Initial contact between the indigenous people and the British

Relations between the British and the existing Dharug-speaking population of the Sydney basin were never very smooth, although there was no outright war during the first few years. Governor Phllip was very keen to establish good relations with the indigenous people of the country. He had instructions to open dialogue with them and to attempt to bring some of them into the settlement in order to learn their language. However in order to bring them in he had to resort to force. A few aboriginal people were held captive and some slight progress in recording their language was recorded. The story of Bennelong has been well recorded and will not be repeated here as it does not impinge directly on the history of Prospect Hill until the walk of Phillip and King from Parramatta to Prospect Hill in April 1790. (See the Europeans page.)

Phillip issued orders that the indigenous people were not to be molested. Some of them would wander into the settlement at Sydney Cove where they would receive food. Clearly this was more attractive to them than the arduous life of hunting, fishing and gathering wild plant food. From time to time there were individual acts of violence, including killings and the general view of British officers was that these were more likely initiated by the British - marines, convicts and free settlers. Aboriginal violence was explained largely as retribution and there was an understanding that this was in accordance with the indigenous people's moral code and customs.

For a time indigenous people simply steered clear of the settlement at Sydney Cove. During part of 1789 the settlement was on starvation rations and could not afford to feed the local people. The colonists' attempts to augment their diet through fishing brought them into competition with the locals who regarded the whole of Sydney Harbour as their fishing grounds. The gender imbalance within the Sydney Cove settlement also brought problems as some of its members took sexual partners from the local groups, usually by force.

In February 1789, Lieutenant Collins wrote,

Very little molestation was at this time given by the natives; and had they never been ill treated by our people; instead of hostility, it is more than probable that an intercourse of friendship would have subsisted. (Collins 1798).

This contrasts with Flannery's assessment:

Contacts with [the Aboigines] were few during the first six months of the settlement... Of the encounters which did take place over this period, a number were marked by violence. Indeed, in all, the Aborigines were able to kill or severely wound seventeen Europeans (including Governor Arthur Phillip himself), with no loss to themselves, before a reprisal was offered. (Flannery 1996, p 7).

Misunderstandings

Langauge difficulties caused continuing misunderstandings, some amusing and some more serious, and may have contributed to an unduly optimistic picture being painted by the British of the state of relations. One such "accident" occurred in September 1790 when Governor Phillip went to a cove near Manly to meet Bennelong, one of those who had been brought into the colony by force. He had escaped and had not been near Sydney Cove for some months. A misunderstanding led to Phillips being speared by one of Bennelong's companions. Fortunately he recovered quickly. However, as Collins reported,

This accident gave cause to the opening of a communication between the natives of this country and the settlement, which, although attended with such an unpromising beginning, it was hoped would be followed with good consequences. (Collins 1798, Ch. XI).

A glimpse of the aboriginal view of relations with the colonists at this time (1790) is painted in this revealing snatch of conversation between Lieutenant Dawes and a teenage girl, Patyegarang, which Dawes recorded in Dharug with his English translation. Patyegarang would frequently visit Dawes in his hut for food and for the purpose of mutual language learning:

I then told her that a whiteman had been wounded some days ago in coming from Kadi to Warang & asked her why the black men did it.
Patyegarang: (Because they are) angry.
Dawes: Why are the b. m. angry?
P: Because the white men are settled here.
P: The kamarigals are afraid.
D: Why are the k_ afraid?
P: Because of the Guns.

(Dawes 1791, Notebook B, p 34). (See facsimile of this page).

Clearly the aboriginal people were realising that the British were here to stay and that the colony's need for food impinged severely on their ability to hunt for meat and fish in their traditional ways.

Although the indigenous people of the Sydney area had survived for thousands of years in a state of self-sufficiency, with populations in balance with resources of their territories, fluctuations would have occurred as the extremes of weather, especially drought, impinged on their food supply. The balance was affected more drastically by the arrival of the British colonists. In addition, major decimation of the indigenous people was caused in 1789-90 by the spread of smallpox, to which they had no immunity. This seems to have caused some extended family groupings to have been completely wiped out. Others suffered a severe population decline and there is some evidence that the remaining population reorganised themselves into new groupings.

