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.
British colonisation of Tasmania
It has been claimed by authors such as Jeremy Paxman and Niall Ferguson, that the British colonisation of Tasmania led to the genocide of the native aborigines of Tasmania. Although distantly related, they had been separate from the Australian Aborigines for around 8,000 years. It is unknown how many Aborigines were living on the island when the Dutch arrived in 1642 nor when James Cook landed in 1777 but when the British began their colonisation in 1803, there were perhaps seven to eight thousand left, many of whom were already dying from diseases thought to have been contracted from European sailors, explorers and seal hunters. In addition many had been left infertile by venereal disease but the introduction of technologically advanced, brutal convicts and less than sympathetic settlers contributed to their misery. Almost all of the 7000 native people were killed during a period of colonisation lasting around 27 years. By the end of Britain's colonisation in 1830, at least two families of Aborigines were living on the Island. By 1835 only one aboriginal family remained on the island. They were living in a white sealing village near the Bass Strait, hiding from British authorities.