Incidents between Aboriginal people in NSW and the British colonisers 1810–1822
Incidents between Aboriginal people in NSW and the British colonisers 1810-22
Stage 2: British Colonisation of Australia
Download this page PDF - 15 pages - 268KBIncidents between British and Aboriginal people 1810-22
This is a chronology of significant events in cross-cultural relations between Indigenous and colonial settler societies. The aim is to provide teachers with evidence from primary source documents and contemporary images which could be a basis for more detailed research.
It is a continuation of the BOSNSW Timeline of cross-cultural relations for the period 1792-1809.
Image: Governor Lachlan Macquarie, c.1818-19
Artist unknown, watercolour on ivory
Held at the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney. This link to the image on Macquarie University’s website has the permission of the State Library and Macquarie University.
Administration of Governor Lachlan Macquarie,
1 January 1810 - 1 December 1821Taking office in 1810, Governor Lachlan Macquarie maintained friendly relations with the Indigenous people of New South Wales for the first four years. He hoped to exert his authority without resorting to the force of arms. To this end, the governor created a ‘chain of command’ by selecting Aboriginal ‘chiefs’ who were responsible for the behaviour of their people.
Macquarie presented the chiefs with engraved metal breastplates or gorgets and inaugurated a Native Conference, held at the Market Place in Parramatta. At this annual event, the governor and his wife Elizabeth greeted their guests, who feasted on ample grog and beef. At night, the visitors sang and danced together in an inter-tribal corroboree. In later years outlawed Aboriginal leaders came in to surrender at the Native Conference. Macquarie also granted land to friendly Aborigines like Bungaree.
These initiatives, like his decision to establish a school for Aboriginal children, were crucial factors in Macquarie’s attempt to ‘civilise’ the Aborigines. While some parents voluntarily surrendered their children for the Native School at Parramatta, Macquarie later ordered the capture of others. He thus inaugurated the official policy of removals that would lead to the heartbreak of the ‘stolen generations’.
Though well intentioned, Governor Macquarie’s policies towards the Indigenous people of New South Wales were that of the ‘carrot and the stick’. When hostilities broke out in 1814 and again in 1816, he did not hesitate to send military detachments to the frontiers of settlement. He used friendly Darug men to act as guides and rewarded them later with rations, gorgets, boats and land grants.
1810
7 January: Governor Lachlan Macquarie publicly states his benevolent policy towards Aborigines: ‘I need not, I hope, express my wish that the Natives of this Country, when they come in the Way in a peaceable Manner, may not be molested in their Persons or Property by any one; but that, on the contrary, they may always be treated with Kindness and Attention, so as to conciliate them as much as possible to our Government and Manners.’ Source: Sydney Gazette (SG) 7 January 1810.
19 February: Edward Luttrell Jnr, a ship’s officer and son of Surgeon Edward Luttrell, shoots Pemulwuy’s son ‘Tidbury’ (Tedbury or Tjedboro) in the face during an argument at Parramatta.
Source: SG 24 February 1810.
13 March: In court evidence, botanist George Caley (Kaley) says he saw Tedbury remove a lead bullet from his mouth. Luttrell, who claims he thought Tedbury had speared his sister, is acquitted. Writing in later years, John Macarthur Junior thinks Tedbury died ‘a year or two afterwards’ from the effects of his wounds.
Sources: Rex v Luttrell, Court of Criminal Jurisdiction, Sydney, 13 March 1818, online at Macquarie Law. Linked with permission; Colonial Secretary, State Records, New South Wales (SRNSW) 5/1119-1; John Macarthur (Jnr), A few Memoranda respecting the Aboriginal Natives, MS A4360:63, no date, ML.
12 May: George Caley and his Aboriginal guide and plant collector Daniel Moowattin from Parramatta sail for England aboard the frigate HMS Hindostan. Another passenger is the deposed governor William Bligh.
Source: SG 12 May 1810.
July: Bundle (who in 1791, as an orphan boy, had accompanied Captain William Hill to Norfolk Island) assists district constable James Squire at Kissing Point (Ryde) by tracking footprints left by two nails in the sole of a shoe worn by an armed robber to Lane Cove. This is the first record of an Aboriginal tracker helping police.
Source: SG 21 July 1810.
25 October: Daniel Moowattin is the third Australian Aborigine to visit England when HMS Hindostan anchors at Spithead after a voyage of six months.
Source: George Caley, Diary, ‘Remarks on the weather &c’, Botanical Library, Natural History Museum (NHM), London.
16 November: Macquarie, with his wife Elizabeth and a large party travel by horse carriage from Parramatta to the Cow Pastures, guided by John Warby, a constable based at the Government Hut on the Nepean River.
