Bennelong

Portrait believed to represent Bennelong.

Bennelong (born 1764 ?; Died January 3, 1813 in Sydney ) (also: "Baneelon") was an elder of the Aboriginal tribe of the Eora from the area around Port Jackson in Australia at the beginning of the British colonization of the continent. He served as a mediator between the two cultures in both Sydney and the UK and is considered the developer of Australian Aboriginal English .

Capture

The first governor of New South Wales , Arthur Phillip , realized soon after his arrival with the First Fleet in Port Jackson on 26 January 1788 that he needed the support of Aboriginal people. On the one hand to collect information about the unknown continent and on the other hand to build a colony in peaceful coexistence with the locals. To do this, he first captured Arabanoo , who quickly learned English, but died in the smallpox epidemic in autumn 1789 .

Shortly after the ships arrived in Botany Bay, a more suitable port was sought. While searching, Phillip came to Manley Bay, where he met Aborigines, including Bennelong, who was noticed as particularly curious and inquisitive. At a second encounter in the bay, the Aborigines were very open-minded, so Phillip called the bay “Manly Bay”, the “Manly Bay”. Until November 1789 there had been no attacks by the Aborigines against the Europeans. On November 23, 1789, Bennelong, about 30 years old, his wife Barangaroo and Colebee and his wife Daringa were captured. They were kept on a leash like dogs, with iron rings on their feet. When the anklet was removed from Bennelong in April 1790, he fled. He and Colebee were apparently smallpox survivors because they had smallpox scars. They were well looked after to hide the colony's plight; it was reported that each received about 5.4 kg of fish per day.

Bennelong and Colebee met Phillip peacefully again in a large Eora group in August 1790. Bennelong is said to have been very thin and looked miserable, but seemed happy about the meeting. However, due to a misunderstanding, Phillip was injured by an Eora throwing the javelin, after which all the Aborigines fled.

Bennelong later asked the governor to build him a hut in what is now called Bennelong Point, on which the Sydney Opera House stands. In the course of a ritual adoption , he gave Phillip the Koori name Wolawaree.

Although Bennelong's relationship with the colonists seemed ambivalent, he helped them in an - ultimately unsuccessful - attempt to improve relations between the two groups:

Stay in England

Bennelong soon adopted European habits and clothing and learned English. In 1792 he and another Aboriginal named Yemmerrawanne (1775-1794) traveled to England with Phillip and became King George III there on May 24, 1793 . presented. Yemmerrawanie died in London and Bennelong's health deteriorated. He returned to Sydney on the HMS Reliance in February 1795, and on that trip taught surgeon George Bass a little of the Eora language. Increasingly overwhelmed by European culture, Bennelong quickly alienated himself from his own people.

A letter he wrote in 1796 is the first known text written by an Aborigine. He is considered to be the developer of the original Australian pidgine English, a rudimentary English that became the new language of the Aborigines. Although it was despised by the whites, it made it possible for locals and colonists to communicate.

return

Bennelong suffered increasingly from his alcohol consumption. He visited Sydney less and less, lonely and died in confusion on January 3, 1813. He was buried on the property of James Squire at Kissing Point , now near the Ryde suburb of Sydney. In his honor there is Bennelong Park there today .

An obituary published in the Sydney Gazette portrays him as a thoroughly savage who could not be changed and presumably reflects how much he had lost in esteem among the British in his final years.

Although he was never fully accepted by them because he was black, after his return from England he was no longer accepted by his own people either because he had tried to embrace British culture.

Bennelong was the first Aboriginal to name a constituency for the Australian Parliament . This still exists today.

family

Bennelong had a daughter named Dilboong who died as a child and a son who was adopted by Pastor William Walker and baptized Thomas Walker Coke. Thomas died after a brief illness at the age of around 20.

literature

• Arthur Phillip: Australia. The establishment of the penal colony. 1st edition. Lamuv, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-88977-593-4 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Watkin Tench : A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson. May 8, 2006, accessed March 15, 2008 . 
2. ↑ Arthur Phillip: Australia. The establishment of the penal colony. 2001, pp. 55-57.
3. ↑ Arthur Phillip: Australia. The establishment of the penal colony. 2001, p. 114.
4. ↑ Arthur Phillip: Australia. The establishment of the penal colony. 2001, p. 163 ff.
5. ^ J. Flood: The original Australians: Story of the Aboriginal People. 2006, ISBN 1-74114-872-3 .
6. ↑ Arthur Phillip: Australia. The establishment of the penal colony. 2001, p. 165f.
7. ↑ Miriam Estensen The Life of George Bass. Allen and Unwin, 2005, ISBN 1-74114-130-3 .
8. ↑ Shon Arieh-Lerer: Review of Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature. In: World Literature Today . Vol. 83, no. 1, Jan-Feb, 2009, p. 78. [1]
9. ^ Gerhard Leitner: The Aborigines of Australia. Beck-Verlag, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-50889-8 , p. 102.
10. ↑ Eleanor Dark: Bennelong . In: Douglas Pike (Ed.): Australian Dictionary of Biography . Melbourne University Press, Carlton (Victoria) 1966–2012 (English)., Accessed March 16, 2008.
11. ↑ The Bridge: # 11: Bennelong. In: Time out Sydney. January 23, 2008. ( timeoutsydney.com.au ( Memento of July 28, 2008 in the Internet Archive ))
12. ^ Keith Smith: Bennelong among his people . In: Aboriginal History . tape 33 , 2009, p. 23-24 . ( epress.anu.edu.au ( Memento from August 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive ))
13. ↑ Eamonn Duff: Bennelong's grave found under a front yard in Sydney's suburbs. In: Sydney Morning Herald. March 20, 2011, accessed March 20, 2011 . 
14. ↑ Sydney Gazette, January 9, 1813, quoted from Michael Connor (ed.): More Pig Bites Baby! Stories from Australia's First Newspaper. volume 2, Duffy and Snellgrove, 2004, ISBN 1-876631-91-0 ; Sydney . In: Sydney Gazette . January 9, 1813, p. 2 ( gov.au ).

Web links

• Bennelong. In: Time Out Sydney. 2008/2011. ( au.timeout.com ( Memento from July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ))