Van Diemen's Land

Infobox Islands
name = Van Diemen's Land


image caption = 1852 map of Van Diemen's Land
location = Southern Ocean|coordinates = coord|42|00|S|147|00|E|
area = 68,401 km² (26,410 sq mi).
highest mount = Mount Ossa
elevation = 1,614 m (5,295 ft)
country = United Kingdom
country largest city = Hobart Town
country 2 =
country 2 admin divisions title =
country 2 admin divisions =
country 2 largest city =
population = 40,000
population as of = 1855
density =
ethnic groups = Tasmanian Aborigines|

Van Diemen's Land was the original name used by Europeans for the island of Tasmania, now part of Australia. The Dutch explorer Abel Tasman was the first European to explore Tasmania. He named the island "Anthoonij van Diemenslandt" in honour of Anthony van Diemen, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies who had sent Tasman on his voyage of discovery in 1642.

In 1803, the island was colonised by the British as a penal colony with the name Van Diemen's Land, and became part of the British colony of New South Wales. In 1824, Van Diemen's Land became a colony in its own right. In 1856 the colony was granted responsible self-government with its own representative parliament, and the name of the island and colony were changed to Tasmania.

Penal colony

* Main articles: - "Port Arthur, Tasmania, Convicts on the West Coast of Tasmania"

From the 1830s to the abolition of penal transportation (known simply as "transportation") in 1853, Van Diemen's Land was the primary penal colony in Australia. Following the suspension of transportation to New South Wales, all transported convicts were sent to Van Diemen's Land. In total, some 75,000 convicts were transported to Van Diemen's Land, or about 40% of all convicts sent to Australia.

Male convicts served their sentences as assigned labour to free settlers or in gangs assigned to public works. Only the most difficult convicts were sent to the Tasman Peninsula prison known as Port Arthur, mostly re-offenders.

Female convicts were assigned as servants in free settler households or sent to a female factory (women's workhouse prison). There were five female factories in Van Diemen's Land.

Convicts completing their sentence or earning their ticket-of-leave often promptly left Van Diemen's Land. Many settled in the new free colony of Victoria, to the disgust of the free settlers in towns such as Melbourne.

Tensions sometimes ran high between the settlers and the "Vandemonians" as they were termed, particularly during the Victorian gold rush when a flood of settlers from Van Diemen's Land rushed to the Victorian gold fields.

Complaints from Victorians about recently released convicts from Van Diemen's Land re-offending in Victoria was one of the contributing reasons for the eventual abolition of transportation to Van Diemen's Land in 1853 fact|date=May 2008.

The name

Anthony Trollope used the term "Vandemonian" [ quoted by Patsy Adam Smith p.248 of Smith, Patsy Adam and Woodberry, Joan (1977)"Historic Tasmania Sketchbook" Rigby ISBN 0727002864 ] : -

They are (the Vandemonians) united in their declaration that the cessation of the coming of convicts has been their ruin

Eventually, in order to remove the unsavoury connotations with crime associated with its name (and its homophonic connection to "demon"), in 1856 Van Diemen's Land was renamed "Tasmania" in honour of Abel Tasman. The last penal settlement in Tasmania at Port Arthur finally closed in 1877 [Australian Government, National Heritage site. [http://www.environment.gov.au/heritage/national/sites/port-arthur.html| Port Arthur Historic Site] ] .

The term is not used much, but in a review of a new book of the era the "Australian" newspaper chose the title of the review as "Vandemonian vanity" [ Pybus, Cassandra (2008) review of "Van Diemans Land" by James Boyce - page 19 of the Australian Literary Review 2nd April 2008 ]

