Tag: indigenous

In his book Hidden in Plain View, Paul Irish has found many records that demonstrate the positive relationships between the colonisers and Indigenous people at various locations in the coastal Sydney region.

One story concerns the area in Sydney Harbour known today as Watsons Bay.

The original inhabitants of the area that is now known as Watsons Bay, were the Gadigal people. The Gadigal referred to the area as Kutti. This indigenous group of people fished and collected shellfish in the waters and bays off South Head. They acquired their resources from Camp Cove and carved rock engravings there, although many have since eroded from the cliff faces and rock surfaces that line the coastline.

Watsons Bay was named after Robert Watson (1756–1819), who had arrived with the First Fleet as quartermaster of H.M.S. Sirius. After some years at Norfolk Island, Watson was given a land grant at South Head. When the lighthouse at South Head was finished, Watson was installed as its first superintendent in November 1818.

In the early decades of the colony, there was a group of Aborigines which used Camp Cove as their base for fishing. They co-existed with the whites who began settling in the area. Later events would challenge, and then unravel, this positive relationship. There is a lot of tragedy and much sadness in the relationships between First Peoples and the colonisers, in the ensuing decades. But perhaps we need to look back to those early positive, respectful relationships, as the model for our lives today?

See also

http://home.dictionaryofsydney.org/paul-irish-hidden-in-plain-view-the-aboriginal-people-of-coastal-sydney/

https://johntsquires.com/2019/05/27/we-are-sorry-we-recognise-your-rights-we-seek-to-be-reconciled/

https://johntsquires.com/2019/05/28/reconciliation-on-the-land-of-australia-learning-from-the-past/

https://johntsquires.com/2019/05/29/reconciliation-on-the-land-of-australia-bennelong-and-yemmerrawanne/

https://johntsquires.com/2019/05/30/reconciliation-on-the-land-of-australia-bungaree-and-mahroot/

https://johntsquires.com/2019/05/31/reconciliation-on-the-land-of-australia-cora-gooseberry-and-biddy-giles/

https://johntsquires.com/2019/06/01/reconciliation-on-the-land-of-australia-these-are-my-people-this-is-my-land/

On the doctrine of discovery: https://johntsquires.com/2018/08/13/affirming-the-sovereignty-of-first-peoples-undoing-the-doctrine-of-discovery/

On learning from the land:

https://johntsquires.com/2018/12/17/learning-of-the-land-1/

https://johntsquires.com/2018/12/18/learning-of-the-land-2-ngunnawal-namadgi-and-ngarigo/

https://johntsquires.com/2019/01/30/learning-of-the-land-3-tuggeranong-queanbeyan-and-other-canberra-place-names/

https://johntsquires.com/2019/02/08/learning-from-the-land-4-naiames-nghunnhu-fishtraps-at-brewarrina/

On difficulties and tragedies in the early relationships:

https://johntsquires.wordpress.com/2019/01/16/the-profound-effect-of-invasion-and-colonisations/

https://johntsquires.wordpress.com/2019/01/18/endeavour-by-every-possible-means-to-conciliate-their-affections/

https://johntsquires.wordpress.com/2019/01/20/we-never-saw-one-inch-of-cultivated-land-in-the-whole-country/

https://johntsquires.wordpress.com/2019/01/22/they-stood-like-statues-without-motion-but-grinnd-like-so-many-monkies/

https://johntsquires.wordpress.com/2019/01/24/resembling-the-park-lands-of-a-gentlemans-residence-in-england/

https://johntsquires.com/2019/01/26/they-are-to-be-hanged-up-on-trees-to-strike-the-survivors-with-the-greater-terror/#more-424

During this National Reconciliation Week, I am recalling the evidence for various positive and respectful relationships that existed between First Peoples and the invading colonisers from Britain, drawing on the work of Paul Irish in his recent book, Hidden in Plain View. (See https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/hidden-plain-view/)

Earlier this week, I mentioned Bungaree, an early Aboriginal leader. He is reported as living, at various times, at Broken Bay, Sydney Town, and the Hunter region. Paul Irish reports that his first wife was Matora (1770s-1820s) and his second wife was Cora Gooseberry (1770s-1852). Both women were from the Sydney Harbour area, and Cora became known as the “Queen” of coastal Sydney in her latter years.