Research has confirmed that smallpox had not been introduced by the colonists but had gradually spread from further north, where it had probably been introduced by Macassan fishermen who were known to visit the continent and to have some contact with the indigenous population. However the presence of the colonists probably added to the stress on the aboriginal population caused by the epidemic. (MacKnight 1976).

In the area of Prospect Hill, the inhabitants were of the "woods" culture, hunting game and harvesting the wild berries and roots which grew in the bush as their ancestors had done for thousands of years. They used fire to control the understory so that they could travel more freely around their area. It is thought also that this encouraged the growth of some food plants and prevented more severe fires which might devastate their environment.

The settlement of Prospect Hill and guerrilla warfare

By 1790 the settlement at Parramatta was well established and soon had a population greater then that of Sydney Cove. Governor Phillip and Philip Gidley King were able to take an after-dinner walk from there to Prospect Hill. Notes made at the time show they were aware of eight place names used by local people in the relatively short space of their walk.

It was in July 1791, as we have seen (See Settlement page), when a number of settlers were granted land on the eastern slopes of Prospect Hill. When they starting building huts and clearing the land of trees, the locals realised within a few days that they intended to stay. As Collins wrote:

In the beginning of the month [of July 1791] information was received, that a much larger party of the natives than had yet been seen assembled at any one time had destroyed a hut belonging to a settler at Prospect Hill, who would have been murdered by them, but for the timely and accidental appearance of another settler with a musket. There was no doubt of the hut having been destroyed, and by natives, though perhaps their numbers were much exaggerated; the governor, therefore, determined to place other settlers upon the allotments which had been reserved for the crown; by which means assistance in similar or other accidents would be more ready. (Collins 1798, Ch. XIII).

As a result of this incident Governor Phillip detailed soldiers to provide a continuous presence at Prospect Hill and abandoned the creation of driftways.

Hostility grew until by 1797 a state of guerrilla warfare existed between indigenous people and the settler communities at Prospect and Parramatta. The aboriginal people were led by almost their only known leader, Pemulwuy, a member of the Bidjigal tribe who occupied the land between the Georges River and the Parramatta River and as far west as Prospect Hill. He had reportedly been responsible for the death of Governor Phillip's gamekeeper John McEntire in November 1790, although it was commonly believed amongst the colonists that McEntire had been wantonly killing Aboriginal people during his hunting expeditions. The killing of McEntire had triggered a change in policy by Phillip from an "innocent until proven guilty" principle to one of reprisal on such massive scale that aboriginal people would be dissuaded from any acts against the colony.

Pemulwy was the main leader of raids against the colony in the 1790s but these were sporadic and small scale. In 1797 the war escalated and Pemulwuy showed that he could raise a guerrilla force not just from his own extended family grouping but from the wider groupings of the local people from Sydney to the Georges River and west to Prospect Hill. His guerrillas started regular raids on settlements in the Parramatta and Prospect Hill areas. British military expeditions to locate and capture Pemulwuy failed. It was classic guerrilla warfare, the fast-moving local warriors able to mount raids and disappear into the night.

Collins reports in March 1797:

The people at the northern farms had been repeatedly plundered of their provisions and clothing by a large body of savages, who had also recently killed a man and a woman. Exasperated at such cruel and wanton conduct, they armed themselves, and, after pursuing them a whole night, at sun-rise in the morning came up with a party of more than a hundred, who fled immediately on discovering that their pursuers were armed, leaving behind them a quantity of Indian corn, some musket balls, and other things of which the soldiers had been plundered. They continued to follow, and traced them as far as the outskirts of Parramatta. Being fatigued with their march, they entered the town, and in about an hour after were followed by a large body of natives, headed by Pe-mul-wy, a riotous and troublesome savage. These were known by the settlers to be the same who had so frequently annoyed them; and they intended, if possible, to seize upon Pe-mul-wy; who, in a great rage, threatened to spear the first man that dared to approach him, and actually did throw a spear at one of the soldiers. The conflict was now begun; a musket was immediately levelled at the principal, which severely wounded him. Many spears were then thrown, and one man was hit in the arm; upon which the superior effect of our fire-arms was immediately shown them, and five were instantly killed.

