Dancing with Strangers

by Inga Clendinnen

  For the little girl murdered, Collins, Account, 2, p. 9.

  For a fine discussion of law as a cultural system, see Clifford Geertz’s analysis of three distinctive forms of jurisprudence, Arabic haqq, Malaysian–Indonesian adat and Indian dharma, each one with its own way of deciding what constitutes relevant evidence; of defining and determining guilt and innocence; of applying appropriate punishments or penance—and each resting on and reinforcing its own system of social distinctions. Clifford Geertz, ‘Local Knowledge: Fact and Law in Comparative Perspective’, chapter 8 in Local Knowledge, Basic Books, New York, 1983, pp. 167–234.

  BANEELON RETURNED

  For Me-mel: en route to Rose Hill three weeks after the spearing, Phillip was told by a local that Baneelon was at ‘Me-mel’, diverted there, and found Baneelon and Barangaroo enjoying themselves there. Phillip in Hunter, p. 313.

  For Collins’ report on Baneelon’s conduct, Collins, Account, 2, p. 5, p. 34; for the Colbee affair, Account, 2, pp. 47–9.

  Collins, Account, 2, p. 5.

  For a touching letter from Baneelon written from Sydney and dated 29 August 1796 to an English patron whose wife had nursed Baneelon through illness, asking for shoes and stockings, see Flannery, The Birth of Sydney, pp. 146–7.

  For Baneelon’s obituary, Sydney Gazette, quoted Flannery, The Birth of Sydney, p. 217.

  For Imeerawanyee’s death, Smith, Bennelong, p. 98.

  BUNGAREE

  For the psychological tensions imposed on the presentation of the masculine self in colonial situations, see Ashis Nandy, The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1983.

  For Bungaree and Flinders, and a charming account of Bungaree’s special friendship with Flinders’ remarkable seafaring cat Trim, see Keith Vincent Smith, King Bungaree: A Sydney Aborigine Meets the Great South Pacific Explorers, 1799–1830, Kangaroo Press, Kenthurst, 1992. Smith tells us that Bungaree was also one of the party which went out from Sydney in 1801 to examine the entrance to Hunter’s River.

  For more about the Lane Cove fight and a fine discussion of the treatment and condition of Australians around Sydney through the first half of the nineteenth century, see Keith Willey, When the Sky Fell Down, p. 201 and passim.

  For the view of one foreign visitor to Sydney the year after Phillip’s departure, see Alexandro Malaspina, The Secret History of the Convict Colony: Alexandro Malaspina’s Report on the British Settlement of New South Wales, trans. Robert King, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1990. This makes fascinating reading throughout. A sample:

  Both Boys and Girls [were] received and cared for with great attention in the houses of the principal persons of the colony. Both men and women…have been admitted to the dining room in our presence, and have enjoyed delicacies from the same table. At times we heard whole families salute us in English. Sometimes we saw Aborigines dancing and singing in the principal streets about a fire the whole night, without anyone disturbing them.

  The Spaniard did not approve.

  For the Russian, Bellingshausen, Frank Debenham (ed.), The Voyage of Captain Bellingshausen to the Antarctic Sea 1819–1821, 2 vols, Hakluyt Society, Cambridge, 1945, p. 189, p. 335.

  For Stanner’s comment, ‘After the Dreaming: 1968’, in White Man Got No Dreaming, p. 230.

  For the Sydney Gazette report of Bungaree in the Domain in the year before his death, Smith, King Bungaree, p. 143. For Bungaree’s death, Flannery, The Birth of Sydney, pp. 230–1.

  For Darwin’s sunset meeting, A Naturalist’s Voyage, chapter 19, pp. 443–4.

  ENTER MRS CHARLES MEREDITH

  Mrs Charles Meredith, Notes and Sketches of New South Wales (1839–1844), Ure Smith for the National Trust, Sydney, 1973, passim (see chapter headings). For her use of the word ‘Australians’ p. 38, p. 90.

  For William Bradley on the Australian male posture, quoted Flannery, The Birth of Sydney, p. 58.

  For the surprising informalities, Malaspina, The Secret History of the Convict Colony, passim.