I love Bungaree for his clear and forthright declaration, when he was part of an Indigenous group meeting with a group of sailors from Russia in 1820. In one such meeting, he apparently declared to them: “These are my people … this is my land”.

Right on!!!

(Irish cites this from a report by Glynn Barrett in “The Russians at Port Jackson 1814-1822”, published in 1981. Barrett’s work relates to Russian ships travelling from Europe to Alaska, which often stopped at Sydney, anchoring at Port Jackson. Naval Officers and Sailors had close dealings with the Aboriginal people of the area.)

Bungaree spoke truth. This was (and still is) the land of his people. But the colonial powers of Britain failed to listen and respond appropriately. During Reconciliation Week, we need to foster an attitude of respectful relationship and careful listening, as we engage with our Indigenous sisters and brothers.

See also

http://home.dictionaryofsydney.org/paul-irish-hidden-in-plain-view-the-aboriginal-people-of-coastal-sydney/

https://johntsquires.com/2019/05/27/we-are-sorry-we-recognise-your-rights-we-seek-to-be-reconciled/

https://johntsquires.com/2019/05/28/reconciliation-on-the-land-of-australia-learning-from-the-past/

https://johntsquires.com/2019/05/29/reconciliation-on-the-land-of-australia-bennelong-and-yemmerrawanne/

https://johntsquires.com/2019/05/30/reconciliation-on-the-land-of-australia-bungaree-and-mahroot/

https://johntsquires.com/2019/05/31/reconciliation-on-the-land-of-australia-cora-gooseberry-and-biddy-giles/

On the doctrine of discovery: https://johntsquires.com/2018/08/13/affirming-the-sovereignty-of-first-peoples-undoing-the-doctrine-of-discovery/

As well as known Aboriginal men who were leaders of their clans and figured in ongoing relationships with the British colonisers in the coastal Sydney area, there are Aboriginal women who are recorded in the early colonial records. Paul Irish recounts what is known about some of them, in his book “Hidden in Plain View”.

Cora Gooseberry was the widow of Bungaree (see https://johntsquires.com/2019/05/30/reconciliation-on-the-land-of-australia-bungaree-and-mahroot/). She was born around 1777 and lived until 1852. Cora was a well-known identity in the Sydney streets. Born as Carra or Kaaroo, she was the daughter of Moorooboora, leader of the Murro-Ore (Pathway Place) clan, named from muru (pathway) and Boora (Long Bay).

Irish reports that Gooseberry’s mob, including Ricketty Dick, Jacky Jacky and Bowen Bungaree, camped in the street outside Sydney hotels or in the Domain, where they engaged with the British invaders by giving exhibitions of boomerang throwing. In July 1845, in exchange for flour and tobacco, Cora Gooseberry took Angas and the police commissioner W.A. Miles on a tour of Aboriginal rock carvings at North Head and told them ‘all that she had heard her father say’ about the places where ‘dibble dibble walk about’, an inference that he had been a koradji from that region. (See http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/gooseberry-cora-12942)

Biddy Giles, 1810 to 1888, lived first in the Illawarra, where she had two daughters to Burragalong, known as Paddy Davis. Davis lived with Biddy from 1850s on a farm at Mill Creek, off the George’s River. Biddy was skilled at fishing and hunting with a pack of dogs. Irish reports that she ran guided tours in the bush land near George’s River down to the Heathcote area, from the 1850s onwards, and then tours to whale engravings near Bundeena in 1860s and 1870s

