Truganini

Truganini
Portrait of Truganini by Charles A. Woolley
Born	c. 1812 Recherche Bay, Van Diemen's Land
Died	8 May 1876 (aged 63–64) Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

Truganini (c. 1812 — 8 May 1876) was an Aboriginal Tasmanian woman who has been widely described as the last "full-blooded" Aboriginal Tasmanian. She was a member of the Nuenonne people and grew up on Bruny Island in south-eastern Tasmania. As a teenager she saw the death and displacement of much of Tasmania's Aboriginal population as a result of European colonisation during the Black War. She became a guide to George Augustus Robinson and took part in a series of expeditions to capture and exile the island's remaining Aboriginal population.

Truganini was herself exiled along with the surviving Aboriginal Tasmanians to the Wybalenna Aboriginal Establishment on Flinders Island in 1835. She later spent time in the Port Phillip District (modern-day Victoria), where she became a fugitive and was tried alongside four others for the murder of a pair of whalers. After being acquitted of the crime, she was returned to Wybalenna and later moved to Oyster Cove. By 1872 she was the only Aboriginal resident left at Oyster Cover and began to be mythologised and romanticised as the "last of a dying race", becoming an object of fascination for the European population.

After her death, Truganini became a symbol of the supposed extinction of the Tasmanian Aboriginal people. She has featured prominently in art, music, and literature, while the narratives surrounding her life have been continually re-defined and re-interpreted. Once cast as the final survivor of a "doomed race", she has since been reframed by some as a memorial to British genocide, and reclaimed by others as an anti-colonial figure. The mythology of Truganini as the "last Tasmanian" has itself been challenged as part of broader efforts to contest the myth of Aboriginal Tasmanian extinction.

Truganini was born around 1812 at Recherche Bay in southern Tasmania, then called Van Diemen's Land.^[1] She was the daughter of Manganerer, a senior figure of the Nuenonne people, whose country included Bruny Island and the coastal area of the Tasmanian mainland between Recherche Bay and Oyster Cove. Truganini's mother was likely a member of the Ninine people, another clan group from the Nuenonne's language group whose territory encompassed the area surrounding Port Davey.^[1]

By the time of Truganini's birth, the Nuennone population had begun to encounter European colonisation.^[2] Captain James Cook had first landed on Bruny Island at Adventure Bay in 1777, and within a few decades runaway convicts had begun to conduct raids on Tasmanian Aboriginal settlements to kidnap Aboriginal women.^[3] When a group of French explorers and scientists arrived on Bruny Island in 1802, they observed that the Nuenonne they encountered were terrified of the Europeans' guns and refused to allow their women to go near the visitors.^[4] After the establishment of Hobart in 1804, a large number of ships began to sail past Nuenonne country to enter the Derwent River.^[2] In 1819 the Aboriginal and settler populations of Tasmania as a whole both sat at around 5000, with the European population overwhelmingly made up of men.^[5] By 1830 the European population had grown to 23,500.^[6]

After the arrival of European settlers the seal colonies that the Nuenonne relied on for food were soon destroyed, leaving many of the women reliant on trading sex for food with European settlers who had established whaling stations on the island. In 1816 Truganini's mother was murdered by a group of sailors, and in 1826 two of her sisters were kidnapped by a sealer.^[7] There is also an unverified account published shortly before Truganini's death that around 1828 Truganini herself was abducted and raped by timber-cutters. According to the book, the timber-cutters also murdered two Nuenonne men, one of whom was Truganini's fiancé, by throwing them out of a boat and cutting off their hands as they tried to clamber back in.^[8][9]

