Genocide in Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), 1803-1876

The British colonisation of Tasmania began in 1803. By 1876, the British declared the Tasmanian Aborigines to be ‘extinct’. The devastation of their population was swift and violent. An estimated original population of 6,000 Aborigines, who had lived in Tasmania for over 40,000 years, was reduced to just over 100 individuals by 1835who were living in forced exile on one of Tasmania’s smaller offshore islands. The impact of introduced disease was possibly considerable but is largely unknown. Recorded in detail, however, is the extensive frontier violence, including massacres, by settlers and military, and the government efforts to remove all Aborigines from their lands from about 1824-1836.