About the time Paddy died around 1860, Biddy moved to the Georges River, with a new partner, an Englishman called Billy Giles. They lived on the western bank of Mill Creek, known to the Dharawal as Gurugurang, in a farmhouse built earlier by Dr Alexander Cuthill. They had fruit trees, goats and abundant bush tucker from the river and its banks. During the 1860s, Biddy and Billy acted as guides for groups of travellers in shooting or fishing parties, sharing their knowledge of the river and its wildlife, telling stories and sharing skills. These trips ranged from Mill Creek east all the way to the ocean and south into Dharawal country as far as the Shoalhaven.

Some of these travellers wrote accounts of their trips with Biddy, marvelling at her unfailing ability to find fish, her control of her hunting dogs and the skill with which she could rustle up a delicious meal from local produce. (See https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/giles_biddy)

Such women are fine models for us to ponder during this National Reconciliation Week.

(In the picture, Cora Gooseberry is top right, Biddy Giles is bottom left.)

See also

http://home.dictionaryofsydney.org/paul-irish-hidden-in-plain-view-the-aboriginal-people-of-coastal-sydney/

https://johntsquires.com/2019/05/27/we-are-sorry-we-recognise-your-rights-we-seek-to-be-reconciled/

https://johntsquires.com/2019/05/28/reconciliation-on-the-land-of-australia-learning-from-the-past/

https://johntsquires.com/2019/05/29/reconciliation-on-the-land-of-australia-bennelong-and-yemmerrawanne/

https://johntsquires.com/2019/05/30/reconciliation-on-the-land-of-australia-bungaree-and-mahroot/

On the doctrine of discovery: https://johntsquires.com/2018/08/13/affirming-the-sovereignty-of-first-peoples-undoing-the-doctrine-of-discovery/

Paul Irish, in his recent book, “Hidden in Plain View”, introduces us to various Aboriginal people who are noted on a number of occasions in the early colonial records. One of them was Bungaree (1770s-1830), who came from the area we know as Broken Bay, at the northern end of “Coastal Sydney”.

Bungaree, or Boongarie, was born around the time that the First Fleet was being gathered together in preparation for the long trip to the Great South Land. As an adult, he adopted the role of a mediator between the invading British colonists and the Aboriginal people. He sailed in that capacity with Matthew Flinders, becoming the first Australian to circumnavigate the continent on that voyage of 1802–03.

It is said that, during this voyage, Bungaree used his knowledge of Aboriginal protocol to negotiate peaceful meetings with local Indigenous people. later, in A Voyage to Terra Australis, Matthew Flinders subsequently wrote that Bungaree’s ‘good disposition and open and manly conduct had attracted my esteem.’ (In A Voyage to Terra Australis)

In mid-life he found a patron in Governor Lachlan Macquarie, who made Bungaree ‘Chief of the Broken Bay Tribe’, set aside land and gave him a boat for fishing. In his later life Bungaree, while still respected as an Aboriginal leader, was regarded as the best-known character in the streets of Sydney.

Bungaree died in 1830. There is a substantial entry on him in the Dictionary of Sydney (https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/bungaree)

Another Aboriginal leader was Mahroot (1790s to 1850), who was also known as “Boatswain”. Mahroot lived with his wife at Botany (near the site of the Sir Joseph Banks Hotel), and it is recorded that he worked there as ferryman and guide in the 1840s. It is also claimed that several white people lived there, as his tenants. (https://dictionaryofsydney.org/person/boatswain_maroot)

Mahroot had regular and consistent engagement with whites in the colony; it is said that Mahroot and the British colonisers happily co-existed. He gave evidence to the Select Committee on the Condition of the Aborigines in 1845 where he spoke frankly about his life, his family, his Country and the impact on Indigenous people since 1788.

