History Of Australia - Tasmania

Let's talk about the Early settlement of Tasmania in our series of the History of Australia. Do you know if Tasmania was settled mainly by convicts and their guards or was it settled by free settlers?

Hobart 1830 Source: AAP-Mary Evans Picture Library

Tasmania is a beautiful though harsh land! It's History is replete with crime, punishment, struggles but tales of ultimate survival.

After the Crown settlements of Sydney and Melbourne, Tasmania was settled next.

 

When the British colonised Tasmania in 1803 there were more than 6,000 indigenous inhabitants in this area. Due to disease brought in by the Europeans and fighting breaking out between the indigenous tribes with the British sailors, soldiers and guards by the year 1833 there were only about 300 sons of the soil left!

View of Hobart, Tasmania, 1898 Date: 1898 Source: NATIONAL ARCHIVES

Tasmania was originally discovered by the Dutch discoverer Abel Tasman in 1642. He named this island, "Anthoonij Van Diemens Landt". Later the British called it Van Damien's Land.

 

Those who were settled in Tasmania were mainly convicts and their guards. It is with the sheer hard work of the convict settlers that slowly farming took place, roads were built, bullock carts gave way to horse carts, Railways and Banks and Churches started coming up.

Convict railway, Port Arthur, Tasmania, 1830 Date: 1830 Source: NATIONAL ARCHIVES

A Supreme Court was established in 1824 and n the verdict of the court a convict named Alexander Pearce was hung unto death. It has been said that Alexander had turned into a cannibal and eaten some of his prison mates! The Hobart Town Gazette wrote  on June 25, 1824, that when sentenced Alexander  in no way loked "laden with the weight of human blood, and believed to have banqueted on human flesh".

Source: Wikipedia