Editing Tasmania (section)

=== European arrival and governance ===

[[File:Abel Tasman Navigateur en Australie (cropped).jpg|thumb|left|upright|Tasmania is named after Dutch explorer [[Abel Tasman]], the first European to sight the island, in 1642.]]

The first reported sighting of Tasmania by a [[Ethnic groups in Europe|Europe]]an was on 24 November 1642 by Dutch explorer [[Abel Tasman]], who landed at today's [[Blackman Bay, Tasmania|Blackman Bay]]. More than a century later, in 1772, a French expedition led by [[Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne]] landed at (nearby but different) [[Blackmans Bay, Tasmania|Blackmans Bay]], and the following year [[Tobias Furneaux]] became the first Englishman to land in Tasmania when he arrived at [[Adventure Bay, Tasmania|Adventure Bay]], which he named after his ship [[HMS Adventure (1771)|HMS ''Adventure'']]. Captain [[James Cook]] also landed at [[Adventure Bay, Tasmania|Adventure Bay]] in 1777. [[Matthew Flinders]] and [[George Bass]] sailed through [[Bass Strait]] in 1798{{ndash}}1799, determining for the first time that Tasmania was an island.<ref name="hughes121">{{Citation|last=Hughes|first=Robert|title=The Fatal Shore|publisher=Pan|year=1987|location=London|isbn=978-0-330-29892-6|pages=120–125|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/fatalshorehistor00hugh/page/120}}</ref>

Sealers and whalers based themselves on Tasmania's islands from 1798,<ref>{{Citation | last=Boyce | first = James | title = Van Diemen's Land  | publisher = Black Inc | year = 2010 | location = Melbourne | page=15| isbn = 978-1-86395-491-4}}</ref> and in August 1803 [[New South Wales]] Governor [[Philip Gidley King|Philip King]] sent Lieutenant [[John Bowen (Royal Navy officer)|John Bowen]] to establish a small military outpost on the eastern shore of the [[River Derwent (Tasmania)|Derwent River]] in order to forestall any claims to the island by French explorers who had been exploring the southern Australian coastline. Bowen, who led a party of 49, including 21 male and three female convicts, named the camp Risdon.<ref name="hughes121" /><ref>{{Citation | last=Boyce | first = James | title = Van Diemen's Land  | publisher = Black Inc | year = 2010 | location = Melbourne | page=21| isbn = 978-1-86395-491-4}}</ref>

[[File:John Glover - Mount Wellington and Hobart Town from Kangaroo Point - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|Painting by [[John Glover (artist)|John Glover]] of [[Mount Wellington (Tasmania)|Mount Wellington]] and [[Hobart]], 1834]]

Several months later, a second settlement was established by Captain [[David Collins (lieutenant governor)|David Collins]], with 308 convicts, {{convert|5|km|mi|abbr=off}} to the south in [[Sullivans Cove]] on the western side of the Derwent, where fresh water was more plentiful. The latter settlement became known as Hobart Town or Hobarton, later shortened to [[Hobart]], after the [[Secretary of State for the Colonies|British Colonial Secretary]] of the time, [[Lord Hobart]]. The settlement at Risdon was later abandoned. Left on their own without further supplies, the Sullivans Cove settlement suffered severe food shortages and by 1806 its inhabitants were starving, with many resorting to scraping seaweed off rocks and scavenging washed-up whale blubber from the shore to survive.<ref name="hughes121" />

A smaller colony was established at Port Dalrymple on the Tamar River in the island's north in October 1804 and several other convict-based settlements were established, including the particularly harsh [[penal colony|penal colonies]] at [[Port Arthur, Tasmania|Port Arthur]] in the southeast and [[Macquarie Harbour]] on the West Coast. Tasmania was eventually sent 75,000 convicts—four out of every ten people transported to Australia.<ref name="hughes121" /> By 1819, the Aboriginal and British population reached parity with about 5000 of each, although among the colonists men outnumbered women four-to-one.<ref name="parity">{{Citation | last=Ryan | first = Lyndall | title = Tasmanian Aborigines  | publisher = Allen & Unwin | year = 2012 | pages= 54–57, 71|location = Sydney | isbn = 978-1-74237-068-2}}</ref> Free settlers began arriving in large numbers from 1820, lured by the promise of land grants and free convict labour. Settlement in the island's northwest corner was monopolised by the [[Van Diemen's Land Company]], which sent its first surveyors to the district in 1826. By 1830, one-third of Australia's non-Indigenous population lived in Van Diemen's Land and the island accounted for about half of all land under cultivation and exports.<ref>{{Citation | last=Boyce | first = James | title = Van Diemen's Land  | publisher = Black Inc | year = 2010 | location = Melbourne | pages=140, 145, 202| isbn = 978-1-86395-491-4}}</ref>

