May 23.
Artwork by Glenn Loughrey
Pemulwuy’s death
Pemulwuy – dying to defend his homeland
Philip Gidley King had become Governor with Hunter’s departure...King ‘gave orders to bring Pemulwuy in either dead or alive’ and offered a free pardon to any convict who was successful: ‘To a prisoner for life or fourteen years, a conditional emancipation. To a person already conditionally emancipated a free pardon and a recommendation for a passage to England’. On 1 May 1801, King also ‘directed that natives be driven back from the settlers’ habitations by firing at them’. [1]
Pemulwuy was killed in 1802 when he was shot dead by Henry Hacking, a seaman, explorer and robber, and, like so many others in the colony a drunkard. Pemulwuy was beheaded and his head sent by Governor King to Sir Joseph Banks in London. In a letter to Banks, King wrote: ‘Alto’ a terrible pest to the colony, Pemulwuy was a brave and independent character, understanding that the possession of a New Hollander’s head is among the desiderata, I have put it in spirits and forwarded it to you’. [2]
The Darug [people] requested that with Pemulwuy’s head should go their promise of an end to resistance in return for being able to live on their own lands. But even the humiliation of the ritual beheading of this warrior could not put an end to the hostilities.
Tedbury, Pemulwuy’ son, continued the war. Soon Tedbury, too, was captured and imprisoned in Parramatta jail, where he was compelled to lead the British to his fellow rebels and the settlers’ corn that they had stolen. His comrade, Mosquito, however refused to surrender. Rather, he ‘saluted them in good English, and declaring a determination to continue their rapacity, made off’. [3] A month later, in June 1805, the Sydney Gazette was reporting Mosquito’s successes: ‘The natives about the Hawkesbury and George’s River still continue their depredations...it is hoped the apprehension of the Natilve called Musquito might effectually prevent any further mischief in these quarters’. [4]
By July the Governor had conceived a plan for the Darug to trade Tedbury for Mosquito: ‘For this service, two were accepted to go in search of Musquetta, who with one or two more of his desperate associates still keeps the flame alive’. [5] In August 1805 Mosquito was captured...
Philip Gidley King, Government and General orders, 17 November 1801, Historical Records of Australia (HRA), series 1, vol. 3, p.466.
Philip Gidley king to Sir Joseph Banks, 5 June 1805, HRA, vol. 5, p. 654.
Sydney Gazette, 19 May 1805
Sydney Gazette, 9 June 1805
Sydney Gazette, July 1805
Acknowledgment: Marcia Langton, “Ngura barbagai Country Lost” pp. 23-24, 254, n.57, n.58, n.59, n.60, n.61.
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…there’s pain in these memories
there’s trauma in my bloodline
there’s power in my ancestry
this saltwater and sunshine
my Elders held this destiny
these rights and sacred sites
gonna redefine my history
and take darkness into light…
Acknowledgment: “River to the Sea - 380 Crew” in Homeland Calling – Words from a new generation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voices, Ellen Van Neerven ed., Hardie Grant Travel, Richmond, 2020, p. 9