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House built for Woollarawarre Bennelong by Governor Phillip on Bennelong Point 1789

From the collections of the
State Library of New South Wales
[a4635001 / DG V1/14 (detail)]
(Detail taken from 'West view of Sydney Cove taken from the Rocks, at the rear of the General Hospital 1789')

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Governor Phillip and the Eora
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Aboriginal Housing
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Bennelong Point Sydney Harbour
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Bennelong
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Fort Denison

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State Library of New South Wales

Governor Phillip and the Eora

What was Governor Arthur Phillip's relationship with the Eora, and other Aboriginal people of the Sydney region? Phillip's policies, actions and responses have tended to be seen as a proxy for the Europeans in Australia as whole, just as his friend, the Wangal warrior Woolarawarre Bennelong’s allegedly tragic life has for so long personified the fate of Aboriginal people since 1788. To fully imagine those early years, we must see them through the twin lenses of British and Eora perspective and experience to glimpse what was happening, and why. This allows a nuanced and complex view, and the banishment once and for all the notion that there can be only one 'right' story.

Housing

Aboriginal

Bennelong Point

Rocky outcrop to the east of Sydney Cove, which was a tidal island when Europeans arrived, but was joined to the mainland with rocky rubble in 1818 to provide a basis for Fort Macquarie to be built there. The point is named for Bennelong, who lived in a house on the point in the 1790s.

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Bennelong

Eora man who had an important role in relations between the colonists and the local people. With Colebee, Bennelong was abducted by Governor Phillip at Manly on 25 November 1789 and held at Government House. He escaped in May 1790, but started visiting the colony voluntarily later in the year. In December 1792, he travelled to England with Phillip, returning in 1795. 

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Sydney Harbour

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The largest arm of Port Jackson, which extends west from the Heads past Balmain and meets the estuaries of the Lane Cove and Parramatta rivers.

Fort Denison

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Rocky island in Sydney Harbour, colloquially known as Pinchgut, on which a Martello tower fort was built in the 1840s and 50s.