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about

Steve Tyson has travelled the world finding stories to turn into songs. He has produced four albums with tales from Ireland to India, England to Estonia, France to Vietnam, and plenty of places in between.

But it was only a few years ago that he spent some time in his own backyard and visited Tasmania for the first time. Familiar with the island’s dark history centred upon the atrocious treatment of our First Nations people, he was staggered to come across the little-known fact that Australia had its very own slave trade, in Van Diemen’s Land, every bit as horrific as that which has occurred throughout the centuries in other parts of the world.

In the early 19th century, the islands of Bass Strait were inhabited by sealers, tough, uneducated men, mainly ex-convicts. Driven by lust and a dwindling seal population, the sealers took to raiding the northern regions of Tasmania, killing Aboriginal men and stealing the women and female children from the northern tribes. So began a slave trade in every sense of the term, as the sealers exploited and abused these women, swapping them for goods amongst themselves.

When emancipation finally occurred later that century, most of the female population of the northern tribes had been decimated. A shameful episode in Australia’s short history.

The enslaved were called ‘Tyereelore’, which means ‘island women’. These shocking events inspired Steve to write this song dedicated to them. All of the characters named in the song are real. This is their story.

lyrics

They were sealers from the islands right across the wild Bass Strait
The ruthless lawless traders who would seal the black girls’ fate
And became the cruel slavers, and the targets of deep hate

Takartee and Jumbo, Little Kit and Ruth and Sal
Just children who were stolen and faced a living hell
Sold, abused and tortured, if they ever lived to tell

Mad John Harrington his evil knew no bounds
He had a dozen women through the islands on his rounds
When came emancipation, most were never found

Tyereelore, please take me home

Mannarlargenna all hail the mighty chief
On Preservation Island he came searching for the thief
Who stole his three young daughters, made a world of pain and grief

Isaac and brave Judy watched their masters fall asleep
Across the bay of bleak Green Island with the waters lapping deep
The stole the sealer’s vessel, and made that faithful leap

Proud Thomas Beeton he had an island wife
He said to the Governor I provide a better life
She has given me two children, and I claim this as my right

Tyereelore, please take me home

From the fire at north Peak Hill the black men send the smoke
From the islands they can clearly hear their wailing womenfolk
And they wonder if their tears show the horrors that they cloak

Tyereelore, please take me home

credits

released August 3, 2022
Written by Steve Tyson

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Steve Tyson Byron Bay, Australia

Byron Bay-based songwriter Steve Tyson has released
three critically acclaimed records in recent years, and together with his touring band The Train Rex is releasing his new album “Banjo’s Last Ride”, a set of blues-infused songs, intimate story-telling one minute, swaggering alt.country the next, but decidedly Australian in content.
The new album will be released in mid November ... more

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