The Black War (1824-1832), the establishment of the Black Line in 1830, and the forced removal of Aboriginal people to Flinders Island and Oyster Cove almost eradicated Aboriginal culture in what is now Tasmania, the island that, during the Colonial Period, was known as Van Diemen’s Land. In 1803, when the British first landed on its shores, at present-day Risdon Cove, Aboriginal society was organized into nine nations. Each nation comprised several clans. Between 1803 and the 1840s, leaders emerged among the clans of every nation, both among the men and the women. Many of them died prematurely at the hands of the colonists.
Eumarrah (1798-1832), the Leader of the North Midlands Nation
Over the years, Eumarrah’s name has been spelled as Umarra or Umarrah, although his Aboriginal name probably was Kanneherlargenner or Moleteerlaggenner. At some point in his life, he worked for Scottish farmer and wine merchant Hugh Murray (1789-1845) on his property on the Macquarie River, near Campbell Town, and that is where some believe his name came from. Born in 1798 in present-day Campbell Town, Eumarrah lived through the great upheaval caused by colonists to his country and fellow countrymen. He belonged to the Tyerernotepanner Clan of the North Midlands nation, the Traditional Custodians of one of the driest regions in Tasmania, which included the Great Western Tiers and the Tamar Valley.
In the 1820s and 1830s, and especially after Governor Sir George Arthur (1784-1854) declared martial law in November 1828, Eumarrah became the best-known leader in the Settled Districts.
On November 22, 1828, the Hobart Town Courier, in reporting his “determined purpose…to destroy all the whites he possibly can, which he considers a patriotic duty,” referred to him as “King Eumarrah.” As chief of the Stoney Creek Clan, he led a series of raids against colonists in the Campbell Town area and along the Kanamaluka/Tamar River.
In 1828 he was captured along with his wife Laoninneloonner in the Eastern Marshes and spent a year in Richmond jail. In January 1830 he was released so that he could guide George Arthur Robinson (1791-1866) on his “friendly mission” through the southwest of Tasmania in 1830. While he certainly helped him in his march, he also prevented him from finding Aboriginal groups on multiple occasions.
At some point, he vanished in the bush, profoundly disappointing Robinson who believed he could rely on him and his tracking skills to finally “free” the island from Indigenous people. He was recaptured shortly afterward and assigned as the Aboriginal tracker to one of the military groups participating in the Black Line. Once again, he decamped and joined an Aboriginal group along the kanamaluka/Tamar River. Here, they led a series of attacks against settlers, burning their huts, destroying their crops, and stealing flour and guns.
In her Tasmanian Aborigines, Lyndall Ryan notes that “there is no evidence that they ever used any of these weapons. Rather, it seems that they wanted to deprive the settlers of the means of killing Aborigines.”
During the Black War, George Arthur considered appointing Eumarrah as a possible mediator for other Aboriginal clans in the Settled Districts, but Robinson feared that he might instead turn Aboriginal people against them. Arthur’s and Robinson’s opposing views are emblematic of Eumarrah’s life, forcibly split between two worlds.
He died at Launceston of dysentery on March 24, 1832, and was buried in St John’s graveyard in full body paint, on lands that once belonged entirely to his people.
Mannalargenna (1770-1835), Chief of the Ben Lomond Nation
British painter and Constable admirer John Glover arrived in Tasmania at the peak of the Black War. His farm, Patterdale, was built on the lands of the Ben Lomond Nation, at the foothills of Ben Lomond Mountain. The three clans making up the Ben Lomond Nation were almost entirely wiped out by British colonization.
One of their leaders was Mannalargenna (or Manalakina), who reportedly used to smear his long locks of hair and his body with red ochre (and grease). Like Eumarrah, he lived through the destruction brought upon his people by colonialism and tried to navigate the changing world he found himself in. Born around 1770 in what is now Cape Portland (Tebrikunna), in the northeast of Van Diemen’s Land, he was in his 30s when the first British settlement was established at Risdon Cove.
When George Arthur declared martial law in November 1828, the group led by Mannalargenna was active in the Fingal District and was one of the (at least) five different groups living and resisting in the Settled Districts area. The Black Line, which occurred two years later, forever disbanded them.
Like Eumarrah and many other Aboriginal leaders, Mannalargenna’s life was soon intertwined with Robinson’s, Arthur’s appointed “conciliator.” They reportedly met on November 1, 1830, south of the Bay of Fires, on the Anson’s Plain, when Mannalargenna was about 55 years old and Robinson was 39. Robinson considered him a man of superior intelligence. Mannalargenna ended up marrying one of Robinson’s early trackers, Tanleboneyer, and between 1831 and 1835 the couple accompanied Robinson on several of his “friendly” missions across the island.
Mannalargenna’s relationship with Robinson was quite unique. It is worth quoting Lyndall Ryan again. It seems, in fact, that Mannalargenna “worked very hard to incorporate Robinson into his own world of social relations and obligations. He taught Robinson many of his songs and told him of his own traditions including the origins of his people in the stars. (…) Although he did not realise it at the time, Robinson was gradually being incorporated into an Aboriginal worldview that was far beyond his own experience to understand.” Despite his (and Eumarrah’s) attempts to divert Robinson from finding the remaining Aboriginal clans in the Settled Districts, on December 31, 1831, the last group (26 people in total, including nine women and a child) was surrounded not far from Lake Echo.
