Barangaroo was the second wife of
Bennelong
Woollarawarre Bennelong ( 1764 – 3 January 1813), also spelt Baneelon, was a senior man of the Eora, an Aboriginal Australian people of the Port Jackson area, at the time of the first British settlement in Australia in 1788. Bennelong ser ...
, who was
interlocutor between the
Aboriginal people
Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
and the early British colonists in
New South Wales
)
, nickname =
, image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates:
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, es ...
. Barangaroo was a member of the
Cammeraygal clan. While Bennelong spent considerable time in the British settlement in
Sydney, Barangaroo maintained her way of life with her people.
She had two children prior to being Bennelong's wife, both of whom died. She had a baby girl, Dilboong, while she was Bennelong's wife. The baby only survived for a few months.
Barangaroo died in 1791 and was buried in
Governor Phillip's garden, in the area of the present day
Circular Quay
Circular Quay is a harbour, former working port and now international passenger shipping port, public piazza and tourism precinct, heritage area, and transport node located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia on the northern edge of the Syd ...
.
[
]
The accounts of Watkin Tench
First Fleet marine Watkin Tench
Lieutenant General Watkin Tench (6 October 1758 – 7 May 1833) was a British marine officer who is best known for publishing two books describing his experiences in the First Fleet, which established the first European settlement in Australia in ...
, in his first-hand account called ''A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson'', describes several encounters with Barangaroo.
At the first meeting between the colonists and Barangaroo in October 1790 he describes how Bennelong presents her wearing a petticoat
A petticoat or underskirt is an article of clothing, a type of undergarment worn under a skirt or a dress. Its precise meaning varies over centuries and between countries.
According to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'', in current British En ...
. "But this was the prudery of the wilderness, which her husband (Bennelong) joined us to ridicule, and we soon laughed her out of it. The petticoat was dropped with hesitation, and Barangaroo stood 'armed cap-a-pee in nakedness'." Tench said at the request of Bennelong "we combed and cut her hair, and she seemed pleased with the operation". She would not taste any of the wine that she was offered, even though she was invited to do so by Bennelong.
He also describes an occasion where a convict was flogged in front of an audience of Aboriginal people, for stealing from them. Barangaroo was angry, and menaced the man performing the flogging with a stick.
His final mention of Barangaroo in the text is to describe how the Aboriginal women were treated with what he described as "savage barbarity", and that Bennelong would strike Barangaroo with blows and kicks and "every other mark of brutality". He also says that Barangaroo was not pitied as a result of this, as she was "a scold and a vixen".
Legacy
A suburban area at Sydney's east
East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the fac ...
Darling Harbour, not located in her traditional lands, was officially named in her honour in October 2006.The Hungry Mile
The Hungry Mile is the name harbourside workers gave to the docklands area of Darling Harbour East, in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia in the Great Depression in Australia, Great Depression. Workers would walk from wharf to wharf in search of ...
, was the site of the Opening Mass and several other large gatherings for World Youth Day 2008
World Youth Day 2008 was a Catholic youth festival that started on 15 July and continued until 20 July 2008 in Sydney, Australia. It was the first World Youth Day held in Australia and the first World Youth Day in Oceania. This meeting was deci ...
.
The SS ''Barangaroo'' was a ferry operating across Sydney Harbour prior to the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge
The Sydney Harbour Bridge is a steel through arch bridge in Sydney, spanning Port Jackson, Sydney Harbour from the Sydney central business district, central business district (CBD) to the North Shore (Sydney), North Shore. The view of the bridg ...
. Barangaroo Street in the Canberra suburb of Chisholm is named in her honour.
References
External links
* {{cite web , url = http://dictionaryofsydney.org/person/barangaroo , title = Barangaroo and the Eora Fisherwomen , accessdate = 9 October 2015 , author = Grace Karskens , date = 2014 , work = Dictionary of Sydney , publisher = Dictionary of Sydney Trust CC-By-SA
A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work".A "work" is any creative material made by a person. A painting, a graphic, a book, a song/lyrics ...
]
Indigenous Australian people
1791 deaths
Year of birth unknown