By the late 1820s, Tasmania was in the midst of the Black War. The kidnapping of Aboriginal women was particularly common, and retributive violence between displaced Aboriginal clans and settlers was prevalent.^[10][11] In 1828, driven by settler fears of Aboriginal guerrilla violence, the colony's governor George Arthur declared martial law. The order did not extend to Bruny Island, where the more cooperative attitude of the Nuenonne towards the European settlers was viewed as a potential model for Tasmania's other Aboriginal peoples.^[12] Given this less hostile relationship, the island was identified as a suitable site for an experiment in conciliation between the settlers and the Indigenous population. Arthur appointed George Augustus Robinson to set up a ration station and manage the colonists' relationship with the Aboriginal population of Bruny Island.^[10][13] Robinson, who was motivated by humanitarian and religious ideals, hoped that his efforts—modelled on conciliation and resettlement of Native Americans in the United States—would save the Aboriginal Tasmanian population from an otherwise certain extinction.^[14]

Robinson first encountered Truganini while she was living amongst a group of convict woodcutters on the mainland. He brought her back to Bruny Island, where he established a Christian mission at Missionary Bay. He used Truganini's presence at the mission to entice her father and a small group of other Aboriginal people to join her.^[15] He deplored the widespread trade in sex between Aboriginal women and European settlers, attempting with little success to "civilise" the mission's residents and put them to work in exchange for extra rations.^[16] Truganini spent her days at the mission diving for shellfish and crafting necklaces and baskets.^[17]

In 1829 a group of escaped convicts kidnapped Truganini's stepmother. Manganerer attempted to follow them in a canoe but was blown out to sea, killing his son and almost killing him. When he returned to Missionary Bay, he found that almost the entirety of his clan group had died from disease. By early 1830 Manganerer had also died, succumbing to a sexually transmitted disease.^[18] Robinson, who had developed an apparently fatherlike relationship with Truganini, allowed the Nuenonne elder Woureddy to marry her in October 1829.^[19]

In January 1830 Robinson obtained the governor's approval for a "friendly mission" to contact and gain the trust of the Aboriginal peoples of western and north-western Tasmania. He brought several guides, including Truganini, Woureddy, and two men named Kikatapula and Maulboyheenner, along with a small group of convicts.^[20] The party set out on foot from Recherche Bay on 3 February 1830.^[21]

Truganini, who was suffering from an advanced case of syphilis, helped collect food for the expedition party by diving for shellfish and gathering edible plants.^[22] She also began a sexual relationship with Robinson's convict foreman, Alexander McKay.^[23] The group finally encountered a group of ten Ninine families shortly after passing Bathurst Harbour.^[24] On 25 March they encountered another group and performed corroborees with them.^[25] At one point during the journey Truganini, Woureddy and McKay were sent to the Macquarie Harbour Penal Station on Sarah Island to gather medication and rations. While they were there, the other guides abandoned Robinson. Robinson, starving and debilitated by skin and eye infections, was saved from death only after being located by Truganini and Woureddy on their return.^[26]

The group continued their journey across western Tasmania and learned of the increasingly violent massacres of Aboriginal Tasmanians that were taking place as part of the Black War.^[27] They finally finished their journey in Launceston in October 1830, with Truganini so weakened that she could barely walk.^[28] With the colony under martial law, Truganini and the other Aboriginal guides were briefly imprisoned, until an official named George Whitcomb secured their release and allowed Robinson's party to stay at his home.^[29]

By the time of their arrival in Launceston, the governor had announced a policy known as the "Black Line" that required every man in Tasmania to join a militia. These militias would form two human chains that would trap and then remove every remaining Aboriginal inhabitant from the districts settled by Europeans.^[30][31] About 60 settlers and 300 Aboriginal Tasmanians had been killed over the preceding two years.^[32] Robinson reached an agreement with the governor that his party would attempt to locate and make peace with any Aboriginal groups who evaded the Black Line, and resettle them on Swan Island until a more permanent resettlement site could be established. Robinson quickly set out this next expedition with Truganini, Woureddy, an Aboriginal boy named Peevay, and two other guides to negotiate these groups' surrender before they could become victims of the Black Line.^[33][34] He persuaded some sealers to release the Aboriginal women that they had enslaved, and convinced a number of Aboriginal clan groups that he encountered—including a group led by the warrior Mannalargenna—to accompany him to Swan Island after warning them of the encroaching danger.^[33][35]

