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Van Diemen's Land

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Main page For other uses, see Van Diemen (disambiguation).

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Van Diemen's Land was the original name used by most Europeans for the island of
Featured content Van Diemen's Land
Current events Tasmania, part of Australia. The name was changed from Van Diemen's Land to
Random article Tasmania in 1856. British Crown Colony
Donate to Wikipedia ← 1825–1856 →
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1 History
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1.1 Exploration
Help 1.2 Early colonisation
About Wikipedia
1.3 Penal colony
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2 Name
Recent changes
Contact page 3 Popular culture
3.1 Film
Tools 3.2 Music
What links here 3.3 Literature
Related changes
4 See also
Upload file
5 Notes
Special pages
Permanent link 6 References
Page information 7 External links
Wikidata item
Cite this page
History [ edit ]
Print/export
Create a book Exploration [ edit ]
Download as PDF 1828 map
Printable version
The Dutch explorer Abel Tasman was the first European to land on the shores of
Government Self-governing
Tasmania in 1642. Landing at Blackman Bay and later having the Dutch flag flown at
colony
In other projects North Bay, Tasman named the island Anthoonij van Diemenslandt, in honour of Monarch
Wikimedia Commons Anthony van Diemen, the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, who had sent  • 1825–1830 George IV
 • 1830–1837 William IV
Tasman on his voyage of discovery. Between 1772 and 1798, only the southeastern
Languages  • 1837–1856 Victoria
portion of the island was visited. Tasmania was not known to be an island until Matthew Lieutenant-Governor
Español
Flinders and George Bass circumnavigated it in the Norfolk in 1798–99.  • 1825–1836 Sir George
Français
Arthur first
Bahasa Indonesia Around 1784–85, Henri Peyroux de la Coudrenière, an army officer serving in Spanish  • 1855–1856 Henry Young
Italiano Louisiana, wrote a "memoir on the advantages to be gained for the Spanish crown by last
Bahasa Melayu
the settlement of Van Dieman's Land".[1] After receiving no response from the Spanish
日本語
History
government, Peyroux proposed it to the French government, as "Mémoire sur les  • independence from the 3
Português Colony of New South December 1825
avantages qui résulteraient d'une colonie puissante à la terre de Diémen".[2] Wales
Русский
தமி  • Name changed to 1856
In January 1793, a French expedition under the command of Antoine Raymond Joseph Tasmania and self-rule
11 more de Bruni d'Entrecasteaux anchored in Recherche Bay and a period of five weeks was
Today part of  Australia
Edit links spent in that area, carrying out explorations into both natural history and geography. In
1802 and 1803, the French expedition commanded by Nicolas Baudin explored Van Diemen's Land
D'Entrecasteaux Channel and Maria Island and carried out charting of Bass Strait (Baudin
had been associated, like Peyroux, with the resettlement of the Acadians from French
Canada(from mostly what is now called the New Brunswick area to Louisiana).

Early colonisation [ edit ]

Sealers and whalers based themselves on Tasmania's islands from 1798 and in August
1803, New South Wales Governor Philip King sent Lieutenant John Bowen to establish a
small military outpost on the eastern shore of the Derwent River to forestall any claims to
the island arising from the activities of the French explorers.

Major-General Ralph Darling was appointed Governor of New South Wales in 1825, and in
the same year he visited Hobart Town, and on 3 December proclaimed the establishment
of the independent colony, of which he became governor for three days.[3]
1852 map of Van Diemen's Land.
The demonym for Van Diemen's Land was "Van Diemonian", though contemporaries used
Geography
the spelling Vandemonian.[4]
Location Southern Ocean
In 1856, the colony was granted responsible self-government with its representative Coordinates 42°00′S 147°00′E
parliament, and the name of the island and colony was officially changed to Tasmania on 1
Area 68,401 km2 (26,410 sq mi)
January 1856.[5][6]
Highest elevation 1,614 m (5,295 ft)
Highest point Mount Ossa
Penal colony [ edit ]
Administration
Main articles: Port Arthur, Tasmania, Convicts on the West Coast of Tasmania
Australia
From the 1800s to the 1853 abolition of penal transportation (known simply as Largest Hobart Town
"transportation"), Van Diemen's Land was the primary penal colony in Australia. Following settlement
the suspension of transportation to New South Wales, all transported convicts were sent to Demographics
Van Diemen's Land. In total, some 73,000 convicts were transported to Van Diemen's Population 40,000 (1855)
Land, or about 40% of all convicts sent to Australia.[7] Pop. density 0.59 /km2 (1.53 /sq mi)

Male convicts served their sentences as assigned labour to free settlers or in gangs Ethnic groups European Australians,
Aboriginal Tasmanians
assigned to public works. Only the most difficult convicts (mostly re-offenders) were sent
to the Tasman Peninsula prison known as Port Arthur. Female convicts were assigned as
servants in free settler households or sent to a female factory (women's workhouse prison).
There were five female factories in Van Diemen's Land.

