Everything about Bennelong totally explained
Bennelong (c.
1764 -
3 January 1813)
(also: "Baneelon") was a senior man of the
Eora, an
Aboriginal (
Koori) people of the
Port Jackson area, at the time of the first
British settlement in
Australia, in
1788. He subsequently served as an
interlocutor between the two cultures, both in
Sydney and in the
United Kingdom.
Bennelong (married at the time to
Barangaroo) was captured with
Colbee (married to Daringa) in November 1789 as part of
Governor of New South Wales Arthur Phillip's plan to learn the language and customs of the local people. Like another captive,
Arabanoo, Bennelong soon adopted European dress and ways, learning to speak
English. Bennelong is also known to have taught
George Bass the language of the Sydney Aborigines, and, in a gesture of
kinship, gave Phillip the Aboriginal name Wolawaree.
Although a captive, Bennelong served the British colonisers well in an (ultimately vain) attempt to aid relations between the two groups. In 1790, Bennelong asked the Governor to build him a hut on what became known as
Bennelong Point, now the site of the
Sydney Opera House. This site is still named for him, as is the
seat of Bennelong in the
Federal parliament. Bennelong was the first Australian Indigenous person to be honoured in the name of an electoral division.
Although Bennelong appears to have had an ambivalent relationship with both the settlement and Governor Phillip, Bennelong and another Aborigine named
Yemmerrawanie (or Imeerawanyee) travelled with Phillip to
England in
1792, and were presented to
King George III on 24 May
1793. Yemmerrawanie died while in Britain, and Bennelong's health deteriorated. He returned to Sydney in February
1795 on
HMS Reliance, the ship that took surgeon
George Bass to the colony for the first time. He taught Bass some of his language on the voyage. Increasingly overwhelmed by European culture, Bennelong quickly became alienated from his own people after this return.
Bennelong was long troubled by the consumption of
alcohol. He frequented Sydney less often and eventually died at
Kissing Point (now known as
Putney, in Sydney’s North West) on
3 January,
1813. The area now has Bennelong Park named in his honour. He was buried on the estate of
James Squire. His obituary in the
Sydney Gazette was unflattering, referring to him as a thorough savage unable to be warped from that form, which presumably reflected where he'd sunk to in the esteem of white society in his last years.
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