Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 First Meetings, Extraordinary Encounters
- 2 Van Diemen's Land: Settling in the enviable island
- 3 The Black War: The tragic fate of the Tasmanian Aborigines
- 4 An Indelible Stain?
- 5 The Triumph of Colonisation
- 6 The Politics of Van Diemen's Land
- 7 The Convict System
- 8 Post-penal Depression, 1856–70
- 9 Reform and Recovery
- 10 Federation and War
- 11 Between the Wars
- 12 Postwar Tasmania
- 13 Towards the Bicentenary
- Notes
- Sources
- Index
2 - Van Diemen's Land: Settling in the enviable island
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 April 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 First Meetings, Extraordinary Encounters
- 2 Van Diemen's Land: Settling in the enviable island
- 3 The Black War: The tragic fate of the Tasmanian Aborigines
- 4 An Indelible Stain?
- 5 The Triumph of Colonisation
- 6 The Politics of Van Diemen's Land
- 7 The Convict System
- 8 Post-penal Depression, 1856–70
- 9 Reform and Recovery
- 10 Federation and War
- 11 Between the Wars
- 12 Postwar Tasmania
- 13 Towards the Bicentenary
- Notes
- Sources
- Index
Summary
The often turbulent water of Bass Strait has played as important a role in the history of Tasmania as any part of the island itself. The final proof that Tasmania was an island came with the circumnavigating voyage of Bass and Flinders, which concluded in January 1799. The advantage of the new passage for ships travelling from Britain and India was immediately apparent. It shortened the voyage by at least a week and avoided the notoriously stormy passage around the south of Tasmania. But problems of a different kind immediately presented themselves. The British assertion of sovereignty over the whole eastern half of the continent by both Cook in 1770 and Phillip in 1788 was, in international law, highly dubious, even after the establishment of the settlement at Sydney. The realisation that Tasmania was an island created even greater uncertainty. A problem, which might have been ignored in other circumstances, assumed an urgency due to the presence in Australian waters during 1802 of the French expedition of Baudin and Peron. Suspicion of French intentions and awareness of Britain's tenuous claims to Tasmania led, as we have seen, to expeditions launching from both London and Sydney to secure the island and guard the sea route through Bass Strait.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- A History of Tasmania , pp. 24 - 46Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011