Van Diemen's Land Van Diemen's Land 'Up stream Upper Nile Bridge' by John Glover, 1840 (ALMFA, SLT) Tasmania's cultural history was pre-determined for more than a century by its colonial origins and, in particular, by the whole emotive package conjured up by its former name, Van Diemen's Land. In 1642, in the manner of the time, the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman had innocently bestowed this name to honour, and perhaps accrue favour from, a powerful figure in his world, Anthony van Diemen, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies. For English convicts, however, and indeed for free settlers, it resonated with more sinister suggestions. In a colony where transported felons often outnumbered free settlers, where law and order were fragile and relative concepts, and brutality the resort of prisoner and gaoler alike, 'demons' were in plentiful supply, augmented by a lurking fear of those shadows in the bush, the original inhabitants.

After a false start at Risdon in 1803, Hobart Town was established the following year by Lt-Governor David Collins as Governor King's proposed solution to two perceived problems ï¿½ French expansionism and English felons. Its dual purpose was to deter the French exploratory expeditions from laying claim to any part of New Holland and to act as a supplementary gaol for excess contingents of convicts shipped to New South Wales. The first of these roles was short-lived: the French departed the scene leaving the island characterised not only as a prison but as the place of most severe and soul-destroying punishment. A stanza from 'The Female Transport', an anonymous street ballad of the time, encapsulates the dread associated with the name that was soon to become synonymous with a convict hell. Every night when I lay down I wet my straw with tears, While wind upon that horrid shore did whistle in our ears, Those dreadful beasts upon that land around our cots do roar, Most dismal is our doom upon Van Diemen's shore. The immediate and acute problem confronting the free settlers and convicts alike was survival. By 1806 the colony was starving.

Few ships visited and for eighteen months everyone from Collins down was without bread, vegetables, tea, sugar and alcohol. In these circumstances the longer-term need to clear, till and plant an allocation of land was by-passed in favour of securing the one plentiful food source ï¿½ kangaroos. Even convicts were armed and sent out to hunt, initiating a lawlessness that could only be checked, too late, by the most draconian measures. Shooting kangaroos was simple: the consequences were complex and prolonged. Convicts soon realised that, armed, they could survive very well beyond the settlement and escaped prisoners formed bands of bushrangers, terrorising outlying farms and travellers. The unprecedented slaughter of the kangaroos also had a dramatic effect on the local Aborigines whose traditional hunting grounds had been summarily appropriated. The struggle for land rights had begun. The starvation problem was soon solved as, especially in the Midlands, cleared land proved highly productive. Under Lt-Governor Arthur the economy soared. Exports rose from £45,000 to £540,00 and by 1830 wheat and wool production along with land values were booming.

But the first decade of struggle for survival spawned consequences that plagued Van Diemen's Land for half a century and haunted it for a century more. Initially the colonists were sustained largely by necessity. Having poured their life savings into emigrating from Britain, few could have afforded to return. Yet once the starvation years were past these mostly working-class immigrants had many advantages over their counterparts in England and mainland Australia; ticket-of-leave men were better off here than in the highly-competitive, criminal underworld from which they had been transported; and the prospects for most convicts were far rosier than for felons aboard prison hulks on the Thames. In most areas there was adequate rainfall, the climate was more conducive to growing the crops they were used to and, overall, the land was not only fertile but in many areas already cleared by the fire-stick burning practices of the Aborigines. The temperature was also considered more invigorating than the heat and humidity that enervated settlers in the other Australian colonies. Van Diemen's Land was soon marketing itself as the 'Sanatorium of the South', famous for its flowers, fruit and healthy inhabitants.

In addition, assigned convicts provided many free settlers with a source of labour that in England was the prerogative only of the rich. For these 'free' farm hands, builders and servants they were required to supply only food and necessary clothing. Convict labour also constructed the elegant public buildings and private mansions, the graceful bridges and excellent roads that so impressed visitors as the outward sign of an established, civilised society. Survival may have been the immediate challenge but it was not the only one. To these settlers from the crowded towns of industrialised England, the real horror of the new land was the experience of successive absences. With so few people (Indigenous people and convicts did not qualify), the island itself seemed a terrifying immensity of meaningless space and loneliness 'at the furthest extremity of the world'.

Scottish playwright David Burn, whose fulsome descriptions of his overland trek to Macquarie Harbour witness to his eloquence, nevertheless complained, 'It is a difficult task to paint the scenery of a tenantless wilderness, where no landmarks, no spot of terror or renown, not even a shepherd's cot is to be found to give an impress to the features ï¿½ whereby succeeding tourists may call identical localities to immediate recognition'.1 Worse, there was no shared history, no cultural framework within which the country could be understood, no basis for interacting with it except in terms of hostility, exile and brute conquest. In emotional terms, the land was indeed 'without form, and void'. The process of relating to it imaginatively required an acceptable context and the creation of 'stories' to provide unique cultural resonances. Inevitably, at first, it was an ill-fitting, hand-me-down culture that was imposed on the land by means of comparisons, often more ingenious than obvious, with the established cultural norms of Britain and Europe.

Acculturation programs saw deciduous trees and fruits transplanted to this southernmost colony with such success that English novelist Anthony Trollope declared, 'Everything in Tasmania is more English than is England itself'.2 Artist-writer Louisa Meredith certainly agreed, applying the word 'English' liberally to the landscape, to trees, flower gardens, fruit, houses, rivers, lakes and rosy-faced children. For more spectacular scenery, Meredith had recourse to the Scottish Highlands, the Gulf of Genoa and the Swiss Alps for comparisons.3 Yet visual similarity was not enough to embed the new surroundings within a cultural matrix.

