Hey History Episode 2 First meetings at Kamay Botany Bay.mp3

Axel Clark: [00:00:01] Hey History! Hey History is a podcast all about Australian history where the kids ask the questions. I’m your host, Axel Clark. In each episode of Hey History, we’ll hear stories and answer your questions. Questions like…

Kids: [00:00:19] Captain Cook, why did he choose Australia? Why didn’t he choose, like, a different country? What they thought of Captain Cook and his crew. How would people communicate and act?

Axel Clark: [00:00:32] In Hey History, we don’t just stop when we get an answer. Because..

Kids: [00:00:37] How do we know what really happened?

Kids: [00:00:40] And is there another side to the story?

Axel Clark: [00:00:44] In this episode, you’ll hear about how First Nations people and Captain Cook and his crew met for the first time at Kamay Botany Bay in 1770. You can listen to this episode straight through or stop halfway if you’d like. I’ll tell you when we’ve reached halfway. Hey History! First up, a question for you. Have you met someone who spoke a different language to you? And you didn’t know that language at all? How did you communicate? What was it like?

Kids: [00:01:19] When I went overseas to Lebanon. I met kids and they spoke Arabic. I know how to speak Arabic, but not a lot. Most of the time we played soccer. When I wanted to know the school, I didn’t know how to say it. And I used, like, hand signals. Sometimes I needed to play a little game of charades so they know what I was talking about.

Axel Clark: [00:01:50] This episode is all about meetings. No, not the boring kind that your parents or teachers spent hours in and say a super important, I mean, meeting someone for the first time.

Kids: [00:02:01] I would be really nice and kind because I, I’m like, I haven’t met them and you never know what they could be going through. Or you could put yourself in their shoes and like, if they, like, look scary or whatever. You still don’t judge a book by its cover because you never know.

Axel Clark: [00:02:18] Yeah, I know what you mean. This meeting in 1770 is pretty famous, and you might know stuff about it already. So what do you know? In each episode, we pop into a school and see what they can tell us about Australian history. Let’s go to….

Kids: [00:02:38] Marrickville West Primary School. We’re on Gadigal Country.

Axel Clark: [00:02:44] So, guys, what can you tell us about the meetings between Captain Cook and the First Nations people at Botany Bay in 1770?

Kids: [00:02:55] They are called the land Terra Nullius, and that means nobody’s land. But it was somebody’s land.

Kids: [00:03:02] Captain Cook discovered Australia. I don’t think he discovered Australia. He just figured out that it existed because people already lived there and they already knew Australia existed. He just discovered it for English people. Imagine if you were just living your life. And then these figures, wearing completely different clothes, just showed up and talked in an extremely weird language that you couldn’t understand. It would be quite confusing and very shocking.

Axel Clark: [00:03:31] Yeah. Can you imagine? Thanks for your great ideas. About what the first meetings between the Gweagal people and Captain Cook might have been. It’s interesting to hear that even within one class, we have so many different ideas about what happened. Now we’ll leave the students at Marrickville West Primary School in Sydney. Thanks everyone for your. Let’s go to Kamay Botany Bay, just a few suburbs away. Kamay is the dharawal word for botany Bay. It’s on Dharawal country.

Kids: [00:04:04] Question time everyone! If I could ask Captain Cook anything, I would probably ask him. Like, why did you pick Australia? Yeah.

Axel Clark: [00:04:13] Great question. Why did Captain Cook and the Endeavour even visit Australia? Here’ss historian Paul Irish to answer your question.

Paul Irish: [00:04:22] Well, when Captain Cook left England, he wasn’t looking for Australia as far as he knew. His mission was scientific. He was there to observe the movement of the planet Venus across the sky, to help ships in navigating across the ocean by the stars.

Axel Clark: [00:04:38] Oooh, science!

Paul Irish: [00:04:40] He went to the Pacific island of Tahiti to do that. And once they’d finished, he opened an envelope of secret instructions from the English Royal Navy, which ordered him to try and find the ‘Great South Land’, which they believed existed somewhere to the west of Tahiti.

Axel Clark: [00:04:56] Wait a minute. Secret instructions. What is this? Mission Impossible? “Captain cook, your mission if you choose to accept it…” Actually, did he even have a choice? “There is reason to imagine that a continent or land of great extent may be found to the southwest…” Reading, reading… Yep, yep.

“You are likewise to observe the disposition and number of the natives, and Endeavour by all proper means, to cultivate a friendship and alliance with them.” Mm. Interesting.
“You are also, with the consent of the natives, to take possession of convenient situations in the country in the name of the king of Great Britain, or if you find the country uninhabited, take possession as first discoverers, and possessers.”