Robinson brought Truganini and the rest of the assembled group to the inhospitable Swan Island, which was exposed to powerful gales, had little food or water, and was infested with tiger snakes.^[36] After securing them on the island, Robinson received a letter of praise from the military commandant for his efforts. While the 2200 militiamen of the Black Line had managed to capture just two Aboriginal people over the course of a chaotic seven weeks, his small party had secured 15.^[37] Robinson took Truganini and a few of the other Aboriginal guides to accompany him to Hobart, where he met with the governor in early 1831. Robinson was rewarded with land grants and hundreds of pounds for the achievements of his friendly mission, while Truganini and the other guides received some clothing and a boat.^[38][a]

While the colony's executive encouraged Robinson to immediately set out on another mission to round up the colony's remaining Aboriginal peoples, Robinson successfully persuaded the colony's governor and Aboriginal Committee that a permanent resettlement site should first be established for the surviving Aboriginal population on Gun Carriage Island.^[40][41] On 1 March Robinson took Truganini and 22 other Aboriginal people he had gathered in Hobart back to Swan Island along with a small number of convicts and soldiers. There, they collected the 51 people who had been left on Swan Island and continued towards the new resettlement colony. Truganini and the other guides complained that they did not want to be resettled on Gun Carriage Island, but Robinson nonetheless expelled the sealers who had established a village there and turned the island into a resettlement station. Truganini and Woureddy were given one of the cottages that had been constructed by the sealers.^[42]

The new settlement soon ran into difficulties. Robinson continued his attempts to expel the sealers and "rescue" the Aboriginal women who lived with them, but the sealer James Munro persuaded the governor that these efforts were unlawful as the women were their wives rather than their captives.^[43] Robinson was ordered by the governor to release the women and to cease attempting to expel the sealers from the islands.^[44] Many of the Aboriginal residents had also begun to suffer from disease. Truganini refused to enter her cottage and begged Robinson to let her leave the island and return to the mainland.^[45]

In May 1831 Robinson took Truganini, Woureddy, Pagerly, Kikatapula, and Maulboyheener to a new mission that was being established at Musselroe Bay.^[46] In late June the group set out with Robinson on another mission to capture a group of Aboriginal people led by the chief Eumarrah.^[47] Robinson was soon informed that the governor had decided to disestablish the settlement at Gun Carriage Island and had appointed him superintendent of a new Aboriginal resettlement station on Flinders Island.^[48] After a few months, realising that he had little hope of finding Eumarrah's band with his existing guides, Robinson sought assistance from Eumarrah's rival Mannalargenna. Mannalargenna was furious with Robinson for breaking his earlier promises and for exiling him to Gun Carriage Island, but eventually agreed to assist him.^[49][50]

In mid-August Truganini separated from the rest of the group to care for Woureddy, who had suffered an injury to his thigh. By the time they reunited with the rest of the party on 31 August, the group had located Eumarrah and had been joined by two more Aboriginal women, including Mannalargenna's daughter Woretemoeteryenner.^[51] Eumarrah offered to work with Mannalargenna to help Robinson track down the rival Big River people.^[52] The group returned to Launceston in September 1831, where newspapers reported with excitement on Eumarrah's promises to locate and round up the Big River people.^[53] On 15 October Truganini, Robinson, and the several of the other Aboriginal guides set out on this new expedition.^[54] The group was forced to exercise caution as they traversed some of the colony's most settled regions, with Robinson believing that many of the settlers—utterly committed to the eradication of the Aboriginal population—would kill his guides if given the opportunity.^[55] On 30 December they finally located the group of 16 men, nine women, and one child, who were sent to the new settlement on Flinders Island.^[56]

