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Our Culture &
History
The
Aboriginal people of Tasmania knew it as
TROWUNNER; the Island was divided into 9 sections,
each representing a nation or tribe of people. It is known that Aboriginal
people have been living in Tasmania for at least 20,000 years, because of the
evidence they left behind: charcoal, bones, stone-tool quarries and
stone-tool scatters—that is , the remains of past
campfires and meals, and of the implements used to get those meals Piles of
food remains are called “middens “Images carved and painted on rock faces and
stone arrangements also provide evidence.
Being among
the oldest archaeological sites so far discovered in Tasmania are Cave Bay
Cave on Hunter Island, first occupied 23,000-21,000 years ago, and Beginners
Luck Cave in South-central Tasmania which was used by Aboriginal people more
than 20,000 years ago. Around 15,000 years ago the climate started to become
warmer and wetter and ice was replaced with rainforest, thus separating Tasmania from the
mainland.
The Tasmanians managed their food resources
very carefully; fire was used to clear areas for new vegetation to grow.
The men were
great hunters and so were the women, each had specific things to hunt or
gather. Stone tools were a very important item in the tool kit, most chores
you had to use stone tools in some form. The women were the greatest of
divers; they hunted the seals, and shell fish, periwinkles warreners from the
rocks.
Tasmanian
Aboriginal people wore no clothing except for a wallaby or kangaroo skin
cloak, worn around the shoulders and ochre mixed with mutton bird fat and
rubbed all over the body kept out the cold in extremely cold weather.
Shelter was
one of two different styles of the Tasmanian Aboriginal, one was a wind break
made from bark and the other a dome hut, both forms of housing were used all
over Tasmania by Aboriginal people and they roamed around a lot, living a
nomadic lifestyle.
The art work people used were geometric
designs, combining circles, lines and dots to form complex patterns and
designs.
Singing and dancing were very important to
the Tasmanian Aboriginal people, with songs being sang at work and around the
campfire at night. Dancing and songs told stories about important people and
events, creation, war, love, and nature and in later times white people.
Early explorers heard Aboriginal women
singing in three –part harmony, they
accompanied themselves by beating two sticks together or bang a drum made from rolled up kangaroo skins
.Much was lost, very rapidly to, of the Tasmanian Aboriginal culture , but
to-day people still sing and dance about the old stories, and now new ones.
Baskets and other carrying implements were
made from juncos reed or other native grasses; these were of a very strong nature and would last a long time.
While the Cape Barron Islanders were ‘under the act’, other Aboriginal people
lived in various parts of mainland Tasmania, Between 1940s and 1970s many
Straits people forced off the islands by unemployment, poor mutton bird
seasons, and lack of government assistance settled in Launceston and other
places. After the Cape Barron Island Reserve Act expired in 1951, the
Tasmanian Government began an assimilation program, encouraging the Islanders
to leave their land and join the wider community.
However, in the process Islanders and
mainland Aboriginal people were brought closer together, resulting in a
strong reassertion of Aboriginal identity.
Today we live
in a contemporary society and a lot of things have changed, but the one thing
that remains is the fact, we have survived.
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Ø Pre European Settlement
Nobody really knows when humans first occupied the
island that Early Europeans name Van Dieman’s Land
but there is recent research that suggests that people inhabited the most
southern areas of current day Tasmania as long ago as 35 000 years ago during
the Pleistocene era. Archaeological excavations of the earliest known
occupation site in Tasmania, at Warreen Cave in the Maxwell River
valley of the south-west, have provided evidence. As like other nomadic
peoples of this time they were nomadic, mainly concerned with hunting
animals, gathering berries and eggs to sustain there existence.
The physical characteristic of dark skin colour and frizzy hair are probably a direct result of
there isolation. The first recorded evidence of these people was in the late
18th century, when English and French people first explored the
island. Figures suggest that there were between 4000 and 6000 inhabitants
prior to European settlement. They
were a hunter-gatherer people and this isolated island provided ample food.
Their nomadic life style resulted in no crops being sown and there was no
domestication of animals until European Settlement.
The complexity of changes in the social, cultural
and territorial structures of the Tasmanian Aborigines over time is largely
unknown. It is evident from the ethnographic and archaeological record,
however, that at about 4,000 years ago the Aborigines dropped scale fish from
their diet and increased their consumption of land mammals, such as kangaroos
and wallabies. At about this time they also stopped using bone tools, and
refined their making of stone tool implements.