Near John Macarthur’s property at Camden (Benkennie), the governor meets Murringong (Cow Pastures Clan) Aborigines, including Koggie (Cogy) and his wife Nantz, Bootbarrie (Budbury), Young Bundle, Billy and their wives.
Source: Macquarie, Diary, 16 November, 1810, MS A778:12, Mitchell Library, Sydney.
1811
3 January: Daniel Moowattin leaves the Woolwich Docks and lodges at Chelsea in London.
Source: Caley, Diary 3 January 1811.
2 February: George Caley and Daniel Moowattin sort specimens at Sir Joseph Banks’s house in Soho Square, London. Banks questions Dan about the Cola [koala].
Source: Caley, Diary 2 February 1811.
2 November: Aborigines at the Hawkesbury kill Edward Luttrell’s brother Robert Luttrell (Luttrill) with a blow from a nulla nulla (club) after he abducts an Aboriginal woman. The Coroner returns a verdict of justifiable self-defence.
Source: SG 11 November 1811.
20 November: Daniel Moowattin, under the care of nurseryman George Suttor, leaves England to return to Sydney on the ship Mary.
Source: George Suttor, Memoirs, MS A 3072, Typescript, Sydney, 1859:87, ML.
29 November: Governor Macquarie, with some sensitivity, acknowledges the Indigenous names of places while boating down the Nepean and Warragamba Rivers:
One of the Natives born near this part of the Country, and who made one of our Party on this day’s Excursion, tells us that the real and proper native name of this newly discovered River that we are now exploring is the Warragombie, by which name I have directed it to be called in future.
Source: Macquarie, Journal, 29 November, 1811, MS A778, ML.
1812
March - AprilSurveyor George William Evans takes Young Bundle on the Lady Nelson to Jervis Bay. They walk to the Shoalhaven River and return north through the bush, crossing the entrance to Lake Illawarra and passing through Kangaroo Valley. The expedition ends on 15 April at William Broughton’s farm at Appin.
Source: [George W Evans], 25 March - 13 April 1812, Journal of an exploration overland from Jervis Bay to Mr. Broughton’s É MS C709, FM3/482, ML.
12 May: Daniel Moowattin returns to Sydney from London. Within two weeks he sells a fowling piece given to him by botanist Robert Brown, buys a jug of peach cider and runs into the bush.
Source: George Suttor to Sir Joseph Banks, 12 November 1812, Banks Papers, ML.
Image: A Native Camp near Cockle Bay, New South Wales... 1813
Engraving by Philip Slaeger (1755-1815) after John Eyre (b. 1771)
From Absalom West, Views in New South Wales, Sydney: A. West, 1812-14. Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales. Linked with permission.
1813
2 January: Bennelong dies and is buried among the orange trees in James Squire’s orchard at Ryde. According to army lieutenant and explorer William Lawson, Bennelong ‘died in the bush with his tribe at Kissing Point’.
Source: SG 9 January 1813; William Lawson, ‘Mr. Lawson’s account of the Aborigines of New South Wales’, Supreme Court Correspondence relating to Aborigines, 5/1161, Document No. 83, 1838:554-5, SRNSW.
13 February: Musquito is sent as a prisoner from Norfolk Island to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) aboard the ship Minstrel. He is assigned as a stockman to Edward Lord, a wealthy settler.
Source: Colonial Secretary, 1/177; 4306:219-223, Archives Office of Tasmania, Hobart.
11 May - 6 JuneGregory Blaxland, William Charles Wentworth and Lieutenant William Lawson are the first to find a way over the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, opening up new land for settlement to the west.
Source: William Lawson, Journal of an expedition across the Blue Mountains, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales. Linked with permission.
Image: Climbing trees
Hand-coloured aquatint by Matthew Dubourg (1786-1808)
Published &sold by Edwd. Orme, London, 1 October 1813.
National Library of Australia, Canberra. Linked with permission.
14 June: Coroner (and artist) John William Lewin presides at an inquest into the death of an Aboriginal girl named Nanny Cabbage, who is found dead at Cockle Bay (Darling Harbour). Evidence is given that Nanny and two friends, Norry and Currumburn, ‘had connections’ with two soldiers from the Barracks and drank their rum. The soldiers, Peter Watson and James Rattray are committed for trial, but acquitted.
Source: Judge Advocate Reports of Coroner’s Inquests, 1796-1820. 48286, Reel 2232:97 et seq, State Records NSW; Sydney Gazette, 21 June 1813.