Irish political prisoner John Mitchel, exiled in the Midlands, was 'willing to believe that no lake on earth is more beauteous than [Lake] Sorell' and asked himself 'Why should not Lake Sorell also be famous?' Pondering on the intimate connection between the emotional appeal of Old World lakes and their celebration in poetry and story, he looked forward to the day when 'some sweet singer shall berhyme thee yet ï¿½ and the glancing of thy sun-lit, moon-beloved ripples shall flash through the dreams of poets yet unborn'.4 Later travellers, surveyors and artists constructed colonial scenes in terms of European aesthetic models ï¿½ the Romantic, the picturesque and the sublime. In opposition to the focus on similarity was a fascination with novelty, beginning with the island's unique flora and fauna then spreading gradually to landforms. In 1792 Admiral Bruni d'Entrecasteaux, moored in Recherche Bay, had been charmed by his first encounter with an old-growth forest and reflected on its implicit judgment on human interference.

'Nature, in all its vigour, and at the same time in decline, offers to the imagination something more imposing and picturesque than the sight of the same nature, embellished by civilised man's industry. In wishing to conserve only its beauty man has managed to ï¿½ ruin its exclusive character ï¿½ the one of being always old, and always new'.5 Forty years later the Austrian Baron von Hügel was similarly over-awed by the unique tree ferns and by the experience of forest wilderness: 'The ground itself is covered with an infinite variety of mosses, small ferns and liverworts, revealing a new world to the wanderer. Here in this primeval forest, in this realm of Creation ï¿½ there is an indescribable stillness and solitude. It is as if one were under a bell-jar, cut off from the outside world'.6 Van Diemen's Land was soon being ransacked for specimens to augment British collections at Kew and the Natural History Museum. Under the aegis of Sir John and Lady Franklin the struggling natural history societies were united as the Tasmanian Society, which they also supported financially.

The esteem with which the Tasmanian Society and its Journal were regarded paved the way for the next governor, Sir John Eardley-Wilmot, to initiate the Royal Society of Van Diemen's Land for Horticulture, Botany and the Advancement of Science, the first Royal Society for scientific studies outside Britain. Lady Franklin also instigated the colony's first botanical garden of endemic flora around the elegant building, inspired by a Greek Doric temple, that she had constructed to house Australia's first museum. The Franklins attracted explorers, geophysicists and artists and promoted education, and the intrepid Jane Franklin insisted on accompanying her explorer husband overland through dense scrub and across flooded rivers to Macquarie Harbour. But the Franklins fell foul of colonial society. Sir John's habit of consulting his highly intelligent lady and his wife's penchant for expressing her very definite views publicly were intolerable to the factional interests of Hobart Town. Steps were taken; they were recalled. Art also played an important role in creating a cultural context for appreciating the land, though more in retrospect than at the time.

The paintings of John Glover, arguably Australia's greatest colonial landscape artist, might have given his fellow settlers an identifiable pictorial documentation of aesthetic response to this antipodean land, but unfortunately Glover knew where his market was and nearly all his work was shipped off to England. Nevertheless art flourished during the Van Diemen's Land years, from the topographical recordings of the new colony by Harris, Lycett and Costantini to the interpretative landscapes of Skinner Prout, de Wesselow, Gritten and Knut Bull and the detailed natural history art of Louisa Meredith and Mary Morton Allport. A very different response to the land was recorded by those whose livelihood demanded a long-term involvement with the wildest parts of the island. Surveyors and track-cutters, prospectors, miners and Huon pine cutters spent exhausting months struggling to cut tracks through almost impenetrable bauera and horizontal scrub, attempting to reach the west of the island across parallel ranges separated by deep ravines with raging torrents in their beds.

Although the endurance and achievements of these men were at least comparable to those of the mainland inland explorers, they remained virtually unknown and failed to receive the triumphalist celebration of the folk heroes Leichhardt, Sturt, Burke and Wills. Nevertheless, they left much the same legacy: the implication that the land was the enemy that these gallant men had to overcome ï¿½ or die in the attempt. Virtually all the land now declared World Heritage was vilified as hostile, violent and treacherous. If the land in its natural state appeared evil, it was rendered infinitely more so by the convict presence. By 1822 convicts made up 58 percent of the population and confining and controlling them became a Herculean task. Grinding punishment and terror became the instruments of threat and retribution for repeat offenders and Lt-Governor Sorell hit upon what seemed the ideal place to enact them ï¿½ Macquarie Harbour. The winds and waves that batter the west coast of Tasmania have by-passed South Africa, gathering force since leaving South America.

A ship trying to enter the Harbour must wait for a suitable tide to lift it across the sand bar at the narrow entrance and align its course carefully to avoid the Scylla and Charybdis of the treacherous Macquarie Heads. Yet worse, by far, awaited the convicts at the Sarah Island penal station within the Harbour. During the years of its operation (1822ï¿½33) the appalling conditions and punishments of many of the convicts and the sensational accounts propagated about the actions and fate of escapees driven to cannibalism to survive were widely circulated for their own purposes by both supporters and opponents of transportation. Even when the Penal Settlement was moved to the opposite side of the island, this reputation of endemic evil remained, in the popular imagination, associated with the west coast. Historian and abolitionist John West castigated Macquarie Harbour in terms that resonated for decades: 'Sacred to the genius of torture, Nature concurred with the objects of its separation from the rest of the world to exhibit some notion of a perfect misery. There man lost the aspect and heart of a man'.

Ironically, it was when the major site of convict incarceration moved to Port Arthur that Van Diemen's Land acquired its unique cultural mythology, anchoring it firmly in both the social fabric and the natural world. Unlike Macquarie Harbour, Port Arthur appeared not threatening but benign and beautiful, and the notion of a collusion between Nature and the systemic evil was replaced by one of macabre anomaly, an aberration that continues to disturb visitors seeing the sloping green lawns with their avenue of English trees and Tasmania's only picturesque Gothic ruin, the burnt shell of the handsome stone church. Quaker missionary Frederick Mackie wrote in 1852, 'I could not help contrasting the beauty of the outward scene with the moral wilderness and mental chaos that we knew existed here',8 and novelist Caroline Leakey, who lived there a year, described it as 'indeed a lovely spot; but alas it is a penal settlement, "where every prospect pleases, and only man is vile!"'9 Yet Lt-Governor Arthur, who devised this monument to his administration, had chosen wisely.