However unpleasant it was to the governor, that the lives of so many of these people should have been taken, no other course could possibly be pursued; for it was their custom, when they found themselves more numerous and better armed than the white people, to demand with insolence whatever they wanted; and, if refused, to have recourse to murder. This check, it was hoped, would have a good effect; and Pe-mul-wy, who had received seven buck shot in his head and different parts of his body, was taken extremely ill to the hospital. This man was first known in the settlement by the murder of John McIntire in the year 1790; since which he had been a most active enemy to the settlers, plundering them of their property, and endangering their personal safety. (Collins 1802, Ch. III, p 20).

Pemulwuy escaped from the hospital during the night in spite of being bound by leg-irons. In April Collins reported:

The governor, accompanied by some gentlemen of the settlement, set off from Parramatta, on an excursion, in which he meant to obtain some knowledge of the ground between Duck river and George's river, with respect both to its quality and quantity... Having proceeded down the [George's] river, they stopped at a point near Botany Bay, where they met with several parties of natives, among whom was Pe-mul-wy, who, having perfectly recovered from his wounds, had escaped from the hospital with an iron about his leg. He saw and spoke with one of the gentlemen of the party; enquiring of him whether the governor was angry, and seemed pleased at being told that he was not: notwithstanding which, there could be but little doubt that his savage brutal disposition would manifest itself whenever excited by the appearance of an unarmed man. (ibid.).

In the following March (1798) Collins wrote:

A strange idea was found to prevail among the natives respecting the savage Pe-mul-wy, which was very likely to prove fatal to him in the end. Both he and they entertained an opinion, that, from his having been frequently wounded, he could not be killed by our fire-arms. Through this fancied security, he was said to be at the head of every party that attacked the maize grounds; and it certainly became expedient to convince them both that he was not endowed with any such extraordinary exemption. (Collins 1802, Ch. X).

Michael Flynn has written that,

Pemulwuy was probably involved in an Aboriginal attack at Toongabbie in February 1798 in which, wrote Collins (II p66), one man was killed and three others seriously wounded. Two more men were killed nearby several days later. The conflict appears to have been escalating: Collins wrote that: “It became, from these circumstances, absolutely necessary to send out numerous well-armed parties, and attack them wherever they should be met with; for lenity or forbearance had only been followed by repeated acts of cruelty”. In June several well established farmhouses in the Northern Boundary district were burned in an Aboriginal raid (Collins II p 83).

There appears to have been a lull in hostilities until 1 May 1801 when Governor King took drastic action (in response to an alleged attack on a government stockyard), issuing a public order requiring that Aboriginal people around Parramatta, Prospect Hill and Georges River should be “driven back from the settlers’ habitations by firing at them”. Aborigines from Sydney and Parramatta Road [the latter were probably Bennelong’s Concord people] were specifically exempted from this sanction (quoted in Willey, When the Sky Fell Down, p 173)...

An important Parramatta observer of this conflict was the botanist George Caley, whose letters to Sir Joseph Banks reflect a sympathetic view of the Aboriginal side (see G.Caley [C.Currey, ed.], Reflections on the Colony of NSW 1966, p49, 91, 140)...

Caley’s letter seems to suggest that Governor King’s Aboriginal policy was characterised by savagery and repression. The whole Aboriginal population around Parramatta was held responsible for the actions of a few individuals, or, as Caley suggests, they were unjustly accused of killing sheep by convict stock-keepers.