27 November: A traditional Aboriginal inquest is held at Wooloomooloo into the death of Baggara or Mendoza. Ritual punishment by his Broken Bay clan is avoided when two carradhy or clever men enter Baggara’s grave and declare that he was killed ‘by no man’.
Source: SG 27 November 1813.
1814
12 January: Nurragingy (Creek Jemmy), chief of South Creek, and Mary-Mary, chief of the Mulgoa clan, with their families, totalling 51 men, women and children, visit Governor Macquarie at Parramatta. They are given breakfast and dinner (midday meal) in the Government Domain (Parramatta Park). Narrang Jack, a previously hostile Aborigine, came to give himself up.
Source: Macquarie, Journal, 12 January 1814.
May7 May: A militia of ex-soldiers fires on a large group of Gundungurra feasting on corn at Milehouse’s farm at Appin, 70 kilometres south-west of Sydney, killing a boy. The Aborigines flee after they kill veteran trooper Isaac Eustace and cut off his hand. Aborigines kill a woman and two children at nearby Butcher’s farm.
Source: SG 14 May 1814.
14 May: Vengeful warriors spear and kill stockkeeper William Baker and his de facto wife Mary Sullivan on the property run by Elizabeth Macarthur at Camden. After his role in the overthrow of Governor William Bligh, John Macarthur is still in exile in England.
Source: HRNSW Vol. V:496, 503.
June4 June: It is reported that Aborigines from Jervis Bay have joined with the ‘mountain tribes’ (Gundungurra) and say they will kill the white settlers ‘when the moon shall be as large as the sun’ (ie at full moon).
Cogie, the Murringong (Cow Pastures) chief stays on friendly terms with the settlers, fleeing to Broken Bay. He alleges that the mountain clans are cannibals.
Source: SG 4 June 1814.
14 June: Aborigines attack settlers at Bringelly, Airds and Appin to avenge the murder of an Aboriginal woman and two children.
Source: SG 14 June 1814.
18 June: In a General Order, Governor Macquarie says he regrets ‘the unhappy Conflicts’ between the ‘natives of the Mountains’ and settlers at Bringelly, Airds and Appin, caused by the Aborigines helping themselves to the maize. He promises to punish anyone involved in hostilities on either side.
Sources: SG 18 June 1814; 7 July 1814.
July15 July: Aborigines kill the wife of James Daly and two of her children in their hut at ‘Mulgowey’ (Mulgoa). Daly leaves his farm and the mountain clans fade into their wild homeland.
Source: SG 23 July 1814.
22 July: Macquarie sends John Warby, John ‘Bush’ Jackson and four native guides to search for the Gundungurra men he holds responsible for the murders at Mulgoa. They fail to locate Goondel, Bitugally, Murrah, Yellaman, or Wallah.
Source: Macquarie, Proclamation, 20 July, 1814, HRA Vol. 1X:365.
AugustDual, ‘a native of Appin’, accompanies young explorer Hamilton Hume on an expedition from Appin to bush country in the area of today’s Berrima and Bong Bong, New South Wales.
Source: Rev. W. Ross of Goulburn, Preface to Hamilton Hume, A Brief Statement of Facts, 2nd edition, Yass, 1872:18; J. P. McGuane, Centenary of Campbelltown, handwritten account, 1920, Mitchell Library, Sydney.
8 August: Two Darug men join William Cox’s gang building the first road across the Blue Mountains. Cox writes in his journal: ‘Timber and brush very thick from the ninth to tenth mile... Two natives from Richmond joined us; one shot a Kangaroo’.
20 August: Aleksey Rossiyski, sturman (steersman or navigator) on the Russian-American Company cargo ship Suvorov, witnesses an Aboriginal payback fight that starts with 30 men and lasts two hours, finishing with about 100 participants.
21 August: Rossiyski acquires spears, a shield, two ‘bludgeons’ and a large club, giving in return ‘some threadbare clothing, a small mirror, some beads, and a bottle of rum’. The Aborigines give back the clothing for another bottle of rum.
Source: Glynn Barratt, The Russians at Port Jackson 1814-1822, Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra, 1981:24-5.
27 August: Cox names his guides: ‘Got 2 Natives, who promise to continue with us. Joe from Mulgoa and Coleby from Richmond.’
Source: William Cox, Journal 1814, MS C708-2/CY Reel 1022:25 ML.
SeptemberJohn Warby and Cow Pastures trackers guide soldiers to the hideout of bushranger Patrick Collins, who has been robbing settlers in the Hawkesbury area. Cogy spears Collins in the leg when he tries to escape. ‘All the natives of the Cow Pastures came in a body to claim the reward,’ writes Surgeon Joseph Arnold.