Geographically the whole of the Tasman Peninsula is a natural prison surrounded by a shark-frequented moat, with the Forestier isthmus and the narrow Eaglehawk Neck providing a double set of 'locks' on the door, patrolled by a few soldiers and the notorious line of dogs. Of the 12,700 convicts incarcerated there over its fifty years of active life, few escaped and most who did starved in the surrounding bush. Port Arthur acquired an international reputation as a place of ultimate cruelty and oppression, though it had been intended as a model penitentiary rather than a place of punishment; Arthur's aim was reform and by modern standards recidivism was low (25 percent). The adjacent Port Puer was established specifically to remove young offenders from the influence of hardened felons and to rehabilitate the boys by teaching them trades with which to earn an honest living on their release. It was only the second juvenile prison in the world and a landmark in prison reform. But facts counted for little against the power of the pen. Marcus Clarke's great novel His Natural Life (1870ï¿½72), with its graphic descriptions and emblematic characters, became 'history' for readers then and now.

In a country where no wars have been fought on home soil except the undeclared war against the Indigenous people, Port Arthur provides the horror story we like to tell ourselves to claim a place in the tragic pantheon of world history. Its legacy produced a malaise that lingered long after the prison was closed in 1877. A name change to Carnarvon, having failed to lessen its notoriety, was revoked in the interests of attracting tourists to enjoy Gothic stories and ghost tours of the cells, for if there was one thing worse than the convict 'stain' it was poverty. From 1840 Van Diemen's Land had begun to sink into an economic depression that became more acute after 1850 when the gold rush in Victoria lured able-bodied men away from the island to make their fortune. Few returned. The 'convict stain' dyed deeper in Tasmania than in any other state because it was so widespread. By 1836, 75 percent of the population were convicts, former convicts or of convict ancestry. The subsequent fall in numbers of free immigrants meant that this ratio was slow to change.

Whatever the plight of the convicts it pales into insignificance compared with the treatment of the Indigenous Tasmanians or Palawa. The very word 'settler' falsely implies the notion of peaceful establishment and stability. Relations with the Aborigines were neither. Despite humane injunctions from Whitehall, duly transmitted by vice-regal proclamation, that the native people were to be treated with respect, they were regarded by the invaders, not as the legal owners of the land but as inconvenient relics of a primitive stage of Man. Tolerated as long as they did not hinder the spread of settlement they were, where possible, exploited. Originally hospitable, the desperate Palawa were soon driven to reprisals for the loss of their traditional hunting lands. They speared the sheep that now replaced kangaroos and thereby incited brutal retaliation by settlers and their convict shepherds, armed for the purpose. These violent measures and Arthur's 'Black Line' were followed by George Robinson's Conciliation process and exile to Flinders Island until there was only a pathetic group of 47 Palawa to be repatriated to the Tasmanian mainland in 1847.

Belatedly, guilt moved the white population and the elderly and significantly childless Trucanini was declared the last of her race and feted as Queen of the Aborigines. For a century Tasmanians continued to believe that the Indigenous people were extinct, until their convenient regret was shattered by claims to Aboriginality by descendants of the women whom sealers had abducted to off-shore islands. The once-demonised original inhabitants have now been re-mythologised by writers and their presence indelibly reinscribed on their land, casting yet another shadow over the past. Although the name Tasmania was used from the 1820s, it was not until November 1855 that the colony was officially renamed, in the hope that this would exorcise the ghosts of convictism. It failed to do so. The imagery associated with Van Diemen's Land was too deeply rooted in the history and the literary culture of the island. It lingered on as a malaise, as a sense of inferiority to 'the mainland', and few writers have been able to resist the quick and easy path to tragedy by revisiting the plight of convicts or Aborigines, if not both.

The miasma associated with Van Diemen's Land was finally dissipated only 120 years after the name change by the fresh air of a new cause with a new name ï¿½ Wilderness. Ros Haynes Footnotes: 1. David Burn, Narrative of the overland journey of Sir John and Lady Franklin and party from Hobart Town to Macquarie Harbour, 1842, ed George Mackaness, Sydney: Historical Monographs, 1955, p 38. 2. Anthony Trollope, Australia and New Zealand, 2 vols, London: Chapman and Hall, 1873, vol II, p 169. 3. Louisa Meredith, Our island home: a Tasmanian sketchbook, Hobart Town: J. Walch & Sons, 1879, pp 22, 39, 9. 4.

John Mitchel, The gardens of Hell: John Mitchel in Van Diemen's Land 1850ï¿½1853, ed Peter O'Shaughnessy, Kenthurst, NSW: Kangaroo Press, 1988, pp 71ï¿½2. 5. Bruny d'Entrecasteaux, Voyage to Australia and the Pacific 1791ï¿½1793, edited and translated by Edward Duyker and Maryse Duyker, Melbourne: Miegunyah Press, 2001, p 32. 6. Baron Charles von Hügel, New Holland journal, November 1833ï¿½October 1834, translated and edited by Dymphna Clark, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press in association with the State Library of New South Wales, 1994, pp 109ï¿½110. 7. John West, The history of Tasmania, vol 1, Launceston: Henry Dowling, 1852, pp 181ï¿½2. 8.

