Bennelong

Woollarawarre Bennelong (c. 1764 – 3 January 1813) 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. Bennelong served as an interlocutor between the Eora and the British, both in the colony of New South Wales and in Great Britain. He was the first Aboriginal Australian to visit Europe and return.

In 1789, he was abducted on the authority of Governor Arthur Phillip, who hoped to use Bennelong to establish official dialogue with the Eora people. However, Bennelong escaped after several months. A tenuous relationship subsequently developed between Bennelong and the colonists, with various attacks and reconciliations occurring throughout their ensuing association with each other. Despite this friction, he came to be a significant ambassador of the Eora.

Bennelong was taken to Great Britain in 1792 and he resided in London for three years. Eventually his health deteriorated and in February 1795 he was returned to Australia. Back in his homeland, Bennelong was rejected from British colonial society and branded an alcoholic "savage" for vigorously maintaining his connection to a traditional lifestyle. He became a respected leader of the surviving remnants of the various local Indigenous clans in the Sydney region. He died at Kissing Point in 1813, aged about 48, and was buried in James Squire's orchard.