After many years of conflict, known as the Black War, between British colonists and the Aboriginal Tasmanians, Lieutenant-Governor George Arthur of Tasmania, or Van Diemen's Land as it is known at this time, calls upon every able-bodied male colonist, convict or free, to form a human chain, which now sweeps across the settled districts.

The human chain moves south and east for several weeks in an attempt to corral the Aborigines on the Tasman Peninsula by closing off Eaglehawk Neck (the isthmus connecting the Tasman peninsula to the rest of the island).

As few Aboriginal Tasmanians are captured, the incident is commonly seen as a costly fiasco.

However, it is also generally accepted that the incident has shaken the Aboriginal population so much that they were willing to accept the mediation of George Augustus Robinson, a builder and untrained preacher, and allow themselves to be removed to the Flinders Island settlement, where the population will dwindle until repatriation to Tasmania in 1847.

Marginalization to Flinders Island completes the Black Line’s objective of ethnically cleansing the local Aboriginal population.

As a direct result, and in contrast to the other Australian regions, Tasmania today has very few aborigines or preserved native culture of note.