Frederick Mackie, Traveller under concern, Hobart: Reports on the Historical Manuscripts of Tasmania No 8, University of Tasmania, 1973, p 41. 9. Caroline Leakey, letter to her sister, 1841, quoted in Emily Leakey, Clear shining light : a memoir of Caroline Woolmer, London: J.F. Shaw, 1882, p 41. Copyright 2006, Centre for Tasmanian Historical Studies Tasmania, the Name Table of Contents Tasmania, the Name In 1642 Abel Janszoon Tasman named his 'first sighted land' after his Dutch superior Anthony Van Diemen. While Tasman missed meeting any Aborigines, they knew their land as 'Trowunna', 'Trowenna' or 'Loetrouwitter'. Despite the official name of Van Diemen's Land, usage of the alternative 'Tasmania' gradually grew. In 1803ï¿½04 naturalist Robert Brown, visiting the island, named a plant Tasmannia lanceolata.

London-based mapmakers Laurie and Whittle's An Elegant Imperial Sheet Atlas (1808) included a map with both names, Van Diemen's Land and Tasmania, the first appearance of 'Tasmania' discovered in print. Usage proliferated in the 1820s. In 1823 Godwin's Emigrant's Guide to Van Diemen's Land, more properly called Tasmania was published in London, and before leaving England that year, Peter Degraves , later of Cascade Brewery fame, minted sixpenny, shilling and half-crown tokens that carried the name 'Tasmania', a kangaroo and '1823' on the obverse, and his sawmill's name on the reverse. Several local vessels, clubs, newspapers and literary and scientific journals adopted the name, for example, the Tasmanian Turf Club in 1826. Thomas Kent, a 'mischievous' colonial entrepreneur, in 1824 claimed coinage of 'Tasmania', but this was clearly inaccurate.

The Bishopric of Tasmania was proclaimed in 1842, and anti-transportationists welcomed the name Tasmania to help counter the 'evil reputation' attached to convict Van Diemen's Land. In 1854, a year after the cessation of transportation, William Sharland MLC sponsored the renaming through a parliamentary petition to Queen Victoria, who signed her agreement in 1855. The new name was gazetted locally in November, with a Designation of the Colony Act in December. Arriving with self-government, the new name became effective on 1 January 1856, and the next day 'Tasmania' celebrated its renaming at a Grand Tasmanian Regatta. Further reading: T Newman, Becoming Tasmania, forthcoming publication. IRISH EXILES TO VAN DIEMEN’S LAND IRISH EXILES TO VAN DIEMEN’S LAND by Purchase Mr Watson’s book THOMAS FRANCIS MEAGHER Irish Exile to Van Diemen’s Land. (see details below) THE ARRIVAL On the 7th April 1850 the convict ship Neptune glided up the River Derwent heading for the port of Hobart Town, Van Diemen’s Land (VDL).

On board was an Irish exile, John Mitchel, classed as a “political prisoner”. This was the third vessel to bring such exiles to the penal island. With Mitchel’s arrival, the total number was now seven. Nine months earlier, on the 20th July 1849 four exiles had arrived, William Smith O’Brien, Thomas Francis Meagher, Terrence Bellew McManus and Patrick O’Donohoe. Four days later the vessel Emma did like wise, bringing with it, Kevin O’Doherty and John Martin. The colony of Van Diemen’s Land was still very much a penal one, even though there was a strong Anti-Transportation League operating. Since its settlement by the British in 1803 by Lt. John Bowen, Royal Navy, Van Diemen’s Land up to this stage had received nearly 65,000 convicts*. An autocratic, but able administrator, William Denison, governed the colony. Denison opposed cessation of convict transportation on the grounds that it would produce a substantial labour shortage; besides the colony had lost many men seeking their fortunes on the Victorian goldfields.

Denison did not sympathise with any Irish Movement nor did he welcome their coming The seven Irish exiles were not convicts. They were political prisoners and it would have to be said that in comparison to the common convict they travelled in style. Indeed, as O’Donohoe, who kept a diary during the voyage, wrote, “The voyage passed most cheerfully.” Each prisoner had been given a cabin and was not obliged to wear convict garb. To pass the time they played backgammon and read from the classics. Over all, their meals were good and they were allowed two glasses of sherry every day. O’Donohoe reported that they “got through a variety of other agreeable pursuits.” John Mitchel travelled not so grand. By his arrival to the colony he was unwell. The Neptune had come from Bermuda, then to Cape Town, but that colony refused to allow the prisoners to land or to supply food to the ship. To compensate this unfair treatment, Lord Grey gave each convict upon landing in VDL a pardon, all except “prisoner Mitchel”. John Mitchel.

After arrival, each exile was to be separated and be allocated to a portion of territory, on the proviso that they would give their word of honour not to escape. O’Doherty was sent to the township of Oatlands. Both John Martin and John Mitchel would be sent to the Bothwell area, Thomas Meagher initially to Campbell Town and later to Ross. O’Donohoe was permitted to live in Hobart Town where he commenced a paper called The Irish Exile. Initially, MacManus refused to give his word, but soon relented and went firstly to Launceston and later to near New Norfolk. Smith O'Brien also refused and held out. As a result he was sent to the penal island of Maria. After harsh treatment, he eventually too relented and moved around the colony quite a bit, after spending a brief spell at Port Arthur. John Martin NATURE OF THEIR CRIME. The Ireland of the 1840s was a wretched hole. The potato crop had failed and famine stalked the land. Many common folk, unable to pay their rent, were brutally forced off their plot. It was ripe for revolution.

To lead the fight against oppression and for Catholic rights rose Daniel O’Connell, a young barrister, who was inspired by the French Revolution. Even so, violence was not his way and he agitated for the Cause through peaceful means and through parliamentary legislation. The Cause had attracted many of the more active and impatient young men, which included the seven exiles to VDL. They accused O’Connell of being too slow in forcing change and even stated that he was playing into British hands. Their method was to be violent and major clashes with the police became the norm. In 1847, suffering from bad health because of his activities, O’Donnell died and the leadership of the revolution was passed on to the likes of Mitchel, Smith O’ Brien and Meagher. The year 1848 was the time of socialist revolution throughout much of Europe. In Ireland it was quickly and ruthlessly crushed without much opposition. The general population had other things on their mind to be able to offer support and that was to survive. The rising was a complete failure.

