People of the South-east Nation
MANGANERER
Truganini’s father, Manganerer, was the senior man of the Nuenonne, and was born before British settlement. His country encompassed Bruny Island and the mainland coast from Oyster Cove to Recherche Bay, and his Nuenonne clan had close kin connections with the Needwondee and Ninine clans of the south-west, who belonged to the same language group. The scant evidence about Manganerer’s first wife (name unknown) suggests that she was from the Ninine, whose territory was on the south-west coast around Port Davey. She was killed sometime before 1820 when a group of sailors made a night attack on the family when they were camped on Partridge Island. Manganerer was known to have had three daughters by his first wife, and his two older daughters, Lowhenune and Magerleede, were abducted in 1826 by a sealer known as Black Baker, who took them to islands in the Bass Strait. Baker was eventually tried on abduction charges that came to nothing, and the women were never returned. It is not known what happened to them. Truganini (see entry) was Manganerer’s youngest daughter.
On Manganerer’s annual visit to Recherche Bay in the summer of 1829, his second wife (name and clan unknown) was abducted by convicts who had commandeered the government brig Cyprus, which they sailed to New Zealand, then to Japan and China. Their young son died soon after his mother’s abduction and there is no evidence that his wife survived the voyage across the Tasman.
In October 1829 Manganerer was briefly partnered with Truganini’s friend Pagerly, whose husband and child had died sometime before April 1829, but he died of venereal disease less than three months later. Pagerly became the wife of Kickerterpoller (see entry) and after his death in 1832 she was sent to Flinders Island, where her death, sometime before 1837, was unrecorded.
TRUGANINI (aka Lydgugee, Lalla Rookh)
Born at Recherche Bay in around 1812, Truganini witnessed the murder of her mother when she was still a child. When she was a teenager, her two older sisters were kidnapped by a sealer. There is an account of Truganini also being abducted around this time, although the story comes from a dubious source with no verifiable evidence: it was first reported, a year before her death, by James E. Calder, in his book Some Account of the Wars, Extirpation, Habits, &c., of the Native Tribes of Tasmania and was supposedly told to him by the emancipated convict Alexander McKay. In Calder’s telling, Truganini was kidnapped and raped by convict woodcutters, and two Nuenonne men who were with her—one of them said to be her ‘betrothed’—were thrown from the woodcutters’ boat; as they clung to the gunwales their hands were chopped off and they were left to drown in the bloody water. This was just the kind of graphic story that George Augustus Robinson was always eager to hear, and he certainly would have made a record of it if it had been spoken of at the time, or subsequently. Truganini told Robinson about the violence she experienced living with the woodcutters so it is remarkable that she did not mention such a traumatic event. Nor was it brought to the attention of the authorities in 1828, unlike the abduction of her sisters, although it was supposed to have happened around the same time.
Over her life Truganini had four husbands. She was married to her first husband, Wooredy (see entry), in October 1829 under pressure from Robinson. She abandoned Wooredy in Port Phillip in 1841 and formed a relationship with Maulboyheener (see entry), and in October 1841 they were both implicated in the murder of two whalers in Lower Westernport. Maulboyheener was found guilty and executed in January 1842, while Truganini was acquitted and returned to Flinders Island in July 1842, where she was married to Mannapackername (see entry). He died in July 1847, five months before Truganini was transferred to Oyster Cove. Sometime after 1855 she formed a relationship of sorts with Billy Lanne (see entry), who died in February 1869.
By 1872 Truganini was the sole resident at Oyster Cove and the superintendent took her to live in Hobart, where she died on 8 May 1876. She was buried in secret in the grounds of the abandoned Female Factory. Two years later, members of the Royal Society of Tasmania exhumed her skeleton, which they kept in the society’s collection until 1904, when it was placed on public display. Removed from public view in 1947, her remains were finally released from the museum vaults in 1976 and cremated. Her ashes were scattered on the D’Entrecasteaux Channel.
There is no evidence that Truganini had a child. No contemporary witness ever suggested it. In his reminiscences of 1905, Reverend Atkinson referred to her baby who died on Bruny Island, misunderstanding her reference to swimming with a baby on her back. Most likely this was the baby of one of her kidnapped older sisters—a child who would stand in the same relationship to her as her own—or perhaps her much younger half-brother. She had a close connection to Pagerly and Dray (see entry), both of whom had babies who died in 1829. Claims by various families in Victoria and New South Wales to be descended from Truganini are not credible, among them that Truganini had a daughter named Louisa who married John Briggs, who was the son of the sealer George Briggs and Mannalargenna’s daughter (see entry for Mannalargenna), and who supervised the orphanage at Coranderrk Aboriginal Reserve in Victoria. Louisa Briggs’s mother was a mixed-race woman named Polly Munro whose own mother had been a Boonwurrung woman taken from Port Phillip by a sealer.
There are several portraits of Truganini. The best known and most often reproduced is a portrait in watercolour by Thomas Bock, part of a series he did for Robinson in 1835 and now held in the British Museum; various later copies are held in other galleries. Unfortunately, the later copies of the Bock portraits are incorrectly labelled and the much-reproduced portrait said to be Truganini is not of her; it is a portrait of one of her companions, most likely Plorenernoopner (see entry). A notation on the back of the original in the British Museum, as well as entries in the catalogue of the collector who purchased the Bock portraits from the Robinson estate, makes it explicit that the portrait of the woman with the shell necklace was Truganini. This portrait is reproduced in the colour picture section of this book. The British Museum also holds a set of five drawings never before identified that are now believed to have been drawn by Thomas Lempriere at Port Arthur in October 1833. His drawing of a woman most likely to be Truganini is reproduced in the colour picture section.
