Van Diemen's Land

Van Diemen's Land was the British colonial name of Tasmania during the nineteenth century. The island was named after Anthony van Diemen, governor-general of the Dutch East Indies, after Abel Tasman sighted it in 1642. Britain established a settlement at Risdon Cove in 1803 and founded Hobart Town the following year, and the island was administered from New South Wales until it became a separate colony in 1825, with Hobart Town as its capital. Its penal settlements at Macquarie Harbour and Port Arthur became notorious for harsh discipline and isolation, and conflict with Aboriginal Tasmanians during the Black War devastated the indigenous population. Free settlers gradually outnumbered convicts, and pastoral and whaling industries expanded. When the colony obtained self-government in 1855, one of the new legislature's first acts was to change the name to Tasmania, which took effect on 1 January 1856, partly to dissociate the island from its convict past. Hobart remained the capital.