The novelist, William Makepeace Thackeray sarcastically referred to Meagher as “Meagher of the swoord” and Smith O’Brien as “Shmith O’Brine’. It should be said that while the freedom of Ireland and Catholic emancipation was at stake, three of the exiles to VDL were Protestant, they being Mitchel, Martin and O’Brien. The British authorities struck. Mitchel was arrested for treason and was sentenced to transportation for fourteen years. Bolstered by its success, the government then issued warrants for the leaders, arresting first Smith O'Brien and then in swift succession, the others. The offence was High Treason. They knew what their fate was to be and consoled each other. By Irish law they had to be tried before a jury, but it was an easy affair to have the jury stacked to the government’s favour. A brilliant address given by Thomas Meagher who said among other things, “I am here to speak the truth, whatever it may cost. I am here to regret nothing that I have ever done – to retract nothing that I have ever said. Far from it. No! I do not despair of my poor old country, her peace, her liberty, her glory.

For that country I can now do no more than bid her hope.” In short they were sentence to death, but this was later changed to being exiled for life. In the meantime they were incarcerated in Richmond Gaol, Dublin. The place of exile was to be that far off penal colony of Van Diemen’s Land, the reputation of which was notorious. THEIR ACTIVITIES AFTER ARRIVAL. Meagher spent only a little time in Campbell Town. Arriving tired, he was not impressed with the village, which consisted mainly of one street. His arrival was very much noticed and for one who liked his privacy he found the attention disturbing. He asked permission to live in the small village of Ross, just five miles south. There he moved into a little cottage in which lived a strict Methodist couple, Mr and Mrs Anderson. The arrival of a Catholic perturbed them greatly. For the time being, comrade Smith O’Brien, because he refused to give his world of honour not to escape, was shut up in a small cottage on Maria Island.

He wrote: “No person, not even a child, is allowed to approach me, except the officer who brings me my meal.” Kevin O’Doherty went to Oatlands, a village south of Ross. There he was held in such esteem by the locals that they dubbed him “Saint Kevin”. O’Donohoe started his paper in Hobart Town, something that even John Mitchel marvelled at, questioning why the authorities allowed him to conduct a paper. O’Donohoe asked Mitchel to join him in the enterprise, but he refused. Kevin O’Doherty Mitchel was a paradox; there was no doubt that he felt himself superior to the others, including O’Donohoe.

After his eleven months cruising to VDL he was sent to Bothwell, where as Mitchel states in his Jail Journal, “John Martin vegetates.” He writes further in his Journal, “…(Bothwell) contains sixty or seventy houses; has a church where clergymen of the Church of England and of Scotland perform service, one in the morning and the other in the evening of Sunday; has four large public-houses or hotels, establishments which are much better supported on the voluntary system and have much larger congregations, than the church; has a post-office and several carpenters and blacksmiths, shops for the accommodation of the settlers who live in the district, and a police-office and police barrack with the police magistrate of the district predominating there.” MacManus first went to Launceston, then to live in a pleasant house, which still stands, on the banks of the beautiful River Derwent. Despite being not allowed to meet up with each other, local authorities turned a blind eye to the practice and the exiles often met at places, such as Lake Sorell. On one occasion MacManus and Mitchel met in a “wayside inn” where the latter was informed of the treatment of O’Brien.

Terence MacManus Soon there developed an organised support group, led by the dynamic clergyman of strong pro-Irish persuasions, Father William Dunne of Richmond. Another major player was Dr James MacNamara of Campbell Town. ESCAPES. While life could have been tranquil for the exiles, they were men of action and the thought of neglecting the Cause and enduring the endless boredom proved too much. In the meantime, the New York Directory took an interest and an agent, Pat Symth, was despatched to look at the possibility of organising escapes. Smith O’Brien, however, had already tried, but sadly for him, unsuccessfully. Unable to endure any more suffering and with the help of Dr McNamara, the plan was that when he took his daily walk to the foreshore, he would eventually see a waiting ship, the Victoria, which would take him on board and to freedom. Father Dunne was to be the go-between, i.e. the captain of the vessel and O’Brien. William Smith O’Brien William visited the chosen spot often, but was disappointed. Little beknown to him his plot had been told to the authorities. Eventually, O’Brien did see the waiting vessel and a longboat coming towards him.

Instantly he plunged himself into the waters, only to have a guard cock his musket, fire it and order him to stop. Those aboard the small vessel, to O’Brien’s surprise, gave him up to the guard. For punishment, the few privileges he had were curtailed. It was believed that the ship’s captain, Ellis, informed the government of the attempt. O’Brien was later moved to Port Arthur and broken in body and spirit he complied with the government’s wishes. As a result he was allotted to the Derwent Valley region. In February 1851, it was MacManus’s time to escape. Beforehand, fellow exile Thomas Meagher, had met a beautiful Tasmanian girl, Catherine Bennett at Ross and he decided to marry her. The first Catholic Bishop of Hobart, Dr Willson, officiated at the ceremony. During the service a strange uninvited guest appeared. It was not long before Bishop Willson became aware of his identity; it was MacManus in disguise. Although he was escaping, he took the time to be at his friend’s wedding. Preparing to go, he was approached by the Bishop. “You are to leave us my friend?” he said to MacManus.

