The Settlement is a compelling, but completely brutal tale, about the early colonial settlement of Tasmania and the annihilation of its Indigenous people. Set in the 1830s, it is told through the eyes of a zealot whose mission is to save the different Indigenous clans and convert them to Christianity. In exchange for their peaceful surrender of lands and weapons, ‘The Man’ extends a promise to one of the most influential Indigenous leaders, known as Mannergrinda, that they will have their own lands or settlement. The cruel nature of the betrayal and subsequent treatment of the Indigenous people and their children is vividly captured in the book in four major sections that chart their removal from the Tasmanian mainland, to their new lives on a small island. It is here that ‘The Man’ becomes the Commandant and becomes utterly corrupted with ambition and greed.
This is a powerful and evocative read that is based on the unspeakable crimes perpetuated by many of the first Tasmanian colonial settlers. It gives you a thorough understanding of the power wielded by the early colonists, and the choices forced on those who didn’t have it. It will have you crying at the inhumane crimes undertaken in the disguise of Christianity.
Reviewed by Karen Williams
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jock Serong grew up in the suburbs of Melbourne, and like a poorly-tied dinghy, he’s been drifting away ever since.
As a student and young lawyer he volunteered with the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service on the Bringing Them Home inquiry, and did a stint in the Western Desert building a native title claim with the Martu people.
He drove a ‘73 HQ panel van around the country, spent some time sorting frozen prawns in Carnarvon and changed lightbulbs in Darwin Casino for seven bucks an hour. He fetched up on Victoria’s west coast in the mid-nineties, then left again and became a criminal barrister. He worked with asylum seekers back when detention centres were onshore.
And he never wrote a word of it.
As Senior Grump in a young family he moved back to the coast, and something about the kelp and the storms and the long nights kicked him into gear: writing for Surfing World and other publications, he began trying to tell stories that weren’t sports-writing so much as people and place-writing. Environments, First Australians, mental health, forgotten histories, the tiny miracles of life on a reef. As surfing itself expanded beyond 20th century stereotypes, Jock’s writing kept pushing into new corners of the experience.
Alongside Mick Sowry and Mark Willett, Jock edited and published Great Ocean Quarterly for two fraught and wonderful years, and has produced five novels: Quota (2014), The Rules of Backyard Cricket (2016), On the Java Ridge (2017) and the Bass Strait historical novels Preservation (2018) and The Burning Island (2020).
He divides his time between Port Fairy in western Victoria and Flinders Island in Bass Strait’s Furneaux Island group.
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