AustLit

'Tongerlongeter is less a traditional biography of a specific Aboriginal man than an exercise in refocusing discursive attention on an Aboriginal figure: a significant proportion of the book is essentially contextual. In terms of biographical detail, the story the authors tell about Vandemonian Aboriginal leader Tongerlongeter hinges on a handful of recorded moments in an under-documented life. The authors situate these moments within a broad narrative encompassing the first third of the nineteenth century, seeking to both relate and reframe the violent encounter between Aboriginal peoples and the ‘white men’ in early colonial Van Diemen's Land.'  (Introduction)

'Among the vast number of books on the history of the Black War, there are virtually no biographies of the guerrilla leaders on the other side of the frontier. Instead, historians have relied on convict artist Thomas Bock’s compelling portraits of these men and women, to gain insights into their bravery and humanity. The biographies that do exist of Truganini, Woorraddy and Pevay tend to foreground their experiences as part of G.A. Robinson’s friendly mission on the settler side of the frontier. Apart from a short study of Walyer, the woman guerrilla leader in northern Tasmania, there have been no major studies of the guerrilla leaders who led the resistance at the height of the Black War.' (Introduction)

Tongerlongeter was surely one of Australia’s toughest military leaders. Henry Reynolds and Nicholas Clements expressly narrate his story to affirm the place of the Frontier Wars in the Anzac pantheon. Reflexive conservative responses to such arguments – that Anzac Day commemorates only those who served in the Australian military – are flawed and outdated. The Tasmanian frontier is one of Australia’s best-documented cases of violent operations against Aboriginal people. In 1828, Governor George Arthur, unable to gain control over the ‘lamentable and protracted warfare’, issued a Demarcation Proclamation later enforced by the formation of Black Lines, military cordons stretching several hundred kilometres across southern and central Tasmania to secure the grasslands demanded by white settlers. Despite the efforts of Australia’s culture war protagonists led by Keith Windschuttle and Quadrant magazine, Tasmania’s Black Lines remain infamous in Australian history, with revisionist work emphasising the military planning, enormous cost, and extensive civilian involvement owing to Arthur’s declaration of a levée en masse, a form of conscription, to support the military operations. Comprising more than 2,200 soldiers and settlers, these army cordons remained ‘the largest domestic military offensive ever mounted on Australian soil’. Despite the forces arrayed against him, Tongerlongeter and his compatriots passed through the Black Lines with comparative ease in 1830. (Introduction)