Author rewrites the black-and-white history of Tasmania

The story of white settlement in Australia is one of brutality and bloodshed, and nowhere more so than in Tasmania, where the Aboriginal population was exterminated with the blessing of the British colonial authorities.

That, at least, is the orthodox version of events, presented by eminent historians. But it is being challenged by a revisionist historian, Keith Windschuttle, who claims that Tasmania's Aborigines were not wiped out by the British. He says the island's indigenous tribes were "active agents" in their own demise. Mr Windschuttle's book, The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, has caused an acrimonious historical debate. For it accuses leading academics of inventing sources and exaggerating stories of massacres to suit their ideological agenda.

The book has been warmly greeted by political conservatives, who rail against the "black armband" view of history.

But at least one historian has threatened to sue. Mr Windschuttle clashed bitterly with Professor Henry Reynolds, one of his principal targets, at a public debate in Hobart, the Tasmanian capital.

The dispute has important implications. Professor Reynolds' books influenced a landmark court decision in 1992 giving Aborigines limited land rights.

Mr Windschuttle does not dispute that Tasmania's Aboriginal population – estimated at 2,000 when the British arrived in 1803 – virtually died out in the next three decades. But he says his research revealed that only 118 people were killed by farmers and settlers. More whites, 185, were killed in racial clashes, he says. Other Aborigines died of diseases and because they "prostituted their women to such an extent that they lost the ability to reproduce themselves".

Mr Windschuttle denies that Aborigines waged guerrilla warfare to resist occupation of their land. They were primitive and dysfunctional, he says, with no concept of land ownership. Attacks on settlers were principally aimed at stealing European goods such as flour, tea and sugar.

Despite outrage at his views, Mr Windschuttle did manage to score some goals. Professor Reynolds admitted he inadvertently misquoted a colonial governor. Another historian, Lyndall Ryan, acknowledged "minor errors" in a seminal work on Tasmania's Aborigines.

But they and other historians reject the accusation that they conspired to purvey the genocide "myth".

Professor Reynolds said: "Windschuttle arrived at the front door of the Tasmanian archives with his mind made up ... he listens to witnesses he wishes to hear and ignores or discredits those who provide information ... more at odds with his chosen line of argument."

Mr Windschuttle, who promises two more volumes, is unapologetic.

He said: "If Australians of Aboriginal and European descent are to look one another straight in the eye, they have to face the truth about their mutual history, not rely upon mythologies designed to create an edifice of black victimhood and white guilt."