Truganini was briefly taken to Flinders Island in February 1832, but left with Robinson a few weeks later on his next expedition. Robinson's new objective was to round up a group of Aboriginal people known to be living in north-western Tasmania. Their short time on Flinders Island had left almost all of the Aboriginal guides in Robinson's party suffering from disease, and ultimately led to the deaths of Eumarrah and Kikatapula.^[57] The party arrived at Cape Grim in early June and encountered a group of 23 people led by Wymurric. They were lured onto Hunter Island with the intention of sending them on to Flinders Island, but many quickly grew ill and died.^[58]

In August, Truganini and the rest of the party set out once again in search of two more clans believed to be living in western Tasmania.^[59] In September 1832, Truganini saved Robinson's life by swimming him across the Arthur River away from a group of Tarkiner people who intended to kill him.^[60] Woureddy was angered that Truganini had run away from him to save Robinson and threatened to kill her, jealous of the attention she was receiving from other men.^[61] By November, Truganini was assisting a mission led by Anthony Cottrell to locate the Tarkiner while Robinson travelled to Hobart.^[62] They gathered six individuals and sent them to Launceston, then returned to Macquarie Harbour to reunite with Robinson.^[63] In February Truganini set out on her own to hunt for a group of Ninine people and persuaded the group of eight to come with her to Sarah Island.^[64]

Robinson finally returned in late April, by which point several of the Ninine had escaped.^[64] With Robinson increasingly impatient to finish rounding up the remaining Aboriginal inhabitants of Tasmania so that he could take up his post on Flinders Island, he became more willing to use force to collect the three remaining Aboriginal clans believed to be living on the Tasmanian mainland.^[65] In May, Truganini led the party on another expedition to gather the remaining Ninine. Truganini and Woureddy convinced a group of about 10 people, which included the young daughter of Towterer, to join them. The group asked that they be permitted to reunite with Towterer and travel together with the rest of their clan, but Woureddy persuaded Robinson that they should instead force the group back to Sarah Island at gunpoint.^[66] On 17 June Truganini encountered Towterer, who had been searching for his daughter, and the rest of their group.^[67] On 21 June Truganini helped lead the party in locating the final 16 members of this Ninine clan.^[68]

On 19 July, the party set out on another expedition to locate the Tarkiner.^[69] Truganini helped to push the party's rafts across rivers, and at one point suffered a seizure from the ordeal.^[70] While the expedition party managed to gather up most of the Tarkiner clan, all of the Tarkiner adults quickly died, mostly as a result of disease, after being brought to Sarah Island. Only a handful of the Ninine and Tarkiner captives were still alive when they were sent to Flinders Island on 20 November.^[71]

On 14 January 1834 Robinson and the group left Launceston on what was intended to be their final expedition.^[72] By April Robinson had located and captured 20 more people. While he was crossing the Arthur River on the return journey, Truganini once again saved Robinson's life by swimming out to his raft and towing it to the bank after it was carried away by the swift current.^[73] Robinson left the expedition soon after and returned to Hobart, but placed his son in command of the expedition party and tasked them with finding the remnant Tommigener clan. After braving the cold weather for four months, they finally found the eight remaining Tommigener in December, all of whom were already suffering from disease.^[74]

On 3 February 1835 Robinson declared that he had successfully removed and exiled the entire Aboriginal population of the Tasmanian mainland.^[b] The announcement was widely reported and was met with excitement by the settler population. He was awarded a sum of money, land grants for his sons, and a lifelong pension.^[76] Robinson brought Truganini and the other Indigenous guides to his house in Hobart to recover from the long series of expeditions.^[77] Truganini and Woureddy had by this point become celebrities, with Woureddy widely referred to as "Your Majesty", and became the subjects of drawings by Thomas Bock and busts by the sculptor Benjamin Law.^[78][79][80] But in October 1835, they too were taken into exile at the Wybalenna Aboriginal Establishment on Flinders Island with the other Indigenous Tasmanians that they had helped Robinson to round up.^[81]

