Cassandra Pybus

WINNER, National Biography Award 2021 SHORTLISTED, Prime Minister's Award for Non-fiction 2021 'A compelling story, beautifully told' - JULIA BAIRD, author and broadcaster 'At last, a book to give Truganini the proper attention she deserves.' - GAYE SCULTHORPE, Curator of Oceania, The British Museum Cassandra Pybus's ancestors told a story of an old Aboriginal woman who would wander across their...

Shortlisted for the 2025 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Longlisted for the 2025 Tasmanian Literary Awards Premier's Prize Longlisted for the 2024 Mark & Evette Moran Nib Literary Award In the nineteenth century, collectors and museum curators in Europe were fascinated by the antipodean colony of Tasmania. They cultivated contacts in the colony who could supply them with exotic specimens, including...

In this compelling new book, distinguished historian and writer Cassandra Pybus reveals that black convicts were among our first fleet settlers, a fact which profoundly complicates our understanding of race relations in early colonial Australia. Most of these black founders were originally slaves from America who had sought freedom with the British during the American Revolution, only to find themselves...