Source: Joseph Arnold, Journal, 1810-15, MS C720, 19 June - 13 July 1815, ML.
30 September: Warby ‘and others’ are paid £40.5.0 (forty pounds and five shillings) for capturing Collins.
Source: Police Fund, 30th September 1814, Colonial Secretary, Reel 60381/ S2758:554, SRNSW.
8 October: Macquarie outlines his ‘Experiment towards the Civilisation of these Natives’. He suggests that Aborigines should become labourers or farm workers. Those around Sydney, he says, live in a ‘State of perfect Peace, Friendliness and Sociality with the Settlers’. As a first step, the governor proposes to set up a Native School at Parramatta run by William Shelly, a former missionary, to teach ‘Habits of Industry and Decency [to] the Youth of both Sexes’.
Source: Macquarie to Colonial Secretary Lord Bathurst, 8 October 1814, HRA Vol. V111:367-70.
December10 December: Macquarie plans a ‘public Conference with all those Tribes of the Natives of New South Wales who are in the habit of resorting to the British Settlements established in this Colony’.
Source: SG 1 December 1814.
28 December: Governor and Mrs Macquarie attend the first Native Conference and feast at the Market Place at Parramatta. Sixty men, women and children sit in a circle to eat roast beef and drink ‘a cheering jug of ale’. Their parents bring four children to the Native Institution as ‘candidates for civilisation’.
Source: SG 31 December 1814.
1815
January18 January: The Native Institution at Parramatta officially opens with six boys and six girls.
31 January: Governor Macquarie decides to settle ‘friendly’ Aborigines on land they can farm. He erects huts at Georges Head [Mosman], for Boongaree (Bungaree) and his Broken Bay clan to ‘Settle and Cultivate’.
Macquarie presents Bungaree with a crescent-shaped metal gorget or breastplate naming him ‘Chief of the Broken Bay Tribe’. The Aboriginal ‘settlers’ receive clothing, seeds, farming implements and a fishing boat called the Bongaree.
Source: SG 4 February 1815.
17 February: Thomas Hassall reports that the ‘Cundorah’ (Gundungurra) has attacked Macarthur’s farm at Camden.
Source: Reverend J S Hassall, In Old Australia, Brisbane, 1902:178.
24 March: Macquarie reports to London that, only two months after the establishment of the Native Institution, six children have already been taken away by their parents.
Source: Macquarie to Lord Bathurst, HRA V111:467.
Image: A native chief of Baturst [ie Bathurst]
Engraving by John William Lewin (1770-1819).
From John Oxley, Journals of two expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales, London, John Murray, 1820. National Library of Australia, Canberra. Linked with permission.
May4 May: Visiting Bathurst, Macquarie meets three Wiradjuri men and six boys, ‘all clothed with Mantles made of the skins of o’possums [possums]... neatly sewn together’. The governor gives them meat, clothing and tomahawks. He notes that they speak a different language to the Sydney Aborigines.
Source: Lachlan Macquarie, ‘Tour to the New Discovered Country 1815’, Lachlan Macquarie: Journals of his Tours in New South Wales. Sydney, 1979:97; Macquarie to Bathurst, 30 June 1815. HRA 1, Vol.V111: 609
July6 July: William Shelley dies and his widow, Elizabeth Shelly, takes control of the Parramatta Native Institution.
Source: Governor Brisbane to Lord Bathurst, 3 October 1825, HRA, Vol. 11:864.
17 July: When Bungaree is sick, Macquarie orders Surgeon D’arcy Wentworth to admit him to the General Hospital ‘to be victualled [fed] at the expence [sic] of Government.’
Source: Lachlan Macquarie, Memorandum and Related Papers, 17 July 1815, MS A 772, Mitchell Library, Sydney.
5 November: ‘Boongary’ has recovered from his illness when Mrs Macquarie visits his farm at Georges Head and gives him ‘a Breeding Sow &7 Pigs-and also a pair of Muscovy Ducks-together with Suits of Clothes for his Wife and Daughter’.
Source: Macquarie, Journal, A774, 5 November 1815, ML.
28 December: No Native Conference is held because of a severe drought.
1816
16 February: Governor Macquarie promises a grant of land at South Creek to Nurragingy (Creek Jemmy).
Source: Colonial Secretary, Government Order Book for Land Grants, 1811-1858, Surveyor General’s Department, 16 February 1816, CGS 13912, Reel 1434, SRNSW.
