In 1789 a young man of the Eora tribe, Wollarawarrey Bennelong, was abducted and held captive on the orders of Captain Arthur Phillip, first governor of the colony of New South Wales. Later Bennelong escaped and was instrumental in leading both the spirited resistance against the white invaders and the eventual "coming in" of the Eora to the settlement of Sydney.
This biography and history reassesses Bennelong's early life to show that he was a cleaver and cunning politician who should take his place in history as an Aboriginal hero. The story centres on the interaction between the merry, mercurial (and vengeful) Bennelong and the cool, persistent (and sometimes vengeful) Phillip who King George III had charged to live in "peace and amity" with the local inhabitants.
The author has used a bold new approach to the source material - the journals, letters and language note books of the First Fleet Officers. Buy treating these observers as anthropologists "in the field" the Aboriginal viewpoint is illuminated by factoring in anthropological concepts of kinship (families and clans), exchange (giving and receiving gifts) and vengeance (payback).