Axel Clark: [00:05:34] Hmm secret instructions from the king? So that’s why the Endeavour was sailing up the east coast of Australia. What happened next?

Paul Irish: [00:05:45] Cook went through New Zealand and then headed further west, and was the first European voyage to reach the east coast of Australia. When Cook sailed up the east coast, he saw at several points campfires or signal fires, smoke rising from fires on the shore, and he imagined that that was people lighting those fires. And he was correct, but he didn’t really understand, you know, what the fires were for.

Axel Clark: [00:06:13] Yeah, what were those fires for?

Ray Ingrey: [00:06:16] Nagambie. My name is Ray Ingrey. I’m a Dharawal person from Gamay or Botany Bay, and we’re here at what our people called Gundul, which is now Kurnell. We knew this strange vessel was coming up the coastline. We knew that because our relatives to the south brought up message sticks, telling us this strange object was coming up the coastline and it was being tracked by smoke signals as well. So there was columns of smoke telling our people how close it was.

Axel Clark: [00:06:49] Ah, that’s what the fires were. Communication between different Aboriginal clans and peoples. The Endeavour ship sailed into Kamay. The Gweagal people had never seen anything like it.

Kids: [00:07:01] Hey, I got a question. I would ask them, like… What are you feeling right now? Cause like a big, big ship’s coming.

Ray Ingrey: [00:07:11] The Endeavour was such a strange object, you know. It’s like if kids looked out their bedroom window today and see a UFO landing now. It would be very similar, because it was that strange to our people. And then seeing aliens coming off that ship, you know, how would you respond?

Axel Clark: [00:07:31] I reckon I would have been pretty freaked out or scared, or maybe even a bit excited.

Ray Ingrey: [00:07:37] There would have been a lot of fright and uncertainty. So down this part of Australia, Aboriginal people never saw non-Aboriginal people before. There wasn’t a lot of European contact apart from in northern Australia. When our people see the Endeavour, we were trying to look at it through our own dreaming and as the Endeavour crew sailed into Gamay, we thought they were animals or possums or gurus running up the trees, but they were actually Hume sailors going up the masts of the Endeavour. As they got closer, they realised they weren’t animals and they looked human. They looked like us, but they were the colour white. And I thought they were actually spirits of the dead returning.

Axel Clark: [00:08:27] Stories passed down by Aboriginal elders tell us about this first meeting, and what the Gweagal people were thinking. Stories written in diaries can tell us about this meeting, too. Captain Cook kept a diary from that time. Here’s Captain Cook’s diary.

Captain Cook: [00:08:49] Sunday, 29th of April, 1770. So, as we came in on both points at bay, several natives and a few huts, men, women and children on the south shore. I went in the boats in hopes of speaking with them.

Paul Irish: [00:09:09] So Cook decided that he needed to go ashore to get water. And in the boat with him was some other crew members of the Endeavour.

Ray Ingrey: [00:09:17] On the Endeavour, they had what they call long boats, where sailors could row from the main boat to different spots. And so one or two long boats came around to a little cove here at Kurnell and set foot on land.

Captain Cook: [00:09:33] As we approached the shore, they all made off, except two men who seemed resolved to oppose our landing.

Axel Clark: [00:09:44] Captain Cook doesn’t explain what ‘oppose’ means, but other diaries from the crew say that the two Gweagal warriors stood with their spears raised.

Kids: [00:09:54] Hey, I got a question. I wonder why the two men stayed back? I wonder what the two men were thinking?

Ray Ingrey: [00:10:04] So they gestured for them to go away. So they used nonverbal because they knew they couldn’t speak our language. So we use a nonverbal to tell them to go away. And we were screaming out, Worra Worra Wai! Which in our language means they all dead. Worra Worra Wai. So they were telling everyone around them that these spirits were returning.

Captain Cook: [00:10:27] Neither of us could understand one word they said. Worra Worra Wai. We then threw him some nails, beads, etc. ashore which they took up. I thought that they’d beckoned to us to come ashore, but in this we were mistaken.