WOOREDY (aka Mutteele, Doctor, Count Alpha)
Born more than a decade before settlement, Wooredy was a warrior and cleverman of the Nuenonne. Stubbornly attached to his traditional ways, he rejected all attempts to make him a Christian and he is a highly significant historical source for information about customs and beliefs of the original people. His first wife (name unknown) died of influenza on Bruny Island in 1829, as did one of his three sons. His surviving sons were Myunge (aka Davey Bruny), born about 1818, and Droyerloine (aka Peter Bruny), born about 1820. The boys left Bruny Island with their father, but Wooredy was separated from his sons for five years and in that time they were renamed Davey and Peter. In 1833 they were admitted to the Orphan School in Hobart. Wooredy was reunited with his sons in October 1835 when they went together to Flinders Island.
Wooredy’s sons joined him in Port Phillip in 1838. There they worked for Robinson and members of his family, including Robinson’s future son-in-law Dr James Allen. By 1842 Wooredy was showing signs of advanced physical and mental decline and was very ill when he was embarked for Flinders Island in July. He died on the way there on 7 July 1842 and was buried on Green Island.
His younger son, Peter Bruny, continued to work for Robinson at Port Phillip, but often ran off to live with the Boonwurrung. He died on 8 December 1843, aged around twenty-two, and was buried on Robinson’s farm on the Merri Creek. Davey Bruny was also a frequent absconder in Port Phillip, joining the Boonwurrung at various times. In 1842 the Native Police eventually tracked him to a pastoral lease at the edge of the Carrum Carrum Swamp. On 23 July 1842 it was arranged for him to go back to Flinders Island, but the ship sailed without him. He must have absconded again, and was brought back by the same Native Police in August 1842.
Davey was sent to Hobart, eventually arriving at the Aboriginal Establishment at Wybalenna on Flinders Island in October 1842. Here he was a leading figure in resistance to authoritarian rule and an agitator for the recognition of native rights. He helped to organise a petition to Queen Victoria that led to the closure of the establishment in 1847. While at Wybalenna, in July 1843, he was pushed into a marriage with Teddeheburrer (aka Clara), the daughter of Wyne (see entry), from the Tarkiner clan of the north-west. She died on 7 August 1843, soon after giving birth to a mixed-race child who also died. Davey was then married to Maytepueminer (see entry). He and Maytepueminer were relocated to Oyster Cove in October 1847. Davey died in October 1848 at the age of thirty, without children.
People of the South-west Nation
DRAY (aka Sophia)
A woman from the Lowreenne clan from the south-west coast, Dray arrived on Bruny Island in June 1829 accompanied by her Ninine husband and their child for their annual visit. Two months later, three more Ninine family groups arrived, but by September Dray was the sole survivor. In January 1830 she was Robinson’s primary guide for his mission to the south-west coast.
Dray abruptly left Robinson in April 1830 and rejoined her people, taking a second husband, Dewoorady. They were captured by Robinson in September 1833 and sent to Flinders Island, where Dewoorady died, unrecorded, sometime before March 1839. Dray had a third husband, Tolelerduric (aka Andrew, Dray’s Jerry), a Peerapper man, whose death at Flinders Island was also unrecorded. Her fourth husband was known as Edmund and they were among the people sent to Oyster Cove in 1847. Edmund’s death was recorded on 26 March 1851 and Dray’s death on 29 August 1861, when she was said to be not less than seventy-five years old.
PEGERNOBERRIC (aka Bessy Clark)
A Ninine woman, Pegernoberric was taken as a child from Port Davey with her mother, Tinganoop, and father, Cordwanene, and sent to Flinders Island in June 1833. She was admitted to the Orphan School in Hobart in February 1835 but was taken back to Flinders Island by Robinson in September that same year. At Wybalenna she did not live with her mother, but she and the other children were housed with the catechist Robert Clark, who changed her name to Bessy Clark. She was transferred to Oyster Cove with her mother in 1847 when she was about twenty-one. She was then the wife of Thermanope (aka Augustus Clark), who was also from the Ninine clan and had been with her at the Orphan School. After he died in 1860, she was courted by an ex-convict carpenter, whose application to marry was approved by the colonial secretary so he could assume economic responsibility for her, but for whatever reason this marriage never took place. Pegernoberric died at Oyster Cove on 12 February 1867, and sometime later her body was secretly removed from the grave. Her complete skeleton was sent to the Royal College of Surgeons in London in December 1871.
TOWTERER (aka Romeo)
The senior man of the Ninine clan from Port Davey, Towterer was captured with his wife Wongenneep (aka Queen Evaline) and sent to Flinders Island in June 1833. His daughter, aged about four, was captured separately and sent to Hobart in May 1833. She was admitted to the Orphan School, where she died of measles in June 1835. He and his wife had a second child on Flinders Island, baptised as Mary, whose date of birth is unknown but was possibly 1835. Towterer died at Flinders Island on 30 September 1837 and Wongenneep sometime after March 1839, but her death was not recorded. Before she died, her only surviving daughter was renamed Mathinna and sent to live with Governor and Lady Franklin in February 1839. Mathinna’s portrait was painted by Thomas Bock in 1842, when she was said to be around seven. The portrait is reproduced in the colour section of this book. The Franklins returned to England in August 1843 and Mathinna was placed in the Orphan School, briefly returned to Flinders Island, then readmitted to the Orphan School in 1847 until she was ultimately discharged to Oyster Cove in August 1851. She died on 1 September 1852.
People of the Oyster Bay Nation
BULLYER (aka Drummernerlooner, Jumbo, Louisa)
A Parerebeene woman, Bullyer was stolen from Cape Portland by sealer James Munro when she was a child. Bullyer was given up by Munro in 1830 and she acted as a guide on Robinson’s missions. In 1831 she became the wife of Tarnebunner, who may have been a son of Mannalargenna (see entry). He died later that year and she went back to James Munro for a time, returning to Flinders Island at some point. She died there, her death unrecorded.
