Hawkesbury and Nepean Wars facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Hawkesbury Settlement |
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| Part of the Australian frontier wars | |||||||
 Governor Arthur Phillip speared during a skirmish at Manly (1790). |
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| Belligerents | |||||||
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Indigenous clans:
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| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
 George III John Hunter (1795–1800) Philip Gidley King (1800–06) William Bligh (1806–08) Lachlan Macquarie (1810–23) William Paterson (1794–1809) James Wallis (1814–16) |
Pemulwuy † Tedbury † Yaragowhy † Woglomigh † Obediah Ikins Musquito (POW) John Wilson William Knight |
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| Strength | |||||||
| New South Wales Corps (1790–1810): 550 73rd Regiment of Foot (1810–14): 450 46th Regiment of Foot (1814–16): 600+ Armed settlers: 2,000+ Burreberongal Tribe (1790–1802) 100+ Combined total force: 3,600 |
Indigenous clan numbers: approx. 3,000 About 10+ armed Irish convicts 2 or more bushrangers |
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| Casualties and losses | |||||||
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Total Casualties: ~300 ('conservative estimate') Dead: at least 80 confirmed Wounded: bare minimum of 74 |
Dead: 80 confirmed (many likely went unrecorded) Wounded: +100 |
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The Hawkesbury and Nepean Wars (1794–1816) were a series of conflicts where British forces, including armed settlers and detachments of the British Army in Australia, fought against Indigenous clans inhabiting the Hawkesbury River region and the surrounding areas to the west of Sydney. The wars began in 1794, when the British started to construct farms along the river, some of which were established by soldiers.
The local Darug people raided farms and murdered settlers until Governor Macquarie dispatched troops from the 46th Regiment of Foot in 1816. These troops patrolled the Hawkesbury Valley and ended the conflict by killing 14 Indigenous Australians in a raid on their campsite. Indigenous Australians led by Pemulwuy also conducted raids around Parramatta during the period between 1795 and 1802. These attacks led Governor Philip Gidley King to issue an order in 1801 which authorised settlers to shoot Indigenous Australians on sight in Parramatta, Georges River and Prospect areas.
Many of the Aboriginal nations occasionally allied themselves to the British settlers in order to conquer more land for their tribes, and just as quickly returned to a state of war against the settlers. It was fought using mostly guerrilla-warfare tactics; however, several conventional battles also took place. The engagement resulted in the defeat of the Hawkesbury river and Nepean river Indigenous clans who were subsequently dispossessed of their lands.
With the expansion of European settlement, large amounts of land was cleared for farming, which resulted in the destruction of Aboriginal food sources. This, combined with the introduction of new diseases such as smallpox, caused resentment within the Aboriginal clans against the settlers and resulted in violent confrontations, coordinated by men such as Pemulwuy.
Contents
Background
Aboriginal people of the Sydney region
The Sydney region comprised a variety of nations that were united by a common language. These nations were the Eora who lived along the coast, the Tharawal to the south, the Dharug to the northwest and the Gandagara to the southwest. Within the language groups there were several clans. The Eora people generally comprised three main clans known as the Cadigal, Wanegal, and the Cammeraygal, and several smaller ones. The Dharug people, however, were the largest dialect of the Sydney region and consisted of the Wangal, Kurrajong, Boorooberongal, Cattai, Bidjigal, Gommerigal, Mulgoa, Cannemegal, Bool-bain-ora, Cabrigal, Muringong and the Dural clans. A clan typically numbered between 50 and 100 people.
The colony
Following Britain's loss of its American colonies during the American Revolutionary War, economic situations in Britain forced it to establish new colonies. After explorer James Cook wrote that he had claimed the east coast of Australia for Britain when standing on Possession Island in 1770, it was decided that a penal colony would be set up there to help relieve Britain's jails as well as to prevent French influence from growing in the Pacific.
The arrival of the First Fleet in 1788 at Port Jackson marked the beginning of the colonization of Australia. At the time it was used as a penal colony to which criminals and political dissidents were sent as punishment, however, a small number of free settlers also took up land. The penal colony had been established at Port Jackson (present-day Sydney) which was the traditional land of the Cadigal people. The penal colony had a population of around one thousand and for the first few years struggled to adapt to the Australian climate.
Hawkesbury Nepean War 1814–16
There are more sources for the fighting on the Nepean and Hawkesbury Rivers, than for the earlier 1804–05 conflict, reflecting the greater literacy levels of the free settlers, officials and clergy taking up large land grants, not just along the waterfronts but on the land between the creeks and rivers. A severe drought beginning in 1812 put additional pressure on both settlers and Aboriginal people. William Reardon, the first to die in February 1814, appears to have been speared in mistake for another man who accused some Aboriginal men of destroying his vegetable garden on Cox's Fernhill estate at Mulgoa. In April 1814, a number of farms were attacked including Fernhill and Campbell's Shancarmore.
