A Tasmanian electorate is set to be renamed after an aboriginal insurgent leader whose fighters killed European women and children while waging war against British settlers.
The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) this week announced changes to the state’s electoral boundaries and a published a proposal that the southern seat of Franklin be renamed Tongerlongeter.
Tongerlongeter was responsible for numerous attacks on colonial settlements during the Black War of the 1820s and 30s, and possibly personally led two separate attacks in 1828 where two White women, two young girls and a boy were speared and clubbed to death.
In its announcement the AEC noted that the name Franklin has been in continuous use for more than 120 years, and acknowledged the contributions to Tasmania of explorer Sir John Franklin, but suggested the name change to “honour” Tongerlongeter and his “prominent role in aboriginal resistance to colonial expansion”.
“Working with allied groups, including the Big River nation, he led efforts to defend country and resist the impacts of settlement,” the AEC said.
“Tongerlongeter’s leadership during the Black War, his role in defending country, and his enduring significance in Tasmanian history provide strong grounds for recognising his contribution through the naming of an electorate.
“His life and legacy continue to illustrate aboriginal resistance to colonisation and the enduring connection of Tasmanian aboriginal people to country.”
The Tasmanian augmented Electoral Commission also considered three alternate names – Mathinna, an aboriginal girl who was taken from her family to live with Sir John Franklin, Jessie Spink Rooke, a prominent Tasmanian women’s suffragist, and Woureddy, an aboriginal warrior and “cultural leader”.
The electoral commission is now inviting public submissions on the renaming which will be open until July 21, and a final determination will then be made.
Tongerlongeter and the leaders of allied aboriginal groups fought the British for about a decade, carrying out attacks which resulted in the killing of men, women and children, the burning of huts and crops, and the theft of livestock and supplies.
Historian Nicholas Clements estimated in his book Black War: Fear, Sex and Resistance in Tasmania that there were more than 219 deaths among White settlers during the conflict.
Reports published in local newspapers at the time detailed two attacks near Lake Tiberias in October 1828 where Anne Geary, a Mrs Gough and her young daughter Alicia Gough, and a boy named John Langford were brutally murdered by Oyster Bay aboriginals, a group led by Tongerlongeter.
According to the Hobart Town Courier, Anne Geary asked for assistance from the Gough family as her hut was being raided, but as Patrick Gough left with other men, an Oyster Bay war party appeared and murdered Anne Geary with an axe and spears.
Mrs Gough was speared by the aboriginal warriors and later died, and her four-year old daughter Alicia died as a result of being struck in the head with a type of hardwood club called a waddy. Her oldest daughter, seven, and youngest daughter, 13 months, were also clubbed but survived.
The Tasmanian described another incident two weeks later where John Langford died of several spear wounds to his groin, neck and right arm, inflicted when an aboriginal war party raided his family’s farm. His mother Mrs Langford was speared in the breast and her daughter was speared in the neck, but both survived.
The University of Newcastle’s Colonial Frontier Massacres project states that “23 Oyster Bay warriors, possibly led by Tongerlongter” carried out the attacks, and records another little girl as being killed.
“The killing of the two women, the little girls and the boy was the trigger for the proclamation of martial law on 5 November 1828,” the researchers stated.
Header image: A watercolour painting of Tongerlongeter (Thomas Bock, 1832 – British Museum).
The post Plans to rename Tasmanian electorate after aboriginal insurgent who massacred children first appeared on The Noticer.
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