Settlement and War, 1803-1830
The colony teetered on the brink of starvation for its first few years. The settlement of the Richmond area and the cultivation of wheat there was crucial. Besides the difficulties of subsistence, the early settlement was little more than a frontier. The workforce was mostly convicts, either transported from England or relocated from other notorious parts of the colonies. Those that escaped led the life of bandits (the Australian term being bushrangers), and the government had little ability to control them. The settlement was not truly brought under control for several decades, until the sheer number of settlers and men-at-arms outnumbered and outgunned the bushrangers.

Elsewhere the expending settlement encroached on territory of the aboriginal tribes. Their logical response - hunting of settler’s livestock - was greeted with harsh reprisal by the colonial authorities. Along the East Coast, whalers and sealers plied their trade, and also committed many attrocities upon the aboriginal people. Unwittingly however, their actions assisted the ultimate survival of the aboriginal people, for as the men took aboriginal wives for themselves they estblished communities that would continue to practice the traditional ways long after mainland tribes were permanently displaced.

Owing to the confined geopgraphy of the state, the Tasmanian aboriginal people put up significantly more resistance to invasion by white settlers than elsewhere. Tasmania was the only state whose government effectively dclared war against the indigenous inhabitants, who mounted successful guerilla warfare against the encroaching settlement. This conflict peaked in the years 1823-1824, during which tiem the governmnent devised such desparate stragegies as "The White Line", in which every able-bodied man walked in line with others across the entire settled territories, in an attempt to capture all native inbatiants between the sea and the settlement at Port Arthur. The actual operation was an overt failure - it captured one old man and one young boy - but it did represent a turning point in which the aboriginal tribes were finally displaced from the settled areas.

Port Arthur developed a fearsome reputation, owing to its gothis vantage point on the precipitous Tasmana Peninsula, surrounded by dense woodland, and with the only land bridge to the main island a narrow strip at Eagle Hwak Neck, which was guarded by men and dogs. All the same, life at Port Arthur was nowhere as bad as the settlement established at Macquarie Harbour on the West Coast. This site, reserved for the most hardened criminals, was by all accounts as close to hell as the English Judicial System could devise.

However, Tasmania was developed by free settlers as well as convicts, and their numbers grew faster. Launceston was established as Port Dalrymple not long after the original settlement of Hobart, and the North of the state quickly developed as an agricultural centre. Meanwhile, the Huon Valley developed as a major apple-growing region and the forests were plundered for exceptional timbers, especially the ancient Huon Pines, whose timbers were highly prized as ship lumber. Towards the end of the century mining also appeared as a prominent source of wealth, with the Mt Lyell Copper Mine established in Queenstown on top of the richest copper lode ever discovered.

As the settlement became established, the convict presence was seen as increasingly undesirable, and after vocal lobbying transportation of convicts ceased in 1853. Tasmania had been a separate colony since 1825, but its legislative and judicial institutions were squarely under the Governer control. This was also seen as undesirable, and in 1855 the British Government passed the Constitution Act, giving Tasmania all the trappings of a constitutional monarchy. Tasmania was also a supporter of Austrlia’s move toward Federation in the 1890’s, both as an opportunity for increased commerce, and because it could not afford to be left out.

20th Century Hydroindustrialization, 1901-1960
In the early part of the twentieth century, Tasmania was an enthusiastic supporter of the British Empire, sending 14,025 men to fight in World War I, and persecuting those Germans that were residents of the state. The early part of the century was also typified by the continuing battle in Parliament between the conservative voice of business and church, and the emergence of the Labour Party. In Tasmania this distinction was blurred, as both sides of politics were preoccupied with the states advancement over ideology. This is typified by the example of Joseph Lyons, a Catholic and anti-conscriptionist, who rose to lead the Labour Party into State Government, but became Australia’s Prime Minister as a Conservative.

The 1930’s depression struck Tasmania as everywhere, and at this time a number of government capitalization projects changed the course of the state. In Hobart a road was constructed to the pinnacle of Mt Wellington (also known as "Ogilvie’s scar") and in the Central Highlands the country’s first hydroelectric schemes were built across the Derwent River. These developments naturally inclined people to consider the opportunities of Tasmania’s many rivers for power generation. The doctrine of hydro-industrialisation was born: by damming rivers for hydro-electric power generation, Tasmania could attract large industries to set up shop, thus overcoming the state’s natural disadvantage due to it’s isolated world position.

In the late 1970’s the Tasmanian government brought forht it’s next proposal, the "Gordon-below-Franklin scheme" to carry forth its mission of cheap power generation. This time experienced campaigners along with new initiates gathered to defend "Australia’s last Wild River", the Franklin. When worker’s moved to start construction, they were met by hundreds of protesters blockading the river in yellow rafts. A small guerilla war ensued with police and local residents searching the wilderness for protesters to be arrested, sometimes hundreds in a day, while in parliaments and courts the government and protest groups duelled back and forth over the scheme itself. The campaign went national, where a new Labour government was voted in on 1983, among other things promising to stop the dam by declaring the area World Heritage, thus bringing under Federal Authority. Ultimately the river was saved by a decision of Australia’s Highest Court, which found by 4-3 majority that the Federal Government’s actions were within Australia’s constituion.

The Franklim Dam debate was a defining moment for the state, and the nation. It represented a loud challenge to the doctrine of hydro-industrialisation and development-at-all-costs. It also produced a national environmental organisation called The Wilderness Society, which is one of Australia’s major players in green politics today. Finally it brought to Tasmania’s parliament the first "Green Independent", Bob Brown, who has gone onto lead a green party to Australia’s Federal Senate.