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  PLATE SECTION

  Portrait of the Cameragal warrior; portrait of Baneelon (Ben-nel-long); Spearing of Governor Phillip; Mr White, Harris and Laing… All credited to ‘The Port Jackson Painter’, from the Watling Collection, © The Natural History Museum, London.

  Portrait of Arthur Phillip by William Sherwin and portrait of Bungaree by Augustus Earle, by permission of the National Library of Australia.

  Bradley watercolours: View in Broken Bay, NSW; Sydney Cove; The Governor’s House; Taking of Colbee and Benalon by kind permission of the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales.

  The Bradley watercolours are from William Bradley, A Voyage to New South Wales: The Journal of Lieutenant William Bradley R. N. of H.M.S. Sirius, 1786–1792. (Facsimile reproduction, Trustees of the Public Library of New South Wales, Sydney 1969. The original manuscript is held in the Mitchell Library.)

  The picture on p. 289, Cygnus atratus, black swan, is from the Watling Collection, © The Natural History Museum, London.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Bradley, William A Voyage to New South Wales: The Journal of Lieutenant William Bradley R.N. of HMS Sirius, 1786–1792. Facsimile reproduction, Trustees of the Public Library of New South Wales, Sydney, 1969.

  Clark, Ralph Journals and Letters, 1787–1792, Sydney, 1981.

  Collins, David An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, vol. 1. London, 1798. A. H. and A. W. Reed, Sydney, 1975; vol. 2, London, 1802. A. H. and A. W. Reed, Sydney, 1975.

  Cook, James The Journals of Captain James Cook on his Voyage of Discovery edited by J. C. Beaglehole, 4 vols, Hakluyt Society Extra Series xxxiv, Cambridge, 1955, vol. 1.

  Dampier, William A New Voyage Around the World: The Journal of an English Buccaneer, [1697], Hummingbird Press, London, 1998.

  Darwin, Charles A Naturalist’s Voyage around the World (…the Voyage of H.M.S. ‘Beagle’, 1839), Oxford World Classics, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1930.

  Easty, John (Jonathan) Memorandum of the Transactions of a Voyage from England to Botany Bay, 1787–1793: A First Fleet Journal by John Easty, Private Marine, Trustees of the Public Library of New South Wales, Sydney, 1965. See also ‘Marines’ Petition’, 1793, published in Historical Records of New South Wales, 2, pp. 44–5.

  Fowell, Newton The Sirius Letters: The Complete Letters of Newton Fowell, 1786–1790, Midshipman and Lieutenant aboard the Sirius Flagship of the First Fleet on its Voyage to New South Wales, the Fairfax Library, Sydney, 1988.

  Historical Records of New South Wales, vol. 1, part 2; vol. 2.

  Hunter, John An Historical Journal of Events at Sydney and at Sea 1787–1792, [1793], edited John Bach, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1968. Note: while the collection of writings which appeared under John Hunter’s name in 1793 contained ten chapters from a journal of Hunter’s, beginning in 1786 and ending 1792, six chapters were from the journal Philip Gidley King kept during his first stint on Norfolk Island, seven were based on Arthur Phillip’s dispatches for 1790–1, and a final chapter presented Lieutenant Ball’s account of his voyage back to England in the Supply. Hunter also aimed at coverage: for example, because he had been at Norfolk Island when Governor Phillip was speared at Manly Cove, he carefully incorporated Lieutenant Waterhouse’s participant account of what happened that day, identifying Waterhouse only as ‘someone who was there’. Given its contents, Hunter’s Historical Journal could more properly be called A Collective Report from the Antipodes.

  Hunter, John The Hunter Sketchbook, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 1989.

  King, Philip Gidley The Journal of Philip Gidley King, Lieutenant, R. N., 1787–1790, edited P. G. Fidlon and R. J. Ryan, Australian Documents Library, Sydney, 1980. See also Journal, Norfolk Island (1791–94) unpublished mss. A1687m M.l. Sydney.

  Macarthur, Elizabeth The Journals and Letters of Elizabeth Macarthur, introduced and transcribed by Joy N. Hughes, Historic Houses Trust of New Sou
th Wales, Sydney, 1984.

  Malaspina, Alexandro The Secret History of the Convict Colony: Report on the British Settlement of New South Wales, trans. Robert King, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1990.

  Meredith, Mrs Charles Notes and Sketches of New South Wales (1839–1844), Ure Smith for the National Trust, Sydney, 1973.

