BLACK WAR

(180430), period of continuing hostilities between Aborigines and European soldiers and settlers on the Australian island of Tasmania (then called Van Diemen's Land), which resulted in the virtual extermination of the Aboriginal population of the island. The term is often applied only to the last year of hostilities. The war began in May 1804, when a military detachment opened fire on an Aboriginal hunting party. The bitterness of the Aborigines increased in the next few years as white settlers occupied choice hunting areas of the island for sheep raising and, when other food ran short, took to hunting kangaroos, greatly depleting this staple of the Aborigines' life. In the course of the next generation, white settlers continually harassed the natives; kidnapping, rape, and murder were common. Unable to meet the European terror in force, the Aborigines resorted to attacks on isolated individuals and small groups. In the autumn of 1830, the lieutenant governor, George Arthur, decided to segregate the Aborigines on the southeastern peninsula of the island. Several thousand settlers were formed into a Black Line to drive the Aborigines out of the bush. The campaign was a failureonly a woman and a boy were found. Between 1831 and 1835, however, a humanitarian, George A. Robinson, persuaded most of the elusive natives (approximately 200) to resettle on the Bass Strait island of Flinders. There, their number rapidly dwindled; by the second half of the 19th century, they had virtually disappeared as a separate group.