The History of Tasmania , Volume II

In Short

This historic volume offers a rigorous and critical examination of Van Diemen's Land during the early nineteenth century, focusing primarily on the tragic devastation of the Tasmanian Aborigines and the complex, evolving machinery of the British penal transportation system. Through meticulous documentation, the narrative charts how initial frontier encounters escalated into systemic violence, military drives, forced removals, and near total demographic collapse. Concurrently, it scrutinizes the shifting administrative policies surrounding transported convicts, detailing the transition from private assignment to government probation, the rise of bushranging, and the social friction between emancipists and free settlers. It endures as an authoritative contemporary record of imperial governance, moral compromise, and the profound human cost of colonial enterprise in Australia.

The Story

The narrative opens with early historical accounts of the Indigenous inhabitants of Van Diemen’s Land recorded by European explorers such as Tasman, Cook, Labillardière, and Flinders. Initial peaceful curiosity rapidly gives way to conflict following early colonial settlements like Risdon, where misunderstandings and white hostility ignite mutual violence. As colonial pastoralists expand across the island, destruction of native food sources, child-stealing, and the abduction and abuse of Indigenous women by bushrangers and stockmen trigger retaliatory warfare. The indigenous tribes respond with strategic ambush and guerrilla tactics, defending their ancestral hunting grounds.

Government efforts to address the escalating crisis fluctuate between punitive force and paternalistic intervention. Proclamations forbidding Indigenous people from entering settled areas and declarations of martial law culminate in the Black Line campaign—a massive military operation assembling nearly five thousand soldiers, constables, and civilian volunteers to sweep the island and drive the remaining tribes onto Tasman Peninsula. Though this costly military dragnet fails to capture the elusive natives, George Augustus Robinson succeeds through personal conciliation missions, traveling around the island to persuade the surviving Indigenous groups to surrender. Promised safety, the surviving population is relocated to Flinders Island in Bass Strait. However, confinement, emotional despondency, unfamiliar clothing, altered diets, and unhealthy environments accelerate a catastrophic demographic collapse, leaving the Indigenous inhabitants on the precipice of extinction while officials debate their ultimate origin and legal rights.

Parallel to the saga of the Indigenous population, the text provides an exhaustive analysis of the transportation system, tracing penal exile from Roman customs and early English statutes to its American and Australian iterations. In New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land, early convicts are assigned to private settlers and emancipist landholders, giving rise to widespread stock-stealing, illicit cattle branding, and endemic bushranging, exemplified by outlaws like Michael Howe. Governors Macquarie and Arthur attempt to regulate the penal labor force, dispensing pardons through centralized ceremonies or structured service requirements, though administrative practices frequently succumb to patronage, corruption, and arbitrary severity.

As free emigration increases, demand for convict labor grows, creating a dependent settler economy that views transportation as an economic necessity rather than a moral discipline. Subsequent imperial policy shifts replace private assignment with the probation system under Governor Wilmot and Comptroller-General Forster. This system organizes prisoners into public work gangs, subjecting them to rigid penal classification, moral instruction, and forced labor. Rather than reforming convicts, the probation system yields severe overcrowding, institutional degradation, and rampant social dislocation. Male convicts struggle under punitive labor, while female convicts in government factories face lasting abandonment when freed spouses are forced to leave the colony.

The story concludes by examining the final collapse of these colonial arrangements under political pressure and economic shift. Mutinies, daring maritime escapes like those aboard the Badger, and widespread absconding expose the limits of penal coercion. When the sensational discovery of gold in neighboring Australian colonies draws away free agricultural labor and lures hundreds of absconding convicts across the water, the imperial authorities attempt a brief, unpopular return to private assignment before abandoning the probation framework altogether. Ultimately, the narrative reflects on Australia’s inevitable trajectory toward national independence, arguing that while colonial ties to Great Britain will eventually sever, true self-governance must be built upon sound municipal administration, moral responsibility, equitable social institutions, and respect for the rule of law.

How It Unfolds

First contact and immediate conflict Early exploration logs by Tasman, Cook, and Flinders give way to violent clashes at Risdon and widespread frontier skirmishes. Rapid settler expansion, destruction of native food sources, and the brutal mistreatment of native women by bushrangers provoke fierce, organized Indigenous resistance across the interior.

Martial law and the Black Line campaign Escalating casualties prompt official proclamations forbidding Indigenous presence in settled districts, culminating in the declaration of martial law. Governor Arthur mobilizes a five-thousand-man force of soldiers, civilians, and convicts in a vast, expensive military operation to sweep the island, though the native population easily evades the dragnet through superior bushcraft.

Conciliation and exile to Flinders Island George Augustus Robinson undertakes unarmed diplomatic journeys around the colony to gather the remaining Indigenous groups through persuasion. The surrendering native people are forcibly relocated to Flinders Island, where strict official confinement, altered habits, disease, bad water, and profound melancholy cause rapid and fatal demographic decline.

The mechanics of assignment and bushranging British penal transportation establishes an assignment system where convicts are placed with free settlers and emancipist landholders. Pervasive stock-stealing, altered cattle brands, secret bush slaughteryards, and rampant outlawry by bushrangers like Michael Howe expose the lack of colonial oversight and the corrupting nature of unmonitored penal labor.

Gubernatorial administration and the court of clemency Governors Macquarie and Arthur struggle to maintain authority through structured pardons, summary punishments, and strict classification. Annual pardon days become dramatic public spectacles where crowded petitioning convicts seek freedom through administrative favor, assigned service, or the provision of personal loans to officials.