MarchAfter two years of severe drought, the Gundungurra (Gandangara) come down from the mountains to attack settlers in the outlying Cow Pastures (Camden) district, burning houses and sheds, spearing cattle and plundering crops. They kill four men employed by George T Palmer (son of Commissary John Palmer) at the Nepean River and three of Mrs Elizabeth Macarthur’s stock-keepers at Camden.
Source: SG 16, 21 March 1816.
18 March: Macquarie advises Lord Bathurst in London: ‘It is my Intention, as soon as I shall have Ascertained What Tribes Committed the late Murders and Depredations, to send a strong Detachment of Troops to drive them to a Distance from the Settlements of the White Men.’
Source: Macquarie to Bathurst, 18 March 1816, HRA 9:54.
April5 April: As conflict breaks out, Cogie (Gogy) takes refuge at Charles Throsby’s farm at Glenfield, near Liverpool, and goes fishing in a boat with William Charles Wentworth, son of Surgeon D’arcy Wentworth.
Source: Charles Throsby to D’arcy Wentworth, 5 April 1816, MS A752:183-6, Wentworth Papers, ML.
9 April: Governor Macquarie orders Captain Schaw to deliver Aboriginal prisoners to the magistrates at Parramatta and to capture 12 Aboriginal boys and six girls, between four and six years of age, for the Native Institution at Parramatta. He instructs Schaw to ‘select and secure that number of fine healthy good-looking children from the whole of the Native Prisoners of War taken in the course of your operations, and direct them to be delivered to the Supt. of the Native Institution at Parramatta immediately on their arrival there.’
Source: Instructions for Capt. W.G.B. Schaw 46th Regt., CS Reel 6045, 4/1734:149-69, SRNSW; HRA Vol. 1X:858.
10 April: Three separate detachments of troops head southwest towards the Cow Pastures (Camden), from Liverpool to Airds and Appin, and to Windsor, Richmond, Kurrajong and the Grose River. Macquarie orders that Aboriginal adults killed are to be ‘hanged up on trees in conspicuous situations, to strike the survivors with the greatest Terror.’
Source: Lachlan Macquarie, Governor’s Diary & Memorandum Book Commencing on and from Wednesday the 10th. Day of April 1816.- At Sydney, in N. S. Wales. Lachlan and Elizabeth Macquarie Archive, Macquarie University Library. Linked with permission.
17 April: At dawn, Captain James Wallis and his troops ambush sleeping Aborigines in their camp near William Broughton’s Farm at Appin. They open fire, killing 14 Aboriginal men and women and wounding five others. ‘I regret to say some had been shot and others met their fate while rushing in despair over the precipice’, Wallis advises Macquarie. The dead include the Gundungurra leaders Durelle and Kanabygal.
Source: Captain James Wallis, Journal, 17 April 1816, Colonial Secretary In letters, 4/1735, Reel 2161:52-60, SRNSW.
28 April: Wallis’s detachment marches 12 miles along the Wingecarribee River; Colebee says the hostile Aborigines are two days ahead.
Source: Wallis, Journal, 28 April 1816.
May4 May: Repressive measures follow the slaughter. Macquarie forbids armed Aborigines to appear within one mile of any settlement carrying warlike weapons including ‘Spears, Clubs, or Waddies’. No more than six Aborigines may ‘lurk or loiter’ near any farm and assemblies for ritual battles are ‘wholly abolished’.
Source: Macquarie, Proclamation, SG 4 May 1816.
7 May: Each of the Aboriginal guides is given a ‘Complete Suit of Slops - Blanket, 4 Days Provisions, Half Pint of Spirits and Half Pound of Tobacco.
Source: Macquarie, Journal, Tuesday, 7 May 1816, MS A773, ML.
11 May: Macquarie promises to grant ‘small parcels of land to such of them [Aborigines] as are inclined to become regular settlers’.
25 May: Macquarie awards a gorget to Nurragingy or Creek Jemmy, inscribed ‘Chief of the South Creek Tribe’. This is the second gorget given by Macquarie.
Macquarie promises Nurragingy and Colebee a joint grant of 30 acres at South Creek (now Blacktown).
Source: Macquarie, Journal, 6 June 1816, A773:253, ML.
6 June: Macquarie sends two ‘fine boys’, Nalour and Doors, and two girls, Mybah and Betty, described as ‘Black Natives’ captured with the ‘Hostile Native Tribes’, to the Native Institution at Parramatta.
‘I this day appointed Bidgee-Bidgee Black-Native, to be the Chief of the Kissing Point Tribe, and invested formally with a Brass Gorget having his name and Title engraved thereon.’ Bidgee Bidgee brought in Coggie (Cogy) who submitted to Macquarie and promised ‘to be friendly in future to all White People.’