Canoes were crafted during the last 2,000 years and used to exploit the seal
colonies of the west and south-east coasts. The archaeological evidence
indicates that the Aboriginal population of Tasmania had been expanding, at least
territorially, from 4,000-3,000 years ago until the British invaded their
lands in 1803. The use of fire to open up forested areas may have played a
major role in this expansion.
At the time of British colonisation the Aborigines
were formed into nine tribes, each of which had between six to fifteen
‘bands’. The population is thought to have been in the range of 4,000 to
10,000. As a predominantly nomadic people, their movements followed the seasonal
changes in food supply, such as shellfish, seabirds, wallaby and a variety of
vegetable foods.
The first European visitors to Tasmania
came in search of new trading and commercial opportunities. They made
important observations on the Tasmanian landscape, its unique flora and
fauna, as well as the native inhabitants. Initially, they found little reason
to induce them to stay
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Ø European
Settlement
1642
November 24
Abel Jansz Tasman of the Dutch East India Company,
in command of the Heemskerck and Zeehaen, becomes the first European to sight the
Tasmanian mainland. He names it ‘Van Diemen’s
Land’ in honour of Antony
van Diemen, Governor General of the East India Co.
1772
March 3
French explorer, Capt. Marion du Fresne of the Mascarin
and Marquis de Castries, sights Van Diemen’s Land. The
following day a party goes ashore, one Aborigine is shot and killed, others
wounded.
1773
March 9
Capt. Tobias Furneaux in the Adventure
sights Van Diemen’s Land.
Furneaux had become separated from Capt. James
Cook’s Resolution during a British expedition of the Southern Ocean.
1777
January 24
Capt. James Cook anchors the Resolution in Adventure Bay
on his third southern expedition.
1788
January 26
The first official European settlement in Australia begins at Sydney Cove,
New South Wales (NSW).
August 20
Capt. William Bligh of the Bounty anchors in Adventure
Bay en route from Britain to Tahiti.
1789
July 3
Englishman Capt. John Henry Cox is off South West
Cape in the Mercury.
He later notices seals in Oyster Bay.
1792
February 8
Capt. William Bligh of the Providence and Assistant sights Van Diemen’s Land, and the following day anchors in Adventure
Bay. He names Table
Mountain (now Mt
Wellington).
April 21
Bruni D’Entrecasteaux (Recherche) with Capt. Huon
de Kermadec (Esperance)
sights Van Diemen’s Land
during their search for La Perouse’s expedition. A
survey is made of D’Entrecasteaux Channel.
1793
January 21
D’Entrecasteaux (accompanied by naturalist Jacques-Julien Houton de Labillardiere) returns to Van Diemen’s Land, and charts the River Derwent (which he calls Riviere
du Nord).
April
John Hayes, of the British East India Co., in command of the Duke of
Clarence and Duchess, enters and names the River Derwent, unaware of D’Entrecasteaux’s
previous visits.
1797
February 9
The merchant vessel, Sydney Cove, wrecked in the Furneaux
Group, Bass Strait.
1798
Sealing operations by Charles Bishop (Nautilus) commence at Kent Bay, Cape Barren
Island.
October 7
George Bass and Matthew Flinders begin a circumnavigation of Van Diemen’s Land in the sloop Norfolk, proving that it is an
island.
1802
January 13
Frenchman Nicholas Baudin of the Geographe and Naturaliste
anchors off Bruny Island, before exploring the
south-east and east coasts of Tasmania.
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Ø History 1803-1850s, British outpost
Governor King of the British settlement at New South Wales became
increasingly nervous about the intentions of French explorers in the region.
In March 1803 he commissioned Lt John Bowen to form a settlement at the
River Derwent to ward off French interests, to
establish another base for convicts and to exploit the island’s timber
getting, agricultural and sealing resources. Lt David Collins took charge of
the settlement at Risdon but found the site
unsuitable. He removed the settlement to the Sullivan's Cove site in 1804.
Also in 1804, a further settlement (Port Dalrymple)
was commenced on the north of the island, under the command of Lt Col William
Paterson.
The fledgling settlement at Sullivan's Cove was plagued by food shortages,
convict unrest and internal conflicts. The food supply became so desperately
low in 1806, that Lt David Collins had six whalers from the Ferret
flogged for refusing to hand over two casks of biscuits and three casks of
flour for the relief of the settlement.