Axel Clark: [00:10:50] Okay, we’re halfway through the episode if you want a break. Pause now. If you’ve just come back from a break, let’s catch up on what’s happened. Hey History! We visited students at Marrickville West Primary School. They told us what they knew about the Gweagal people and Captain Cook meeting for the first time. We heard about Captain Cook’s secret instructions to find the ‘Great Southern Land’, and then how the First Nations people up the east coast saw the Endeavour sailing up and lit signal fires to let each other know. The Gweagal people watched the Endeavour sail into Botany Bay. They understand the arrival of this strange object and its crew through their Dreaming. They believe that they’re seeing ghosts. They yell out Worra Worra Wai! They’re all dead people. Most Gweagal people retreat. Two warriors stay on the beach with their spears raised. Captain Cook gets off the Endeavour and into a smaller boat with some crew. They row towards the beach and then Captain Cook steps onto the land of the Gweagal people.

Captain Cook: [00:11:58] As soon as we put a boat in, they again came to oppose us.

Ray Ingrey: [00:12:02] Two Gweagal warriors didn’t want them to land because in Aboriginal culture, you have to get permission to come onto someone else’s Country. And the Endeavour crew didn’t do that.

Captain Cook: [00:12:11] I fired a musket between the two, which had no other effect than to make them retire back where bundles of their darts lay.

Axel Clark: [00:12:24] When Captain Cook says darts, he’s talking about spears.

Captain Cook: [00:12:27] And one of them took up a stone and threw it us.

Ray Ingrey: [00:12:32] They were throwing stones as a warning.

Captain Cook: [00:12:35] Which caused my firing a second musket. Some struck the man, yet it had no other effect than to make him lay hold of a shield to defend himself. Immediately after this we landed.

Ray Ingrey: [00:12:54] They started throwing some spears, and the spies were just landing at the feet of the sailors. If they wanted to hurt them with the spears, they would have, but they were just warning to not come any further unto our country.

Captain Cook: [00:13:11] They throwed two darts at us.

Axel Clark: [00:13:13] (Spears).

Captain Cook: [00:13:14] This obliged me to fire a third shot, soon after which they both made off.

Ray Ingrey: [00:13:23] The musket fire was a bit too overwhelming, so they, they went off into the bush with their other relatives, going further to get away from from the musket fire and the crew of the Endeavour.

Axel Clark: [00:13:38] Gunfire with someone being shot. Spears thrown. That’s a pretty violent first meeting.

Kids: [00:13:44] I listen and it’s really scary. I’m so shocked where he just came and went and shot someone. His secret instructions says, “I want to make friends”. That’s the opposite of making friends, because if they didn’t shoot at them, they would have got to know them and it wouldn’t have been a mess. Can I ask a question? I wondered why Captain Cook chose violence instead of like, peace. I wonder why they didn’t just try to understand each other’s language and what they both do and what they came for.

Axel Clark: [00:14:18] Sounds like it didn’t get off to a very good start. What else happened on that first day?

Captain Cook: [00:14:26] I advanced into the woods. We found here a few small huts made of the bark of trees. A quantity of darts (spears) lay about the huts. These we took away with us.

Ray Ingrey: [00:14:42] The crew of the Endeavour collected 40 to 50 spears that they found around the campsite here at Kurnell and under our way. Stealing was forbidden. It was very strict. So you could leave your tools around and no one was allowed to touch them. Everyone knew whose equipment they were. So when the crew of the Endeavour started bundling all these spears up, our people were watching that gunfire.

Axel Clark: [00:15:09] Spears thrown. Some questionable present decisions. And now stealing stuff!

Ray Ingrey: [00:15:14] They bundled up those 40 to 50 spears and they transported them back to England, put into Cambridge University over in England, four spears still remain today. Our elders have campaigned for the return of those spears for a while.

Axel Clark: [00:15:33] Guess what? Those four spears are now back home in Australia, thanks to 30 years of work by the La Perouse community. You can see a photo of the Gweagal Spears on the Hey history website or in your podcast app. Now let’s go back to Kamay. In 1770, Captain Cook and his crew stayed for over a week.

Captain Cook: [00:15:58] Monday, 30th of April, 1770. In the afternoon, 16 or 18 natives came boldly up to within 100 yards of our people at the watering place. Mr hicks, who was the officer ashore, did all in his power to entice him by offering them presents. But all they seem to want was for us to be gone. Tuesday, 1st of May, 1770. This morning a party of us went ashore to some huts. Here we left several articles such as cloth, looking glasses, combs, beads and nails.

Ray Ingrey: [00:16:46] They came into a camp that was nearby. Here a lot of the adults and children moved off further into the bush, and those that stayed behind, they tried to provide little trinkets, necklaces and stuff, but they weren’t interested in that.