Conditions at Wybalenna were extremely poor. Many of the Aboriginal residents had died or were suffering from disease, and there was little food or fresh water.^[82] Robinson began a program of Christianising the residents, changing their names and forcing them to wear European clothes. He renamed Truganini "Lalla Rookh" in reference to the romance of the same name by Thomas Moore. Truganini was forced to engage in sewing classes, but grew unhappy and longed to return to the mainland.^[83]

In March 1836, Truganini joined another expedition to north-western Tasmania to locate the final group of Tarkiner people. This 16-month expedition provided an escape for Truganini from Wybalenna and allowed the guides to return to their traditional lifestyle and customs.^[84] When the group returned to Wybalenna, 16 of its inhabitants had died in their absence, and Truganini and the other guides had grown colder towards Robinson. When Robinson told them that he had constructed new houses, Truganini remarked that soon there would be no one left alive on the island to inhabit them.^[85][86]

In 1839, Robinson took up the position of Protector of Aborigines in the newly colonised Port Phillip District in present-day Victoria. He took Truganini and about fifteen other Aboriginal Tasmanians with him.^[86][87] Truganini and the other Tasmanians had no cultural ties to the Kulin people of the Port Phillip District, with whom they did not share a language.^[88] Robinson let the Tasmanians that he had brought with him live largely independently. The men spent their time hunting and performing labour for Robinson's sons, while Truganini weaved baskets and traded for sex with Kulin men.^[89] Despite some claims that she had a child named Louisa Briggs in Victoria,^[90] historians no longer believe this is likely.^[91]

Truganini ran away from the Aboriginal encampment several times.^[92] By 1840 Robinson had decided he no longer had any use for the Tasmanians, and requested that arrangements be made to send them back to Wybalenna.^[93] In 1841, Truganini abandoned her husband Woureddy and ran off with Maulboyheenner.^[94] They were soon joined by Peevay and two women called Plorenernoopner and Maytepueminer, and set out for Westernport Bay to search for Maytepueminer's husband Lacklay.^[95] On 2 October they plundered and set fire to the hut of a settler named William Watson and kidnapped his wife and daughter. When Watson returned with his son-in-law, they shot and wounded the two men. As they were being pursued by an armed search party assembled by Watson, Maulboyheenner and Peevay shot and beat to death two whalers that they had mistaken for Watson and his party.^[96]

Truganini and her four compaions became outlaws, triggering a long pursuit by the authorities around the Bass River and Tooradin regions. The group raided huts along the way and stole food, money, and weapons.^[97] Truganini became weakened by swelling in her legs, and within a few weeks could barely move.^[98] A armed party under the command of Commissioner Frederick Powlett was tasked with apprehending them.^[99] On 20 November Powlett managed to surround and ambush the group with his party of 23 settlers and seven Aboriginal trackers.^[100]

The five Tasmanians arrived in Melbourne as prisoners on 26 November.^[101] Maulboyheenner and Peevay were charged with murder, while the three women were charged as accessories. Maulboyheenner gave the defence that he had mistaken the whalers for Watson, and explained that they had been told by another settler that Watson was responsible for the death of Lacklay. Their appointed counsel unsuccessfully argued that it was unfair to try members of an "alien people" in an unfamiliar courtroom.^[102] As the five defendants were not Christians, they were not permitted to testify; their lawyer was forced to state a plea of not guilty on their behalf when it became clear that they did not understand what was taking place in the courtroom.^[103]

At their trial Robinson testified to the positive character of the defendants. He also explained that Truganini and the other female defendants should not be blamed, as they were under the control of the men.^[104] The jury ultimately acquitted the three women but convicted Maulboyheenner and Peevay, while recommending a merciful sentence. The judge rejected their recommendation of mercy and sentenced the two men to death by hanging.^[104] They were hanged on 20 January 1842 in front of a crowd of 4000–5000 people in what was the first legal execution to take place in the Port Phillip District.^{[105][80][93]} According to the diaries of the minister Joseph Orton, Truganini was greatly anguished by their deaths.^[106]