  Nagle, Jacob The Nagle Journal: A Diary of the Life of Jacob Nagle, Sailor, from the Year 1775–1841, edited John C. Dann, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, New York, 1988.

  Paine, Daniel The Journal of Daniel Paine 1794–1797, edited R. J. B. Knight and Alan Frost, Library of Australian History, Sydney, 1983.

  Phillip, Arthur The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay, [1789], edited and annotated by James J. Auchmuty, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1970. See also Hunter, Journal.

  Smyth, Arthur Bowes The Journal of Arthur Bowes Smyth: Surgeon, Lady Penrhyn, 1787–1789, edited Paul Fidlon and R. J. Ryan, Australian Documents Library, Sydney, 1979.

  Southwell, Daniel ‘Journal and Letters of Daniel Southwell’, Historical Records of New South Wales, vol. 2, ed. F. M. Bladen, Sydney, 1893, pp. 668 et seq.

  Tench, Watkin Letters from Revolutionary France, edited by Gavin Edwards, University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 2001.

  Tench, Watkin Sydney’s First Four Years, being a reprint of A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay and A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson by Captain Watkin Tench of the Marines, with an introduction and annotations by L. F. Fitzhardinge, Library of Australian History, Sydney, 1979.

  Tench, Watkin Watkin Tench: 1788, edited and introduced by Tim Flannery, The Text Publishing Company, Melbourne, 1996.

  Watling, Thomas Letters from an Exile at Botany Bay to his Aunt in Dumfries, Penrith, 1794, edited George Makanass, Australian Historical Monographs, no. 12, Sydney, 1945.

  White, John Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales by John White Esq., edited A. R. Chisholm, Royal Australian Historical Society, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1962.

  Worgan, George B. Journal of a First Fleet Surgeon, Library Council of New South Wales, Sydney, 1978.

  Compilations

  Cobley, John Sydney Cove, 1788, Hodder and Stoughton, Sydney, 1962.

  Cobley, John Sydney Cove, 1789–1790, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1963.

  Cobley, John Sydney Cove, 1790–1792, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1965. These are curious compilations, because while they consist of a chronology of dated entries from contemporary sources, I can identify no consistent principle of selection. For Cobley’s own statement of his intention to provide a daily record of events until the Sydney Gazette began publication in March 1803, while avoiding ‘the intrusion of [his] own opinion’, see his Prefaces to vol. 1, Sydney Cove, 1788, and vol. 2, Sydney Cove, 1789–1790.

  Egan, Jack Buried Alive: Sydney 1788–92, Eyewitness Accounts of the Making of a Nation, Allen and Unwin, St Leonards, 1999. Note Egan’s helpful bibliography of First Fleet writings.

  Flannery, Tim The Birth of Sydney, The Text Publishing Company, Melbourne, 1999.

  Other books referred to

  Atkinson, Alan The Europeans in Australia: A History. The Beginning, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1997.

  Bayley, John Iris: A Memoir of Iris Murdoch, Duckworth, London, 1998.

  Campbell, Judy Invisible Invaders: Smallpox and Other Diseases in Aboriginal Australia 1780–1880, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2002.

  Carter, Paul Living in a New Country: History, Travelling and Language, Faber, London, 1992.

  Clendinnen, Inga Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in Yucatan 1517–1570, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, Melbourne and New York, 1987, 2002.

  Clendinnen, Inga Aztecs: An Interpretation, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, Melbourne and New York, 1991.

  Currey, John David Collins: A Colonial Life, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 2000.

  Dening, Greg Mr Bligh’s Bad Language, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, Melbourne and New York, 1992.

  Diamond, Jared Guns, Germs and Steel: A Short History of Everybody for the Last 13,000 Years, Chatto and Windus, London, 1997, especially chapter 15.

  Frost, Alan Arthur Phillip 1738–1814: His Voyaging, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1987.

  Frost, Alan Botany Bay Mirages: Illusions of Australia’s Convict Beginnings, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1994.

  Frost, Alan The Global Reach of Empire, The Miengunyah Press, Melbourne, 2003.

  Geertz, Clifford ‘Local Knowledge: Fact and Law in Comparative Perspective’, chapter 8 in Local Knowledge, Basic Books, New York, 1983, pp. 167–234.

