Van Diemen's Land

For other articles of the same name, see Van Diemen (disambiguisation)

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 honor 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 colonized by the British as a penal colony with the name Van Diemen's Land.

Penal colony

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 in 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.

In order to remove the unsavoury connotations with crime associated with its name, 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

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.

Every Dog has its Day, by Flogging Molly

Well I've drunk to drown

on every ocean I've been;

Lake Tanganyika

Where the crocodiles swim...

Halifax Nova Scotia

Down to Van Diemen's Land

Well I drank with the Sultan

Down the Suez Canal

• 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.

Oh! when we sailed from England

We landed at the bay

We had rotten straw for bedding

We dared not to say nay

Our cots were fenced with fire

We slumber when we can

To drive away the wolves and tigers

Upon Van Diemen's Land

(Complete lyrics and melody can be found here.)

• 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.

Hold me now, oh hold me now

Till this hour has gone around

And I'm gone, on the rising tide

For to face Van Diemen's land.

It's a bitter pill I swallow here

To be rent from one so dear.

We fought for justice and not for gain

But the magistrate sent me away.

Now kings will rule and the poor will toil

And tear their hands as they tear the soil

But a day will come in this dawning age

When an honest man sees an honest wage.

Hold me now, oh hold me now

Till this hour has gone around

And I'm gone on the rising tide

For to face Van Diemen's Land.

• 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. The last verse is:

Van Diemen's Land is a hell for a man

To live out his life in slavery.

Where the climate is raw and the gun makes the law

Neither wind nor rain care for bravery.

Twenty years have gone by and I've ended my bond;

My comrades' ghosts walk beside me.

Well a rebel I came -- I'm still the same;

On a cold winters night you will find me.

• Shirley Collins and the Albion Country Band record a version of Van Dieman's Land in her 1971 recording No Roses [1]

Literature

• Van Diemen's Land is the setting of Gould's Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish 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.

External links

• Constitution Act 1855, establishing an elected parliament in the colony