Her mother, Poolrerrener (aka Bullroe), had been stolen by a sealer named Tomlins around 1814 and taken to Kangaroo Island. She was surrendered to Robinson by another sealer on Hunter Island in August 1832, after which her son Ned Tomlins petitioned the governor to allow her to live with him. Robinson advised the petition be denied because Ned Tomlins was ‘not a fit person’ to have charge of his own mother. She was transferred to Flinders Island, where she died, unrecorded, before September 1835. Ned Tomlins gained a reputation as a highly skilled boatman in the Bass Strait and later as a prominent whaler in Victoria and New Zealand. He died in New Zealand sometime before 1853. He had a son named Edward Tomlins with his Māori wife, Hipora.
KICKERTERPOLLER (aka Tom Birch, Black Tom)
The evidence points to Kickerterpoller having originally been from the Pardarereme clan, whose territory covered the coastal fringe of the lower east. As a child he witnessed sailing ships passing Maria Island, which must have been the expedition of Nicolas Baudin in 1802. At some point he came into the household of a prominent settler named Thomas Birch and became known as Black Tom. In 1819 he was baptised as Tom Birch by the Hobart Anglican minister Robert Knopwood.
Some historians mistakenly believe that Kickerterpoller was associated with the guerilla fighter known as Musquito and was implicated in the killing of a settler in 1824. However, a man known as ‘Black Jack’ (who was sometimes called ‘Black Tom’) was responsible for that murder, and he was executed.
Kickerterpoller ran away from the Birch farm in 1826 and made contact with his clan, looking for a wife. He was said to be leading raids on settlers during the spring of that year and was arrested along with six men, three women and a baby, after an attack by soldiers on a large group of Pardarereme on 9 December 1826, when fourteen others were killed. The group of survivors were taken to the Richmond jail. They were found to have ‘no charge against them’ and liberated back to their country in early January 1827. Kickerterpoller was nominally released into the charge of Mrs Birch in Hobart before being taken under the wing of the chief constable at Richmond, Gilbert Robertson.
Kickerterpoller lived at Gilbert Robertson’s house and became a guide and interpreter for his roving party. Robertson introduced him to the governor as an example of what could be achieved by humane policies of conciliation. He was present at the arrest of Umarrah (see entry) and four others on 7 November 1828. Kickerterpoller was transferred from Robertson’s roving party to be a guide for Robinson’s ‘friendly mission’ in January 1830. He became Pagerly’s third husband and they lived together until his death from dysentery at Emu Bay on 16 May 1832. As he had been baptised, he was given a Christian burial.
Probably the most powerful leader on the island, Mannalargenna was a great warrior and cleverman, thought to be invincible. There is confusion about his country, as Robinson incorrectly claimed that he was from Ben Lomond, probably conflating him with his close ally Trowlebunner (see entry), whose wife was Mannalargenna’s sister. What is clear is that Mannalargenna had pre-eminent influence over country from Cape Portland, at the north-eastern tip, to Georges Bay at the mid east coast, and his core clan was likely to have been Trawlwoolway, whose country stretched from Cape Portland to Musselroe Bay. He was sufficiently important to have established an alliance in 1810 with the sealers, led by George Briggs, from Cape Barren Island. The alliance with the sealers was consolidated when Briggs took one of Mannalargenna’s daughters as his wife, but by 1816 Briggs had repudiated the alliance.
Mannalargenna’s first wife had died before he surrendered to Robinson in November 1830. His second wife, to whom he was devoted, was Tanleboneyer (aka Sal), a Tyreelore from his country who had been stolen by the sealer John Brown. The couple travelled together with Robinson from 1830 to 1835, when Tanleboneyer died in a measles epidemic in Hobart sometime in May. Mannalargenna died on Flinders Island soon after, on 4 December 1835. He had several sons, but only one survived him: Neenhepeerminer (aka Hector), who was captured in January 1831 and died on Flinders Island in October 1837.
Four of Mannalargenna’s daughters were taken captive by sealers on the Bass Strait islands. Woretemoeteyenner (aka Pung, Margaret), his eldest daughter, had been the wife of George Briggs, who sold her to ‘Long John’ Thomas. She was briefly a guide for Robinson and other roving parties but returned to Thomas late in 1831. She was known to have had at least four children, including John Briggs, who moved to Victoria in the 1850s, and Dalrymple (Dolly) Briggs, who married an emancipated convict named Thomas Johnson. In 1841 Dalrymple Johnson petitioned to have her mother, now living on Flinders Island, live with her in Latrobe. Woretemoeteyenner died there in 1847. Dalrymple Johnson died on 1 December 1864 and was survived by ten children. Her descendants constitute a significant section of the present-day Tasmanian Aboriginal community.
Wotecowidyer (aka Harriet) was originally stolen by sealer James Thompson, who then gave her to James Everitt. She was taken to Robinson by James Parish in 1830 but was returned to Everitt on her own request in 1831. She was returned to Flinders Island in 1836, transferred to Oyster Cove in 1847 and died there sometime in August or September 1855. Only two of Wotecowidyer’s numerous children survived, Thomas Thompson and Mary Ann Thompson, who lived with their father, the sealer James Thompson. After Thompson died in a boating accident in October 1835, they were sent to the Orphan School in May 1836 and were taken to Flinders Island later that year. Thomas Thompson went with Robinson to Port Phillip, while Mary Ann Thompson went into service with various settlers and was taken to Sydney sometime in 1851. Thomas Thompson stayed in Port Phillip in 1842 and was known to be in Victoria, maybe working the goldfields, in 1851. The eventual fate of the Thompson children remains unknown. Wotecowidyer was transferred to Oyster Cove in 1847, where she died in August 1855.
Wobberety (aka Wapperty) went voluntarily to Flinders Island in August 1844 with her daughter Betsy, whose father was the Māori sealer John Myteye. In 1847 Betsy married the Tahitian sealer John Mirey and lived on nearby Woody Island. Wobberety was transferred to Oyster Cove, where she died on 12 August 1867.