Fighting in 1814 in the Appin district appears to have centred around a number of farms and individuals. An Aboriginal boy was killed by three Veteran Company soldiers while taking corn, probably on Broughton's farm. Warriors drove two of the soldiers off and killed private Eustace as he was reloading and mangled his body. In response a group of Campbelltown settlers fired into an Aboriginal camp, killing a woman and two children.
In July 1814 two children on the Daly's Mulgoa farm were killed after Mrs Daly fired at a party of Aboriginal people. Mrs Daly and her infant were spared. The only conflict in 1815 appeared to be the spearing of a man and a woman on Macarthur's Bringelly farm as a result of an argument over a blanket.
The drought broke in January 1816 and there were a number of floods during the year. Fighting broke out in March 1816. Four men were killed while pursuing Aboriginal warriors who had taken crops from Palmer's Bringelly farm. The lives of a man and a woman were spared when warriors took crops from Wright's farm on the following day. An attack was made on the government camp at Glenroy on the western side of the Blue Mountains and the government cart on its way there was also attacked. On the Grose River Mrs Lewis and a convict were killed in a dispute over wages. At the end of the month between eighty and ninety warriors attacked farms at Lane Cove.
Governor Macquarie ordered out several parties of the 46th regiment in April 1816. Captain James Wallis went south to Appin, Captain Schaw to the Hawkesbury and Lieutenant Dawe was detached to the Cow pastures. Soldiers were sent to protect the Glenroy depot. The role of the guides points to the complex nature of the hostilities. Schaw unsuccessfully chased a handful of warriors around the Hawkesbury and after a white guide failed to guide the soldiers in a surprise attack on a camp at Maroota he marched south to the Cow Pastures. When the nature of Wallis' military expedition became clear to the Aboriginal guides, Bundle and Bootbarrie or Budburry, they left Captain Wallis. John Warby, a white guide, also disappeared for a time from Wallis' command. Captain Schaw's pursuit of a party of warriors on the Wingecarribee River ended after Colebee told him that the tracks of the warriors were two days old.
The Appin Massacre came about because local settlers guided Captain Wallis to an Aboriginal camp containing women and children near Broughton's farm, suggesting that attacks upon Aboriginal people were opportunistic. Despite the lack of orders regarding decapitation, the skull of Carnimbeigle ended up in the hands of the Edinburgh phrenologist, Sir George Mackenzie. Many years after the killings William Byrne wrote that the bodies of sixteen Aboriginal people were decapitated and the soldiers were rewarded for their actions.
Governor Macquarie's May 1816 Proclamation ordered magistrates and troops at Sydney, Parramatta and Windsor to support settlers in driving off hostile Aboriginal people. The proclamation had the effect of indemnifying soldiers and settlers against charges of murder. Serjeant Broadfoot carried out two sweeps of the Nepean without reporting casualties in May. On his second expedition he reported meeting Magistrate Lowe in the field with a party of the 46th at Bents Basin on the Nepean. This is the only report of Lowe being in the field. Four settlers were killed on the Kurrajong slopes in June and July. Magistrate William Cox put parties of soldiers, settlers and native guides in the field capturing and killing Butta Butta, Jack Straw and Port Head Jamie in mid July. At least three of these men were executed without trial. The fighting extended in August. Four Aboriginal children from the Hawkesbury were put in the Native Institution. They were probably picked up in unreported raids. In late August two hundred of Cox's sheep and a shepherd were killed at Fernhill. The expedition sent out in response reported no casualties.
Aftermath
Settlers were driven from their Hunter Valley farms in late 1816. In September 1816 Magistrate William Cox outlined his plan to Governor Macquarie to put five parties of soldiers, settlers and guides into the field to scour the Grose, Hawkesbury and Nepean Rivers. There were no reports of Aboriginal casualties from these expeditions. Despite the apparent lack of Aboriginal casualties fighting ceased on the Hawkesbury Nepean River system in 1816. Governor Macquarie was generous in his rewards. Cox received payments in October 1816 and February 1817. Serjeant Broadfoot also received two payments. The guides received land grants for their services. Breastplates were made for Aboriginal guides. Macquarie's April 1817 report to Bathurst, while highlighting the success of his measures, made no mention of Aboriginal casualties.
Apart from the silence of the land there are other records that point to something catastrophic happening to the Aboriginal people of the Hawkesbury Nepean in 1816. The Macarthur letters noted the absence of Aboriginal people upon their return in 1817. George Bowmans' 1824 memorandum to Magistrate Scott recalled soldiers indiscriminately killing Aboriginal people. The ministers, Threlkeld and Lang, both heard stories of killings on the Hawkesbury. Prosper Tuckerman recalled his father tell him that 400 Aboriginal people had been killed at that time. In 1834, John Dunmore Lang wrote: "There is black blood at this moment on the hands of individuals of good repute in the colony of New South Wales of which all the waters of New Holland would be insufficient to wash out the indelible stains."
