Trouwerner

by Aunty Patsy Cameron, Martin Flanagan

Trouwerner is an inviting yarn between Elder Aunty Patsy Cameron, the 28th Tasmanian Governor Kate Warner, and journalist Martin Flanagan. It weaves through the coming-into-being time, Trouwerner’s colonisation and the lies of history, to the power of truth-telling and hope for the future. It is a story of kinship and respect, of realism and optimism, welcoming the reader into the conversation.

“Down the gravel road where Patsy lived as a child is a stretch of tall bush. Like a stage curtain, it hides the vista of Franklin Sound. Walking through that bush with Patsy is like entering a crowded room where you are a stranger and your companion seems to know everyone.”

Genres: Nonfiction, History

240 pages, Paperback

Published February 11, 2025

Reviews

[Maddie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. This was an eye-opening read that made me emotional thinking about the displacement and genocide of the aboriginal people of Tasmania (trouwerner). This isn’t a history that I have been taught before. Patsy’s stories about Mannalargenna and the Traulwulway clan really made me feel connected to place - even though I haven’t stepped foot in Tebrakunna or most of the north of the state for that matter.

Flanagan did a great job at letting Aunty Patsy Cameron’s voice and connection to country & culture shine through in his writing.

Definitely essential reading for Tasmanians.

[Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tasmania has a sordid history
Like so many older people we were taught that there Tasmanian aborigines were extinct.
Fortunately Aunty Patsy Cameron and others are showing us otherwise
5 stars

[Anna Davidson · Rating 5 out of 5]

An important contribution to truth telling in Tasmanian history. Very accessible and a book I’ll return to for its simple yet powerful messages around learning from the past.

[Dilly Dalley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a deeply moving book about the history of first nations people, in what I call Tasmania and what Aunty Patsy Cameron knows as Trouwerner. For me, the telling of the story was both familiar and unfamiliar. I have read a little bit about the genocide of Aboriginal Tasmanians, and the role of George Augustus Robinson, but this is the first time I have had the privilege of being told the stories from the perspective of a descendant of the atrocities. Unlike the Governor of Tasmania's husband, who in the book appears to find out in the late 2000s that the story of Truganini being the last Tasmanian was a lie, I read Cassandra Pybus' book Community of Thieves, which came out in 1991. Still, this is fourteen years later than Michael Mansell's confrontation of Queen Elizabeth in the 1970s, on one of her visits to Tasmania. Michael Mansell wanted to stress to the crown that despite British colonialism attempting to kill them all, Aboriginal Tasmanians are alive and well.

I do remember the lies we were told on behalf of British colonialism. There is so much real and moral injury in this history, as detailed in this book, Trouwerner and yet there is beauty in the way Patsy Cameron tells her story to Martin Flanagan. Aunty Patsy Cameron represents that side of Aboriginal Australian perspective that is strong, proud, flexible, accommodating and constantly seeking connection - connection to people, to Country, to history, to truth. She is worth listening to.

At time of publication, 2025, Patsy Cameron and Martin Flanagan are in their seventies, both born in Trouwerner. One the descendant of "revered clan leader, formidable warrior and seer, Mannalargenna". The other a descendant of Irish Catholics, some of whom were convicts but had their origin story masked out of shame. Martin Flanagan, has quite the background in appreciation of Aboriginal history and culture, some of which came through in his long career and interest in AFL, and his biography of Michael Long.

The structure of the authorship of this book is interesting. They are both authors and both voices appear in the text, though Martin Flanagan refers to discussing and collecting Aunty Patsy's stories through conversation and then writing the book. I think he executes this well. The style is personal, plain but also lyrical, and there are reflections on the burden of recording this history - I often felt the burden of reading it and so appreciated him acknowledging that it was hard at times to write about the reality of a government lining up 4,000 white settlers, arming them at a cost greater than the wars against Napoleon, then through the betrayal of George Augustus Robinson the Aboriginal population is tricked, trapped and killed, with the final remaining survivors exiled to the islands off the coast of Tasmania. So that we can understand the mentality that tolerates such inhumanity, Flanagan uses archival material to give voice to the British colonists living in Trouwerner who are pleased by the outcome. He and Patsy Cameron also take the opportunity, again which I appreciated, to draw parallels to our current in real time genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and now Lebanon.

