Tragedy In Van Dieman's Land

By SaundersJ

  • 1803 - 1804

    Whilst attempting to stop soldiers and convicts from building huts in Hobart, hundreds of Aboriginals were killed. Years later, convicts that escaped began to raid camps of Aboriginals, kidnapping the woman and killing the men. Sources of food for the Aboriginals were wiped out and European diseases also killed many Indigenous Australians.

  • George Augustus Robinson

    From 1829 to 1834, George Augustus Robinson, a Methodist lay preacher, 131working on behalf of the government, travelled among the survivors. Robinson believed that they would be wiped out if they remained in Tasmania and he convinced some of them to agree to what they believed would be a temporary move to an island off the Tasmanian coast. They were deceived. Between 1821 and the early 1840s survivors from many different language groups were moved to Flinders Island, where they were guarded and

  • Genocidal

    By 1832 there were just 203 survivors and by 1856, when Van Diemen's Land was renamed Tasmania, there were even fewer. Some historians regard what happened there as genocide (the deliberate wiping out of a race).

  • Renaming

    Van Dieman's Land was renamed to Tasmania.