Topics: People: Political leaders: North Coastal
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1804 - view
Governor King sends Bungaree on the ship Resource to
help with negotiations with Awabakal people at Hunter
River near Newcastle where the penal settlement has been
reopened. Bungaree also is asked by King to escort six Koories from Hunter River
back home. Bungaree stays on to assist Lieutenant Menzies, in charge of the Kings Town (Newcastle). Returning by
foot to Sydney, runaway convicts attack
Bungaree’s clansmen as they pass through the Central Coast
area and kill Bungaree’s father. Bungaree becomes an Elder of his clan.
1804 - view
Bungaree visits his family’s settlement in Sydney more frequently for
tribal gatherings and becomes a favourite of Governor Macquarie. The Governor
wants Aboriginal people to settle down to grow crops and other sedentary
activities. (Historical Monograph, Brisbane Water Historical Society, 1981)
1805 - view
Musquito,
an Aboriginal Guringai warrior is arrested for attacks on farms on the Hawkesbury River.
He is imprisoned and sent to Norfolk Island and later to Tasmania in 1813. Musquito’s first hand
knowledge of bushranging tactics is used by authorities to help round up
outlaws in Tasmania.
He becomes a leader of resistance and organises large scale guerilla attacks
against colonists. He is sentenced to death for murder in 1825 in Hobart gaol. His final words are said to have been I“This not good for black fulla. Only good for white fulla [speaking about being hanged]. Him buddy (bloody) used to it by now.”
1813 - view
Bennelong dies and is buried at James Squire’s
orchard at Ryde.
1815 - view
The
Sydney Gazette on 4 February reports that “on this occasion, sixteen of
the natives, with wives and families, were assembled, and his Excellency the
Governor, in consideration of the general wish expressed by them, appointed
Boogaree (who had been long known as one of the most friendly of this race, and
well acquainted with our language), to be their chief, at the same time
presenting him with a badge distinguishing his quality as ‘Chief of the Broken
Bay Tribe’”. ( Sydney Gazette , 4
February 1815)
1815 - view
Macquarie
also makes a grant of land to Bungaree and his extended family on Georges Head
near Mosman later known as ‘Bungaree’s Farm’.
1815 - view
When
a ship appeared off the Heads, Bungaree, Cora Goseberry or Matora, or other
members of his extended family, often row out to meet it. Matora asks the
captain for a tot of rum while Bungaree, dressed in his naval uniform points to his
farm and the land northwards, and proclaims,
‘These are my people. This is my
land’.
1820s - view
Biddy
Lewis accepts a grant of land at Marramarra Creek. Her husband John Lewis
Ferdinand, also known as John Lewis, is a Prussian soldier in the German army
and has fought in the Napoleonic wars. John meets Biddy while working as an
assigned convict on Bungaree’s farm. He and Biddy have 10 children, seven
survive.
1820 - view
Pavel Mikhailov (the Russian expeditioner and artist) draws
Bungaree and many of his clan, including Diana Boongaree daughter of Matora.
Other family members who are named and drawn by Mikhailov include Matora
herself (first wife of Bungaree).
1820 - view
Mikhailov writes of Bungaree’s
family “Sometimes they ornament their head with bird’s bones or fish bones, or
the tail of a dog or kangaroo teeth; and sometimes they plait their hair,
smearing it with gummy sap of a plant so that it resembles rope ends. They
stain the face and body with red earth … When a youth reaches man’s estate [ie
manhood], two of his front teeth are knocked out. As for the girls, in early
youth they have two joints of the little finger of the left hand cut off”.
1820 - view
Since the men in Bungaree’s group were often absent from Kirribili, Mikhailov
concentrated in his painting on the women and children. Volendens,Gulanba Duby,
Gouroungan, Ga-ouen-ren, Matora.
1820 - view
Male figures drawn are Boongaree, Bourinoan,
Movat, Salmanda, Boin (Bowen) and Toubi (Toby).
1821 - view
Bungaree
is living near Newcastle and his clan put on a “Kauraberie” for Macquarie
during his farewell tour of the colony.
1822 - view
Bungaree’s
clan is sometimes known as the “Pittwater clan”.
1823 - view
Webb is notorious among a branch of Bungaree’s descendants now living on the Central coast, as the man who sexually assaulted Sophie.
1828 - view
Bungaree
and his Broken Bay clan cross from the North Shore to settle in the Governor’s
Domain (the present Sydney Domain).
1829 - view
Bungaree
gives boomerang throwing display in the Domain, Sydney. Now probably in his
late fifties, his health is deteriorating.
1830s - view
Bungaree’s clan is still living from time to time at Georges Head.
1830 - view
Bungaree
dies among his people and is buried at Rose Bay.
1840s - view
He visits an Aboriginal camp near Camp Cove where “about a dozen
natives of the Sydney and Broken Bay tribes were encamped”, and persuades ‘Old
Queen Gooseberry’, Bungaree’s widow, to explain to him what she knew of the
North Head carvings. She initially objects, saying that these places were
‘koradjee ground’ or ‘priests’ ground’ that she must not visit. After she was
encouraged to row across the harbour with them in a whale boat, she “consented at the last to guide us to
several spots near the North head, where she said the carvings existed in great
numbers, as also impressions of hands upon the sides of high rocks”.