Everyone held his or her breath. Was the Bishop planning to reveal his identity? “One moment,” he said, “One moment. You must not go until I give you my blessing.” MacManus did eventually go and finally made it to the USA Thomas Francis Meagher was next. With the help of local sympathisers he left his cottage home and took to the bush moving his way up to the West Tamar area. His wife, Catherine, was left behind with plans for her to join him after he arrived in America. As a free citizen she could readily do this. Catherine, however, was to have Thomas’s child, when he left. From the Tamar River he was taken to Waterhouse Island, a barren small place off the shore of the eastern coast of Tasmania in Bass Strait. There he endured miserable conditions, hoping every day, like O’Brien did before him, that a ship would appear to take him to freedom. Happily for Meagher, it did and this time there were no setbacks. Leaving his penal island behind, his wife and son-to-be, he found freedom, also in the USA. Tragically, his son three months from his birth died of influenza.

He was buried in the ground of St Johns Catholic Church, Richmond. In the 1950s his remains were moved to near the entrance of the church where all visitors and parishers can see the small grave. Thomas Francis Meagher John Mitchel was critical of Meagher in that he did not inform the authorities that he was to break his word of honour and escape. Mitchel in planning his attempt promised that he would, as a matter of honour, inform his attention to the government. With the help of Pat Smyth, it was planned for Mitchel to surrender his parole with the magistrate at Bothwell and then speedily move to Hobart Town where a vessel would be waiting for him to take him to, again, the USA. On the morning of June 9, 1853 Mitchel and Symth entered Bothwell, but only after receiving the bad news that the waiting vessel had sailed. Mitchel, not willing to stay in VDL any longer, continued with the plan, depending later on his supporters to arrange another vessel. Entering the courthouse, he passed to the startled magistrate the following note: “Sir. I hereby resign the ‘ticket-of-leave’ and withdraw my parole.

I shall forthwith present myself before the police magistrate of Bothwell at his office, show him a copy of this note and offer myself to be taken into custody. – Your obedient servant, John Mitchel.” Without waiting for an answer from the stunned man, Mitchel mounted his horse and rode swiftly out of the town, much to the delight of villagers. Despite hardships and set backs and a jolly good adventure, Mitchel did escape to the USA, accompanied by his family. Following Meagher, O’Donhoe escaped from VDL also to America. EXILES’ POST LIFE John Mitchel went on to be a firm supporter of the southern States during the American Civil War. He lost two sons to its Cause. He died as a contented grandfather. Colleague Meagher also served in the Civil War, as a Brigadier General for the North. His Tasmanian wife died and he remarried. His death in 1867, acting as Governor of Montana, is still shrouded in mystery. Officially he drowned while falling from a riverboat into the Missouri River. Statue of Meagher at Helena, Montana. USA William Smith O’Brien received an unconditional pardon in 1856.

He returned to Ireland and took no further part in public affairs. Kevin O’Doherty also received an unconditional pardon in 1856 and ended up as Minister for Health in the Queensland Government. He did at one time return to Ireland where he was given the keys to Dublin. He is buried in Brisbane. Patrick O’Donhoe, as noted, escaped to America. He was different to the others, in that he was poor and their superior attitude towards him showed. Even after his death amongst humble surroundings, his landlady Mrs. Henry called his once-colleagues a “money making pack” as they had forgotten him even at that time. Patrick O’Donohue Terrence MacManus died in hospital in San Francisco, aged but 37 years. His body was taken to Ireland and is buried in a Dublin cemetery. Sturdy John Martin, companion of John Mitchel, also received an unconditional pardon in 1856. He actually married John Mitchel’s sister. Each exile has his own story to tell. *By the end of transportation in 1853, the colony received near 70,000 prisoners.

Van Diemen's Land (2009) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error The true story of Alexander Pearce, Australia's most notorious convict. In 1822, Pearce and seven fellow convicts escaped from Macquarie Harbour, a place of ultra banishment and punishment,... See full summary » Director: a list of 45 titles created 05 Dec 2010 a list of 44 titles created 05 Mar 2011 a list of 49 titles created 29 Mar 2012 a list of 41 titles created 10 Oct 2013 a list of 22 titles created 13 Dec 2013 Title: Van Diemen's Land (2009) 6/10 Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. 2 wins & 1 nomination.

See more awards » Photos The true story of Alexander Pearce, Australia's most notorious convict. In 1822, he and seven fellow convicts escaped from Macquarie Harbour, a place of ultra banishment and punishment, ... See full summary » Director: Jonathan auf der Heide Stars: Arthur Angel, Paul Ashcroft, John Francis Howard Two dudes talking shit in a taco truck. Directors: Jonathan auf der Heide, Gregory Erdstein Stars: Arthur Angel, Charles Grounds, Linc Hasler Cop Hard (TV Series 2011) Comedy 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.7/10 X Hard cop, tough cop, Larry Hard is more cop than a stale donut next to a Jane Doe. A symbol of hope in these dark times of democracy, Larry is on the hustle of the mean streets in search of the infamous 'Bearded Clown'. Stars: Mark Leonard Winter, Steve Mouzakis, Isaac Drandic Brett Sprague is a violent and psychopathic man, who is released on parole after serving a sentence for assault. As he returns to his family house and we watch him and his brothers, Stevie ...

See full summary » Director: Rowan Woods Eight men escape from the most isolated prison on earth. Only one man survives and the story he recounts shocks the British establishment to the core. This story is the last confession of Alexander Pearce. Director: Michael James Rowland Edit Storyline The true story of Alexander Pearce, Australia's most notorious convict. In 1822, Pearce and seven fellow convicts escaped from Macquarie Harbour, a place of ultra banishment and punishment, only to find a world less forgiving.. the Australian wilderness. Abandon all hope you who enter. Written by Anonymous Hunger is a strange silence. Genres: 24 September 2009 (Australia) See more » Also Known As: Van Diemen's Land - "Hungry for more" 24 March 2010 | by Fruit-Flix (Australia) – See all my reviews This feels like a 'Tourism Tasmania' commercial with a touch of cannibalism, truly a great combination. The movie is based on the true account of Alexander Pearce, Australia's most notorious convict, and the events that took place in 1822, as Pearce and a group of convicts escape into the Tasmanian wilderness.

