Barbara Thompson (castaway)

Barbara Crawford Thompson (c. 1831–1912) was a Scottish woman who, as a teenaged girl, survived a shipwreck in the Torres Strait Islands of Australia and spent five years living with the local Kaurareg people.

She was possibly the sole survivor of the November 1844 wreck of the cutter America, which ran onto Madjii Reef at Horn Island in Endeavour Strait near Cape York, Queensland.

The cutter America left Moreton Bay to salvage whale oil from the wreck of a whaler lost on the Bampton Shoal.

She was taken in by one of the clan leaders (buwai gizumabaigalai) of the Kaurareg people who believed that Barbara was the returned spirit (markai) of his recently deceased daughter.

Barbara lived on Prince of Wales Island (Muralug) for five years and was called "Gioma" or "Giom" by her adopted family.