Kikatapula

Kikatapula (c. 1800 – 13 May 1832) was a leading Indigenous figure during the British colonisation of Van Diemen's Land, later known as Tasmania. Also called Kickerterpoller or Black Tom Birch, he spent part of his youth living with the colonists, learning English and being baptised as a Christian. During the 1820s, he withdrew from British ways, and became a feared and formidable leader of Indigenous resistance during the early stages of the Black War.

Quotes

• Put him in a gaol, Mata Guberna!! You take it him own country, take it him black woman, kill't right out, all him litta child — den you put him in your gaol. Ah, Mata Guberna, dat a very good way. 'Pose you like dat way — 'pose all same dat black un! I nebber like dat way. You better kill it right out.
  • After being told by Governor Arthur that his comrades would be imprisoned, as quoted in Henry Melville, The History of the Island of Van Diemen's Land (London and Hobart, 1835), p. 81

External links

• Encyclopedic article on Kikatapula on Wikipedia