The group is then left at the mercy of nature, themselves, and notably the human desire to eat. This is truly a beautiful movie, the cinematography of sweeping landscapes and rugged bushland is worth watching the rental/ticket price alone. It strikes me as the type of DVD they play in appliance stores to show off the new HD-TVs (although they would have to skip the numerous bludgeoning scenes). The story itself is a simple and tight narrative of the human condition pushed to its limits. While there is some grizzly violence and confronting concepts, the movie never descends into gratuitous visuals based purely on shock value. While the story is compelling and rolls along nicely, I found myself just wanting a little more depth to all of the supporting characters. This is also one of the main strengths of this film, it makes you want more; I was always wondering what was going to happen next, what's that guy going to do, where are they going, what's around that corner, what does that taste like etc Ultimately this factor leaves the viewer a tad unsatisfied yet appreciative of the movie as a whole.

On the Fruit-Meter, Van Demons Lands gets the "KIWI-FRUIT" - A bit grizzled and rough on the outside, but once you peel off the skin it's fresh and tasty, but it was a small fruit and I want some more. MART-FLIX PUN-FUN  It's compelling to watch convicts battle their inner "demons" ..that sucked 11 of 18 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes Abel Janszoon Tasman "Anthony Van Diemens Landt (Tasmania). From Tasman's Abel Janszoon Tasman's Journal . . . (Amsterdam, 1898). [Rare Books Division] Book: Tasman, Abel Janszoon. Abel Janszoon Tasman’s Journal of His Discovery of Van Diemens Land and New Zealand in 1642, with Documents Relating to His Exploration of Australia in 1644. . . . Amsterdam, 1898. Facsimiles of the original manuscript, with an English translation by J. de Hoop Scheffer and C.

Stoffel and five oversize maps in rear pocket. First full published account of Tasman’s first expedition. [Rare Books Division] Discovery of Tasmania [November 24, 1642] In the afternoon, about 4 o’clock, we saw land, bearing east by north of us, at about 10 miles’ distance from us by estimation; the land we sighted was very high: towards evening we also saw, east-south-east of us, three high mountains, and to the north-east two more mountains, but less high than those to the southward; we found here that our compass pointed due north. . . . [English translation section, p. 11] This land being the first land we have met with in the South Sea, and not known to any European nation, we have conferred on it the name of Anthoony van Diemenslandt, in honour of the Hon. Governor-General, our illustrious master, who sent us to make this discovery. . . . [p.

12] [December 3, 1642] When we had come close inshore in a small inlet which bore west-south-west of the ships, the surf ran so high that we could not get near the shore without running the risk of having our pinnace dashed to pieces. We then ordered the carpenter aforesaid to swim to the shore alone, with the pole and the flag, and kept by the wind with our pinnace; we made him plant the said pole with the flag at top into the earth, about the centre of the bay near four trees easily recognizable and standing in the form of a crescent. . . . [T]he carpenter aforesaid thereupon swam back to the pinnace through the surf. This work having been duly executed, we pulled back to the ships, leaving the above mentioned as a memorial for those who shall come after us, and for the natives of this country, who did not show themselves, though we suspect some of them were at no great distance and closely watching our proceedings. [p. 16] “Moordenaers Bay” (Murderers Bay, New Zealand). From Tasman's Abel Janszoon Tasman's Journal . .

. (Amsterdam, 1898). [Rare Books Division] (A) Our ships. (B) The prows w hich came alongside of us. (C) The cock-boat of the Zeehaen, which came paddling towards our ship, and was overpowered by the natives, who afterwards left it again owing to our firing; when we saw that they had left the cock-boat, our skipper fetched it back with our pinnace. (D) A view of the native prow with the appearance of the people. (E) Our ships putting off to sea. (F) [Refers to the next page drawing] [p. 21] Continuing eastward, Tasman’s ships soon came upon another uncharted land, today’s northwestern part of New Zealand’s South Island, on December 13. In the first European encounter with native New Zealanders (Maori Indians), four of Tasman’s men were killed. He named the place Murderers’ Bay (today’s Golden Bay).

Not realizing that a strait (Cook Strait) separated the South and North Islands, they moved northward along the coast and named the new land Staten Landt (Statesland), thinking it was the west coast of the island that fellow countrymen Jacques Le Maire and Willem Corneliszoon Schouten had discovered off the southern tip of South America in 1616. (For more on this, see Le Maire/Schouten in the Explorers section.) Tasman thought this was the western side of the great Southern Continent. From there, sailing northwestward, the expedition located the Fiji Islands but could not land because of wind conditions and a hazardous reef. On his return to Batavia, Tasman’s arc took him past Ontong Java, New Britain and New Ireland (which he mistook as one island), and the northern coast of New Guinea. He arrived back safely on June 15, 1643, having covered more than five thousand miles in mostly uncharted waters. Not realizing it, he had completed a circumnavigation of New Holland (Australia) and proven that it was not the Southern Continent. Discovery of New Zealand "Staete Landt Dit is Beseijlt ende" (New Zealand).

From Tasman's Abel Janszoon Tasman's Journal . . . (Amsterdam, 1898). [Rare Books Division] [December 13, 1642] Latitude observed 42°10′, Longitude 188°28′; course kept east by north, sailed 36 miles in a south-south-westerly wind with a top-gallant gale. Towards noon we saw a large, high-lying land, bearing south-east of us at about 15 miles’ distance. . . . [p. 17] François Valentijn, 1666-1727. “Staeten Landt bezylt en ontdekt . . . (&) Aldus vertoont zich het Drie Koningen Eyland . . . .” Copperplate map (10 x 16.4 cm.) and view (14.7 x 17.2 cm.) on one sheet. From volume 3 of Valentijn’s Oud en nieuw Oost-Indien (Amsterdam, 1726). [Historic Maps Collection].

