Ben Lomond

Ben Lomond is a mountain in the north-east of Tasmania, Australia.

Ben Lomond is a mountain in the north-east of Tasmania, Australia.

The mountain is composed of a central massif with an extensive plateau above 1,200 metres (3,900 ft) and high outlier peaks projecting from the mountain. The highest feature on the plateau is the unimposing summit of Legges Tor, at 1572 m, on the northern aspect of the plateau.The southern end of the plateau is dominated by Stacks Bluff, 1,527 metres (5,010 ft), which is an imposing feature that drops away to a cliffline 600 metres (2,000 ft) above the surrounding foothills.The prominent outlier peaks of Ragged Jack (1,369 metres (4,491 ft)), Mensa Moor (1,358 metres (4,455 ft)) and Tower Hill (1,122 metres (3,681 ft)) surround the plateau.Ben Lomond is east of Launceston in the Ben Lomond National Park. Tasmania's premier Alpine skiing operations are located at Ben Lomond with downhill skiing facilities in the State.

Its accessibility from Launceston, together with the existence of a ski village on the plateau make Ben Lomond an all year round favourite for tourists and hikers. Access to the village and summit can be made via several walking tracks or via a zig-zag road known as "Jacobs Ladder".

The locality of Ben Lomond is in the local government area of Northern Midlands in the Central region of Tasmania. The locality is about 64 kilometres (40 mi) east of the town of Longford.

The original inhabitants of the area were the people of the Ben Lomond Nation, which consisted of at least three clans totalling 150–200 people. Three clan names are known but their locations are somewhat conjectural - the clans were recorded as Plangermaireener, Plindermairhemener and Tonenerweenerlarmenne.The Plangermaireener clan is recorded as variously inhabiting the south-east aspect of the Ben Lomond region and also has been associated with the coastal tribes to the south-east. Their country was bordered by the South Esk River to the south and west.The location of the Tonenerweenerlarmenne is uncertain but were probably centred in the remaining Ben Lomond Nation territory from White Hills to the headwaters of the North and South-Esk rivers or the upper South-Esk Valley. This notwithstanding, the Palawa were a nomadic people and likely occupied their clan lands seasonally.The clans of the Ben Lomond Nation hunted along the valleys of the South Esk and North Esk rivers, their tributaries and the highlands to the northeast; as well as making forays to the plateau in summer.There are records of aboriginal huts or dwellings around the foothills of Stacks Bluff and around the headwaters of the South Esk River near modern day Mathinna. There are also signs of regular occupation of the plateau by the Plangermaireener; artifacts such as stone tools are found about the low dunes at the eastern aspect of Lake Youl and in colonial times soldiers pursuing the Plangermaireener noted the 'native track' up onto the plateau from the foothills and remarked at the extensive evidence of summer occupation - with remains of firing seen about the plateau. Moreover, the remains of Aboriginal quarry works under Coalmine Crag suggest that the plateau was used for sustained periods by the Plangermaireener, as stone tools were needed for dressing game.

The clans of the Ben Lomond Nation were displaced in the early 1800s by extensive colonial occupation up the South Esk river and its tributaries. This particularly manifested along the mountain's western and northern boundaries, which lay closest to the settled areas of Launceston and Norfolk Plains (now Longford). Initial contact between the Ben Lomond people and British colonials was likely to have been on hunting grounds around the South or North Esk, as early in settlement hunting parties from Launceston made incursions into the plains south of the nascent city.First contact may well have been peaceable as convict hunters and aboriginal people traded kangaroos and hunting dogs early in the colony's history.

Into the 1820s free land grants to wealthy settlers displaced convict hunters and led to the establishment of pastoralism at the Ben Lomond frontier, particularly up the Nileand Esk Rivers. The presence of farms and stockmen interrupted the migratory tribal life of the Aborigines and, although initial relations were peaceable, displacement was accelerated by continuing intrusion into country, abduction of aboriginal women and violent conflict with both settlers and with rival tribes.In particular, women became scarce due to the abduction by sealers of women in coastal areas, consequently leading to internecine raids for women across the interior.

In 1825 two convicts assigned to Andrew Barclay and James Cox on the Nile River, near Deddington, were killed and mutilated by Ben Lomond clanspeople in a dispute over women and ownership of hunting dogs. An aboriginal witness, Temina, testifiedthat one man was killed by spearing and that a woman belonging to his people 'crushed his head with stones'.'.This was the first recorded of many violent encounters between the Plangermaireener and European settlers.