See also

http://home.dictionaryofsydney.org/paul-irish-hidden-in-plain-view-the-aboriginal-people-of-coastal-sydney/

https://johntsquires.com/2019/05/27/we-are-sorry-we-recognise-your-rights-we-seek-to-be-reconciled/

https://johntsquires.com/2019/05/28/reconciliation-on-the-land-of-australia-learning-from-the-past/

On the doctrine of discovery: https://johntsquires.com/2018/08/13/affirming-the-sovereignty-of-first-peoples-undoing-the-doctrine-of-discovery/

During this National Reconciliation Week, I think it is worth recalling the evidence for various positive and respectful relationships that existed between First Peoples and the invading colonisers from Britain. We are accustomed, now, to reading of the violent conflicts and massacres that occurred. These are tragic parts of our history that we must not deny, overlook, or ignore.

But in the early stages of the colony—and, indeed, stretching throughout the colonial period—there were mutually respectful relationships between these groups. National Reconciliation Week seems to be a good time to recall this.

Perhaps the best known persona from amongst the First Peoples encountered by the invading British coloniser was Bennelong, born in 1764 on the southern shore of the Parramatta River. Paul Irish (in Hidden in Plain View) notes that his various family connections meant that Bennelong had connections to country on Goat Island, at Botany Bay, on the lower north shore of Sydney Harbour, and along the northern side of Parramatta River.

Bennelong was kidnapped in November 1789, under the orders of Governor Arthur Phillip, who thereby set an unfortunate tone for the relationship with the locals from the very early years of the colony. Phillip apparently assumed that Bennelong was a “King” of the local people, and thus the correct person with whom to negotiate about co-existing in the same area. It was an attempt to build a constructive relationship, even if it was carried out in what we now recognise to be an entirely flawed manner.

It is said that Bennelong took readily to life among the white men, relished their food, acquired a taste for liquor, learned to speak English and became particularly attached to the Governor. At the end of his term as Governor in 1792, Arthur Phillip travelled to England with Bennelong and another Aborigine, Yemmerrawanne, a Wangal man of the Eora people.

Yemmerrawanne was described by Watkin Tench, in his work, A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson (1793), as a “good-tempered lively lad” who became “a great favourite with us, and almost constantly lived at the governor’s house”. (See https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/yemmerrawanne)

Yemmerrawanne never returned home from his trip to England. After a long illness, he died from a lung infection on 18 May 1794 at the home of Mr Edward Kent at South End, Eltham in the county of Kent. His gravestone in Kent marks his life, and death.

Bennelong stayed in England from 1792 to 1795. On his return to Sydney, he was able to develop more positive relationships with the British, and functioned as an advisor to Governor Hunter.

Bennelong lived his last years with one of his wives, Boorong, at Kissing Point, with an extended group of about 100 people, until his death on 3 January 1813. He was buried in the Kissing Point orchard of the brewer James Squire—no relationship! Squire had been a great friend to Bennelong and his clan; another sign of positive, respectful relationships between Aborigines and the colonisers. We need to learn from such stories in our history.

See the extensive article on Bennelong in the Australian Dictionary of Biography at http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/bennelong-1769

The image portrays Bennelong, the grave of Yemmerrawanne, and the 2019 National Reconciliation Week logo and theme.

See also

http://home.dictionaryofsydney.org/paul-irish-hidden-in-plain-view-the-aboriginal-people-of-coastal-sydney/

https://johntsquires.com/2019/05/27/we-are-sorry-we-recognise-your-rights-we-seek-to-be-reconciled/

https://johntsquires.com/2019/05/28/reconciliation-on-the-land-of-australia-learning-from-the-past/

On the doctrine of discovery: https://johntsquires.com/2018/08/13/affirming-the-sovereignty-of-first-peoples-undoing-the-doctrine-of-discovery/

During this National Reconciliation Week, I think it is worth recalling the evidence for various positive and respectful relationships that existed between First Peoples and the invading colonisers from Britain.

