TASMANIA 



69 



hundred blacks, men, women, and 

 children, engaged in a harmless 

 kangaroo chase, were suddenly 

 seen running down the side of 

 a hill towards the young colony. 

 The alarmed settlers, thinking 

 that they were about to be 

 attacked, fired volleys among the 

 unhappy natives, killing, it is 

 said, as many as fifty before the 

 fatal mistake was found out. 

 Thus began that terrible "Black 

 War" which makes so dark a 

 page in the history of our colonial 

 expansion. It is perhaps only 

 fair to say that the English 

 settlers consisted largely of con- 

 victs of the most hardened and 

 degraded type, who, frequently 

 escaping, took to a roving and 

 lawless life in the forests as 

 bushrangers, or on the islands 

 in the straits as sealers. From 

 such men as these, the very dregs 

 of our home population, utterly 

 selfish and cruel, the natives 

 mostly received impressions of 

 European civilisation and 

 character, which led to reprisals 

 upon the more peaceful settlers. 

 Life became almost everywhere 

 so insecure as to cause an urgent cry for Government interference. An attempt to divide the 

 country between the two races by a line of demarcation failed. More severe measures followed; 

 martial law was proclaimed against all the blacks, and the famous operation of the "Line" was 

 commenced. The intention was to surround all the natives by a military cordon reaching right 

 across the island, gradually to close in upon them, and finally to drive them into Tasman's 

 Peninsula on the east, and keep them there by means of a strong guard. But the blacks 

 were too cunning to be caught in a trap like that, and, knowing the ground much better than 

 their pursuers, easily eluded their vigilance, although nearly the whole of the white population, 

 civil and military, were employed in the chase. The experiment cost nearly 30,000, and 

 resulted in the capture of one wretched black. By this time the native population, robbed of 

 their hunting-grounds, and acquiring diseases by contact with the whites, were reduced to 

 little more than 300 in number. After methods of coercion, including the offer of rewards 

 for individual captures, had been tried, with little more success, one white man accomplished 

 by kindness, and almost single-handed, what all the forces of the Government had failed to 

 do. Mr. Augustus Robinson, a builder, devoted himself to the cause of the blacks at a time 

 when the whole island was in a panic from the attacks of a few natives. Gathering around him 

 at Bruni Island as many of them as he could induce to adopt settled habits, he taught them 

 the rudiments of European education, at the same time learning from them what he could 

 of their language and ideas. In this way he gradually won their confidence, and the report 

 soon spread through the island that there was one white man who was really a friend of the 

 blacks. With a few native and English friends he went about, unarmed, among the people, and 



atciiiy by Mr. T. Bock. 

 A NATIVE OF TASMANIA. 