====Black War====
{{main|Black War}}

[[File:Benjamin Duterrau - Timmy, a Tasmanian Aboriginal, throwing a spear - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|upright|Painting of a Tasmanian Aboriginal throwing a spear, 1838]]

Tensions between Tasmania's Aboriginal and white inhabitants rose, partly driven by increasing competition for kangaroo and other game.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/13150130?searchTerm=treaty%20aboriginal |title=The Fate Of The Aboriginal Inhabitants (Sydney Morning Herald, 21 Feb 1867, p.8) |newspaper=Sydney Morning Herald |date=21 February 1867 |access-date=17 August 2022 |archive-date=17 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220817003525/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/13150130?searchTerm=treaty%20aboriginal |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url = http://theconversation.com/tasmanias-black-war-a-tragic-case-of-lest-we-remember-25663 | title = Tasmania's Black War: a tragic case of lest we remember? | first = Nicholas | last = Clements | date = 24 April 2014 | work = Honorary Research Associate, University of Tasmania | publisher = The Conversation | access-date = 27 October 2016 | archive-date = 27 October 2016 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20161027124612/http://theconversation.com/tasmanias-black-war-a-tragic-case-of-lest-we-remember-25663 | url-status = live }}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia | url = https://www.britannica.com/event/Black-War | title = Black War – Australian History | encyclopedia = The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica | publisher = Encyclopædia Britannica | access-date = 27 October 2016 | archive-date = 27 October 2016 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20161027125931/https://www.britannica.com/event/Black-War | url-status = live }}</ref> Explorer and naval officer [[John Oxley]] in 1810 noted the "many atrocious cruelties" inflicted on Aboriginal people by convict [[bushranger]]s in the north, which in turn led to black attacks on solitary white hunters.<ref>{{Citation | last=Clements | first = Nicholas | title = The Black War  |page=36| publisher = University of Queensland Press | year = 2014 | location = Brisbane | isbn = 978-0-70225-006-4}}</ref> Hostilities increased further with the arrival of 600 colonists from [[Norfolk Island]] between 1807 and 1813. They established farms along the River Derwent and east and west of [[Launceston, Tasmania|Launceston]], occupying ten percent of Van Diemen's Land. By 1824 the colonial population had swelled to 12,600, while the island's sheep population had reached 200,000. The rapid colonisation transformed traditional kangaroo hunting grounds into farms with grazing livestock as well as fences, hedges and stone walls, while police and military patrols were increased to control the convict farm labourers.<ref>{{Citation | last=Ryan | first = Lyndall | title = Tasmanian Aborigines  | publisher = Allen & Unwin | year = 2012 | pages=58, 62, 66, 74–75|location = Sydney | isbn = 978-1-74237-068-2}}</ref>

Violence began to spiral rapidly from the mid-1820s in what became described as the "[[Black War]]".<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/65989331 |title=The Black War (The Cornwall Chronicle, Launceston: 8 Sep, 1860, p.3) |newspaper=Cornwall Chronicle |date=8 September 1860 |access-date=10 August 2022 |archive-date=10 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220810231144/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/65989331 |url-status=live }}</ref> Aboriginal inhabitants were driven to desperation by hunger – that included a desire for agricultural produce, as well as feeling anger at the prevalence of abductions of women and girls. New settlers motivated by fear carried out self-defence operations as well as attacks as a means of suppressing the native threat – or even in some cases, exacting revenge.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/8791038 |title=The Black Natives (Hobart Town Gazette, 11 Nov 1926, p.2) |newspaper=Hobart Town Gazette |date=11 November 1826 |access-date=10 August 2022 |archive-date=10 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220810225234/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/8791038 |url-status=live }}</ref> Van Diemen's Land had an enormous gender imbalance, with male colonists outnumbering females six to one in 1822{{mdash}}and 16 to one among the convict population. Historian Nicholas Clements has suggested the "voracious appetite" for native women was the most important trigger for the explosion of violence from the late 1820s.<ref>{{Citation | last=Clements | first = Nicholas | title = The Black War  |pages=20, 49| publisher = University of Queensland Press | year = 2014 | location = Brisbane | isbn = 978-0-70225-006-4}}</ref>

