He was born around the year 1790 into the precolonial Aboriginal society of the Poredareme group of people who resided along the coast and inland from Great Oyster Bay in Eastern Tasmania.

They exhibited extreme violence against the local Aboriginal population, raiding their encampments, killing the men and abducting the women and girls into sexual slavery and forced labour.

[1] By 1823 and 1824, the prominent colonist, George Meredith, had established a settlement at Swansea and financed a number of sealing and whaling stations around Great Oyster Bay.

This had a calamitous effect on the everyday life of the Aboriginal clan, forcing them to find ways to survive and resist an invading people who were alien, numerous and hostile.

[1] In December 1823, hutkeepers at a recently taken up property at Grindstone Bay just north of what is now Triabunna, shot dead a Poredareme woman after abducting and raping her.

Governor George Arthur authorised roving parties of military personnel and armed colonists to search for and destroy the remaining Aboriginal people.

The Black War seemed to be intensifying in violence and in a desperate move, Governor Arthur instituted a strategy to try and end the resistance led by Tongerlongeter and Montpelliatta.

He called upon almost all the resources of the colony to create the Black Line, a 300 km front of around 2,000 colonists to sweep the settled districts and capture or kill all the remaining Aboriginal people.

[2][3] Although Tongerlongeter, Montpelliatta and their people were able to break through and escape the Black Line, another armed party were able to ambush their camp at Den Hill in late 1830.

His mangled lower arm was amputated below the elbow by his kinsmen using not much more than a sharpened rock to cut the flesh and smooth the bone, and a firestick to cauterise the stump.

He employed George Augustus Robinson to organise a friendly mission composed of already surrendered Tasmanian Aboriginal people to track down and entice the remaining hold-outs to give up.