The failure of the probation system Imperial policy transitions from private assignment to government-managed probation gangs, placing convicts under official superintendents and moral instructorship. Overcrowded stations, systemic demoralization, and severe social instability among both male and female prisoners demonstrate the fundamental failure of state-managed penal philosophy.

Escape, gold, and the path to independence Convict insubordination culminates in mutinies, clever vessel seizures like that of the Badger, and mass absconding accelerated by the Australian gold rushes. The text concludes by weighing the inevitable future independence of the Australian colonies against the immediate necessity for strong, equitable governance and proper local administration.

The People

George Augustus Robinson serves as the chief conciliator who seeks to save the Indigenous population from extermination through peaceful persuasion. Driven by a mixture of humanitarian zeal and personal ambition, he travels unarmed across the wilderness to convince hostile tribes to surrender. Although he secures their capture without further bloodshed, his policy results in their exile to Flinders Island, where the displaced people perish, leaving his humane triumph tainted by tragic extinction.

Governor George Arthur aims to establish absolute order, administrative efficiency, and moral discipline across Van Diemen's Land. Confronted by frontier warfare, bushranging, and an overflowing penal population, he employs martial law, massive military mobilizations like the Black Line, and severe penal regulations. His efforts to balance deterrence with rehabilitation earn him a reputation for uncompromising severity, leaving him isolated between complaining settlers and an unyielding Imperial Office.

Musquito, a native brought from Sydney, embodies the tragic friction between white authority and Indigenous survival. Initially employed by the colonial government to track bushrangers, he becomes alienated by ill-treatment and neglect, ultimately joining the local tribes to lead deadly retaliatory raids against white settlers before his capture and execution.

Lieutenant Darby, a former naval officer present at the battle of Navarino, represents the daring, unyielding spirit of convict resistance. Placed in positions of trust despite his involvement in previous plots, he organizes the audacious seizure of the government vessel Badger, successfully orchestrating a high-seas escape that exposes the administrative laxity and vulnerabilities of the colonial police state.

Alexander Maconochie and Comptroller-General Captain Forster represent opposing visions of penal governance. Maconochie advocates for an innovative "marks system" based on voluntary redemption, moral education, and gradual social re-entry, seeking to rehabilitate the criminal mind. In contrast, Forster oversees the practical execution of the rigid probation system, executing imperial directives despite harboring deep personal skepticism regarding the possibility of state-directed moral reform.

In Its Own Voice

Reflecting on the profound cultural barrier and irreconcilable friction between European colonizers and Indigenous societies, the author critically evaluates the failure of colonial reform efforts:

"The civilisation of a barbarous people is, perhaps, impossible, in the presence of organised communities of white men."

Describing the psychological numbness and quiet resignation exhibited by condemned convicts as they approached the gallows in Hobart Town, the author incorporates a sobering account from a colonial journal:

"They sung psalms, ate a hearty meal: they heard the summons of the sheriff; their arms were pinioned; the halter was put about their neck; the cap was brought over their eyes, and they dropped into eternity with more indifference than the ox goes to the slaughter."

Anticipating the long-term political trajectory of the Australian territory and its shifting imperial connection to Great Britain, the narrative delivers a sweeping historical forecast regarding self-governance:

"The future independence of the Australian colonies is written in the book of fate; but the inevitable change may be long postponed with advantage to themselves."

What It's Really About

At its core, this volume is an inquiry into the moral legitimacy and practical limits of imperial power. It examines how civilizing rhetoric frequently conceals systemic violence, economic greed, and social ruin. Through its detailed examination of Indigenous removal and penal transportation, the text argues that state policies built on coercion, arbitrary severity, and racial superiority are inherently self-defeating. The narrative questions whether an organized European society can colonize an inhabited land without inflicting destruction upon its native people, or maintain a massive convict population without corrupting the free community itself. Furthermore, it scrutinizes the philosophy of punishment, asking whether true rehabilitation can ever be achieved through institutional servitude and state monitoring. Ultimately, the work asserts that lasting social order cannot be imposed through military lines or penal codes, but requires genuine justice, moral responsibility, and an unwavering respect for human dignity across all levels of colonial administration.

Why Read It Today

Readers interested in colonial history, penal theory, and imperial politics will find this text an indispensable historical document. It offers an unsparing, contemporary perspective on nineteenth-century Australian settlement, stripped of romanticized mythology. The narrative provides a vivid, firsthand feel for the administrative complexities, moral anxieties, and daily perils of frontier life, capturing the voices of governors, free settlers, convicts, and displaced native leaders alike.

What lingers longest with the reader is the tragic inevitability with which administrative good intentions crumble into human catastrophe. The author's analytical precision exposes how well-meaning conciliation programs and institutional reform schemes repeatedly succumbed to racial prejudice, bureaucratic incompetence, and economic opportunism.

However, modern readers must navigate certain stylistic and historical hurdles. The prose reflects the formal, elevated style of nineteenth-century historical writing, featuring lengthy sentence structures, dense administrative details, and extensive footnotes. Furthermore, the text contains period terminology, patronizing colonial attitudes toward Indigenous cultures, and occasional fatalistic assumptions regarding native decline that reflect the intellectual biases of its era. Nevertheless, the author's remarkable commitment to independent judgment, combined with a willingness to denounce colonial atrocities and critique British imperial policy, makes the volume a strikingly honest, enduringly valuable piece of historical scholarship that continues to resonate today.