Source: Macquarie, Journal, 6 June 1816, A773:32 ML.
Image: Bidgee Bidgee, a Native of New South Wales, 1801
E Piper, after Nicolas-Martin Petit, PX*D77, f.1,
Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney. Linked with permission.
20 July: Macquarie outlaws 10 Aboriginal men ‘well known to be the principal and most violent instigators of the Late Murders’. They are Murrah, Myles, Wallah (alias Warren), Carbone Jack (alias Kurringy), Narrang Jack, Bunduck, Kongate, Woottan, Rachel and Yallaman. A reward of £10 is offered for anyone bringing any of them in, dead or alive.
Source: Macquarie to Bathurst, 1 April, 1817, HRA 1X:362-4.
28 August: Aborigines at Mulgoa spear and kill a shepherd, throw 50 of his sheep over a cliff and mutilate and gouge out the eyes of the rest.
Source: SG 31 August 1816.
27 September: Daniel Moowattin or Mow-watty is convicted of rape.
Source: Sydney Gazette, 28 September 1816; Rex v Mow-watty and Bioora, Court of Criminal Jurisdiction, Sydney, 27 September 1816
Decisions of the Superior Courts of New South Wales, 1788-1899, Division of Law, Macquarie University, Sydney. Linked with permission.
7 October: In Sydney, the Court of Criminal Jurisdiction passes sentence on ‘Daniel Mow-watty, for a rape-Death’.
Source: Supplement to Sydney Gazette, 12 October 1816.
NovemberThe Mulgoa chief Mary-Mary brings in his daughter Judith (Judy) aged eight to Mrs Shelly to join the Native Institution.
Source: DL Add 85, November 1816, DL.
1 November: In his journal, Governor Macquarie records the execution by hanging of ‘Daniel Moowatting (a Black Native of this Colony)-for Rape and Robbery on a young Female White Woman...’ So ends the short, tragic life of Daniel Moowattin.
Source: Macquarie, Journal, Friday, 1 November 1816, MS A773, ML
See Keith Vincent Smith’s brief biography of Daniel Moowattin (c.1791-1816) in the Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB) Online Edition. Linked with permission.
16 November: Five Aborigines captured by military detachments are released and pardoned by Macquarie. He gives Jemmy Monday, Kitten, Jack, Pamborah and Pinboya a blanket and three days provisions each. Jubbinguy (later Bill Jebinge or Jobinge) is kept in gaol ‘on account of his cruel and sanguinary [cold-blooded] character’.
Source: Macquarie, Journal, 16 November 1816.
20 November: Macquarie promises small farms between Mulgoa and South Creek as rewards for ‘Native guides and friendly Natives’ to Mary-Mary, Mulgowey Joe and Charley Mulgrave.
Source: Lachlan Macquarie, Archival Estrays, Add 85, ML.
22 December: Macquarie orders gorgets from Captain M. Gill for Mary-Mary and Branch Jack, ‘Chief of the Hawkesbury Upper Branch’. Four small square metal plates are for Colebee, Pulpin, Mulgowey-Joe and Charley Mulgrave.
Source: Macquarie, Papers, 22 December 1816, Doc 132, DL.
Image: The annual meeting of the native tribes at Parramatta, New South Wales, the Governor meeting them
c.1826
Watercolour by Augustus Earle (1793-1838)
National Library of Australia, Canberra. Linked with permission.
28 December: The Native Conference at Parramatta resumes and is described as a ‘novel and very interesting spectacle’, with 179 ‘friendly’ Aborigines in a circle, with their ‘chiefs’ on chairs. They feast on roast beef, potatoes, bread and ‘a large cask of grog’.
Children from the Native Institution parade for Mrs Macquarie. One proud father calls out: ‘Governor, -That will make a good Settler- that’s my Pickaninny!’ Three more children, including Bennelong’s son Dicky, join the school after the gathering.
Source: SG 4 January 1817.
1817
25 February: There are now 20 children at the Native School. ‘I have been much delighted with having them read and spell - They read with so much boldness and attention as supprised [sic] me’, writes the Methodist missionary, the Reverend Samuel Leigh.
Source: Rev. Samuel Leigh, Sydney, 25 February, 1817, BT Box 50, ML.
22 December: Bungaree goes to sea aboard HM cutter Mermaid, commanded by Lieutenant Phillip Parker King, who will survey and map the north and west coasts of Australia.
Source: P P King, Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia, London, 1827:1 et seq.
