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Bungaree, or Boongaree ( – 24 November 1830), was an Indigenous Australian man from the Broken Bay region north of Sydney, who was known as an explorer, entertainer, and Aboriginal community leader.Barani (2013). Significant Aboriginal People in Sydney . Sydney City Council He is also significant in that he was the first person to be recorded as an Australians, and the first Australian-born person to circumnavigate the Australian mainland.
Despite the lack of a common language, the local Indigenous people they met on the journey persistently sought out Bungaree to speak to rather than Flinders, and his mediation skills were greatly appreciated by the British with whom he shared the ship. To reach an agreement with local people in one particular situation, Bungaree gave them a spear and a spear thrower as gifts, showing them how to use them. It is referred to by Bronwen Douglas as a "cross-cultural act, signifying a reciprocal rather than a hierarchical relationship and challenging the reified notion of 'cross-cultural' as contact between opposed, homogenized 'cultures'", adding that "the Moreton Bay people probably took Bungaree for the leader of the expedition and the white men for his followers".
During the voyage, Flinders and Bungaree went ashore at Bribie Island, where Bungaree attempted to interact with the local Djindubari people. A dispute over a hat resulted in the ship's sailors firing at the Djindubari, which Bungaree later reported as resulting in the wounding of two men. The place became known as Point Skirmish and a later settlement nearby was named Bongaree after Bungaree.
Bungaree was not the only Indigenous Australian on the expedition, with the Cadigal youth Nanbaree also joining the crew, having previously sailed with Flinders and Bungaree on the HMS Reliance. However, Nanbaree became homesick upon reaching the Cumberland Islands and returned to Sydney on a supply ship.
Bungaree continued on the voyage and played a vital diplomatic role as the expedition made its way around the coast, overcoming considerable language barriers in places. According to historian Keith Vincent Smith, Bungaree chose the role as a go-between, and was often able to mollify Indigenous people who were about to attack the sailors, by taking off his clothes and speaking to people, despite being in territory unknown to himself. In his memoirs, Flinders wrote of Bungaree's "good disposition and open and manly conduct" and his kindness to the ship's cat, Trim.
The expedition landed at several places along what is now the Queensland and Northern Territory coastline. Bungaree successfully interacted and initiated peaceful meetings with the various local Indigenous people at places such as K'gari, Shoalwater Bay and Caledon Bay. He was also onboard when the expedition encountered Pobasso and his Makassar trepanging fleet on the northern shores of Arnhem Land.
With much of his crew suffering from scurvy, Flinders sailed to the Dutch colony at Timor, where Bungaree and the others recuperated for a week. The Investigator then rapidly circumnavigated the remaining part of Australia offshore, only stopping at the Recherche Archipelago before returning to Sydney. Bungaree thus became the first Australian-born person to circumnavigate the continent.
By 1804, the Newcastle convict settlement housed dozens of mostly Irish dissidents captured during the Castle Hill convict rebellion. Bungaree was employed by the settlement's superintendent, Charles Menzies, to act as intermediary between the Awabakal and the colonists. He was also utilised to track down runaway convicts. Menzies praised Bungaree's work, writing that he enabled "the most friendly terms" between the British and the Awabakal, and that he was "the most intelligent of that race".
However, Bungaree's role in capturing armed convicts proved tragic for his family, with his own father being killed in "the most brutal manner" by runaway convicts on their way to Sydney.
Bungaree probably remained in the Newcastle area until around 1808 before returning to the Sydney region.
His other main wife was Matora, with whom Bungaree had at least one daughter and two sons. Their eldest son was named Boin (Bowen) Bungaree, who also became a noted identity and traveller, voyaging to San Francisco to join the California gold rush.
Captain King described Bungaree as "sharp, intelligent and unassuming". When the expedition had to go to Timor for supplies, Bungaree (who had been there as part of Matthew Flinders' voyage fifteen years beforehand) demanded facetiously the change he had not been given for a glass of gin he bought there in 1803.
By the end of his life, he had become a familiar sight in colonial Sydney, dressed in a succession of military and naval uniforms that had been given to him.McCarthy, F.D. 1966 (2006). "Bungaree ( – 1830)" , Australian Dictionary of Biography. Australian National University. ISSN 1833-7538.Pollon, pp. 225–226. His distinctive outfits and notoriety within colonial society, as well as his gift for humour and mimicry, especially his impressions of past and present governors, made him a popular subject for portrait painters, with eighteen portraits and half a dozen incidental appearances in wider landscapes or groupings of figures. His were among the first full-length oil portraits to be painted in the colony, and the first to be published as a Lithography.
In 1857, it appears that the skull of Bungaree (or possibly that of his son Bowen Bungaree) was removed from his grave to be used as a museum-piece. What happened to the skull is unknown, but in 1919 a wooden box containing the skull of an Aboriginal man was dug up on Rose Bay beach. Rose Bay was a significant Indigenous burial site with multiple disinterments occurring over the years with the various redevelopments of the Royal Sydney Golf Club located there.
Newcastle
In 1804, Bungaree was sent by Governor Philip Gidley King to the newly re-opened convict settlement at the mouth of the Hunter River named King's Town, now called Newcastle. Bungaree's mother was a local of the region and therefore Bungaree had strong links with the resident Awabakal people. Indeed, Bungaree had been sent by Governor King in 1801 to create dialogue with the Awabakal as part of the original expedition to establish the settlement, but upon arrival Bungaree abandoned the British to be with his mother's people.
Recognised as a "Chief" and awarded a land grant
In 1815, Governor Lachlan Macquarie dubbed Bungaree "Chief of the Broken Bay Tribe" and presented him with of land on Georges Head, as well as a breastplate inscribed "BOONGAREE – Chief of the Broken Bay Tribe – 1815". Bungaree was also known by the titles "King of Port Jackson" and "King of the Blacks", with one of his wives, Cora Gooseberry, known as his queen.
Voyage to North-Western Australia
Bungaree continued his association with exploratory voyages when he accompanied Captain Phillip Parker King to north-western Australia in 1818 in the . Amongst other things, Bungaree acted as an interlocutor with the Indigenous people encountered, gave advice on which plants were safe to eat, led the crew to fresh water and also, being an expert fisherman, provided seafood for the ship.
Later life
Bungaree spent the rest of his life ceremonially welcoming visitors to Australia, educating people about Aboriginal culture (especially boomerang throwing), and soliciting tribute, especially from ships visiting Sydney. He was also influential within his own community, taking part in , trading in fish, and helping to keep the peace. Captain Faddei Bellingshausen referred to Bungaree's welcoming visit to the Russian exploration ship Vostok in 1820.
Death
In 1828, he and his clan moved to the Governor's Domain, and were given rations, with Bungaree described as 'in the last stages of human infirmity'. He died at Garden Island on 24 November 1830 and was buried in Rose Bay next to the grave of his first wife, Matora. Obituaries of him were carried in the Sydney Gazette and The Australian.Smith, pp. 144–145.
Legacy
See also
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Further reading
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