From 1825 to 1828, the number of native attacks more than doubled each year, raising panic among settlers. Over the summer of 1826{{ndash}}1827 clans from the Big River, Oyster Bay and North Midlands nations speared stock-keepers on farms and made it clear that they wanted the settlers and their sheep and cattle to move from their kangaroo hunting grounds. Settlers responded vigorously, resulting in many mass-killings. In November 1826, Governor [[Sir George Arthur, 1st Baronet|Sir George Arthur]] issued a government notice declaring that colonists were free to kill Aboriginal people when they attacked settlers or their property, and in the following eight months more than 200 Aboriginal people were killed in the Settled Districts in reprisal for the deaths of 15 colonists. After another eight months, the death toll had risen to 43 colonists and probably 350 Aboriginal people.<ref>{{Citation | last=Ryan | first = Lyndall | title = Tasmanian Aborigines  | publisher = Allen & Unwin | year = 2012 | pages=93–100|location = Sydney | isbn = 978-1-74237-068-2}}</ref> In April 1828, Arthur issued a [[1828 Proclamation of Demarcation|Proclamation of Demarcation]] forbidding Aboriginal people to enter the settled districts without a passport issued by the government.<ref name="Carroll2014">{{cite book |author=Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P9CpBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA92 |title=Art in the Time of Colony |date=28 April 2014 |publisher=Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. |isbn=978-1-4094-5596-7 |pages=92–}}</ref><ref name="Morgan2003">{{cite book|author=Sharon Morgan|title=Land Settlement in Early Tasmania: Creating an Antipodean England|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bTJeskna35YC&pg=PA151|date=11 December 2003|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-52296-0|pages=151–}}</ref> Arthur declared [[martial law]] in the colony in November that year, and this remained in force for over three years, the longest period of martial law in Australian history.<ref>{{Citation | last=Ryan | first = Lyndall | title = Tasmanian Aborigines  | publisher = Allen & Unwin | year = 2012 | pages=101–105, 123|location = Sydney | isbn = 978-1-74237-068-2}}</ref><ref>{{Citation | last=Clements | first = Nicholas | title = The Black War  |pages=95–101| publisher = University of Queensland Press | year = 2014 | location = Brisbane | isbn = 978-0-70225-006-4}}</ref>

In November 1830, Arthur organised the so-called "[[Black Line]]", ordering every able-bodied male colonist to assemble at one of seven designated places in the Settled Districts to join a massive drive to sweep Aboriginal people out of the region and on to the [[Tasman Peninsula]]. The campaign failed and was abandoned seven weeks later, but by then Tasmania's Aboriginal population had fallen to about 300.<ref>{{Cite book|title = The Forgotten War|last = Reynolds|first = Henry|publisher = UNSW Australia|year = 2013|isbn = 9781742233925|page = 63}}</ref>

==== Removal of Aboriginal people ====

[[File:Truganini and last 4 tasmanian aborigines.jpg|thumb|Four elderly full-blood Tasmanian Aboriginal people, {{circa|1860s}}. [[Truganini]], for many years claimed to be the last full-blood Aboriginal person to survive, is seated far right.]]

After hostilities between settlers and Aboriginal peoples ceased in 1832, almost all of the remnants of the Indigenous population were persuaded by government agent [[George Augustus Robinson]] to move to [[Flinders Island, Tasmania|Flinders Island]]. Many quickly succumbed to infectious diseases to which they had no immunity, reducing the population further.<ref>{{Citation | last=Ryan | first = Lyndall | title = Tasmanian Aborigines  | publisher = Allen & Unwin | year = 2012 | pages=1199–216|location = Sydney | isbn = 978-1-74237-068-2}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|last= Clements|first= Nicholas|title= Frontier Conflict in Van Diemen's Land (PhD thesis)|year= 2013|publisher= University of Tasmania|pages= 329–331|url= http://eprints.utas.edu.au/17070/2/Whole-Clements-thesis.pdf|access-date= 23 April 2015|archive-date= 18 May 2015|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20150518103925/http://eprints.utas.edu.au/17070/2/Whole-Clements-thesis.pdf|url-status= live}}</ref> Of those removed from Tasmania, the last to die was [[Truganini]], in 1876.