King’s edicts appear to have encouraged a shoot-on-sight attitude whenever any Aboriginal men, women or children appeared. Caley suggests that highly developed Aboriginal bush skills enabled the fugitive clans to avoid being seen or captured most of the time. But the need to hide would undoubtedly have disrupted hunting and foodgathering. By this time most Aboriginal family groups in the Parramatta area would have been supplementing traditional food sources with food donated by Europeans or earned by working on a casual basis for settlers.

This conflict escalated in November 1801 when King issued a proclamation outlawing Pemulwuy along with the runaway convicts William Knight and Thomas Thrush who were said to be aiding and abetting him. The fresh proclamation was implemented by Rev. Samuel Marsden in his capacity as Parramatta magistrate...

On 30 October 1802 King wrote to Lord Hobart that Pemulwuy “an active daring leader” had raided many farms, killed four white men and had “cruelly used some of the convict women” [an expression often used as a euphemism for sexual assault]. The recent attacks had taken place on the edges of the Parramatta and Toongabbie farming districts. This probably resulted in the resumption of the ban on contact with Aboriginal people around Parramatta. King went on to report to Hobart that several Aborigines had pleaded to him that they had been to forced by Pemulwuy to assist in his guerrilla activity. King said he had responded with an appeal to their own cultural values: “as it is a practice strictly observed among the natives that murder should be atoned by the life of the murderer or someone belonging to him, the natives were told that when Pemulwye was given up they should be re-admitted to our friendship”. By this time King’s Aboriginal policy seems to reflect a partial easing of the savage repression of 1801-2 and a willingness to negotiate with individual Aborigines. After quoting King, Keith Willey (p167) goes on to state that Pemulwuy was shot dead by two settlers (giving no reference). This assertion is at variance with a report in the Sydney Gazette (24.6.1804 that Pemulwuy's “assassination was voluntarily undertaken by themselves” [the Aborigines]. Pemulwuy’s head is said to have been sent to Sir Joseph Banks in England. Enquiries made by the Sydney Morning Herald in late 1994 failed to locate its whereabouts.

Pemulwuy’s death marked the effective end of Aboriginal resistance in the Parramatta area. As a reward for his killers Governor King relaxed restrictions on Aboriginal people in the district, permitting them to come to Parramatta freely. Pemulwuy’s son Tedbury was arrested in 1805 and 1809 for robberies, but was held only for short periods on both occasions. In February 1810 Edward Luttrell was arrested for shooting and wounding Tedbury at Parramatta. This case is of particular interest as another attempt to enforce equality before the law for Aboriginal people. (Flynn 1977).

After this there was relative peace in the Prospect Hill area. As European settlement expanded, the ability of aboriginal people to pursue their traditional lifestyle, already severely limited, disappeared. For for a while Prospect Hill had been the frontier, the first and perhaps only area where large scale organised resistance by aboriginal people took place. The frontier now moved west. Even as near as the Hawkesbury, hostilities continued. Flynn writes:

In June 1804 there was a resumption of hostilities at the Hawkesbury following Aboriginal attacks on the Everingham and Howe farms in the Sackville Reach area, A party of soldiers was despatched and several skirmishes followed. Most of the attackers appear to have been from clans around the newly settled areas on the Hawkesbury. Those nearer Richmond and Windsor remained peaceful and on 1 July 1804 the Gazette reported that Dr Thomas Arndell and Rev. Samuel Marsden had met with them and given them presents of food and clothing to ensure their continued peaceful demeanour. (Ibid.).

Reporting to the government in London in December 1804 after meeting Aboriginal representatives in the Hawkesbury area, Governor King highlighted explicitly that the whole conflict between Europeans and Aboriginal people was about access to food supplies:

[The three aboriginal men] very ingeniously answered that they did not like to be driven from the few places that were left on the banks of the [Hawkesbury] river, where alone they could procure food; that they had gone down the river as the white men took possession of the banks; if they went across white men’s grounds the settlers fired upon them and were angry; that if they could retain some places on the lower part of the river they should be satisfied and would not trouble the white men. The observation and request appear to be so just and equitable that I assured them no more settlements should be made lower down the river, With that assurance they appeared well satisfied and promised to be quiet, in which state they continue. (Hist Rec NSW 2, p 166).

