° Adelaide ° Brisbane ° Darwin ° Fremantle ° Hobart
° Melbourne ° Perth ° Port Arthur ° Norfolk Island
° Sydney ° Tasmania ° Van Dieman's Land
Human habitation in Tasmania may date back some 68,000 years, at which time a land bridge existed between Tasmania and mainland Australia, connecting Flinders Island to Wilsons Promontory in Victoria. The Tasmanian aboriginals were almost entirely nomadic and at the time of invasion by European settlers, there are thought to have been four to six thousand indigenous inhabitants, forming nine tribes that were further subdivided into eight or nine bands each. Each tribe was highly adapted to the specific region they inhabited. As did other islanders in the South Pacific, Tasmanians built rafts and catamarans to fish and travel, and had considerable skills in weaving and tool-making. Although they mainly travelled naked, the people used animal grease and ochre for adornment and to withstand the wet, cold winters, and made a variety of necklaces and sewn skins for further clothing nd adornment. Each tribe had well-defined territories and a unique language, and a complex set of trade routes connected the society as a whole.
The first European explorer to sight Tasmania was the Dutch seafarer Able Tasman on his voyage of 1642. Tasman noted the islands existence but made no real investigation of it's extent. He did however, coin the area's original name, "Van Diemen's Land." Tasmania was visited by several other Captains, such as Captain Cook who landed on Bruny island, and the French explorer La Perouse at Great Oyster Bay, both of whom made contact with the local aboriginal communities.
After the 1788 establishment of a British colony at the site of present-day Sydney, the English government thought to establish it's presence elsehwere on "The Great Southern Land". There were two main reasons for establishing the second settlement in "Van Diemen's Land". From a strategic point of view, the English wanted a military presence to deter further French exploration. From a social point of view, the influx of free settlers to Sydney made it desirable to found a new, more isolated settlement for the establishment of penal colonies.
In 1803 Lieutenant John Bowen was sent to establish a colony at the mouth of the Derwent River, at the Southern tip of Van Diemens Land. Simultaneously, Captain David Collins was sent to establish a presence at Port Phillip Bay on the northern side of the recently discovered Strait (site of present day Melbourne). Collins disliked the site at Port Phillip, so he moved his expedition south to join Lieutenant Bowen. Upon arrival, Collins also disapproved of Bowen's chosen site at Risdon Cove on the eastern shore of the Derwent. Collins moved the settlement across the river to Sullivans Cove, now the center of present day Hobart. Hobart is one of the oldest cities.
The colony teetered on the brink of starvation for its first few years. The settlement of the Richmond area and the cultivation of wheat there was crucial. Besides the difficulties of subsistence, the early settlement was little more than a frontier. The workforce was mostly convicts, either transported from England or relocated from other notorious parts of the colonies. Those that escaped led the life of bandits (the Australian term being bushrangers), and the government had little ability to control them. The settlement was not truly brought under control for several decades, until the sheer number of settlers and men-at-arms outnumbered and outgunned the bushrangers.
Settlement in Tasmania continued to be driven by convict labour, men and women were leased to settlers as labourers and servants, and the government organized work gangs for quarrying stone, building roads, cutting lumber, etc. The construction of Port Arthur in 1830 made Tasmania a premiere destination for English convicts, as well as the occasional political prisoner.
Colonies and India, October 23, 1880
London, United Kingdom
Port Arthur developed a fearsome reputation, owing to its gothis vantage point on the precipitous Tasmana Peninsula, surrounded by dense woodland, and with the only land bridge to the main island a narrow strip at Eagle Hwak Neck, which was guarded by men and dogs. All the same, life at Port Arthur was nowhere as bad as the settlement established at Macquarie Harbour on the West Coast. This site, reserved for the most hardened criminals, was by all accounts as close to hell as the English Judicial System could devise.
