissive of the importance of beliefs and customs.

“… he was nearly done with his list of names, taking the long and complex ones that the natives used, and replacing them with kings and queens and counts and dukes. It conferred dignity and simplified conversation, something his predecessors had been unable to achieve.”

The Commandant’s decision to desecrate a grave and the newly buried body evokes only the slightest flicker of guilt, easily rationalised away with the importance of making history. “It was a matter of respect: imagine what a travesty it would be if some badger tunnelled the thing out.”

With utterly gorgeous prose, Serong captures and conveys the tragedy of what these people were forced to endure at the hands of those charged with their welfare. It is difficult not to feel indignant, angry and sad on their behalf, and sorrow that one race does this to another.

A tiny sample of Serong’s skill with prose: “This long march left behind a leaf litter of memories, scraps and fragments of people’s pasts, falling away from them all the time as the Man strove to invent their future” and “The language the Man was using was not English, maybe not an earthly language at all. It had curls and babbles and lumps in it, a stream working frantically over stones” and “The Commandant had never stopped to study the man’s face: the despair in it was immense, emptiness collected like grime in the long creases”.

Enhancing the text are sketches, intended for inclusion in Robinson’s (never-published) book, of three of the surviving Oyster Cove mob done by pardoned convict engraver, Thomas Bock, along with snippets of the artist’s conversation with each one. This is a powerful, compelling piece of historical fiction.
This unbiased review is from a copy provided by Text Publishing.