They were taken to Hobart Town and on January 17, they were sent to the Wybalenna Aboriginal Settlement, on the west coast of Flinders Island. This is where Mannalargenna’s life ended too. Upon his arrival, he cut off his long greased, and ochred hair and soon became ill with a severe cough. After reporting severe pain in his right side, he died on December 4, 1835, aged around 60, far from his ancestral lands, on an island it was promised he would not be despatched to.
Montpelliatta (1790-1836) and Tongerlongeter (1790-1837)
We know very little about Tongerlongeter’s life before the Black War. We know that he belonged to the Poredareme People, one of the ten clans of the Oyster Bay Nation, and that his ancestors had been the Custodians of present-day Little Swanport since time immemorial.
From the 1810s onward, when Tongerlongeter was in his early 20s, British sealers consistently kidnapped Aboriginal women. He likely knew some of them. His brother, Black Jack, was captured and executed in February 1825 together with another important warrior, Musquito.
Similarly, little is known about the early years of Montpelliatta (also spelled Montpeliater and Muntipiliyata), except that he was born into the Big River Nation. By 1828, the survivors of the Oyster Bay and Big River nations came together under the joint leadership of Montpelliatta and Tongerlongeter.
Aboriginal attacks on settlers during the Black War are well documented. We know that in 1828 alone the men and women led jointly by Tongerlongeter and Montpelliatta carried out 137 attacks. In 1829, the number rose to 152. In 1830, 204. The more violence escalated, the more female settlers became targeted, although Montpelliatta was reportedly against the killing of white women.
At this point, George Arthur, pressured by settlers and pastoralists, devised the Black Line, the human chain of 2,200 able-bodied men (settlers, soldiers, and convicts) that swept down eastern Van Diemen’s Land with the aim of capturing or killing any Aboriginal man, woman, or child still in the Settled Districts.
Tongerlongeter and Montpelliatta led their people to the Central Plateau, where they believed they could be safer. Except that they were not. One night they were ambushed by a group of white settlers.
Many died and Tongerlongeter himself was badly wounded, with a musket ball nearly cutting off his arm. He survived. So did Aboriginal resistance, but barely. In 1831, only 57 attacks were registered. The last significant one was carried out on August 31 by Montpelliatta’s mob near Port Sorell, when they speared and killed Irish landowner Bartholomew Thomas and one of his workers.
Exactly four months later, on December 31, 1931, the group led by Tongerlongeter and Montpelliatta (26 people in all) was approached by a small Aboriginal party northwest of Lake Echo. The party consisted of messengers from George Robinson on one of his last “amicable” missions. Among them, there was also Kickerterpoller, who reportedly warned the Big River People of their presence by setting fire to the bush. Eventually, Tongerlongeter and Montpelliatta’s group surrendered. According to Ryan, “They formed the largest group to surrender to Robinson at any time.”
On January 7, 1832, they entered Hobart and met with Sir George Arthur at Government House. Ten days later they were exiled to Wybalenna on Flinders Island. Here, Tongerlongeter remained in charge by popular vote and his position was recognized by Robinson who took the position of superintendent on October 16, 1835.
Upon their own request, he gave Aboriginal men and women English names. Tongerlongeter became King William, and his wife, Drometeemetyer Queen Adelaide. Tongerlongeter died from peritonitis on the same day as William IV, the British monarch he was named after, on June 20, 1837. His body was buried in an unmarked grave. Montpelliatta, reportedly increasingly depressed, had died at some stage in 1836.
Kickerterpoller (1800-1832), a Man in Between Two Worlds
The various names by which Kickerterpoller was (and is) known are symbolic of his personal history and the history of Tasmania as a whole. Among colonists, he was known as “Black Tom” and “Tom Birch.” Among Aboriginal clans, in addition to Kickerterpoller, people called him Kikatapula.
Unlike Mannalargenna, he was just a baby when British settlers arrived at Risdon Cove. He was born in 1800 at Emu Bay into the Poredareme (or Paredarererme) clan of the Oyster Bay nation. He was 10 when he first saw British sailors and whalers disembark on its shores to kidnap Aboriginal women, while British settlers and bushrangers penetrated deeper into the territory of his people. One of them was Thomas Birch (1774-1821), a British surgeon and merchant who, by the 1810s, owned a whaling outpost at present-day Grindstone Bay. Around this time, he and his wife Sarah “took” Kickerterpoller.
In the years he spent in the Birch mansion working on their property, Duck Holes, on the Coal River, he learned to read and write English and to shoot with a musket. He was given a Christian name and was baptized into the Christian faith. By 1822, he reportedly rejoined his clan.
Two years later, in November 1824, he led around 60 members of his “mob” to Hobart, where they demanded food and blankets. In Hobart Town, Kickerterpoller spoke to Governor Sir George Arthur regarding the “state of the colony.” A transcript of these discussions exists and is now preserved in the state archives. Kickerterpoller maintained that Aboriginal attacks on settlers and pastoralists were justified, that people were hungry and did not consider themselves as perpetrators, but rather as victims. In January 1828, Kickerterpoller joined G.A. Robinson.
For almost four years, he assisted him in his role as a colonial “conciliator.” He also married one of his Aboriginal guides, Pagerly. It was during one of these expeditions to the northwest coast that Kickerterpoller fell ill.
Robinson sent him to Emu Bay to recuperate, to no avail. He died shortly afterward from acute diarrhea. The day was May 16, 1832. He was buried in a pauper’s grave at Emu Bay at the back of the store of the Van Diemen’s Land Company. A log fence was initially erected around it. It was, to put it with Lyndall Ryan, “an unfitting end to a man who had withstood the full force of colonial invasion.”
