Topics: People: Political leaders: North Coastal

Topic tags allow you to gather information from different pages on a particular topic. The first page, which appears when you click on the topic tag, shows relevant information from all place pages. The list of places will also appear on the right-hand side menu. You can display topic tags related to the particular place by clicking on the place name.

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

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).

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).

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”.