Children, also, were a target for abduction by settlers. For example, the prominent settler James Cox, at Clarendon on the Nile River, raised the Aboriginal William 'Black Bill' Ponsonby from a child.Over time, the aboriginal people were forced into an ever more marginal existence and; with numbers depleted by disease, murder and abduction, were forced into sustained conflict with occupying settlers. In 1829 these remnants of the Ben Lomond nation allied with members of the North Midland nation in order to conduct guerilla style raids on remote stock huts:

"The black natives have again commenced their outrages in this district. About six weeks back they speared a shepherd belonging to Mr. Dark (near Deddington), in sight of that gentlemen’s house... About a week after that they robbed Mr. Bonney’s (at modern day Bonney's Plains near - Stacks Bluff ) stock hut of blankets, flour, sugar, etc. Three days after they pursued a shepherd of Mr. Massey’s (near Deddington); the same day they threw a spear at Mr. Sinclair’s shepherd; the spear passed over the man’s shoulder and through a ewe about two rods before him, which the man was driving. The man escaped by running from them. Last Saturday, week they speared and beat with their waddies a man of Mr. Reed’s, near the same spot. Yesterday they attacked a servant of Mr Sevoir's (of Sevoir gully, near Nile Bridge), whom they endeavoured to surround ; the man saved his life by discharging his musket two or three times, and retreating every time until he got to his hut where other men were"These attacks continued on huts and farms along the Ben Lomond frontier into 1829, with a war party plundering a stock hut belonging to John Batman in July and in the next month spearing of assigned men at Lord's property, killing a stonemason in his employ.

As hostilities escalated across Tasmania in the Black War the colonial government authorised the employment of Roving Parties (essentially armed bounty hunters) to conciliate the remaining free aboriginal tribesmen.In September 1829, a party led by John Batman, with the assistance of two mainland aboriginal men he had brought to Tasmania, and the Tasmanian Aborigine 'Black Bill' Ponsonby, led an attack on an Aboriginal family group together numbering 60–70 men, women and children in the mountain's south east foothills. Waiting until 11pm that night before attacking - 'killing or wounding 15'.This must have proven to be a devastating setback to an increasingly desperate remnant of the Plangermaireener as theywere scarcely seen on the Ben Lomond frontier from that time.Remnant Plangermaireener women were subsequently found in the Piper River region and reported lethal internecine conflict between the Ben Lomond people and a confederation of Oyster Bay and Big River clansmen - resulting in the death of all but6 of the Plangermairreener men.In winter 1830 the Ben Lomond people were noted to be absent from their traditional wintering grounds on the East Coast and never again would family groups be seen collecting eggs and fish from the lagoons at Oyster Bay.The latter half of 1830 saw an increase in frontier violence as the Black War reached its nadir.During the spring of 1830 an Aboriginal party was noted to have crossed the Midlands from the 'Westward' to the Ben Lomond frontier and, within a fortnight, John Batman reported in a dispatch thata marauding party of clansmen were raiding up the South Esk Valley. The raiding party attacked several remote settler and stockman's huts from Oyster Bay to Avoca - alongside their traditional hunting and travelling route on the Ben Lomond frontier.Their aim appeared to be both robbery and revenge and during their raids they killed 5 assigned men and wounded several others severely, reportedly only being prevented from killing an entire family by the presence of soldiers.However, by late 1830, remnants of the Aboriginal clans were living a precarious existence on the edge of the frontier, harried by alert colonial settlers and militiaand denied access to their hunting grounds. As the infamous 'Black Line' military operation was being disbanded elsewhere in Tasmania, George Augustus Robinson spent a week in north-east Tasmaniasearching without success for the Ben Lomond people.Attacks on colonials decreased after the military action of the Black Line but in early 1831 three assigned men of Thomas Massey were wounded by Aboriginal clansmen near modern day Deddington and this is the last reported conflict between settlers and Aboriginal clansmen at the Ben Lomond frontier.

After the failure of the 'Black Line' in 1830, and after pressure from settlers, Colonial Governor George Arthur announced on 14 March 1831 his new policy of the removal of Aborigines from Tasmania.The conciliator George Augustus Robinson was tasked with rounding up the remnant aboriginal people.Robinson "....gave an unequivocal commitment that if hostilities ceased, Aborigines would be protected and have their essential needs met by the government while being able to live and hunt within their own districts."

These concessions, combined with the promised return of their women from the sealers, were the terms under which the chief Mannalargenna joined Robinson's embassy.