Convicts completing their sentences or earning their ticket-of-leave often promptly left Van
Diemen's Land. Many settled in the new free colony of Victoria, to the dismay of the free settlers
in towns such as Melbourne.

On 6 August 1829, the brig Cyprus, a government-owned vessel used to transport goods, 1663 map of Van Diemen's Land,
showing the parts discovered by
people, and convicts, set sail from Hobart Town for Macquarie Harbour Penal Station on a Tasman, including Storm Bay, Maria
routine voyage carrying supplies and convicts. While the ship was becalmed in Recherche Bay, Island, and Schouten Island.
convicts allowed on deck attacked their guards and took control of the brig. The mutineers
marooned officers, soldiers, and convicts who did not join the mutiny without supplies. The
convicts then sailed the Cyprus to Canton, China, where they scuttled her and claimed to be castaways from another vessel. On the
way, Cyprus visited Japan during the height of the period of severe Japanese restrictions on the entry of foreigners, the first Australian
ship to do so.

Tensions sometimes ran high between the settlers and the "Vandemonians" as they were termed, particularly during the Victorian gold
rush when a flood of settlers from Van Diemen's Land rushed to the Victorian goldfields.

Complaints from Victorians about recently released convicts from Van Diemen's Land re-offending in Victoria was one of the contributing
reasons for the eventual abolition of transportation to Van Diemen's Land in 1853.[8]

Name [ edit ]

Anthony Trollope used the term Vandemonian: "They are (the Vandemonians) united in their declaration that the cessation of the coming
of convicts has been their ruin."[9]

In 1856, Van Diemen's Land was renamed Tasmania. This removed the unsavoury criminal connotations with the name Van Diemen's
Land (and the "demon" connotation), while honouring Abel Tasman, the first European to find the island. The last penal settlement in
Tasmania at Port Arthur closed in 1877.[10]

Popular culture [ edit ]

Film [ edit ]

The critically acclaimed award-winning film The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce tells the true story of Alexander Pearce through
his final confession to fellow Irishman and colonial priest Philip Conolly. The film was nominated for a Rose d'Or, an Irish Film and
Television Award, an Australian Film Institute Award and won an IF Award in 2009.
The ABC telemovie The Outlaw Michael Howe is set in Van Diemen's Land and tells the story of bushranger Michael Howe's convict-
led rebellion.

Music [ edit ]

U2's 1988 album Rattle and Hum has a song called "Van Diemen's Land" with lead vocals sung by The Edge.
Tom Russell sets Van Diemen's Land as the ship's destination in his song "Isaac Lewis" on the album "Modern Art".
In the traditional Irish folk song "The Black Velvet Band", the protagonist is found guilty of stealing a watch and is sent to Van
Diemen's Land as punishment.
The song "Van Diemen's Land" in the album titled "Parcel of Rogues" with vocals by Barbara Dickson is about an Irish man caught
for poaching and transported to Van Diemen's Land and the hardships he has living there.

Literature [ edit ]

Australian winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature Patrick White's novel 'A Fringe of Leaves' places much of the novel's beginnings in
Van Diemen's Land.

Van Diemen's Land is the setting for Richard Flanagan's novel Wanting (2008).
Van Diemen's Land is the setting of Gould's Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish by Richard Flanagan (published 2002), which tells
the story of a man who is transported to the island, and runs afoul of the local (and rather insane) authorities.
Brendan Whiting's book Victims of Tyranny, gives an account of the lives of the Irish rebels, the Fitzgerald convict brothers who were
sent to help open up the north of Van Diemen's Land in 1805, under the leadership of the explorer Colonel William Paterson.
In Cormac McCarthy's novel Blood Meridian, one of the characters in the Glanton Gang of scalpers in 1850s Mexico is a
"Vandiemenlander" named Bathcat. Born in Wales he later went to Australia to hunt aborigines, and eventually came to Mexico,
where he used those skills on the Apaches.
From The Potato Factory by Bryce Courtenay (1995), "... subtracting till my fingers dropped; into Van Diemen's Land." This is a quote
from Emily Dickinson's Poem "If You Were Coming in the Fall". Two of the main characters in Cortenay's novel are transported Van
Diemen's Land as convicts and another travels there, where around half of the novel takes place.
In the novel The Convicts by Iain Lawrence, young Tom Tin is sent to Van Diemen's Land on charges of murder.
In the novel The Terror by Dan Simmons (2007). In this novel about the ill-fated exploration by HMS Erebus and HMS Terror to
discover the Northwest Passage. The ships left England in May 1846 and were never heard from again, although since then much
has been discovered about the fate of the 129 officers and crew. References are made to Van Diemen's Land during the chapters
devoted to Francis Crozier.
Van Diemen's Land is the setting of the novel English Passengers by Matthew Kneale (2000), which tells the story of three eccentric
Englishmen who in 1857 set sail for the island in search of the Garden of Eden. The story runs parallel with the narrative of a young
Tasmanian who tells the struggle of the indigenous population and the desperate battle against the invading British colonists.
Christopher Koch's novel Out of Ireland describes life as a convict in Van Diemen's Land.
Richard Butler's novel The Men That God Forgot (1977) is based on the historical events of ten convicts who escaped from Van
Diemen's Land to Valdivia, Chile in 1833.
Marcus Clarke used historical events as the basis for his fictional For the Term of his Natural Life (1870), the story of a gentleman,
falsely convicted of murder, who is transported to Van Diemen's Land.
Julian Stockwin's nautical fiction series, The Kydd Series, includes the book Command (2006) in which Thomas Kydd takes a ship to
Van Diemen's Land, at the behest of then governor of New South Wales, Philip Gidley King, for the purpose of preventing French
explorers from establishing a French settlement on the island.
Kevin G Dyer's novel Dark Night in Van Diemen's Land tells the story of a young couple transported to the Port Arthur penal
settlement.
J.W. Clennett's 2015 graphic novel, The Diemenois, is set during an alternate history in which Napoleon Bonaparte fakes his death
and flees to West Van Diemen, an area of Tasmania colonised by France. The story takes place in the fictional city of Baudin (where
modern-day Stanley is located), named after French cartographer Nicolas Baudin.

