Saving Tasmania's aboriginals: Truganini

Truganini in shell necklace, 1866 - jpg

in The Australian

Truganini (1812-76) was born on Bruny Island Tasmania near the mouth of the Derwent River, in her tribal territory. Truganini was a daughter of the leader of the Bruny Island peoples, Mangerner. She grew in her people’s traditional culture, even though Aboriginal life had been disrupted by the British colonists arriving in 1803 in Van Diemen’s Land/Tasmania.

Sir George Arthur, the Lt Gov of Tasmania, arranged a plan to deal with the growing conflict between European settlers and Tasmanian Aboriginals. In 1824, Sir George made it a crime to resist British colonisation! He told soldiers and police to raid Aboriginal camps and take them as prisoners; bounties were paid for each capture. Thus Aboriginals were considered as the colony’s open enemies. As the fighting and resistance continued, Arthur suspended ordinary law and declared martial law. The Black Line Military Campaign removed to 200 aboriginals to Flinders Island in 1830 and the Black War was a period of violent conflict (1824-32) between British colonists and Aboriginals in Tasmania.

The tribes were devastated by European sealers, whalers & timber men. When her family met missionaries at Bruny Is in Mar 1829, the soldiers killed her mother and uncle, her sister was taken by sealers and her fiancé was killed by timber men. Only Truganini and her father survived. This Black War conflict saw the near annihilation of Tasmania’s indigenous population which was reduced from c5,000 to c100 people. And it caused immense grief for the survivor Truganini.

The black war
blackwartasmania

 

Yet she laboured to unify what was left of Tasmania’s indigenous communities, working with British authorities to protect other survivors of The Black War. In 1830 George Augustus Robinson, a Christian missionary and Protector of Aboriginals (sic), was hired to move the other 99 surviving people and to settle them on Flinders Island. Robinson might have had his own financial gains but Truganini hoped to resettle and protect the Aboriginals from further violence. Unfortunately the forced resettlement, and the unsanitary state people lived in, proved fatal. The last indigenous people died due to hunger and disease.

She married Woorraddy at Bruny Is Mission. They worked with all the missions that Robinson and his sons conducted inTasmania in 1830-5; the couple acted as instructors & guides in their languages and customs, which were recorded by Robinson in his journal. This was the best surviving ethnographic record of Tasmanian Aboriginal society.

The clash of 2 disparate cultures and the resistance and survival of indigenous Tasmanians was shameful, but Truganini was the faithful companion of Robinson, and assisted in bringing in her friends because she wanted to save them from the British killers.

Truganini, Woorraddy and others from Robinson's mission arrived at the Flinders Island settlement in Nov 1835. With some captured Aborigines still alive, they were to be Christianised, Europeanised and taught to be farmers. She was given a British name by Robinson, but held to her traditional ways. In March 1836 the couple returned to Tasmania to search for the one surviving N.W family, but failed. By July 1837 when they returned to Flinders Is, many had died there and Robinson's programme had failed. Even the island houses built for survivors were not finished. The grim life at Flinders Is was tragic for her.

In Feb 1839, with Woorraddy and 14 others, she accompanied Robinson to Port Phillip. She and 4 others later joined a party of whalers near Portland Bay. where a similar settlement was attempted with mainland nations, again with failure. In 1841 all 5 Aborigines were accused of murdering 2 whalers and in Jan 1842, the men were hanged. Having learnt from the Tasmanian experience, Truganini joined with the Port Phillip people when they resisted Robinson’s plans but she was captured and sent back to Flinders Island. Sadly her husband Woorraddy died en route.

In 1847, Truganini travelled to Oyster Cove with the other Aborigines where they tried to resume their earlier lifestyle. She lived with the Aborigine Alphonso until Oct 1847 when, with dozens of others, she moved to Oyster Cove in her traditional land. She resumed much of her earlier lifestyle, diving for shellfish, visiting Bruny Island and hunting in the nearby bush.

                                    

Residents at Oyster Cove, 1858

National Portrait Gallery

Within 25 years, almost all of the people taken to Oyster Cove had died such that she and William Lanney were the only fullbloods alive. The mutilation of Lanney's dead body in March led Truganini to grieve, for William and for herself.

In 1874 she moved to Hobart with the Dandridge family. She died in their Macquarie St house in 1876 aged 64 with no known descendants, and was buried at the old female penitentiary at Cascades Female Factory. Even in death there was no peace. Her body was exhumed in Dec 1878 by the Royal Society of Tasmania, authorised by the government to take her skeleton on condition that it be not exposed to public view. It had to be decently deposited in a secure resting place accessible by special permission to scientific men for scientific purposes. Yet her skeleton was placed on public display in the Tasmanian Museum from 1904-47.

In 1976, a century after Truganini died, the Tasmanian community wanted her remains be cremated and scattered in the Derwent River. This was a moving occasion that helped Tasmanians recognise the ongoing existence, rights and cultural responsibilities of native peoples.

Tasmania and its islands

Flinders and Bruny Islands marked in yellow

Truganini: Journey Through the Apocalypse by Cassandra Pybus (Allen & Unwin, 2020) is excellent. But be warned; white Australians will feel mortified after reading about their great great grandparents' behaviour.