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History
Information brought to you by Lonely Planet
The first inhabitants of the city area were members of the Aboriginal Mouheneer tribe, who lived a semi-nomadic lifestyle. Tasmania's Aboriginal people were wiped out so quickly that almost nothing of their history, culture or language was recorded. During Tasmania's Black War, Aboriginal people, fighting to retain their land, speared shepherds and stock and, in turn, were hunted and shot. In 1828 martial law was proclaimed by Governor Arthur, giving soldiers the right to arrest or shoot on sight any Aboriginal found in an area of European settlement. Between the 1820s and 1840s most remaining Aboriginals were rounded up and moved to camps off shore. Most of these died of despair, malnutrition or respiratory disease and by 1876 Tasmania's last full-blooded Aborigine was dead.
The city of Hobart was established in 1804 at the mouth of the Derwent River, one year after Tasmania's first settlement was secured at nearby Risdon Cove. It began as a collection of tents and huts, with a population of 178 convicts, 25 marines, 15 women, 21 children, 13 free settlers and 10 civil officers. The colony's location on the Derwent River - one of the world's finest deep-water harbours - was a key to its successful development, and Hobart Town (as it was known until 1881) was proclaimed a city in 1842.
Tasmania, or Van Diemen's Land as it was originally known, was best-known as a penal colony in its early days, with prisons for recurring offenders established on Sarah Island, Maria Island and Port Arthur. Free settlers, however, were often opposed to the idea of living with criminals, and in 1856 transportation to the island was abandoned. Parliamentary elections took place the same year and the island renamed itself Tasmania. Hobart's merchants took advantage of the city's excellent harbour and many made their fortunes from the whaling trade, ship-building and the export of products like corn and merino wool.
Although it was one of Australia's earliest settlements, Hobart's role in the 20th century reflected the scarcity of opportunities that affected the entire state. As a result, state and local governments have consistently been avid proponents of industry and development. In 1973, Hobart's venerable old dame of hotels, the Wrest Point Hotel Casino, was granted the country's first casino licence. It was during this decade, too, that plans were drawn up to build enormous hydroelectric power stations in the hope that the state could become a net exporter of electrical power.
Tasmania is renowned world wide for its pristine wilderness areas, and from the 1960s through to the 80s, Hobart became the organisational headquarters of a wide coalition of community groups determined to prevent the damming of areas of the state considered to be of global heritage and environmental value. The conservation movement organised significant and lengthy protests for the preservation of Lake Pedder and the Franklin and Gordon Rivers. In the 1989 state elections, Tasmania's Green Independents gained 18% of the vote and held the balance of power in parliament.
The political dominance of the Greens - unique among Australian legislatures - came to an end in 1998, when the state's electoral boundaries were redistributed. The long-overdue overturning of repressive laws against homosexuality in the late 1990s indicates that there remained a well-developed politically progressive community in the state to counteract the deep conservatism that often predominates.
In recent years, Hobart has participated in the property boom that has affected the rest of the country's big cities, although that trend has begun to slow in recent times. The city continues to attract a strong progressive community, including a vocal community of environmental activists and supporters who are hoping to make a difference in the state's current hot-button issue, the logging of old-growth forests.
© 2007 Lonely Planet Publications Pty Ltd. All rights reserved.
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