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Tasmania was first settled in 1804. Up to the 1820s there was sporadic bloodshed but no organised policy of “getting rid of the Aboriginals”. In that decade there was a greatly increased rate of land grants, especially in the Midlands, to settlers. In 1828 the first definite anti-Aboriginal policy was enacted by Governor Arthur whereby any Aboriginal found on “settled land” -  which by then was a fair proportion of the traditional hunting grounds of the natives – was to treated as a criminal and settlers could use whatever force necessary to keep these people off the settled land. There began a policy of “partition” whereby the Aboriginal people would be kept in certain specified areas.  

Tasmania was first settled in 1804. Up to the 1820s there was sporadic bloodshed but no organised policy of “getting rid of the Aboriginals”. In that decade there was a greatly increased rate of land grants, especially in the Midlands, to settlers. In 1828 the first definite anti-Aboriginal policy was enacted by Governor Arthur whereby any Aboriginal found on “settled land” -  which by then was a fair proportion of the traditional hunting grounds of the natives – was to treated as a criminal and settlers could use whatever force necessary to keep these people off the settled land. There began a policy of “partition” whereby the Aboriginal people would be kept in certain specified areas.  

:To cut a long story short, within the next 50 years, every single full-blood Tasmanian Aboriginal had died, the last one being an elderly female, Truganini, in Hobart in 1876. They were shot, or starved, or caught European diseases or pined away in places alien to their ancestral tribal lands. Wherever the blame lies, the fact reminds that government policy and British land hunger caused the death of a race. (The Tasmanian and mainland Aboriginals were not the same – similar, but different.)

:To cut a long story short, within the next 50 years, every single full-blood Tasmanian Aboriginal had died, the last one being an elderly female, Truganini, in Hobart in 1876. They were shot, or starved, or caught European diseases or pined away in places alien to their ancestral tribal lands. Wherever the blame lies, the fact reminds that government policy and British land hunger caused the death of a race. (The Tasmanian and mainland Aboriginals were not the same – similar, but different.)

:I  refer to the ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'', Volume 6, Melbourne University Press, 1976, p. 305. “Van Diemen’s Land” by James Boyce, pub 2008. [[User:AlanE|AlanE]] 18:00, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

:I  refer to  

*the ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'', Volume 6, Melbourne University Press, 1976, p. 305. *“Van Diemen’s Land” by James Boyce, pub 2008. [[User:AlanE|AlanE]] 18:00, 9 March 2009 (EDT)