Bennelong - Death

Death

Bennelong's health was perhaps damaged by the consumption of alcohol, one of the most popular pastimes in the colony. He died at Kissing Point (now known as Putney, in Sydney's North West) on 3 January 1813, and was buried in the orchard of the brewer James Squire, a great friend to Bennelong and his clan. On 20 March 2011 Dr Peter Mitchell of Macquarie University announced that he had located the actual grave site in the garden of a private house in present day Putney. He stated that local aboriginal authorities will be consulted about possible further exploration of the site.

His obituary in the Sydney Gazette was unflattering, insisting that "...he was a thorough savage, not to be warped from the form and character that nature gave him...", which reflected the feelings of some in Sydney's white society that Bennelong had abandoned his role as ambassador in his last years, and also reflects the deteriorating relations between the two groups as more and more land was cleared and fenced for farming, and the hardening attitudes of many colonists towards 'savages' who were not willing to give up their country and become labourers and servants useful to the colonists.

Bennelong's people mourned his death with a traditional payback battle for which about two hundred people gathered. It was witnessed by a passenger on the schooner Henrietta who reported it in a letter to the Caledonian Mercury. They wrote that spears flew very thick, and about thirty men were wounded.

As a mark of respect, Colebee's nephew Nanberry, who died in 1821, was buried with Bennelong at his request. Bidgee Bidgee, who led the Kissing Point clan for twenty years after Bennelong's death, also asked to be buried with Bennelong, but there is no record of his death or where he is buried.