In July 1842, Truganini was transported back to Wybalenna on Flinders Island. Woureddy died on the journey, likely of syphilis.^[86][107] The superintendent forced the 54 remaining residents at Wybalenna to work, speak English, and practice Christianity. Truganini resisted these rules and often ran away with local sealers.^[108][109] The superintendent forced her into a marriage with Mannapackername, also known as "King Alphonso", a senior member of the Big River people who was regarded as a responsible figure.^[110][109] While the superintendent hoped that this would curb Truganini's behaviour, both Truganini and Mannapackername continued to rebel against the conditions of their exile.^[111] After the residents sent petitions to Queen Victoria and to the colony's governor to protest against their treatment, the colonial secretary ultimately decided in May 1847 that the Wybalenna settlement should be disestablished.^[112]

It was decided that the 47 survivors at Wybalenna would be transferred to an abandoned convict settlement at Oyster Cove.^[113] Truganini arrived at Oyster Cove in October, while Mannapackername had died a few months earlier.^[113] The colonists had largely abandoned their attempts to force the remaining Indigenous Tasmanians to work and adopt European practices, and instead allowed them to continue practicing their traditional customs. Truganini spent her time hunting possums and marsupials and diving for shellfish, and frequently returned to visit her lands on Bruny Island.^[114] The mortality rate at Oyster Cove was high, in part due to an influx of alcohol onto the station.^[115] In 1855, an inspection of the settlement revealed that the residents were not being cared for and that conditions were poor.^[116]

A new superintendent, John Strange Dandridge, took over at Oyster Cove in July 1855 and made some improvements to the living conditions at the station.^[117][109] But in 1858 it was reported that alcohol abuse was still a serious concern for the residents. Truganini had entered a relationship with a younger Aboriginal man named William Lanne, who was violent towards her while drunk.^[118] By 1862, there was just eight Aboriginal Tasmanians left at Oyster Cove.^[119]

The prospect that the Aboriginal population of Tasmania would soon become "extinct" triggered a wave of interest in the survivors at Oyster Cove, with museums and collectors beginning to gather artefacts and human remains from the settlement.^[119] Truganini's only remaining friend and clanswoman, Dray, died in 1861, leaving Truganini alone in her rundown hut while Lanne was absent on whaling expeditions.^[120] She and the other survivors had become a curiosity for the settler population and were frequently photographed in studios both in Hobart and at Oyster Cove.^[121] In 1868 Truganini and Lanne, who was christened "King Billy", were presented to the Duke of Edinburgh.^[122]

Lanne died on 3 March 1869. Amid a dispute over who should take possession of his body, his remains were mutilated and plundered by members of the Royal Society who wished to secure his skeleton for their collection.^[123][124] Truganini, now labelled the last "full-blooded" Aboriginal Tasmanian, became the subject of even greater curiosity.^[86][125] Disturbed by the treatment of Lanne's body, she begged a minister with whom she had developed a friendship to ensure that she would be buried at sea and that the museum collectors would not steal her body.^[86][126]

In 1872, with Truganini the only Aboriginal Tasmanian left living at Oyster Cove, it was decided that the land and buildings would be sold. Truganini was moved to Hobart to live in the family home of the last superintendent of the Oyster Cove station.^[127] After Dandridge's death in 1874 she continued to be cared for by his widow.^[128] Widely labelled the "last Tasmanian", Truganini became an object of fascination for the residents of Hobart and received frequent visits from scientists and photographers in her final years. She fell into a coma on 4 May 1876, and died on 8 May.^[129][86]