By 1853, however, as Tasmanians were celebrating the end of convict
transportation to the colony, the population had reached over 70,000, whaling
and wool exports had become the mainstay of the colony, and ship-building was
also showing great potential. Over 127,000 acres were under cultivation. Tasmania had been made
a separate colony in 1825, and in 1856 was granted responsible
self-government.
The expansion of settlement, however, had caused the Aboriginal population to
suffer both dispossession and depopulation. Prolonged conflict with settlers
and sealers over resources, the abduction of Aboriginal women, and exposure
to disease whilst held in captivity severely reduced their numbers. In the
1830s the remnants of the Aboriginal population living in the bush were
removed to Wybalenna, Flinders Island
where they were housed in ‘gaol-like’ conditions.
Children were routinely removed to the Orphan
School, Hobart. In 1847 Wybalenna
was abandoned and the 47 Aborigines left there were transferred to Oyster
Cove Aboriginal Station, south of Hobart.
1803
September 8 and 11
Lady Nelson and Albion arrive
at Risdon Cove on the River Derwent,
to establish the first European settlement on the island under the command of
Lt John Bowen.
1804
May 3
An attack on Aborigines at Risdon Cove occurs.
Eye-witness accounts of the massacre vary greatly with estimates of the dead
ranging from three or four to fifty.
May 8
Lt David Collins takes charge of the Risdon
settlement, and subsequently removes it to Sullivan’s Cove site.
June 15
Hobart Town adopted as name for new
settlement.
November 5
A party under the charge of Lt Col William Paterson arrives in the Buffalo, Lady Nelson and 2 schooners at Outer
Cove (George Town)
under instruction from Governor King to begin a settlement on the north of
the island.
November 12
An Aborigine killed, another wounded at Paterson’s
Camp.
1805
William Collins establishes a whaling station at Droughty Point on the Derwent.
June 24
Lt David Collins informs Governor King of an extreme shortage of food at
settlement.
1806
March
Paterson moves
northern settlement to present site of Launceston.
1807
February 3
Thomas Laycock and party embarks on first overland
expedition from Port Dalrymple (in north) to Hobart (in south).
November 29
First settlers from Norfolk Island arrive.
1808
September 29
The name ‘Launceston’ is first used to refer to the northern settlement in
official correspondence.
1809
March 30
Deposed Governor of NSW, William Bligh, arrives at Hobart Town
and temporarily disrupts Lt. David Collins’ power of authority over the
settlement.
1810
January 8
The first newspaper The Derwent Star and Van Diemens Land Intelligencer is printed in colony.
1811
November 22
Governor Lachlan Macquarie (NSW)
arrives and begins tour of inspection of island. He names Elizabeth Town (New
Norfolk), lays a geometrical plan for Hobart
streets and issues instructions for the building of barracks, hospital, gaol, signal station and a new Government House there.
1812
June 30
Northern settlements made subordinate to Hobart.
October 19
Indefatigable, the first direct convict transport from Britain
arrives.
1813
April 3
Ports of Van Diemen’s Land
open to commerce.
1814
First horse races held at New Town.
May 14
First issue of Van Diemens Land Gazette and
General Advertiser.
June 1
Lt Governor’s Court established to deal with personal disputes under the
value of 50 pounds.
1815
May
Lt Gov Davey declares Martial law against
bushrangers.
December 12
Capt. James Kelly sets out on circumnavigation of island, during which
important observations are made on the resources of the west coast.
1816
June 1
Hobart
Town Gazette and Southern Reporter begins regular publication.
1817
February 19
Foundation stone of old St David’s Church, Hobart laid.
May
A regular weekly mail service established between Hobart and Launceston.
May 3
Hobart Town gaol
nearly completed.
1818
A government flour mill installed at Hobart Town Rivulet.
1819
Reverend John Youl (Assistant Chaplain to Port Dalrymple), arrives in colony.
May 22
Northern settlement headquarters moved to George Town.
June 25
Hobart-New Norfolk road completed.
1820
February 21
J. T. Bigge, undertaking a British inquiry into
colonial administration, arrives in Van Diemen’s Land.
March
Merino sheep introduced from Macarthur stud, NSW.
October 29
First Methodist meeting held in colony.
1821
April 14
Rev. Phillip Conolly, first Roman Catholic
clergyman, arrives.
May 30
Governor Macquarie, on his second tour of the island, selects a site for township of Perth,
and later Campbell Town, Ross, Oatlands and Brighton.
November 12
A party of officials and convicts depart Port Dalrymple
to form a penal settlement at Macquarie
Harbour.
