Pemulway is killed

Pemulwuy is shot dead by 2 settlers. His head is cut off, brought back to Sydney, placed in a jar of spirits and sent abroad to Sir Joseph Banks. His head has not been found (but see timeline, ‘Central’). Governor King discovers that it is pointless banishing Aboriginal people form the farms and towns. He does better by exploiting tribal differences and rivalries and by playing off one tribe or clan against another. Karskens, The Colony, p. 481. The farmer Matthew Locke is living on 50 acres on Robinson’s Lagoon. The Darug are raiding farms for food, but they leave his alone.

By the end of the year, there appears to be a kind of peace on the Hawkesbury, but it soon dissolves when another group of warriors begin a campaign to drive the settlers out of the land. Hostilities grow more violent and in 1804 houses at Sackville Reach are again burnt to the ground.

  • Joseph Banks, 1773 by Sir Joshua Reynolds
  • Blue Mountains