The final political musings at the end of the book, which referenced the tragedy of the Voice referendum were still a wound to me. I felt anger on behalf of the Palestinians but pain and suffering for the results of the Voice. I am buffered somewhat by living in the one region of Australia that resoundingly voted Yes. But I will never forgive Albanese for that debacle - what a useless, spineless politician he turned out to be. That referendum should have been called off the moment Dutton decided to withdraw bipartisan support. Between the efforts of Dutton and Albanese, they led us from a nation that began with popular support for the referendum to a nation that created another moral injury to to the decent, stoic, and long-suffering First Nations peoples of Australia. Those who had endured so much at the hands of white Australia were now required to be reminded that racism runs this country's politics, and that it hadn't taken much to turn the tide against them.

I am nearing the end of my book review and have not yet vocalised the most meaningful and deeply nuanced emotional aspects of the book - the sharing of a true understanding of this history from Patsy Cameron's perspective. She is the author of a book published in 2011, called Grease and Ochre, which I hope to read if I can find a second hand copy. Her life story of growing up on Flinders Island, barely finishing high school, living through the activist years when Michael Mansell made modern Australia accept the truth that Aboriginal Tasmanians were alive and survived and demanded justice and truthful telling of their history, and then educating herself through university and research is an epic story. She and Martin Flanagan read carefully the diaries of George Augustus Robinson, whom she regards as a pompous silly little man, who also happened to write down a record of language and culture and history of her people. So much is lost and you feel the pain of that as you read her efforts to tell a story with so many absences. And yet, she always comes back to their survival.

I encourage everyone to read this book. It wears its deep scholarship lightly and is easily read. I hope that in my children's lifetime, what we have failed to do, make decent political inroads into redressing white Australia's violence towards Aboriginal peoples, is finally addressed. It will take a new generation of activists but they will stand on the shoulders of Aunty Patsy Cameron and Michael Mansell.

[Jennifer (JC-S) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hope for a better future…

When I grew up in Tasmania, I was taught that there were no longer any Indigenous Tasmanians. And, because of that assertion (presented as fact) very little time was spent on any history pre-dating European discovery and then settlement.

By the time I left Tasmania in 1974, this view of history was already being challenged. The Aboriginal Information Service (later the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre) was formed in 1971. But it is only more recently that I have started to look more closely at the history I was taught and to listen to some of the voices challenging it.

Reading this book is like listening to a conversation between Aunty Patsy Cameron, the 28th Tasmanian Governor Kate Warner, and journalist Martin Flanagan. Of the three, my background is most like Martin Flanagan’s, and I can relate to much of his perspective. I have been to Flinders Island, and I am aware of the sad history around the removal of Indigenous Tasmanians to the Furneaux Group.

Aunty Patsy Cameron spent her formative years on Flinders Island and traces her heritage through her mother’s line to four ancestral grandmothers: Pleenpereener, Wyerlooberer, Teekoolterme and Pollerelbrener. At the head of her family is Teekoolterme's father, the revered Pairrebeenne/Trawlwoolway clan leader and formidable warrior: Mannalargenna.

Aunty Patsy Cameron tells of her family history, of kinship connections, of cultural heritage. Her yarn invites the reader into a different view of the past. I became caught up in descriptions of country and people and, yes, I will be revisiting the book soon.

Kate Warner’s contribution reminds me that times are changing and thankfully the past is no longer ignored. There is hope for the future. And Martin Flanagan adds personal observation while drawing the various strands of yarn together.

Highly recommended, especially to those of us who grew up with the lie that Indigenous Tasmanians were extinct.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Back in the last century, Australians were taught that the Tasmanian indigenous people became extinct with the death of Truganini in 1876. This was not so, as in the 1830s, aboriginal women lived with Bass Strait sealers and Aunty Patsy Cameron is the descendant of one of those women. She has spent her life bringing that story to light and re-establishing the culture that was lost.

I found this book rather disjointed as it presents more as a series of conversations and the significance of Kate Watson, the former Governor of Tasmania (trouwerner), took a long time to become apparent. However, it is an important documentation of the persistence of the Tasmanian indigenous people.

[Fran · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was a bit disappointed in this book. It seemed more a collection of ancedotes that an actual historical
recollection. Flanagan definitely has a way with words and a converstional style, but I didn't feel I learnt more about Tasmanian First Nations People than I already knew. It did connect with information from some of my previous readings on the subject.

[Lynne Reid · Rating 2 out of 5]

I struggled with this book, it seemed very disjointed and hard to read, The story didn’t seem to flow at least to me it didn’t. it took at least 100 pages before it seemed to pick up and the last 50 pages before it came together
I nearly gave up several times and probably would have if it wasn’t for a book club.

[Therese · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating history of Tasmanian First Peoples.

[Kangelani · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too depressing & sad. Shameful!