1822
January 1
First meeting of an agricultural society held, Hobart.
1823
February 3
The first official ministry of the Presbyterian Church in Australia begins in Hobart under Rev. Archibald McArthur.
August 11
Bank of Van Diemen’s Land established.
1824
Northern settlement headquarters returned to Launceston site.
May 10
Opening of Supreme Court in Tasmania.
December
Aborigines Musquito (from NSW) and Black-Jack
sentenced to hang for a resistance campaign against pastoralists which began
at Grindstone Bay in November 1823.
December 28
Foundation stone of St.
John’s Church
laid, Launceston.
1825
January 1
Richmond Bridge
opened.
January 5
The Tasmanian and Port Dalrymple Advertiser
becomes first northern newspaper.
February 27
Party of soldiers and convicts leave Hobart
to establish a penal settlement on Maria
Island.
December 3
Van Diemen’s Land proclaimed a separate colony from
New South Wales,
with its own judicial establishment and Legislative Council.
1826
April
Tasmanian Turf Club first established.
April 12
Legislative Council meets formally for first time.
October 27
Van Diemen’s Land Company settlers and stock arrive
at Circular Head to begin pastoral and agricultural settlement of the
north-west region.
1827
Van Diemen’s Land Company begins settlement at Emu
Bay (now Burnie).
January
Van Diemen’s Land Mechanic’s Institute founded,
becoming the first of its type in Australia.
January 3
First boat regatta held on River Derwent.
1828
Reduction of English duty on whale oil opens way for expansion of local
whaling industry.
January
Van Diemen’s Land Company shepherds massacre 30
Aborigines at Cape
Grim.
January 25
Derwent Bank opens for business.
November 1
Martial law proclaimed against Aborigines in settled areas.
1829
Women’s convict gaol or ‘female factory’ at
Cascades, Hobart
opened.
May 14
Aboriginal mission on Bruny Island
opened by George Augustus Robinson.
1830
Bridgewater
convict chain gang commences work on the causeway across the River Derwent.
January 27
G. A. Robinson sets off on the first of six ‘conciliatory’ expeditions to
inquire into the state of the Aboriginal population.
September 20
Port Arthur
penal settlement established.
October 7
The ‘Black Line’ against Aborigines begins in an attempt to capture them all.
The campaign lasts 7 weeks and only succeeds in bringing two Aborigines to
the authorities.
1831
Publication of Australia’s first novel Quintus Servinton
by Henry Savery, Hobart.
System of disposing of land by free grants abolished.
Foundation stone of New Town Orphan School laid.
1832
Erection of Cascade Brewery, Hobart
commences.
January
Martial law against Aborigines revoked.
September
Maria Island
penal settlement closed.
October
Wybalenna chosen as site for an Aboriginal
Establishment, Flinders
Island.
November 11
Derwent Light (‘Iron Pot’) first lit.
1833
October
Cornwall Agricultural Society, Launceston formed.
November
Macquarie Harbour penal station closed and
convicts transferred to Port Arthur.
December 17
First professional theatrical performance takes place in Hobart.
December 19
Low Head lighthouse first lit.
1834
Convict ‘female factory’, Launceston completed.
February 8
Point Puer boys convict establishment opened.
June 5
First shipment of coal leaves the convict mines, Tasman Peninsula.
November 4
Foundation stone of Theatre Royal, Hobart, laid.
November 5
Trial by jury in all civil cases adopted.
November 19
Edward Henty and party, of Launceston, occupy land
at Portland Bay,
marking the beginnings of white settlement in Victoria.
1835
Colonial artist, John Glover, sends 35 paintings of Van Diemen’s
Land to an exhibition in London.
January 22
First meeting held to establish a Launceston Savings Bank.
April 12
Convict transport George III sinks in D’Entrecasteaux
Channel claiming lives of 139 male convicts.
May 12
John Batman of Launceston sails to Port Phillip as agent for the Port Phillip
Association.
1836
February 5
Charles Darwin visits Van Diemen’s Land in the Beagle.
July 1
Formal list of counties, hundreds and parishes of Van Diemen’s Land gazetted.
1837
British Government begins Molesworth Committee
Inquiry into Transportation.
November 27
State aid granted for construction of church buildings (all denominations).
1838
March 31
Bruny
Island lighthouse
completed.
August 7
Government printery established by Act of
Parliament.
September
Midland Agricultural Association forms.
December 1
First annual Hobart Regatta held.