1818
1 January: At the annual ‘Native Feast’ at Parramatta, Macquarie presents gorgets to ‘Cogie as Chief of the George’s River Tribe, and to Norwong as Chief of the Botany Tribe and the Order of Merit to Tindall of the Cow Pastures and Pulpin of the Hawkesbury Tribe’.
Source: Macquarie, Journal, 1 January 1818, A773, ML.
31 March: Daniel Deakin (Daykin) supplies a boat to Bidgee Bidgee, chief of Kissing Point (Ryde) and is paid £13.0.0 from the Police Fund.
Sources: D’arcy Wentworth, 31 March 1818, Wentworth Papers, DL; Colonial Secretary Accounts, 6 June 1818, Sz759:474, SRNSW.
29 July: Bungaree returns to Port Jackson in the cutter Mermaid, in which Captain P. P. King has chartered Australia’s northern coastline. As the ship did not circle the continent, Bungaree did not circumnavigate Australia again.
6 August: At Newcastle, Governor Macquarie writes: ‘At Night Jack, als. "Burigon" King of the Newcastle Native Tribe, with about 40 men, women &children of his Tribe... entertained with a Carauberie [Corroboree] in high stile [sic] for Half an Hour in the Grounds in rear of Govt. House. - I ordered them to be Treated with some Grog and an allowance of Maize.’
Image: Burgun 1819 [‘Jack alias Burigon’]
Watercolour by Richard Browne (1776-1824).
National Library of Australia, Canberra. Linked with permission.
23 August: The Sydney Gazette reports the death in Sydney of ‘the elder Maroot’, chief of the Kameygal on the north shore of Botany Bay, who was hit on the head with a stone.
Source: SG 23 August 1818.
29 October: Near Portland Head (Wisemans Ferry) on the Hawkesbury River, the Methodist missionary Walter Lawry meets the chief of ‘a tribe of blacks’, but the women take their children and run off. Lawry writes:
I enquired why the children were carried off; they replied that many of them had been taken away by men in black clothes, and put to school at Parramatta, and they feared I was come on that errand.
Source: James Colwell, Illustrated History of Methodism, Sydney: William Brooks &Co., 1904:170-71.
28 December: Almost 300 Aborigines attend the annual feast, some from beyond the Blue Mountains and ‘other tribes from the North and South who had travelled a distance of upwards of 100 miles’. Macquarie confers gorgets on some chiefs and is delighted by 18 children from the Native Institution who show their progress in reading and writing.
Source: SG 2 January 1819.
Image: Boon-ga-ree
Aboriginal of New St Wales 1819
who accompanied me on my first voyage to the
N.W. coast
Watercolour by Phillip Parker King
Album of Sketches and Engravings, 1802-1829, ML
Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW, Sydney. Linked with permission.
1819
FebruaryTwenty Aboriginal children compete in the New South Wales Anniversary Schools Examination with 100 white children. ‘A black girl of fourteen years of age, between three and four years at the school, bore away the prize ...’ The clever Aboriginal girl is believed to be Maria Lock.
Source: SG 17 February 1819; Rev. R. Hill, 22 January 1821, Bonwick Transcripts (BT), Box 8, Bigge App. 3519, DL Add.64, Mitchell Library, Sydney.
DecemberAt Christmas, Bungaree is ‘savagely beaten in a drunken broil [brawl]’ and is brought to the kitchen of Alexander Berry’s North Shore cottage (present Sydney suburb of Crow’s Nest) to recover from a head wound and a fractured arm.
Source: Alexander Berry, Recollections of the Aborigines, 1838. From Original Documents on Aborigines and Law, 1797-1840, published by the Centre for Comparative Law History and Governance of Macquarie University, and State Records NSW. Document 83, c.1838:557-8. Linked with permission.
28 December: The 1819 Native Conference attracts 240-250 people, fewer than previously, because of excessive heat.
1820
11 April: Bungaree, his wife Matora and son and daughter board the Russian ship Vostok (East), commanded by Captain Thaddeus von Bellingshausen. Pointing to his family, Bungaree says ‘These are my people’. Pointing to the northern shore of Port Jackson, he says: ‘This is my land.’
Source: Frank Debenham (translator), The Voyage of Captain Bellingshausen to the Antarctic Seas, London: Hakluyt Society, 1945.
29 April: At Parramatta, the Russian astronomer Ivan Simonov sees the girls from the Native School wearing their clean white dresses and singing hymns in church.
Source: Glynn Barratt (translator), The Russians at Port Jackson 1814-1822, Canberra: AIAS, 1981:49.
31 October: John Kirkby, an escaped convict, stabs and kills the Newcastle chief King Burrigan (Jack).
Source: Colonial Secretary, Reel 6067; 4/1807:135-7, 143, 150, SRNSW.