We are accustomed, now, to reading of the violent conflicts and massacres that occurred As the invading colonisers settled on lands which had belonged, for millennia, to the First Peoples of the continent. These are tragic parts of our history that we must not deny, overlook, or ignore. (See my earlier posts on this aspect, noted below.)

But in the early stages of the colony—and, indeed, stretching throughout the colonial period—there were mutually respectful relationships between these groups. National Reconciliation Week seems to be a good time to recall this.

Paul Irish, in his recent book, Hidden in Plain View, has traced the evidence that shows the positive and respectful relationships that existed in the 19th century “between the colonial settlers and Aboriginal people in Coastal Sydney”. (See https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/hidden-plain-view/)

Irish maps an area stretching from Port Stephens to the Shoalhaven, as far inland as the headwaters of the Parramatta and George’s Rivers in the Sydney Basin, but including coastal spurs along northern and southern edges of the Basin. (Pretty much like the current urban sprawl of Newcastle-Central Coast-Sydney-Wollongong-Kiama-Nowra.)

According to Irish, this was an area within which many of the Indigenous peoples moved about, living in different locations at different times, because of their long-established family and clan links with those locations. His interest in is mapping the relationships between the colonisers and Indigenous people at various locations in this coastal area.

Irish refers to “those whose links to coastal Sydney extend back hundreds of generations, whose ancestors met the first Europeans, and who found a way to create an ongoing place for themselves in the oldest and largest city in the country.”

He writes about their “remarkable story of survival through cultural strength and cross-cultural entanglement that sits in stark contrast to commonly held views of colonial and Aboriginal Australia, and to the experiences of most Australians today”. (There is an edited extract from his book available online at https://insidestory.org.au/atween-here-and-the-georges-river/)

Paul Irish refers to men such as Bennelong, Yemmerrawanne, Bungaree, and Mahroot. He also refers to women such as Cora Gooseberry, Biddy Giles, Matora, and Mary Ann Burns. They were leaders in their communities and they were able, for the most part, to relate to the colonisers who had invaded their lands, with grace and respect. In this National Reconciliation Week, we would do well to reflect on them and to follow their example.

(More reflections to come as the week continues …)

See also

http://home.dictionaryofsydney.org/paul-irish-hidden-in-plain-view-the-aboriginal-people-of-coastal-sydney/

https://johntsquires.com/2019/05/27/we-are-sorry-we-recognise-your-rights-we-seek-to-be-reconciled/

On the doctrine of discovery: https://johntsquires.com/2018/08/13/affirming-the-sovereignty-of-first-peoples-undoing-the-doctrine-of-discovery/

On learning from the land:

https://johntsquires.com/2018/12/17/learning-of-the-land-1/

https://johntsquires.com/2018/12/18/learning-of-the-land-2-ngunnawal-namadgi-and-ngarigo/

https://johntsquires.com/2019/01/30/learning-of-the-land-3-tuggeranong-queanbeyan-and-other-canberra-place-names/

https://johntsquires.com/2019/02/08/learning-from-the-land-4-naiames-nghunnhu-fishtraps-at-brewarrina/

On difficulties and tragedies in the early relationships:

https://johntsquires.wordpress.com/2019/01/16/the-profound-effect-of-invasion-and-colonisations/

https://johntsquires.wordpress.com/2019/01/18/endeavour-by-every-possible-means-to-conciliate-their-affections/

https://johntsquires.wordpress.com/2019/01/20/we-never-saw-one-inch-of-cultivated-land-in-the-whole-country/

https://johntsquires.wordpress.com/2019/01/22/they-stood-like-statues-without-motion-but-grinnd-like-so-many-monkies/

https://johntsquires.wordpress.com/2019/01/24/resembling-the-park-lands-of-a-gentlemans-residence-in-england/

https://johntsquires.com/2019/01/26/they-are-to-be-hanged-up-on-trees-to-strike-the-survivors-with-the-greater-terror/#more-424