Inhabitants of Tasmania, Van Diemens Land.
Van Diemen’s Land is the name originally given by Europeans to the island of Tasmania, now part of Australia.
Dutch explorer Abel Tasman was the first European to sight Tasmania during an expedition to explore the southern part of the Australian continent. The mission turned out to be a fiasco due to an error in route calculation and the only coastline that was sighted was that of Tasmania, which was considered part of the continent and was named Anthoonij van Diemenslandt in honour of Anthony van Diemen, Governor-General of the Dutch East India Company, who had commissioned him to make the voyage of exploration in 1642.
Around 1800, Tasmania was a notorious penal colony in the middle of nowhere. It is estimated that upon arrival of the British in 1803 about 3,000 to 5,000 aborigines lived in Tasmania. They were completely wiped out until 1865 by the British, the native languages have become extinct with them. However, still several thousand descendants live in mixed relations of Europeans with indigenous people.
Source: Natural History and pictures of the mammals by Heinrich Rudolf Schinz, Zurich, 1824. Drawn by Karl Joseph Brodtmann. Original: Naturgeschichte und Abbildungen der Säugetiere von Heinrich Rudolf Schinz, Zürich, 1824. Gezeichnet von Karl Joseph Brodtmann.