First printed view of Tasman’s New Zealand coastline and first printed European portrayal of Maori Indians. Formerly employed by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) as Minister to the East Indies, Valentijn probably had access to the cherished, and jealously guarded, VOC archives. The map shows Tasman’s ships approaching what he would called Murderers Bay, situated near Cook’s Strait. Not able to explore the area closely, Tasman assumed a continuous coastline. In the bottom view, Heemskerck and Zeehaen are shown off the Three Kings Islands, located northwest of the most northwestern point of New Zealand’s North Island, where the South Pacific and Tasman Sea converge. Giant Maoris appear on the hilltops. Arriving there on January 6 (1643), the Twelfth Night of the Epiphany, Tasman named them for the biblical three kings or wise men. Heavy surf and reefs prevented him from landing. As interesting as Tasman’s discoveries were, Van Diemen desired more commercial results and thus sent him back out on another expedition to discover a better, more efficient transit to the Pacific Ocean and gold-rich Chile from Batavia across the north of New Holland.

Though there were some reservations about Tasman-the-explorer, who had failed to fully establish the nature of the lands and peoples he had previously encountered, the VOC gave him command of three ships, Limmen, Zeemeeuw, and Bracq (a smaller, more maneuverable boat for investigating inlets), which embarked on February 29, 1644, from Banda in the Moluccas. (Though Tasman was told to keep a full journal and issue a detailed report on his return, neither has survived.) Reconstructing the voyage, secondary sources (charts and references) show that Tasman, once again accompanied by Frans Jacobszoon Visscher of the noted Dutch mapmaking family, took a clockwise route along the southern coast of New Guinea, missed the Torres Strait, explored the Gulf of Carpentaria, reached northern Australia, and charted westward along its coast all the way to North West Cape, before returning to Batavia in August. He had made the first continuous exploration of the north and northwest coasts of Australia but had not ventured inland. In his brief summary of the voyage, Van Diemen reported that Tasman had found nothing profitable, only naked beach-runners without rice.

Tasman’s results were more than a little disappointing, he said: that the vast land of New Holland offered nothing of value was simply unacceptable. But investigating lands was not everyone’s forte, and, until they had the right men and means, nothing more could be done. The VOC decided that trade in the East Indies would be their gold and silver. Tasman, himself, would acquire great wealth as a trader. His two voyages marked the end of major Dutch exploration of the Pacific for the rest of the seventeenth century. Slowly, but steadily, Tasman’s achievements were appropriately acknowledged on maps. For more than a hundred years, until the period of Englishman James Cook’s first voyage (1768–1771), neither Tasmania nor New Zealand was visited further by European explorers. Bowen, Emanuel, d. 1767. “A Complete Map of the Southern Continent: Survey’d by Capt. Abel Tasman & Depicted by Order of the East India Company in Halland [sic] in the Stadt House at Amsterdam.” Copperplate map, 37 × 48 cm. From John Harris’s Navigantium atque itinerantium bibliotheca . . .

(London, 1744). Purchased with funds provided by the Friends of the Princeton University Library. Reference: Perry and Prescott, Guide to Maps of Australia 1744.01. [Historic Maps Collection] First printed English map of Australia. Keeping the Dutch names, Bowen is quick to point out to the reader (in the top note) that only discovered territory is shown—hence all the blank spaces. Still, he claims that it “is impossible to conceive a Country that promises fairer from its Scituation, than this of Terra Australis; no longer incognita, as this Map demonstrates . . .” (bottom note). Below the Tropic of Capricorn, Tasman’s great discoveries of 1642 are sketched: Van Diemens Land and Nova Zeelandia; above it, his coastal exploration of northern Nova Hollandia, during which he missed finding the Torres Strait. In 1606, Spanish navigator Luis Vaez de Torres (fl.

1606) had stumbled on the strait now bearing his name on his way to Manila in the Philippines, but his report was kept secret by Spanish authorities—an example of the proprietary nature of European discovery during the Age of Exploration. Tasmania History | About Australia Facts Tasmania History Twelve thousand years ago sea level was rising as the most recent period of global glaciation eased. The land mass now known as Tasmania was cut off and the Aboriginal people living here were isolated. They shared many traits with Australian mainland Aboriginal people but also developed physically and culturally into a distinctive population. The Tasmanians were hunters and gatherers. They made tools and containers from wood, bone, stone, seaweed, bark, grass and sinew. They managed their environment carefully, moving around their country to harvest seasonal food resources and using fire to maintain grasslands which supported an abundance of wallabies and kangaroos. Coastal people relied on the sea for much of their diet. Scale fish were eaten in the distant past but apparently not since about 3,500 years ago, however the women collected abalone, oysters, mussels and other shellfish. The remains of these make up enormous middens all around Tasmania’s coastline.

The Tasmanians made bark canoes to travel to offshore islands to harvest muttonbirds and seals during summer and autumn. The people camped in family groups several of which formed a band, the land-holding group in Tasmanian society. Several bands spoke the same language and there were nine language groups / tribes in Tasmania at the time of European contact. Bands with reciprocal arrangements intermarried and shared resources. By the time of European contact, the Aboriginal people in Tasmania had nine major ethnic groups. At the time of British settlement in 1803, the indigenous population was estimated at between 5,000 and 10,000 people. Through the introduction of infectious diseases to which they had no immunity, war, persecution, and intermarriage, the population dwindled to 300 by 1833. Almost all of the indigenous population was relocated to Flinders Island by George Augustus Robinson. A woman named Truganini (1812–76) is generally recognised as the last full-blooded Tasmanian Aborigine.

Question: Which island was previously named Van Dieman’s Land?
Answer: Tasmania