Pemulwuy of the Eora The Aboriginal peoples did not have big
armies to fight the British invaders. Instead, they worked in
small groups to harass the settlers and organise surprise raids
on the settlements and camps, commonly called guerrilla tactics.
One of the earliest Aboriginal men to lead a group of warriors
and resist the invasion of the British settlers around Sydney
was a man named Pemulwuy. Pemulwuy was an Aboriginal that lived
in the Sydney area between the coast and Castle Hill in the Eora
language group. He was born in about 1760, died in 1802 and saw
the British as invaders of Aboriginal land. Refer Image 1
Pemulwuy first came to the attention of the British when he
speared and killed the governor's gamekeeper, John McIntyre, in
1790. McIntyre was believed to have killed a number of
Aboriginal people in the area. Governor Phillip ordered a
punitive expedition to revenge the death of the gamekeeper, but
the troops failed to capture Pemulwuy. He was then declared an
outlaw under British law. Pemulw