Around 200 years ago, Europeans sailed up the Derwent to be
gin their new life in this strange country.
Within months of the establishment
of the Sullivan’s Cove settlement in 1804, colonists were taking over the Mouhenneener homelands, clearing scrub, hunting wallabies and forcing the indigenous peoples to find their sustenance elsewhere in an ever-diminishing territory.
Among the first Europeans to settle what is now the suburb of Taroona were many Norfolk Island settlers and former convicts who were evacuated to Hobart in 1808.
The Mouhenneener people were steadily forced off their traditional lands as the bushland was cleared for wheat, potatoes and sheep. In a very short time, they saw their territories, culture and lives taken or destroyed.
News extract: Archives Office of Tasmania