The growth of population was extremely slow, and in 1808 a census showed that there were only 3,24o people on the island, all told. Soon settlers began to arrive, and as their number in the colony increased, an agitation arose for more political free dom and improved administration, in consequence of which, in 1822, courts-martial were replaced by courts of justice, and in 1825 the colony was made independent of New South Wales, Col. Arthur being appointed governor. In 1828 the Van Diemen's Land Company commenced sheep-farming on a large scale in the north-west district of the island under a charter granted three years before, and in 1829 the Van Diemen's Land Establishment obtained a grant of 4o,000ac. at Norfolk Plains for agriculture and grazing. In 1834 Portland bay, on the mainland of Australia, was occupied by settlers from Van Diemen's Land, and in 1835 there was a migration, large when compared with the population of the island, to the shores of Port Phillip, now Victoria. At that date the population was 40,172, a large proportion being convicts, for in four years 15,0oo prisoners had been landed. The colony was prosperous, but the free settlers were not at all satisfied with the system of government, and an agitation commenced in Van Diemen's Land, as well as in New South Wales, for the intro duction of representative institutions and the abolition of trans portation. This system was abolished in New South Wales in
1840, and in the island, which in the interim had been the recep tacle for convicts from the United Kingdom, India and the colonies, in 1853. In the same year representative institutions were introduced and the colony was renamed Tasmania: three years later responsible government was granted.
The discovery of gold in Victoria had the effect of causing the value of exports to that colony to rise from £665,790 in 1851 to £1,765,316 in 1853, while the population diminished, young men and women of all classes migrating to the Australian mainland. In the sixties Tasmania embarked upon a new period of prosperity owing to the discovery in its western half of coal, in 185o, and gold in 1852. Later political history, until the colony became in 1901 part of the Commonwealth of Australia, was not important. The colony has a citizen defence force of about 1,700 officers and men, forming part of the Australian army; it furnished contingents both in the South African War and the World War.
See J. Fenton, A History of Tasmania (Hobart, 1884) ; H. Ling Roth and M. E. Butler, The Aborigines of Tasmania (2nd ed., Halifax, 1899) ; Royal Society of Tasmania, Papers and Proceedings (Hobart). See also AUSTRALIA.