Australian
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Clip description

It is 1830 and European settlement has begun in Tasmania. Narrator Rachel Perkins sets the scene for the resulting inter-racial tension and violence dubbed the Black War, the harsh world Truganini is born into. This clip introduces her personality and her relationship with George Augustus Robinson.

Together they made an unlikely pair who changed the future of Tasmanian Aboriginals. Historian Professor Marcia Langton of the Yiman-Bidjara Nation, writer Bruce Pascoe of Boonwurrung Heritage, Tasmanian Aboriginal Darlene Mansell, and historian Professor Gordon Briscoe of the Maraduntjara Nation provide their historical interpretation of Truganini’s life and motives.

Curator’s notes

This clip puts into perspective the perhaps questionable actions of Truganini to help George Augustus Robinson. It is so easy to forget the harshness of life in general in the 1800s, let alone what it was like for Aboriginal people in Tasmania. She and her people experienced so much opposition and violence it is certainly understandable that she would do anything she could to try to make a better life, perhaps explaining why she would work with Robinson to take the remaining Aboriginal population to a mission on a remote island in the Bass Strait.

From Truganini’s statement, taken from diary entries – ‘It was the best thing to do, I hoped we would save all my people that are left’ – it is obvious there were not many options left open to her. Despite the official history of Tasmania being hotly debated, the fact remains that the Aboriginal population was decreasing at an extremely rapid rate, regardless of the reasons. Given the circumstances even now it does seem the best course of action; the plan was just poorly executed.