History of Tasmania
Tasmania was inhabited by an indigenous population, the Tasmanian Aborigines, and evidence indicates their presence in the territory, later to become an island, at least 35,000 years ago. At the time of the British occupation and colonisation in 1803 the indigenous population was estimated at between 3000 and 10,000. Historian Lyndall Ryan's analysis of population studies led her to conclude that there were about 7000 spread throughout the island's nine nations; Nicholas Clements, citing research by N.J.B. Plomley and Rhys Jones, settled on a figure of 3000 to 4000. The combination of the so-called Black War, internecine conflict and, from the late 1820s, the spread of infectious diseases to which they had no immunity, reduced the population to about 300 by 1833. Almost all of the indigenous population was relocated to Flinders Island by George Augustus Robinson. Until the 1970s, most people thought that the last surviving Tasmanian Aborigine was Trugernanner, who died in 1876. However this "extinction" was a myth, as documented by Lyndall Ryan in 1991.
Aboriginal Tasmanians
Risdon Cove, the first Tasmanian settlement, was located in south-east country. There is eyewitness evidence that the South East nation may have consisted of up to ten clans, totalling around 500 people. However, only four groups totalling 160–200 people were officially recorded as the main source by Robinson, whose journals begin in 1829. By this time, Europeans had settled in most of the South East tribe's country, with the country dispossessed and food resources depleted. Their country contained the most important silcrete, chert and quartzite mines in Tasmania.
The South East people had a hostile relationship with the Oyster Bay people whom they frequently raided, often to kidnap women.
Truganini was a Nuenonne from Bruny Island, which they called "Lunawanna-Alonnah". The first two European towns built on the island were named Lunawanna and Alonnah, and most of the island's landmarks are named after Nuenonne people. The island was the source of the sandstone used to build many of Melbourne's buildings, such as the Post Office and Parliament House.
Tasmanian aboriginal culture is one of the world's most enduring. Aboriginal culture was disrupted severely in the 19th century after dispossession of land and incarceration of aboriginal people on Wybalenna and Oyster Cove. Much traditional knowledge has irrevocably disappeared and what remains has been nurtured over several generations starting with the aboriginal wives of sealers on the Furneaux Islands.