Teekoolterme was taken first to Kangaroo Island by ‘Black Jack’ Williams. After he drowned in 1830, she lived with ‘Long John’ Thomas on Preservation Island. It is not known what happened to her.
MAYTEPUEMINER (aka Matilda, New Maria)
A Leetermairremener woman stolen by sealers from St Patricks Head, Maytepueminer arrived on Flinders Island in June 1836. She was married to Lacklay (see entry) but refused to stay with him; however, they were later remarried and she went with him to Port Phillip, where he disappeared in April 1840. Maytepueminer spent some time with four companions looking for him in Lower Westernport where they were implicated in the murder of two whalers in October 1841. Maytepueminer was acquitted of murder and returned to Flinders Island in July 1842, where she was later married to Wooredy’s son Davey Bruny. They were among those transferred to Oyster Cove in 1847; she was one of seventeen people whose deaths were not recorded between 1851 and 1855.
TANGANUTURA (aka Tibb, Sarah)
Abducted from Cape Portland by the sealer James Parish when she was an adolescent, Tanganutura was sold to John Smith, who subsequently sold her to the sealer George Robinson. They lived for some years on King Island before moving back to the eastern end of the Bass Strait. She was taken to Swan Island in 1830 and became a guide for Robinson’s mission in 1831 before returning to Flinders Island in March 1832. She later married Nicermenic (aka Eugene), a Peerapper man from West Point who was captured at Port Sorrell in September 1831. They were among the people taken to Oyster Cove, where Nicermenic died on 28 May 1847. Tanganutura died on 3 October 1858. She was known to have had at least four children who survived infancy:
Mary Ann Robinson, whose father was the sealer George Robinson, was born around 1824, and in 1838 she married Walter George Arthur (see entry). On his death, she married an emancipated convict, Adam Booker. She died at Oyster Cove on 25 July 1871.
Duke Robinson was born around 1826, and his father was also the sealer George Robinson. N.J.B. Plomley, editor of Robinson’s journals, mistakenly conflated him with Thomas Thompson (see entry for Mannalargenna), but the records clearly show they were two different children. Duke was sent to the Orphan School from Flinders Island in November 1832 and there apprenticed to the Hobart merchant Thomas Learmonth in February 1840. He appears to have been sent to work for Learmonth’s sons in Victoria around 1850 and was known to be in Victoria in 1851. It is not known what happened to him.
Fanny (aka Fanny Cochrane) was born on Flinders Island in December 1834. Her biological father may have been John Smith, the sealer who purchased her mother from James Parish and was for a time coxswain on Gun Carriage and Flinders islands and became a whaler in Port Phillip. She lived in the household of Robert Clark at Wybalenna and was given the surname Cochrane, which was the maiden name of Clark’s wife. Fanny was transferred to Oyster Cove, where she lived with her mother until she married a timber splitter named William Smith in October 1854. They lived on land several miles inland from the old station and had eleven children. In 1889 she was given a land grant of 300 acres at Nicholls Rivulet. In 1899 and 1903 she recorded songs on wax cylinders that are the only recordings ever made of the song and speech of the original people of Tasmania. Her descendants constitute a significant section of the present-day Tasmanian Aboriginal community.
Adam was born on Flinders Island on 7 August 1838. His father was Nicermenic. With his parents he was sent to Oyster Cove, and the following year was sent to the Orphan School for four years, being discharged in January 1853. After returning from a whaling voyage, he died at his half-sister Fanny Smith’s house on 28 October 1857 with his mother present.
People of the North Midland Nation
MEELERLEETER (aka Leenimeener, Jack Allen, VDL Jack, Paddy)
Originally from the Tyerrerontepanner clan, Meelerleeter was aged about five when he was captured with his mother, Karnebucher, by Chief Constable Gilbert Robertson in 1829 and brought to Hobart. They were held in the Richmond jail and among a group of women and children taken to Robinson’s house, most of whom were released into the north in March 1830. Reunited with her husband, Monteener, Karnebucher and the family tried to seek protection from the Black Line with a settler, who took them to the Campbell Town jail. Karnebucher was removed from that jail by Alexander McKay, and her husband escaped in July 1831, presumably with his son. It is not clear what happened to Monteener after he was recaptured, but Meelerleeter ended up at John Batman’s property at Deddington, where he was baptised as Jack Allen, the name by which he was usually identified—although Batman often called him Paddy.
In 1836 Batman took him to Port Phillip, and on Batman’s death in 1839 Jack Allen became the responsibility of Robinson, who contracted him to work on a station north-west of Melbourne. He ran away in September 1840 after being unfairly accused of killing a horse and was then living among the Boonwurrung on Mornington Peninsula. In 1842 he was working for George Langhorne, who sent him back to Van Diemen’s Land in July. Later that year, he was sent to Flinders Island with Davey Bruny, Walter George Arthur and Mary Ann Arthur, and with these same people he was active in opposing the authoritarian rule at Wybalenna, and was one of the authors of the petition that led to the closure of the establishment in 1847. At Wybalenna he was married to Pieyencomyenna (aka Wild Mary) and they were among the people sent to Oyster Cove in 1847. After her death, he married a Tyreelore rescued from sealers known as Emma. For a short time he worked in the whaling industry, and he died at Oyster Cove on 10 February 1864. He had no children.
RICHARD (aka Cranky Dick)
The original name and clan of the boy whom Robinson called Richard is not known. He was raised by an ex-soldier and local constable named James Brumby on his farm on the Norfolk plains near Longford. One can only imagine the circumstances in which Brumby took possession of the child, and there may be a connection to a massacre said to have taken place close by in December 1825. Richard spoke only English. Plomley identifies the location for this boy as Ben Lomond; however, he has confused Richard with another man also known as Dick.
