Bennelong’s grave: how history betrayed Australia’s first diplomat | Paul Daley

Submitted by Paul Daley on Mon, 19/11/2018 - 4:00am

Woollarawarre Bennelong was a warrior and a peacemaker who became, perhaps, the country’s most misunderstood Indigenous man

Woollarawarre Bennelong’s grave could not be more underwhelming, given all the myth and drama attached to his short life as the most renowned and, perhaps, misunderstood Indigenous man in the first three decades of Australia’s post-invasion settlement.

Bennelong was a warrior and a peacemaker for a time held captive in chains by his European dispossessors. He took the pragmatic path of becoming an envoy for the Gadigal of Sydney to the invaders.

Bennelong was an Aborigine who befriended the first colonists, lived for a while as Governor Phillip’s guest and visited England where he became the toast of society. Following his death, he was buried hereabouts beside his wife and Nanbaree another Aborigine.

Bennelong died on Sunday morning last at Kissing Point. Of this veteran champion of the native tribe little favourable can be said. His voyage to and benevolent treatment in Great Britain produced no change whatever in his manners and inclinations, which were naturally barbarous and ferocious. The principal officers of government had for many years endeavoured, by the kindest of usage, to wean him from his original habits and draw him into a relish for civilised life; but every effort was in vain exerted and for the last few years he has been but little noticed. His propensity for drunkenness was inordinate; and when in that state he was insolent, menacing and overbearing. In fact, he was a thorough savage, not to be warped from the form and character that nature gave him by all the efforts that mankind could use.

The threads are not easy to disentangle, but in the light of a body of evidence for the varied fortunes and strong relationships of Bennelong’s last 18 years, it is clear that we must reflect further on his story and on its uses. Tragedy is not life, or history, but a dramatic or literary genre with its own logic and genealogy. If Bennelong’s life is ‘tragic’, then it is storytellers who have made it so.

Two years later he had become ‘so fond of drinking that he lost no opportunity of being intoxicated, and in that state was so savage and violent as to be capable of any mischief’. In 1798 he was twice dangerously wounded in tribal battles. A censorious paragraph in the Sydney Gazette records his death at Kissing Point on 3 January 1813.

Bennelong did not fade into obscurity in the second part of his life after his return from England in 1795. He resumed a traditional Aboriginal lifestyle, regained authority as a leader, remarried and had a son. He died at the age of 50 as a respected elder mourned by his people.

After Henry broke the shaft of the spear that had wounded Governor Phillip, Henry carried the governor to their boat where it was at first thought he was mortally wounded. The governor wanted to give his last wishes. Fortunately, on the boat the doctor was able to carefully take the remaining spear out of the governor’s shoulder proclaiming he would indeed live – at which time young Henry managed to take the spearhead as a souvenir and attach it to his notebook account of the incident. Henry had a close relationship with Bennelong which started at the time when Bennelong lived with the governor at the early government house – which is evidenced by his [Bennelong’s] asking for him when the governor went to meet him at Manly beach [and] giving Henry a hug and a kiss at that encounter (we believe emulating Henry as a Ladies’ man!).

Bennelong lived at a number of addresses, toured key sites like St Paul’s Cathedral and the Tower of London, visited museums, attended theatre performances, enjoyed urban spas, and even took in a session of the trial of Warren Hastings at the Houses of Parliament. About one year into his residence, Bennelong’s fellow Aboriginal travelling companion, the teenaged Yemmerawanne, died from a chest infection. Bennelong shouldered the supervision, and grief, of Yemmerawanne’s burial, after which he evidently felt it was time to go home. He finally managed to secure a berth back in February 1795, docking at Port Jackson in September – nearly three years after leaving his homeland.

Relative to Indigenous travellers from other parts of the New World who had arrived in earlier decades, Bennelong stirred next to no interest from British authorities, dignitaries, or ordinary folk.