TruganiniPrint Page

The monument commemorates the Aboriginal woman, Truganini (1812 - 1876).  The Truganini steps lead to the lookout and monument to the Nuenonne people and Truganinni, who inhabited Lunnawannalonna (Bruny Island) before the European settlement of Bruny. Truganni was of the Nuenonne tribe whose country had been Bruny Island and the Channel area of the mainland.

Originally erected by school children in 1967, this monument stands on the Hummock, the lookout point on the Bruny island Neck. The bronze plaques were removed from the monument during the 1970's, restored by the Bruny Island Historical Society in 1989 only to be vandalised again in 1999 and replaced in 2000.

Truganini was the daughter of Mangana, chief of the Bruny Island people. A survivor of The Black Wars that accompanied European settlement in Tasmania, Truganini worked hard in the early 1830s to unify what was left of the indigenous communities of Tasmania.

In 1830 George Augustus Robinson, a Christian missionary was hired to round up the remainder of the indigenous population and he settled them on Flinders Island. Truganini and her husband, Woorrady, helped Robinson in this venture in the hope that removing them would protect them from further violence. Unfortunately, the shock of resettlement, combined with the unsanitary conditions the people were forced to live in, proved fatal and the resettlement program did not work.

The result was the virtual annihilation of the one hundred or so people left - mainly due to malnutrition and illness. By 1856 there were only a few remaining indigenous survivors left in Tasmania, Truganini among them, who were taken to Oyster Bay. By 1873, except for Truganini, all of the people taken there had died. Truganini was moved to Hobart where she died in 1876. She had no known descendants.

Even in death she was not left in peace. Her skeleton was on display in the Tasmanian Museum from 1904 to 1907. It was not until 1976 that her remains received a proper burial

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