A BRIEF HISTORY OF TASMANIA
By Tim Lambert
About 35,000 years ago the Earth was in the grip of an ice age. Sea level was lower than it is today and Tasmania was joined to mainland Australia. Aborigines were able to cross on foot. However about 12,000 years ago the ice age ended and sea level rose. Tasmania became an island.
The first European to see Tasmania was Abel Tasman who arrived in 1642. Captain Cook reached Tasmania in 1777. Then in 1798 Matthew Flinders became the first person to circumnavigate Tasmania.The first European settlement in Tasmania was on the eastern bank of the River Derwent. (In 1804 the colony was moved to the western bank).
In 1803 there may have been about 8,000 Aborigines in Tasmania. Tasmanian Aborigines were hunter-gatherers. They hunted with spears and they also fished. They made simple huts of bark and they covered themselves with fat, ochre and charcoal to keep themselves warm.
Whites killed many especially during the 'Black War' of the 1820s. Others died of diseases introduced by Europeans. The 'warfare' between Whites and Aborigines began in 1804 with the 'battle' of Risdon Cove. About 300 Aborigines stumbled onto a European camp while hunting kangaroo and soldiers fired at them. Many more Aborigines were killed in the ensuing years.
The Governor of Tasmania from 1824 to 1837 was George Arthur. In the years 1828 to 1832 he declared martial law hoping to end the warfare between Whites and Aborigines. In 1830 he ordered all able-bodied white men to form a line across Tasmania and sweep across it forcing all the remaining Aborigines onto the Tasman Peninsula. However this move, known as the Black Line, failed.
Eventually a preacher named George Robinson agreed to try and persuade the remaining Aborigines to go to a reservation on Flinders Island. The surviving Aborigines agreed to go there. However they continued to die of disease and in 1847 the few survivors were allowed back onto Tasmania.
Meanwhile the first penal settlement in Tasmania was founded in 1822 and in 1825 Van Diemen's land was recognised as a colony in its own right, separate from the rest of Australia. Then in 1842 Hobart town was made a city. In the 19th century there was a whaling industry in Bass Strait. There were also seal hunters until the 1830s. An important shipbuilding industry also grew up in Hobart in the mid-19th century.
Meanwhile ever more convicts were sent to Tasmania. However transportation to Tasmania ended in 1852. Then in 1856 the name of the colony was changed from Van Diemen's Land to Tasmania and by 1861 its population had reached 90,000. Then in the 1870s tin was discovered in Tasmania and in the 1890s copper mining in Tasmania boomed. The population of Tasmania grew rapidly. From only about 4,500 in 1820 it grew to 57,000 in 1861 and 115,000 in 1881. The University of Tasmania was founded in 1890.
In 1898 Tasmanians voted in a referendum to join with the rest of Australia. So the Commonwealth of Australia was formed in 1901. However thousands of Tasmanian soldiers died in the First and Second World wars. Tasmania also suffered badly in the depression of the 1930s. Yet in the late 20th century tourism boomed in Tasmania. Environmentalism also grew. Today Tasmania is a flourishing state of Australia. Today the population of Tasmania is 498,000.