Captain Cook: [00:17:01] Sunday, 6th May 1770. During our stay in this harbour, I caused the English colours to be displayed ashore every day, and an inscription to be cut out upon one of the trees near the watering place, setting forth the ship’s name, date, etc..

Axel Clark: [00:17:20] So Captain Cook raised the English flag on every day of his visit to Kamay, Botany Bay.

Captain Cook: [00:17:26] The natives not so much as touched the things we had left in their huts on purpose for them to take away. We could know but very little of their customs, as we were never able to form any connections with them.

Ray Ingrey: [00:17:42] And any attempt during that eight days to make contact or to communicate with our old people failed because our people didn’t want to experience that same experience that happened on the first day.

Paul Irish: [00:18:02] After that first meeting, Cook had a very frustrating eight days. He desperately wanted to talk to Aboriginal people whenever he or others saw them and tried to approach them, they moved away and as a result, there was no conversation apart from those first words Warra Warra Wai. No one on the Endeavour recorded a single word more of the local Aboriginal language.

Captain Cook: [00:18:22] I haven’t seen everything this place afforded. We at daylight in the morning, put to sea.

Axel Clark: [00:18:29] So Cook left after eight days. He’d carried out his secret mission to find the Great South Land. What about the other parts of his secret mission? “To make a friendship, to show them every kind of civility. To take possession for His Majesty? If you find the country uninhabitable…”

Axel Clark: [00:18:51] Cook must have seen that Australia was already very, very inhabited, but he still claimed the east coast of the continent for Britain. After he left Botany Bay, he declared Australia was Terra Nullius, which means land belonging to nobody or nobody’s land. But it was somebody’s land. Captain Cook sails off further up the east coast of Australia and those eight days of his visit. That’s the first meeting between Captain Cook and the First Nations people of Australia. Here’s Ray Ingrey.

Ray Ingrey: [00:19:35] We look at those eight days and think, what a lost opportunity. We would have learned so much more in that eight days if they would have done the encounter a little bit better.

Axel Clark: [00:19:46] And Paul Irish says…

Paul Irish: [00:19:47] When we think about meetings like this, we get a really good example of what happens when two completely different cultures meet, when they can’t speak to each other. Cook didn’t understand their culture. The other thing that cook didn’t understand was that the warriors had deliberately not injured him. We can also see that Cook thought that he had a right to take the water and the right to land on the lands of another people, so that was already setting up a conflict that perhaps he should have been able to understand, but but didn’t.

Ray Ingrey: [00:20:24] That changed life forever for us. And even though that changed life forever, our old people that continued to live on our Country, to live in the world that we’re living.

It doesn’t mean that we have to give up our own Aboriginal identity or our own our Dharawal ways. It just means we have to balance both worlds now. So we still need to be Dharawal people. We still need to be speaking our language, practising our cultural practices, but also to succeed in in the Australian way as well.

Axel Clark: [00:21:04] Isn’t it crazy to think that those eight days at Botany Bay, where the Gweagal people and Captain Cook and his crew met each other for the first time. Those eight days changed Australian history forever.

Axel Clark: [00:21:25] Thanks for listening to Hey history! You can see those amazing Gweagal fishing spears and more on our website heyhistory.net. If you’re a teacher, there’s a lesson plan to use with this episode, including one about those fishing spears, and there’s a bunch of links to activities, games, and resources on the first meetings in Kamay Botany Bay. Hey, have you heard about other episodes of Hey History? You can listen to them in any order. There’s the oldest classroom, Convict Kids and Gold Fever, and a bonus episode for your teacher. How to talk with kids about Australian history.

Axel Clark: [00:22:04] Hey History is made on Gadigal Country by Anna Clark, Clare Wright, Jane Curtis and Britta Jorgenson. It’s endorsed by the History Teachers Association of New South Wales. And your host is me, Axel Clark.

Executive producers are Clare Wright and Anna Clark.

Clare Wright is Professor of History and Public Engagement at La Trobe University.

Anna Clark is Professor of History at the University of Technology, Sydney.

Podcast concept design and development by Anna Clark.

Indigenous Cultural Consultant is Katrina Thorpe.

Story Editor is Kyla Slaven.

Learning material by Nick Adeney.

Thanks to all the students whose voices you hear in this episode and their schools and teachers. Sandy Bay Primary School, Marrickville West primary School, Westbourne Grammar School, Preshil Primary School, La Perouse Primary School, and Yirrkala Bilingual School.

Hey History! Is produced by the Australian Centre for Public History and Impact Studios at the University of Technology, Sydney. Impact Studios executive producer is Sarah Gilbert.