The near-destruction of Tasmania's Aboriginal population has been described as an act of genocide by historians including [[Robert Hughes (critic)|Robert Hughes]], [[James Boyce (author)|James Boyce]], [[Lyndall Ryan]] and Tom Lawson.<ref name="hughes121" /><ref>{{Citation | last=Boyce | first = James | title = Van Diemen's Land  | publisher = Black Inc | year = 2010 | location = Melbourne | page=296| isbn = 978-1-86395-491-4}}</ref><ref>{{Citation | last=Ryan | first = Lyndall | title = Tasmanian Aborigines  | publisher = Allen & Unwin | year = 2012 | pages= xix, 215|location = Sydney | isbn = 978-1-74237-068-2}}</ref> However, other historians including [[Henry Reynolds (historian)|Henry Reynolds]], [[Richard Broome]] and Nicholas Clements do not agree with the genocide thesis, arguing that the colonial authorities did not intend to destroy the Aboriginal population in whole or in part.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Broome|first=Richard|title=Aboriginal Australians|publisher=Allen and Unwin|year=2019|isbn=9781760528218|edition=Fifth|location=Crows Nest|page=44}}</ref><ref name=":2">Clements, Nicholas (2013). pp. 110–12</ref> Boyce has claimed that the April 1828 "Proclamation Separating the Aborigines from the White Inhabitants" sanctioned force against Aboriginal people "for no other reason than that they were Aboriginal".<ref name=":3" /> However, as Reynolds, Broome and Clements point out, there was open warfare at the time.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" /> Boyce described the decision to remove all Tasmanian Aboriginal people after 1832{{mdash}}by which time they had given up their fight against white colonists{{mdash}}as an extreme policy position. He concluded: "The colonial government from 1832 to 1838 [[Ethnic cleansing|ethnically cleansed]] the western half of Van Diemen's Land."<ref name=":3">{{Citation | last=Boyce | first = James | title = Van Diemen's Land  | publisher = Black Inc | year = 2010 | location = Melbourne | pages=264, 296| isbn = 978-1-86395-491-4}}</ref> Nevertheless, Clements and Flood note that there was another wave of violence in north-west Tasmania in 1841, involving attacks on settlers' huts by a band of Aboriginal Tasmanians who had not been removed from the island.<ref>Clements, Nicholas (2013). pp. 264–65</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Flood|first=Josephine|title=The Original Australians, the story of the Aboriginal people|publisher=Allen and Unwin|year=2019|isbn=9781760527075|location=Crows Nest|page=107}}</ref>

==== Proclamation as a colony ====
{{Further|Colony of Tasmania}}

[[File:Convict labourers in Australia in the early 20th century.jpg|thumb|A [[Convicts in Australia|convict]] ploughing team breaking up new ground at the farm at Port Arthur]]

Van Diemen's Land{{mdash}}which thus far had existed as a territory within the colony of [[New South Wales]]{{mdash}}was proclaimed a separate colony, with its own judicial establishment and [[Tasmanian Legislative Council|Legislative Council]], on 3 December 1825. Transportation to the island ceased in 1853 and the colony was renamed Tasmania in 1856, partly to differentiate the burgeoning society of free settlers from the island's convict past.<ref>{{Citation | last=Boyce | first = James | title = Van Diemen's Land  | publisher = Black Inc | year = 2010 | location = Melbourne | pages=1, 158| isbn = 978-1-86395-491-4}}</ref>

The [[Tasmanian Legislative Council|Legislative Council of Van Diemen's Land]] drafted a new constitution which gained Royal Assent in 1855. The [[Privy Council]] also approved the colony changing its name from "Van Diemen's Land" to "Tasmania", and in 1856 the newly elected [[bicameral parliament]] sat for the first time, establishing Tasmania as a [[responsible government|self-governing]] colony of the British Empire.<ref>{{cite web|last=Museum of Australian Democracy|title=Constitution Act 1855 (Tas)|url=https://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/item-sdid-34.html|access-date=25 July 2021|website=Documenting Democracy|archive-date=24 July 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210724232320/https://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/item-sdid-34.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

The colony suffered from economic fluctuations, but for the most part was prosperous, experiencing steady growth. With few external threats and strong trade links with the Empire, Tasmania enjoyed many fruitful periods in the late 19th century, becoming a world-centre of shipbuilding. It raised a local defence force that eventually played a [[Military history of Australia during the Second Boer War|significant role]] in the [[Second Boer War]] in South Africa, and Tasmanian soldiers in that conflict won the first two [[Victoria Cross]]es awarded to Australians.

==== Federation ====

In 1901, the Colony of Tasmania [[Federation of Australia|united]] with the five other Australian colonies to form the Commonwealth of Australia. Tasmanians voted in favour of federation with the largest majority of all the Australian colonies.