Tasmania is an island state of Australia separated by Bass Strait. The island is believed to have been occupied by indigenous peoples for 30,000 years before British colonisation. It is thought Aboriginal Tasmanians were separated from the mainland Aboriginal groups about 11,700 years ago after the sea rose to form Bass Strait. The Aboriginal population is estimated to have been between 3,000 and 7,000 at the time of colonisation, but was almost wiped out within 30 years by a combination of violent guerrilla conflict with settlers known as the “Black War”, intertribal conflict, and from the late 1820s, the spread of infectious diseases to which they had no immunity. The conflict, which peaked between 1825 and 1831, and led to more than three years of martial law, cost the lives of almost 1,100 Aboriginals and settlers.
The island was permanently settled by Europeans in 1803 as a penal settlement of the British Empire to prevent claims to the land by the First French Empire during the Napoleonic Wars. The island was initially part of the Colony of New South Wales but became a separate, self-governing colony under the name Van Diemen’s Land in 1825. Approximately 75,000 convicts were sent to Van Diemen’s Land before transportation ceased in 1853
In 1901 it became a state through the process of the Federation of Australia.
Blogs
Websites
- Australian Philatelic Federation
- Australian Philatelic Society
- British Society of Australian Philately
- Devonport Stamp and Collectibles Club Inc.
- Launcestion Philatelic Society
- Tasmanian Philatelic Society
- Tasmanian Stamp Council
YouTube
- RMPL Denver: Tasmania Pictorial Stamps – Part Two
- RMPL Denver: Tasmania Pictorial Stamps – Part One
- Royal Philatelic Society London: Tasmanian Embossed Envelopes 1883-1912
- Royal Philatelic Society of Victoria: Tasmanian Revenue History 1893-1901