Richard joined Robinson’s mission party in 1832 but was an unsatisfactory guide as he regularly got lost and had little or no interaction with the other guides. He was said to have a ‘mental deficiency’, perhaps because he was prone to grand mal seizures. Still, Robinson always wanted to have Richard in his mission parties, and often was a messenger because of his fluency in English. He did not take Richard to Port Phillip. Possibly because of his affliction, Richard lived as a single man on Flinders Island and later at Oyster Cove. He died there on 28 October 1848.
UMARRAH (aka Kaneherlargenna)
A renowned leader of the Tyerrerontepanner from the midlands, Umarrah was captured by a roving party led by Chief Constable Gilbert Robertson on 7 November 1828. Also captured were his brother (name unknown), who subsequently escaped, his wife Laoninlooner, a man called Parewareter, and a boy, Cowertinner. Robertson successfully persuaded Governor Arthur that Umarrah should not be executed but treated as a prisoner of war, and he remained confined to Richmond jail, assigned a convict as his servant. He had freedom to visit Robertson’s house, where the boy Cowertinner lived. At the end of 1829 Robertson was instructed by the governor to hand over his guides for the friendly mission to the west coast. He agreed to hand over the two men but refused to allow Cowertinner to be taken. Eventually, in March 1831, Robinson gained custody of the boy, who died on Swan Island a month later.
Umarrah went with Robinson on his first mission to the west coast. While he acted as a guide, his wife, Laoninlooner, went to live at Robinson’s house, and she was one of six women released back into their country in March 1830. Umarrah absconded in April 1830, with Parewareter and another man, Trepanner. They took the migratory routes from the west coast to the ochre mines of the Surrey Hills, then crossed the central plateau to meet up with Umarrah’s brothers and his wife. Umarrah joined a group of remnant clans for a big battle with his traditional enemies, the Lairmairermener, in 1830, in which his wife was killed, along with at least one of his brothers. Parewareter and Trepanner were probably also killed, as they were not heard of again.
In October 1830, after the battle with the Lairmairermener, Umarrah presented himself in Launceston to be a guide for the Black Line, but soon melted back into the bush to lead a band of displaced people from the north-east and north midlands clans. This group, known to terrified settlers as the Stoney Creek band, conducted raids in the region between the North Esk and Tamar rivers that led to the deaths of several settlers and stockkeepers. Eventually, in August 1831, Umarrah surrendered his band to Robinson and was reintegrated into Robinson’s mission with his second wife, Polare (aka Woolaytopinner), a Punnilerpanner woman from Port Sorrell. After contracting dysentery, Umarrah died in Launceston and was buried on 26 March 1832. Polare died at Emu Bay about six weeks later, exact date unknown.
People of the North-east Nation
MAULBOYHEENER (aka Timme, Big Tuery’s Jemmy, Robert)
A youth of the Pyemairenerpairnener people of the Pipers River region, Maulboyheener came into Robinson’s care in 1829 with his mother, Luggenemeener (aka Queen Charlotte, Big Tuery). She appears to have been an unusually powerful woman of the Plangermairener from Ben Lomond, sister to Trowlebunner (see entry), the senior man of the Plangermairener, sometimes mistaken as her husband. Maulboyheener’s father was Woreternaterlargner (aka King George), the senior man of the Pyemairenerpairnener and a very important warrior among all the clans of the north-east nation, as was his brother Moulteherlargener. This was a notably close family, with strong bonds of affection that were remarked upon with surprise and admiration by numerous settlers, but which have caused confusion for historians.
When he was about thirteen years old, Maulboyheener was captured by John Batman, who had been tracking and harassing the clan for eighteen months. In a surprise attack on a night camp in May 1828, Batman’s roving party had killed most of the men at the camp, but managed to capture Maulboyheener’s older brother, Tillabunner, who was taken as a guide for a roving party and given the name Mungo. Maulboyheener was taken in a third surprise attack, in September 1829, with his mother, Luggenemeener, and her infant daughter. Also in the group was the son of Moulteherlargener, a boy of two or three named Rolepana, who was kept by Batman, baptised with the name Ben Lomond.
Maulboyheener, his mother, his sister, another eight captives and several children were sent to Richmond jail and then transferred to Robinson’s house in Hobart. Maulboyheener left Hobart with Robinson for the mission to Port Davey in January 1830, but was sent back again in early April to find that his mother had been returned to her country. In May, he went after his mother and was probably the boy arrested with two women in his father’s country on 15 May.
In October, when the Black Line was in full swing, Luggenemeener brought her husband Woreternaterlargner, his brother Moulteherlargener and her brother Trowlebunner, as well as seven other men, to Batman’s house, where Batman held her eldest son, then known as Mungo or Batman’s Jack. He escaped with his family but they were not able to liberate Moulteherlargener’s son, known as Ben Lomond. In all, eleven men and two women escaped from Batman’s custody and two men were subsequently shot, one of whom was probably Moulteherlargener. The group sought sanctuary with Robinson on 15 November. Maulboyheener was reunited with his family in March 1831 when he was sent from the Launceston jail to join them on Gun Carriage Island. He was reintegrated into Robinson’s mission in April. His brother Tillabunner died on Gun Carriage Island on 2 June. His mother, Luggenemeener, died on Flinders Island on 22 March 1837, followed by his sister, known as Eliza Robinson, on 30 June 1838. His father, Woreternaterlargner, died on 1 June 1840.
Maulboyheener was married to a Pallitore woman from the north midlands, whose name was Semiramis (aka Jenny). She died childless just before they were due to leave for Port Phillip on 28 February 1839. He immediately took another wife, a Tyreelore rescued from the sealers known as Rebecca. She died childless in Port Phillip on 29 April 1841, and then Maulboyheener took Truganini as his wife. By October they were both implicated in the murder of two whalers in Lower Westernport and Maulboyheener was executed with Peevay (see entry) at the first public hanging in Melbourne, on 20 January 1842. He was the last of his family.