December16 December: The Sydney Gazette reports that an influenza epidemic has killed many Aborigines in the inland and at Broken Bay.
Source: Sydney Gazette, 16 December 1820.
18 December: John Kirkby, who killed King Burrigan, is hanged at Newcastle.
Sources: The King v. Kirkby, Supreme Court; The Australian, Sydney, 16, 23 December 1820.
28 December: ‘Upwards of 200 natives assembled’ for the Annual Conference. ‘Badges of honour and merit were conferred on some of the most deserving by His Excellency.’
Source: SG 30 December 1820.
1821
15 March: At the Native Institution, Parramatta, Michael Yarringuy, a ‘native constable’ at Richmond, marries Polly, while Robert Naringguy [Bobby Nurragingy], son of Nurragingy or Creek Jemmy, marries Betty Fulton. Both girls are from the Native Institution, now at Black Town.
Source: SG 17 March 1821.
Image: Bobby Nirgengay South Creek - Windsor
c.1844
[Bobby Nurragingy]
Charles Rodius (1802-1860
Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney. Linked with permission.
26 May: Bundle, now aged about forty and missing one eye, replaces Bungaree in the crew of the survey vessel HMS Bathurst, commanded by Captain Phillip Parker King.
Source: P P King, Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia... London: John Murray, Vol. 2, 1827:4-5.
12 August: At the age of forty, Nanbarry, the last-known Cadigal, dies at James Squires’ orchard at Kissing Point (Ryde) and is buried, at his request, in the same grave as Bennelong.
Source: SG 8 September 1821.
December1 December: Sir Thomas Mackdougall Brisbane is sworn in as governor of New South Wales.
20 December: A few Wiradjuri wait several days to farewell Macquarie when he pays his last visit to Bathurst. Fifteen come to see him at Government House. ‘In the evening the little town of Bathurst was very neatly illuminated in honour of my arrival and the natives entertained us with a very good karauberie [corroboree]... which lasted till eleven o’ clock.’
Source: Macquarie, Journal, 20 December 1821.
28 December: More than 300 Aborigines attend the annual Native Conference at Parramatta.
Source: SG 29 December 1821.
29 December: Colonial Secretary Frederick Goulburn orders blankets to be given to Mary-Mary, Bundle and Maundy for helping to capture six runaway convicts.
Source: Frederick Goulburn to Major Druitt, 12 November 1821, Reel 6008; 4/3504A:50, SRNSW.
1822
1 January: Governor Macquarie, with the new governor, Sir Thomas Brisbane, ‘paid a visit this morning, before Breakfast, to Elizabeth Town, the Native Village in Elizabeth Bay’.
Source: Macquarie, Journal, MS A 774, 1 January 1822.
15 January: One hundred Aborigines, some from Jervis Bay to the south, greet Governor Macquarie at David Allan’s Farm at Red Point, near Port Kembla. Many of them call him by name.
Source: Lachlan Macquarie, Journal of a Tour to the Cow Pastures and Illawarra, 19 January - 17 February, 1822, MS A 786, ML.
24 January: Macquarie visits the ‘Native Village on the Richmond Road’ at Black Town on a tour of inspection with his successor governor, Sir Thomas Brisbane.
Source: Macquarie, Journal, A774, 24 January 1822.
11 February: Macquarie introduces Bungaree to Governor Brisbane at Georges Head. ‘I gave him an old Suit of General’s uniforms to dress him out as Chief’, writes Macquarie. Governor Brisbane promises Bungaree and his people a new boat and fishing net.
Source: Macquarie, Journal
11 February 1822. Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales. Linked with permission.
15 February: Lachlan Macquarie, who has governed New South Wales for nine years, sails for England aboard the Surry. He has broken down Aboriginal hostility with a combination of military attacks and humane treatment and compensated dispossessed Aborigines with land grants, boats, feasts, gorgets and blankets.
Source: Macquarie, Journal, MS A744, 15 February 1822.
12 June: Colebee from Richmond marries Kitty, aged 13, from the Warmuli (Prospect Clan), a student at the Native Institution.
Source: Macquarie, Memorandum, List of Natives at Native Institution, 28 December 1819, MS A772:151, ML.
8 September: At the Wesleyan Chapel, Parramatta: ‘The Rev. Wm. Walker, Wesleyan Missionary to the Aborigines of the Colony, publicly baptised the son of Bennelong, of notorious memory; and named him Thomas Walker Coke... Many of his brethren were present on the occasion.’
Source: SG 27 September 1822.