1839
A registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages appointed.
January
First regatta held on Tamar
River.
1840
Economic depression begins.
August
Capt. Ross arrives with Antarctic expedition of the Erebus and Terror.
Rossbank meteorological observatory site
established near Government House.
November 18
End of transportation to NSW leads to convict influx to Van
Diemen’s Land.
1841
Probation system of convict management introduced, leading to the
establishment of over 70 government work gang stations throughout the island.
1842
January 1
First official census of Van Diemen’s
Land.
March
Sir John and Lady Jane Franklin undertake an overland journey to Macquarie Harbour.
March 12
Launceston Examiner first published.
August 21
Hobart Town proclaimed a city.
1843
August 20
Rev. Francis Russell Nixon, first Bishop of Tasmania (Church of England),
arrives in Hobart.
1844
May 11
First Catholic Bishop, Rev. Robert William Willson
arrives in Hobart.
September 12
Royal Society of Tasmania formed, being the first branch of the Society
established outside Britain.
September 29
Norfolk Island annexed to Van Diemen’s
Land.
1845
Royal Victoria Theatre,
Launceston opens.
March 1
Hobart Savings Bank established.
July 4
Hobart Synagogue dedicated.
August 4
Emigrant ship, Cataraqui, wrecked off King Island
and 406 lives lost.
October 31
Legislative Council left without a quorum as the ‘Patriotic Six’ resign over
what they considered unconstitutional means taken by the Governor to impose
added duties on various goods.
1846
Swan Island
and Goose Island lighthouses commence
operations.
February
Aborigines at Flinders Island send a petition to Queen Victoria,
being the first petition to a reigning monarch from an Aboriginal group in Australia.
1847
March 23
‘Patriotic Six’ reinstated to Legislative Council by new Lt. Governor Sir
William Denison.
October 18
Forty-seven Flinders Island Aborigines removed to Oyster Cove station.
1848
Deal Island Lighthouse erected.
1849
January 26
An anti-transportation league formed after public meeting at Launceston.
August 1
Tasmanian Public Library officially opened.
October
Irish political prisoners, including William Smith O’Brien, arrive in Van Diemen’s Land.
1850
August 5
A British Act of Parliament allows the introduction of a partly elected
Legislative Council in Van Diemen’s
Land.
1851
Discovery of gold in Victoria prompts large
scale emigration from Tasmania.
February 11
First inter-colonial cricket match held, Launceston (Tasmania
vs Victoria).
October 21
First ever polling day for Tasmanian members of Parliament.
December 3
First meeting of the newly formed and partly elected Legislative Council.
1852
Hobart City Mission established.
February
Payable gold first discovered at Fingal.
1853
January 2
Elections held for first municipal councils in Hobart and Launceston.
May 26
The last convict transport St Vincent docks at Hobart.
August 10
Jubilee Festival held in Hobart
to mark the cessation of convict transportation to the colony.
1854
Regular Launceston-Emu Bay-Circular Head steamer
begins.
April 25
Select Committee appointed to draft constitution for Bicameral Parliament.
July 5
First issue of the Mercury newspaper appears.
1855
Norfolk Island evacuated, convicts having been transferred to Port Arthur.
First regional hospital established at Campbell Town.
October 24
Constitution Act proclaimed establishing Responsible Government in Tasmania.
1856
January 1
Official change of name from Van Diemen’s Land to Tasmania takes effect.
June 24
An Order in Council issued by Queen Victoria separates Norfolk Island from
Tasmania and makes it 'a distinct and separate settlement', the affairs of
which are to be administered by the Governor of New South Wales.
October 17
First elections held to establish new Parliament under Responsible
Government.
November 1
W.T.N. Champ becomes Tasmania’s
first Premier, and first ministry takes office.
December 2
First session of new Bicameral Parliament.
1857
Launceston’s water supply scheme from St Patrick’s River completed.
Hobart and Launceston Marine Boards established.
August 10
Telegraph line opens between Hobart and Launceston.
December 22
Hobart is
incorporated.
1858
Municipal police forces established in Hobart and Launceston.
February 1
Voting by secret ballot adopted.
October 29
Launceston becomes incorporated.
1859
Hobart Town Council appoints a health officer due to concerns about public
health.
First attempt made to lay a submarine telegraph cable across Bass Strait.
January 2
Governor Henry Fox Young moves into new Government House, Hobart.
December
Charles Gould undertakes a geological expedition to the Western Ranges
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