Maulboyheener had no surviving siblings, although many historians have made the mistaken assumption that Walter George Arthur (see entry) was his brother. He was not, although they had very close kin connections, as Walter’s father was Maulboyheener’s mother’s brother. The misidentification follows from the contradictory and unreliable notes on individuals compiled by Plomley, in which he named the father of Walter George Arthur as Rolepa, a man Charles Robinson incorrectly identified as King George; however, King George was the name given to Woreternaterlargner.
PLORENERNOOPNER (aka Woreterpowidyer, Jock, Fanny)
A Pyemairenerpairnener woman, stolen by sealers and liberated in December 1830, Plorenernoopner was the sister of Woreternaterlargner and Moulteherlargener and therefore close kin to Maulboyheener. Claims that she was sister to Umarrah are incorrect, based on Plomley’s misidentification of her brother Moulteherlargener as Umarrah. Her first husband was among the Stoney Creek band that surrendered to Robinson in August 1831. He absconded in October but was recaptured and sent to Flinders Island, where he died unrecorded.
Plorenernoopner joined Robinson’s mission and married Peevay (see entry) and they were together on all subsequent missions. They went to Port Phillip in February 1839 and were together in Lower Westernport in October 1841 when they were implicated in the murder of two whalers. Peevay was executed for murder in January 1842, while Plorenernoopner was acquitted and returned to Flinders Island, where she was married to a Tommigener man from the north-west, Parloorer (aka Frederick). They were among those transferred to Oyster Cove, where they died sometime between 1851 and 1855, among seventeen deaths that were not recorded.
People of the Ben Lomond Nation
THOMAS BRUNE
A boy named Thomas Bunce was admitted to the Orphan School in August 1828 on the receipt of a letter from James Grant, a merchant in Hobart, who had been appointed in the previous month to act as agent for James Gilligan, who was leaving the colony. Gilligan was a sheep grazier on the Break of Day Plains on the South Esk River, and several settlers in this area had children of the original owners living with them. There is no evidence that the boy came from Bruny Island; his location with Gilligan suggests he was from one of the ‘extinguished’ clans of the Ben Lomond nation. Robinson demanded that he be released from the school in 1837 and sent to Wybalenna, where he came to be known as Thomas Brune. He was the editor of the newspaper on Flinders Island with Walter George Arthur (see entry). He was taken to Port Phillip but ran away from Robinson in April 1840 and never returned. He died on 3 January 1841 after falling from a tree while hunting possum on a pastoral run in Westernport.
TROWLEBUNNER (aka Rolepa, Rolepanner, Achilles)
As the senior man of the Plangermairener, Trowlebunner was a close ally of Mannalargenna and together they made a deal with Robinson in November 1830 to allow the clans to stay in their own country, but this was never honoured. Trowlebunner’s wife, Toogernupertooner (aka Maria), was the sister of Mannalargenna who had been stolen by sealers, and they were reunited on Swan Island when Robinson rescued her in October 1831. Robinson did not record that the couple had any children, but the evidence strongly suggests that Toogernupertooner was the mother of the boy known as Friday who was found with another boy on the Launceston streets working for a gang of thieves. She died on 30 March 1837—not on 27 October 1838 as Plomley’s notes suggest; he has confused her with a Tyerrerontepanner woman also known as Maria, who died on the later date. After her death, Trowlebunner did not take another wife. He died on 4 July 1847.
WALTER GEORGE ARTHUR (aka Friday)
In 1832 a boy known as Friday, aged about eleven, was found with another boy, known as Arthur, on the Launceston streets, working as pickpockets for a gang of thieves. He did not know his original name or language. He was sent from Launceston to Flinders Island, and was transferred to the Orphan School in Hobart in November that year. Arthur died at the Orphan School, and in October 1835 Friday was returned to Flinders Island, where he lived with the catechist Robert Clark and was renamed Walter George Arthur. Robinson had high hopes for this boy, who showed great commitment to the Christian faith. He was made co-editor of the Flinders Island Chronicle, but he fell out of favour over his sexual relationship with Mary Ann Robinson. They were married in 1838.
It is odd that Robinson never identified Walter George Arthur’s parents or recorded his original name and clan association, as he did for almost everyone. As a result, there has been persistent confusion about his birth parents, and who they were may never be known. Later commentators commonly identify him as the son of ‘King George’. This misidentification appears to have been made by George Robinson junior, compounded by the catechist Robert Clark, and later by Plomley, who identified his mother as Luggenemeener, the wife of Woreternaterlargner, known as King George. However, Robinson paid close attention to Luggenemeener and her family and he never mentioned Walter George Arthur in that context. The confusion arises from Robinson’s journal account on the day Luggenemeener died (23 March 1837), where he has written, ‘Walter was dangerously ill … attacked in the same manner as his mother’, but this is most likely a reference to Toogernupertooner, the wife of Trowlebunner. The record of the previous day shows that she was also dangerously ill at that time and died several days later. This would account for Walter’s later identification as ‘Chieftain of Ben Lomond’. In a letter he wrote to Robinson in February 1847 he enquired about ‘the sheep appertaining to my father’. As the sheep in question were granted to Robinson’s guides, the context suggests he was referring to his mother’s brother Mannalargenna, who was also sometimes erroneously known as a chief of Ben Lomond.
In 1839 Robinson took Walter and Mary Ann to Port Phillip to work for his family, until they were returned to Hobart and then to Flinders Island in 1842. Walter was the leader in resistance to authoritarian rule at Wybalenna and promoting recognition of their native rights, including organising a petition to Queen Victoria that led to the closure of Wybalenna in 1847. He and Mary Ann were among the people sent to Oyster Cove, where they were given a lease of 15 acres of land adjacent to the station, which they tried to farm. He also briefly worked in the whaling industry, and drowned when returning to Oyster Cove by boat on 12 May 1861. After Walter’s death, Mary Ann married an ex-convict named Adam Booker and continued to live on the land at Oyster Cove until her death on 25 July 1871, when the land reverted to the Crown. She had no children.
