Julie Gough b. 1965
Some Of Our Women Kidnapped By Sealers, 2007
inkjet print, unframed
71 x 97cm
Edition of 10 plus 2 artist's proofs
BG7011
POA
Between 1829-1835 George Augustus Robinson, the government appointed ‘Conciliator of the Aborigines’ named Aboriginal women who lived with sealers, most having been abducted by them. This work lists 61 women,...
Between 1829-1835 George Augustus Robinson, the government appointed ‘Conciliator of the Aborigines’ named Aboriginal women who lived with sealers, most having been abducted by them. This work lists 61 women, the third generation of girls and women taken from the coastline of lutruwita (Van Diemen’s Land/Tasmania) by mostly British seafaring men, who came south to hunt seals from the 1790s. It is likely more than 200 girls and women were altogether taken by these men. Many were murdered and marooned and traded and never named to outsiders, nor seen again. Woretemoeteyenner is one of my ancestors. A Trawlwoolway woman from Tebrikunna (far north east Lutruwita) she lived with the sealer George Briggs, with whom she had at least 3 daughters and a son, before Briggs sold her for one guinea to another sealer, John Thomas.