Australia has no war hero more impressive than
Tongerlongeter. Leader of the Oyster Bay nation of south-
east Tasmania in the 1820s and ’30s, Tongerlongeter and
his allies led the most effective frontier resistance ever
mounted on Australian soil. They killed or wounded some
354 — or 4 per cent — of the invaders of their country.
Tongerlongeter’s brilliant campaign inspired terror
throughout the colony, forcing Governor George Arthur
to launch a massive military operation in 1830 — the
infamous Black Line. Tongerlongeter escaped but the
cumulative losses had taken their toll. On New Year’s Eve
1831, having lost his arm, his Country, and all but 25 of
his people, the chief agreed to an armistice. In exile on
Flinders Island, this revered warrior united most of the
remnant tribes and became the settlement’s ‘King’ — a
beacon of hope in a hopeless situation.