People of the North Nation
LACKLAY (aka Probelattener, Little Jemmy, Isaac)
Described as ‘a boy’, in 1830, Lacklay was of the Punnilerpanner, from the country around Port Sorrell, with close connections to the clans of the north-west. He knew Peevay (see entry) and spoke the same language. Before coming into Robinson’s charge, he and a boy identified as his older brother, Merape (aka Proper, Neptune), were raiding along the coast in company with Nicermenic (see entry for Tanganutura). They had escaped from the assistant government surveyor in September 1830 and were involved in raiding along the north-west coast and robbing sealers’ boats at Port Sorrell. Lacklay and Merape were caught by Alexander McKay and sent to Robinson at Port Sorrell on 21 September; the pair ran off with Peevay the next day. Recaptured and again taken to the Launceston jail, Lacklay and Merape escaped, only to be recaptured again.
Lacklay was one of four people sent to Swan Island from the Launceston jail in March 1831. His older brother was probably with him then, as Merape was known to be on Flinders Island in 1832. Lacklay joined Robinson’s mission in April 1831 and was with him for all subsequent missions. In 1837 Robinson insisted that he should marry and he chose Maytepueminer, recently rescued from the sealers, who was much older and refused to stay with him. They were formally married again in January 1838, and Robinson took them both to Port Phillip in February 1839.
Lacklay left Robinson in April 1840 and was believed to have drowned when a boat belonging to Christopher Berry was reported to have capsized in Westernport Bay sometime in May. However, Berry’s boat did not capsize; it sailed to the Bay of Islands in New Zealand. Lacklay may have gone on to have a whole new life in New Zealand, possibly in the whaling industry, where Ned Tomlins (see entry for Bullyer) was a prominent figure.
His brother Merape married a young Pennemukeer woman, Kittewer (aka Amelia), and they had at least five children, three of whom survived past infancy: Emily, born March 1838; Moriarty, born June 1840; and Bobby, birth date unknown. This loving family held the survivors’ hopes for the future of their people, but Emily and Bobby died, unrecorded, sometime before the transfer to Oyster Cove. Moriarty went with his parents to Oyster Cove and was almost immediately sent away to the Orphan School, where he died on 5 March 1852. He was the last of his family and his clan. His father, Merape, had died at Oyster Cove on 21 March 1851 and his mother, Kittewer, sometime later.
People of the North-west Nation
COONENIA (aka Patty)
There is no record of Coonenia’s capture or arrival on Flinders Island. She was a woman from the north-west corner, the wife of Gonenar (aka Daniel), who was among the people taken to Hunter Island in July 1832 and transferred to Flinders Island in November. Plomley’s notes suggest that Coonenia may have been taken later than her husband, in December 1834. Gonenar died in June 1837 and Coonenia then married a Punnilerpanner man, Dowunggi (aka Leonidas, David), who died in August 1844. She was one of several single women over forty who were transferred to Oyster Cove in 1847. When she died on 8 July 1867 at the hospital in Hobart, her body was dissected so her skeleton could be removed for the collection of the Royal Society of Tasmania.
PEEVAY (aka Tunnerminerwait, Napoleon, Jack)
An orphaned Parperloihener youth of Robbins Island on the northwest coast, Peevay was about fifteen when he joined Robinson’s mission. He had many siblings.
Wymurric, his oldest brother, was recognised as leader by three of the remnant clans of the north-west who sought protection with Robinson in July 1832. He and his family were held on Hunter Island until November, when they were sent for an interview with the governor in Hobart and then taken to Flinders Island, where Wymurric died on 20 February 1833. His wife, Larratong (aka Queen Andromache), died on 8 August 1837. Their son, Timemendic (aka Adolphus), was sent to the Orphan School for a few years, and for a brief spell in 1839 he lived with Governor and Lady Franklin. He was sent to sea on a government vessel, later joining the crew of a ship bound for England. He was never heard of again and was presumed to have died.
Penderoin was also taken to Hobart in November with his wife, Nollahalleker (aka Kit), but they did not go to Flinders Island. Instead they stayed at Robinson’s house in Hobart until they were taken as guides on Robinson’s last missions to the west and north-west coast in 1833–34. They both appear to have died in Hobart in a measles epidemic sometime in May 1835; their deaths are not recorded.
Pendowtewer (aka Rodney) was introduced to Robinson with his friend Nicermenic in 1831 and sent to Launceston, from where he was released back into his own country. In October 1832 he was captured and badly beaten by Alexander McKay, then sent to Flinders Island. His wife was Loweriddic (aka Deborah), and she died on Flinders Island on 3 May 1838. Her skull was removed and sent to Lady Franklin. When Pendowtewer died on 4 August, his skull was also removed and sent to Lady Franklin to make a pair. Their son Robert, aged two, died the following month on 2 September. It is not known what happened to his skull; it may have been the child’s skull that Robinson kept in his personal collection.
Pordeboik was Peevay’s only known sister, married to a Tarkiner man. She and her family were captured by Robinson in March 1834 and sent to Flinders Island, where they were among the unnamed dead between April 1834 and February 1835.
At some point in 1832, Peevay formed a partnership with Plorenernoopner. They went together to Port Phillip in February 1839. Peevay worked for Robinson and his family around Melbourne and accompanied Robinson on a six-month excursion into the Western District between March and August 1841. By October 1841, Peevay and Plorenernoopner were in Lower Westernport, where they were implicated in the murder of two whalers. Peevay, found guilty, was executed with Maulboyheener at the first public hanging in Melbourne, on 20 January 1842. He was the last of his family.