Governor King was unable or unwilling to keep his side of the bargain. Indiscriminate killing of Aboriginal people continued in the Hawkesbury area until they were all but wiped out. The Sydney Gazette reported,

The implacable disposition for some weeks manifested by the natives has at length provoked the adoption of coercive measures on the part of the settlers, and which, tho' determined on with reluctance, were yet unfortunately necessary to the preservation of their lives and property (Syd Gaz 1805, 28th April)

and Flynn adds that,

Parties of soldiers and armed settlers hunted Aborigines around the “outsettlements” (Flynn 1977, p 39).

Peace and reconciliation meeting

Meanwhile back in the Prospect Hill area, a reamarkable move towards reconciliation was initiated by the Aboriginal people, brokered by their women and one of the Prospect Hill settlers, John Kennedy. On 5th May 1805 the Sydney Gazette reported:

It being intimated to the Reverend Mr.Marsden on Wednesday last that the Natives of Prospect wished a conference with him, with a view of opening the way to reconciliation, that Gentleman readily undertook the mission, and repaired without hesitation or delay to the appointed place of rendezvous. On his arrival the only persons visible were three native women, by whom he was informed that the men desirous of conversing with him were then in the woods, whither they had betaken themselves with a design of summoning a more general consultation on the subject; but that immediately on their return, a deputation composed of three persons would be dispatched to Parramatta to report the result of their errand.

Three men in consequence waited on Mr.Marsden on Thursday, under the guidance and protection of Mr John Kennedy, a settler. Declaring a speedy reconciliation to be the desired object of their embassy, Mr.Marsden kindly assured them of the general anxiety for the acceleration of the event; and acquainted them with the only terms upon which it could be ventured on, namely, the surrender of those who were principally active in the recent horrible enormities; explaining at the same time that until this demand should be complied with, none of them could be admitted on the grounds of any settler. Without starting objection to the demand, they appeared to be somewhat concerned at their inability to render information of more than one of the chief aggressors; but nevertheless pledged themselves that upon the following day he should receive every necessary information from a party at or in the neighbourhood of Prospect; and some of whom they doubted not would readily engage in the pursuit of the murderers.

Mr.Marsden was exact to this appointment also, and on Friday met them again at Prospect, where though they were scattered in prodigious numbers through the surrounding wood, yet not more than twenty approached near enough to be conversed with. The information insisted on of the names of the principal murderers was extorted by degrees from the division inhabiting the Cow-Pasture Plains; but all positively resisted the demand of aiding in their apprehension, until Mr Marsden in a determined tone forbade their hopes of reconciliation until the terms insisted on should be complied with; when one advancing, volunteered himself for the expedition, upon which 6 of the military were detached, accompanied by Warby, and a second native who afterwards offered his joint assistance as a guide. The names of the persons accused by their own tribes are, Talboon, Corriangee, & Doollonn, Mountain natives; Moonaning & Doongial. Branch natives; and Boondu-dullock, a native of Richmond Hill (Syd Gaz 1805, 5th May).

Flynn again provides insightful commentary on these events:

This conference at Prospect on Friday, 3 May 1805 is a landmark in Aboriginal-European relations. Macquarie's “Native Feasts” held at Parramatta from 1814 followed the precedent set in 1805. Of particular interest is the role of Aboriginal women as intermediaries, and the relative sophistication of the process of diplomatic negotiation initiated by the Aboriginal people themselves. The Sydney Gazette report of the meeting is notable for the absence of the sneering tone which characterised its earlier coverage of Aboriginal matters. Marsden's powerful secular position is reflected in his leadership of the European side. His inflexibility and preparedness to use terror as an instrument of policy are as apparent here as in his dealings with Irish convicts (but his willingness to achieve a settlement should be noted) (Flynn 1977, p 40).