See also [ edit ]

Cape Grim massacre

Cyprus mutiny
Colony of Tasmania
Governors of Tasmania
Van Diemen's Land Company
Apostolic Vicariate of New Holland and Van Diemen's Land (Catholic missionary jurisdiction)

Notes [ edit ]

1. ^ Ernest R. Liljegren, "Jacobinism in Spanish Louisiana, 1792–1797", Louisiana Historical Quarterly, 22, 1939, pp. 47–97, p.85.
2. ^ Paul Roussier, "Un projet de colonie française dans le Pacifique à la fin du XVIII siecle", La Revue du Pacifique, Année 6, No.1, 15 Janvier
1927, pp.726–733.[1] ; Robert J. King, "Henri Peyroux de la Coudrenière and his plan for a colony in Van Diemen's Land", Map Matters, Issue
31, June 2017, pp.2–6.[2]
3. ^ "150th Anniversary of Australia" . The Mercury. Hobart, Tasmania. 26 January 1938. p. 6. Retrieved 26 January 2012 – via National Library
of Australia.
4. ^ "Vandemonian – definition of Vandemonian by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia" . Thefreedictionary.com. Retrieved
7 February 2013.
5. ^ Newman, Terry Becoming Tasmania. Companion Web Site (Parliament of Tasmania)
6. ^ VanDiemensLand.com. About Van Diemen's Land
7. ^ Maxwell-Stewart, Hamish. "The state, convicts and longitudinal analysis." Australian Historical Studies 47, no. 3 (2016): 414-429.
8. ^ Fletcher, B. H. (1994). 1770–1850. In S. Bambrick (Ed.), The Cambridge encyclopedia of Australia (pp. 86–94). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
9. ^ quoted by Patsy Adam Smith p.248 of Smith, Patsy Adam and Woodberry, Joan (1977) Historic Tasmania Sketchbook Rigby ISBN 0-7270-
0286-4
10. ^ Australian Government, National Heritage site. Port Arthur Historic Site

References [ edit ]

Alexandra, Rieck (editor) (2005) The Companion to Tasmanian History Centre for Tasmanian Historical Studies, University of
Tasmania, Hobart. ISBN 1-86295-223-X.
Boyce, James (2008), Van Diemen's Land. Black Inc., Melbourne. ISBN 978-1-86395-413-6.
Robson, L.L. (1983) A history of Tasmania. Volume 1. Van Diemen's Land from the earliest times to 1855 Melbourne, Oxford
University Press. ISBN 0-19-554364-5.
Robson, L.L. (1991) A history of Tasmania. Volume II. Colony and state from 1856 to the 1980s Melbourne, Oxford University Press.
ISBN 0-19-553031-4.

External links [ edit ]

Media related to Van Diemen's Land at Wikimedia Commons

Constitution Act 1855, establishing an elected parliament in the colony

VanDiemensLand.com, About Van Diemen's Land

V·T·E British Empire (1583–1997) [show]

V·T·E Young Ireland [show]

Categories: States and territories established in 1825 States and territories disestablished in 1856
Former British colonies and protectorates in Oceania Former penal colonies Colonial history of Tasmania
1825 establishments in Australia 1856 disestablishments in Oceania Van Diemen's Land

This page was last edited on 1 November 2018, at 02:46 (UTC).

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