The dominant narrative in the years surrounding Truganini's death was that she was the last "full-blooded" Aboriginal Tasmanian.^[130][131] The narrative was reinforced by the widely read 1870 book The Last of the Tasmanians, which cast Truganini as the last remnant of her doomed people. These narratives often framed the "extinction" of the proud and noble Aboriginal population of Tasmania as a sad but inevitable consequence of European colonisation.^[132] These framings led to a enduring popular myth that Tasmania's Aboriginal population had become extinct in the 19th century.^[133] This was not the case; two Aboriginal women from Tasmania had been taken to Kangaroo Island in South Australia and outlived Truganini, as did a woman named Fanny Cochrane Smith and her descendants.^{[131][134][c]} A substantial community of mixed-race Aboriginal Tasmanians continued to be born on Cape Barren Island and other islands in the Furneaux Group. This group, known as the "Islanders", were seen as "hybrids" by the colonists.^[136][137] Lyndall Ryan's 1981 book The Aboriginal Tasmanians was among the first works to seriously challenge the myth of Aboriginal Tasmanian extinction, but the idea would continue to be widely accepted by historians until the early 1990s.^[131]

In the aftermath of the Second World War, there began to be greater recognition of the extermination of Aboriginal Tasmanians as an act of genocide.^[136] Truganini's skeleton was removed from the Tasmanian Museum in 1947 amidst this growing discomfort.^[136][138] The writer Clive Turnbull published a book titled Black War: The Extermination of the Tasmanian Aborigines in 1948, in which he presented Truganini as more active figure who resisted the extermination of her people.^[139] This new mythology influenced the creation of new artistic and literary depictions of Truganini as symbolic of the genocide perpetrated against the Tasmanian Aboriginal population.^[140] The historian Rebe Taylor argues that Truganini became a symbol of white Australians' guilt at the extermination of her people.^[131]

The late 1970s saw the emergence of post-colonial scholarship and a more vocal Aboriginal rights movement.^[141] This era also saw some revisionist accounts of Truganini's legacy. In 1976, Vivienne Rae Ellis published a controversial biography of Truganini titled Trucanini: Queen or Traitor? in which she presented Truganini as a "femme fatale" who betrayed her people by collaborating with European settlers.^{[142][143][144]} In the 1990s, more detailed historiographies of the competing narratives surrounding Truganini's life and legacy also began to be developed.^[131] The cultural studies scholar Suvendrini Perera wrote in 1996 that Truganini had become "a marker of semiotic complexity...her body is the site of competing narratives about power and powerlessness: agent or object, hostage or traitor, final victim or ultimate survivor?".^[145] Truganini began to be reclaimed as an anti-colonial figure by some members of the Aboriginal community, while also becoming a symbol of white Australians' reckoning with the nation's colonial history.^[146][131] Rebe Taylor writes that Truganini became "the national confessional" and the "poster girl of our national story of indigenous dispossession".^[131]

Truganini also became the locus of a debate over the status of Tasmania's modern Indigenous population.^[147] Some scholars, including the historian Brian Plomley, argued that the original narrative that Truganini was the last member of an extinct race was in fact correct, and that the modern Aboriginal population of Tasmania were mixed-race and could not claim a connection to Truganini.^[147] The 1978 documentary The Last Tasmanian likewise rekindled the colonial narrative that the Tasmanian Aboriginal population had become extinct upon Truganini's death.^[147][148] The documentary prompted a new wave of activism from the modern Tasmanian Aboriginal community, who re-asserted their enduring culture and Aboriginal identity.^[80] The Tasmanian Aboriginal community, including the activist Michael Mansell, condemned the denial of the community's authenticity and disputed the narrative that Truganini had been the "last Tasmanian".^[147] The community protested a reference to Truganini as the "last Tasmanian" on the sleeve notes of the 1993 Midnight Oil song Truganini, arguing that it perpetuated the myth of Aboriginal Tasmanian extinction.^[149]

