Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
PEMULWUY'S WAR
Aboriginal resistance to European colonisation was a subject long glossed over in Australian history books, al-
though it began pretty much at first contact. Dutch sailors in the early 17th century had violent run-ins on the
Australian west coast, and after Captain Cook came ashore in 1770 and had a rock chucked at him, he wrote of
the locals, 'all they seem'd to want was us to be gone'.
Pemulwuy, a member of the Bidjigal group of Dharug speakers from near Botany Bay, very much wanted the
British to be gone. He was around 20 years old when Cook visited, and pushing 40 by the time Arthur Phillip
and the new arrivals from the First and Second Fleets had begun killing and kidnapping his countrymen and
generally acting like they owned the place.
Pemulwuy branded himself as a troublemaker in 1790 by spearing to death Governor Phillip's game shooter.
Even though the shooter, John McIntyre, was a convict who reportedly brutalised Aboriginal people, this didn't
stop Phillip from threatening a bloody revenge. He sent out the first-ever punitive force against the locals, at
first with orders to kill 10 Bidjigals and bring their heads back to Sydney in sacks. Phillip soon calmed down
and issued milder orders to capture six for possible hanging.
The mission was an utter flop in any case, and Pemulwuy's 12 years as leader of the struggle against the Brit-
ish began in earnest. At first he limited his guerrilla campaign to small, sporadic raids on farms, stealing live-
stock and crops; he eventually worked up to leading attacks by groups of more than a hundred men - a huge
number by Aboriginal standards of the time.
During his lifetime Pemulwuy survived being shot, as well as having his skull fractured in a rumble with the
enormous 'Black Caesar', a bushranger of West Indian descent. He thoroughly cemented his reputation in 1797
in a bloody battle against soldiers and settlers at Parramatta. During the fracas, Pemulwuy took seven pellets of
buckshot to the head and body and went down. Bleeding severely and near death, he was captured and placed in
hospital. Within weeks he managed to escape, still wearing the leg irons he'd been shackled with.
Pemulwuy's luck ran out in 1802, when he was ambushed and shot dead. It's not entirely clear by whom, but
this time there
was
a price on Pemulwuy's head - which was cut off, pickled in alcohol and sent to England (a
similar fate befell Yagan, an Aboriginal resistance leader in southwestern Australia, some 30 years later).
Pemulwuy's son Tedbury carried on the fight until 1805.
