Barangaroo

Barangaroo was the wife of the famous Aboriginal Bennelong and lived in the 18th century in what is now Sydney , Australia . The members of the Cadigal clan rejected the invading Europeans and opposed Bennelong's efforts to conciliate the colonists and Governor Arthur Phillip .

She was against any form of negotiation; and although she was encouraged to wear European clothing and drink wine, she refused, for which she was violently punished by Bennelong. She is known to hit a soldier with a stick when he whipped a prisoner.

When Barangaroo tried to give birth in the governor's house to be in touch with the traditional land and avoid the hospital she thought of as a place of death, she was refused by the governor. He persuaded Bennelong to take her to the hospital, where she died shortly after giving birth.

In first-hand reports, Captain Watkin Tench of the First Fleet described how Bennelong introduced Barangaroo to the white man in a petticoat in October 1790 . “That was the adornment of the wilderness, and her husband made fun of us. Soon we laughed at her, "said Tench," and the petticoat was reluctantly dropped and Barangaroo stood there naked ". Tench said, at Bennelong's request, “we combed and cut her hair and she seemed pleased with the measure. She did not want to try wine, and turned away from it with disgust, although Bennelong's example and his persuasion warmly invited her to do so. "Tench was surprised to find something like that here" in the midst of a horde of stray savages in the desert wastes of New South Wales - if you can takes into account the inevitable differences in upbringing - how feminine innocence, softness and modesty can be found, as only the most sophisticated system can bring. "

In October 2006, an area of 22 hectares in the eastern part of Sydney north of Darling Harbor was officially named Barangaroo in her honor. The area was originally a shipping port and has been designated as an area where offices, residential areas and parks can be developed. The opening fair of World Youth Day 2008 was celebrated here.

Individual evidence

personal data
SURNAME	Barangaroo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Aboriginal wife Bennelong
DATE OF BIRTH	18th century
DATE OF DEATH	18th century or 19th century

[1] Watkin Tench : A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson in New South Wales . Angus & Robertson, Sydney 1961 (reprint of the London 1793 edition) (English), digitized

[2] Jonathan Pearlman: Barangaroo back in Sydney . In: The Sydney Morning Herald of October 19, 2006 (English)