Popular culture

Music

* Van Diemen's Land is mentioned in the Australian folk song "The Wild Colonial Boy".
* Van Diemen's Land is often mentioned in the works of Flogging Molly, such as in the song "Every Dog Has Its Day."
* Among the Irish folk songs that mention Van Diemen's Land are "The Black Velvet Band", "Back Home in Derry", and "Van Diemen's Land".
* "Van Diemen's Land", also known as "The Gallant Poachers", is a traditional English folk song, and also a traditional Scottish one as well.
* Steeleye Span does a rendition of the traditional English folk song on their album "They Called Her Babylon"
* "Van Diemen's Land" is the title of the second track from the rock band U2's album "Rattle and Hum". The lyrics were written and sung by The Edge. The song is dedicated to a Fenian poet named John Boyle O'Reilly, who was deported to Australia because of his poetry [From the liner notes on the U2 album "Rattle and Hum"] .
*The chorus to the English folk song "Maggie May" says "They've sent you to Van Diemen's cruel shore."
*Van Diemen's Land is the subject of the Irish song, "Back home in Derry". The music was written by Canadian song writer Gordon Lightfoot and the lyrics by the famous Irish Republican Bobby Sands. It is most famously sung by the Irish bard Christy Moore.
*Shirley Collins and the Albion Country Band record a version of "Van Diemen's Land" in No Roses (1971)
*Carla Bruni sings the poem 'If You Were Coming In The Fall', by Emily Dickinson on her album "No Promises". The song includes a reference to Van Diemen's land "subtracting till my fingers dropped; into Van Diemen's Land".

Literature

*Van Diemen's Land is the setting of "" by Richard Flanagan (published 2002), which tells the story of a man who is transported to the island, and runs afoul of the local (and rather insane) authorities.
*In Cormac McCarthy's novel "Blood Meridian", one of the characters in the Glanton Gang of scalpers in 1850s Mexico is a "Vandiemenlander" named Bathcat. Born in Wales he later went to Australia to hunt aborigines, and eventually came to Mexico, where he used those skills on the Apaches.
*Van Diemen's Land is mentioned in Edgar Allan Poe's book "Narrative of A. Gordon Pym". The main character stops at this island on his way to the South Pole.
*Van Diemen's Land is mentioned in Umberto Eco's novel "The Island of the Day Before" "("L'isola del giorno prima", 1994)", a story about a 17th century Italian nobleman trapped at an island at the International Date Line.
*Van Diemen's Land is mentioned in Emily Dickinson's "If You Were Coming in the Fall"
*From "The Potato Factory" by Bryce Courtenay (1995): "... subtracting till my fingers dropped; into Van Diemen's Land." This is a quote from Emily Dickinson's Poem "If You Were Coming In The Fall".
*In "Gulliver's Travels" by Jonathan Swift (1726), the country of Lilliput is described as being “to the north-west of Van Dieman's Land” ["sic"] .
*In the novel "The Convicts" by Iain Lawrence, young Tom Tin is sent to Van Diemen's Land on charges of murder
*Van Dieman's Land is mentioned in James De Mille's "A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder". The manuscript spoken of in the title has been written by British sailor who lost his way after conveying convicts to Van Dieman's Land.
*In the novel "The Terror" by Dan Simmons (2007). In this novel about the ill fated exploration by HMS "Erebus" and HMS "Terror" to discover the Northwest Passage. The ships left England in May 1846 and were never heard from again, although since then much has been discovered about the fate of the 129 officers and crew. References are made to Van Diemen's Land during the chapters devoted to Francis Crozier.
*Van Dieman's Land is mentioned in Peter Carey's book, "True History of the Kelly Gang", as a place the Kelly parents suffered on their way to the Colony of Victoria.
*Van Dieman's Land is the setting of the novel "English Passengers" by Matthew Kneale (2000), which tells the story of 3 eccentric English men who in 1857 set sail for the island in search of the Garden of Eden. The story runs parallel with the narrative of a young Tasmanian who tells the struggle of the indigenous population and the desperate battle against the invading British colonists.
* Christopher Koch's novel : "Out of Ireland" describes life as a convict in Van Diemen's Land.

ee also

* Governors of Tasmania

Notes

References

*Alexander, Alison (editor) (2005)"The Companion to Tasmanian History"Centre for Tasmanian Historical Studies, University of Tasmania, Hobart. ISBN 186295223X.
*Robson, L.L. (1983) "A history of Tasmania. Volume 1. Van Diemen's Land from the earliest times to 1855"Melbourne, Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195543645.
*Robson, L.L. (1991) "A history of Tasmania. Volume II. Colony and state from 1856 to the 1980s" Melbourne, Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195530314.

External links

* [http://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/item.asp?sdID=34 Constitution Act 1855, establishing an elected parliament in the colony]