Upon Truganini's death, her body was initially buried at the former Female Factory in Hobart to protect her from body snatchers.^[150][138] In 1878, after a campaign by the Royal Society, her body was disinterred with instructions that it should not be exhibited and should be used only for scientific purposes. Within a decade, however, her skull was displayed at the Melbourne Centennial Exhibition. In 1904 her remains were used to create an articulated skeleton for display at the Tasmanian Museum as well as several replicas, one of which was put on display at the Museum of Victoria.^[138]

Campaigners began to demand in the 1930s that her remains be reburied according to her wishes. The Anglican Archdeacon Henry Brune Atkinson, the son of a minster who had grown close to Truganini in her final years, revealed in 1932 that his father's diaries reported that Truganini feared that her body would be stolen by the museum and had pleaded with him to ensure that she would instead be buried at sea in the D'Entrecasteaux Channel.^[150] Under pressure, the Tasmanian Museum ceased exhibiting her skeleton in 1947. The museum reached a permanent agreement, negotiated by the Bishop of Tasmania, to limit public access to her remains in 1954.^[150][151] After legal efforts by the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, the Tasmanian government passed legislation in 1975 to transfer ownership of her remains from the museum to the Tasmanian government. Her remains were finally cremated and scattered in the D'Entrecasteaux Channel in 1976.^[152][150] In 2002 and 2005, the Royal College of Surgeons returned additional samples of Truganini's skin and hair to the Tasmanian Aboriginal community.^[80][153]

In 2009, a group of Aboriginal Tasmanians protested at Sotheby's against the sale of copies of Benjamin Law's 1835 busts of Truganini and Woureddy. They were ultimately successful in having the sale cancelled after asserting that the community should be given the right to control how depictions of their ancestors could be used and put on display.^[80] The protest became a flashpoint in debates about Aboriginal rights, with some conservative writers using the saga to condemn the radicalism of the "ultra-left Aboriginal fringe".^[80][154] The art historian David Hansen wrote an essay on the debate titled Seeing Truganini, in which he made a more measured argument that it was wrong to give contemporary Aboriginal communities the final say over representations of Aboriginal history.^[155]

In 1997 Lyndall Ryan reported that Truganini had been the subject of more than fifty poems and fifty paintings and photographs, as well as about fifty scientific papers. She had also been the subject of a song and several novels and plays, and had been featured on a stamp.^[156] In these depictions, Ryan said that Truganini had been variously "revered, rebuked, sensationalised, sensualised, vilified, mocked, and politicised".^[157] Some settler depictions of Truganini have been compared to those of Pocahontas, with both presented as a "native princess" selflessly saving the life of a settler.^[125][158]

One of the most widely debated representations of Truganini is her portrayal in the 1840 Benjamin Duterrau painting The Conciliation. The painting depicts a meeting between Robinson and a group of Aboriginal Tasmanians who agree to cease fighting and enter into exile.^[159] In his book Black War, Clive Turnbull argued that Truganini is depicted standing next to Robinson, symbolically attempting to resist the exile of her people.^[131] Vivienne Rae Ellis, who argued that Truganini was a traitor to her people, claimed that Truganini was instead the woman depicted second from the right in the act of betraying her people to Robinson.^[160][161] Other historians have argued that Truganini is in fact one of the women depicted at the far back of the painting.^[162] The historian Lyndall Ryan re-interpreted the painting as displaying tension between Robinson's Indigenous guides and the rival Big River people, arguing that the painting depicts the diversity of Indigenous experiences rather than representing Truganini's submission.^[163]

• Black War
• Doctor Wooreddy's Prescription for Enduring the Ending of the World
• List of Indigenous Australian historical figures

• The Last of the Tasmanians on Wikisource
• Truganini (1812–1876) National Library of Australia, NLA Trove, People and Organisation record for Truganini
• Images of Truganini in State Library of Tasmania collection