  Grimshaw, Patricia et al. Creating a Nation, McPhee Gribble, Ringwood, 1994, chapter 1.

  Hay, Douglas et al. (eds) Albion’s Fatal Tree, Allen Lane, London, 1975.

  Hirst, John Convict Society and its Enemies: A History of Early New South Wales, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1983.

  Hughes, Robert Nothing If Not Critical, The Harvill Press, London 1999.

  Hughes, Robert The Fatal Shore: A History of the Transportation of Convicts to Australia, 1787–1868, The Harvill Press, London, 1986.

  Llewellyn, Karl N. and E. Adamson Hoebel The Cheyenne Way: Conflict and Case Law in Primitive Jurisprudence, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1941.

  McGrath, Ann ‘Birthplaces Revisited’ in Ross Gibson, ed., Exchanges: Cross-cultural Encounters in Australia and the Pacific, Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales, Sydney 1996, pp. 219–42.

  Nandy, Ashis The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1983.

  Petersen, Nicolas Donald Thompson in Arnhemland, Currey O’Neil Ross, South Yarra, 1983.

  Read, Peter Belonging, Cambridge University Press, New York, Cambridge and Melbourne, 2000.

  Rediker, Marcus Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, Cambridge University Press, New York and Cambridge, 1987.

  Rienits, Rex and Thea Early Artists of Australia, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1963.

  Rodger, N. A. M. The Wooden World: An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy, Collins, London, 1986.

  Rose, Deborah Bird ‘Hard Times: An Australian Study,’ in Quicksands: Foundational histories in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand ed. Klaus Neumann, Nicholas Thomas and Hilary Ericksen, UNSW Press, Sydney, 1999, pp. 2–19.

  Salmond, Anne Between Worlds: Early Exchanges between Maori and Europeans, 1773–1815, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1997.

  Smith, Bernard (ed.) Documents on Art and Taste in Australia: The Colonial Period 1770–1914, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1975.

  Smith, Bernard European Vision and the South Pacific, 2nd ed., Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1989.

  Smith, Bernard and Wheeler, Alwynne (eds) The Art of the First Fleet, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1988.

  Smith, Keith Vincent Bennelong: The Coming In of the Eora, Sydney Cove 1788–1792, Kangaroo Press, Kenthurst, 2001.

  Smith, Keith Vincent King Bungaree: A Sydney Aborigine Meets the Great South Pacific Explorers, 1799–1830, Kangaroo Press, Kenthurst, 1992.

  Stanner, W. E. H. After the Dreaming, the 1968 Boyer Lectures, ABC, Sydney, 2001.

  Stanner, W. E. H. White Man Got No Dreaming, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1979.

  Thompson, E. P. Customs in Common, Merlin Press, London, 1991, esp. pp. 16–96.

  Thompson, E. P. The Poverty of Theory, Merlin Press, London, 1978, esp. pp. 35–91.

  Willey, Keith When the Sky Fell Down: The Destruction of the Tribes of the Sydney Region 1788–1850s, Collins, Sydney and London, 1979. Willey has constructed a near-continuous narrative from the major sources to provide the most coherent account we have of Aboriginal–European interactions through the early decades of settlement.

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  Copyright
© Inga Clendinnen 2003

  Introduction copyright © James Boyce 2017

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  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

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  First published by The Text Publishing Company 2003

  This edition published 2017

  Cover painting, View in Broken Bay New South Wales. March 1788, by William Bradley, reproduced by kind permission of the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

  Cover and series design by W.H. Chong

  Page design by Text

  Map by Tony Fankhauser

  Typeset by J&M Typesetting

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

  ISBN: 9781925498738 (paperback)

  ISBN: 9781925410952 (ebook)

  Creator: Clendinnen, Inga, 1934–2016, author.

  Title: Dancing with strangers / by Inga Clendinnen; introduced by James Boyce.

  Series: Text classics.

  Subjects: Aboriginal Australians—New South Wales—Sydney Region—Effect of colonization on. British—Cultural assimilation—Australia. Immigrants—Australia—History. National characteristics, Australian. First Fleet, 1787–1788. Australia—History—1788–1851. Australia—Colonization.

  Other Creators/Contributors: Boyce, James, writer of introduction.

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