WYNE
The senior man of the Tarkiner, Wyne was a noted warrior whose territory stretched between the Pieman and Arthur rivers. In September 1832 he orchestrated an attack on Robinson at the Arthur River. His oldest daughter, Ryenrope (aka Cleopatra), was aged about fourteen when she defected to Constable Anthony Cottrell in November 1832. She was sent to Flinders Island, where she died on 31 August 1837 after giving birth to a daughter, who died four months later. Wyne surrendered to Robinson in July 1833 with his wife, Neerip, and two younger daughters. He died at the Sarah Island penitentiary on 31 July, and his wife died on 11 August. She had recently given birth to a baby girl, who died the day before her mother.
Wyne’s surviving daughters were Teddeheburrer (aka Clara), who was about nine, and Moihenung, who was about three. From Sarah Island they were sent to Hobart and then to the Orphan School in 1835 and discharged that same year to Flinders Island, where Moihenung died on 13 October 1837. In childhood Teddeheburrer had been married to a boy from a related clan who was known on Flinders Island as Little Billy, and they were formally married in August 1837. He died on 1 March 1839. It is not known if she had another husband before she was briefly married to Davey Bruny in 1843, but she certainly had been sexually abused by unknown men employed at Wybalenna. She died of syphilis on 7 August 1843, a short time after giving birth to a mixed-race child, who also died.
The youngest son in a Tarkiner family of two adults and five children that finally surrendered in December 1842, Billy Lanne was the sole survivor of the family. In 1847, aged eight, he was transferred to Oyster Cove and was then sent to the Orphan School until April 1853, when he returned to Oyster Cove and lived with Walter George Arthur and Mary Ann as their ‘adopted son’. In June 1859 he was permitted to leave Oyster Cove to join the crew of a whaling ship as a harpooner but he continued to visit the station when he was in port and would share Truganini’s two-room hut. As the sole surviving male of the original people of the colony, the settlers called him King Billy. In 1868 he was presented to the Duke of Edinburgh as fellow royalty.
When Billy Lanne died in Hobart on 3 March 1869, his body was mutilated, first by the colonial surgeon, who cut his head from his body to send it to London, then by the medical supervisor and members of the Royal Society of Tasmania, who cut off his hands and feet for their collection. After the mangled remains were buried, members of the Royal Society disinterred the body, removed the flesh from the bones and took the headless skeleton for their collection. The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre eventually recovered what was believed to be his skull from the University of Edinburgh, although doubt remains that this was his skull. It is not known for certain what happened to the rest of his remains.
People of the Big River Nation
MANNAPACKERNAME (aka Meerkerpakaminer, Big Jemmy, King Alphonso)
Described as a ‘big man’, Mannapackername was a senior man of the Luggermairrernerpairrer, of the Western Tiers, who was closely allied with the Lairmairermener. His wife Nurnepattener (aka Jemima, Cranky Poll) was reported to have been involved in the killing of two settlers at Port Sorrell in August 1831. They were both captured in December 1831, as was Mannapackername’s brother, Druemerterpunner (aka King Alexander), whose wife was the sister of Polare (see entry for Umarrah). The clan name of his wife was unknown, but at Wybalenna she was called Caroline, and their son Maccamee (aka Washington) was responsible for killing settlers at Port Sorrell. With twenty-two other Big River people, they were sent to Flinders Island in January 1832. When Mannapackername’s wife died on 11 November 1837, Robinson tried to marry him to Plonermemer (aka Flora), a Tyreelore woman originally from the Plangermairener clan, who were his traditional enemies. She refused to stay with him. He was married to Truganini in 1842.
Mannapackername was a very significant figure at Wybalenna, as was his brother, both of them appointed to be ‘constables’ in 1837. The honorific title of King was bestowed on them following the death of King William (aka Tongelongeter), who died in June 1837, and King George (aka Woreternaterlargner), who died in June 1840. As the dominant men of the community at Wybalenna, King Alphonso and King Alexander were believed to be the most compliant and reliable of the captives, yet they took an active role in the resistance to authoritarian rule and petitioned for the recognition of their rights, which led to the closure of the establishment in 1847. Mannapackername died on 7 July 1847, just months before the transfer to Oyster Cove. About thirty years later, the skeleton of Mannapackername was unearthed from his grave on Flinders Island and added to the collection of the Royal Society of Tasmania.
The rest of the family went to Oyster Cove, where Druemerterpunner and Maccamee both died unrecorded sometime before 1855. Caroline died on 12 July 1860 and her skull was added to the collection of the Royal Society of Tasmania in Hobart.
Taken from his clan when he was an infant, Robert was alienated from his culture and had no language other than English. His adoptive mother, Mrs Busby, said her first husband, Sergeant McCauley, ‘found’ the child in 1810. The circumstances in which a member of the 73rd Regiment came to find a baby alone in the bush does not bear close scrutiny, especially when the geographic location places him in the territory of the Big River people—an area that became notorious for massacres.
Robinson sent out a circular in May 1829 requiring settlers to hand over any Aboriginal children they had in their employ. Mrs Busby reluctantly complied, feeling ‘a parental regard’ for the young man and anxiety for his future wellbeing. As Robert spoke fluent English, Robinson believed he would be an excellent role model, and persuaded the governor to make him a grant of 10 acres of land on Bruny Island, plus a cart and bullock so he could become a farmer. The land grant was made, but the farm never materialised.
On 4 January 1830, Robert was ‘forlorn and miserable’ when he approached Robinson in Hobart, offering his services for the mission to the west coast. Robert proved to be an expert hunter with a gun, but had poor bush skills and was rarely included among Robinson’s guides. He was never accepted by the other men on Robinson’s missions, who were all traditional enemies of the Big River people. He got lost on more than one occasion, and in October 1830 he was arrested and taken to the Launceston jail. At Robinson’s request, Robert was sent to Gun Carriage Island on 1 January 1831 and was subsequently reintegrated into Robinson’s mission team. He died from influenza in Launceston on 23 March 1832 and was given a Christian burial.