The Gweagal shield is an Aboriginal Australian shield dropped by a Gweagal warrior opposing James Cook's landing party at Botany Bay on 29 April 1770. The shield was recovered by Joseph Banks and taken back to England, but it is unclear whether the shield still exists. An Aboriginal shield held by the British Museum, and once thought to be the Gweagal shield, is more likely to originate from an area further north. It is currently the subject of a campaign for its repatriation to Australia. [1]
During his first voyage of discovery, James Cook's landing at Botany Bay on 29 April 1770 was opposed by two Aboriginal warriors from the Gweagal clan. Cook and his landing party attempted to communicate their desire for water and offered the Aboriginal warriors gifts of nails and beads. The two warriors launched stones and spears at the landing party which responded with small shot from their muskets. One of the warriors was wounded and they both retreated, leaving behind spears and a shield. Joseph Banks collected 40–50 spears, and it is likely that he also took a shield back with him to England. [2] [3]
A shield "from New Holland", "piercd [sic]… near the center", was among the artefacts Banks brought back to London in 1771. There is evidence that the shield might have passed from Banks’ hands into those of his servant, James Roberts, who had accompanied him on the Endeavour voyage, and was then acquired by liberal politician and collector John Bowes (1811–85). Although the shield is no longer in the Bowes Museum, Nicholas Thomas concludes: "It should not be assumed that the shield has been definitively lost. It may well have entered another museum, where it may be preserved among collections that have not been fully catalogued or photographed." [4]
The British Museum holds an Aboriginal shield which it had previously identified as probably the one acquired from Botany Bay in 1770. The shield was lent to the National Museum of Australia in Canberra for an exhibition called Encounters: Revealing stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander objects from the British Museum, from November 2015 to March 2016. Dr Shayne Williams, a Gweagal elder of the La Perouse Community of Botany Bay, saw the shield, thought it was not typical of locally made shields, and asked the British Museum to further investigate its provenance. [5]
In November 2016, the British Museum began investigating the provenance of the shield held by them. They held a workshop involving various experts, including curators from both the British and Australian Museums, academics from the Royal Armouries, Cambridge and the Australian National University, and two Aboriginal representatives from the La Perouse community. The results of the investigations were published in 2018. [6] Testing of the shield found that its wood is red mangrove, which can be obtained only at least 500 kilometres north of Botany Bay. The hole in the shield was inspected by a ballistics expert who concluded that it was not made by a firearm. [7] Nicholas Thomas, director and curator of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at Cambridge, also found that the shield in the British Museum does not closely match the 1771 detailed drawing of the shield collected by Banks. Based on the available evidence, Thomas concludes that the shield in the British Museum is not the shield taken from Botany Bay in April 1770. [8] Maria Nugent and Gaye Sculthorpe state that the evidence for a connection between the shield in the British Museum and James Cook is relatively scant. [9] However, Shayne Williams states that it is very likely a Gugu Yimidhirr shield acquired by Cook during his stay at the Endeavour River in north Queensland (a region where red mangrove is abundant). [5]
Following the Encounters exhibition, Rodney Kelly, a Gweagal man from Bermagui, started a campaign for the return of the shield to Australia, along with some Aboriginal spears held in Cambridge. His campaign for its return has since involved three visits to Britain, one in 2016 and two in 2017. Green Party–sponsored motions in support of Mr Kelly’s campaign have been passed in both the New South Wales Legislative Council and the Australian Senate. [10] [11] Nicholas Thomas states that his conclusion that the shield in the British Museum is not the Gweagal shield does not imply that the shield should not be repatriated. [12] The British Museum has denied the request for repatriation as British law does not permit it to do so. [5] Gaye Sculthorpe, an Indigenous curator at the British Museum, argues that the shield should remain in the museum as it tells a story of the British and Aboriginal Australia, and it is important that Aboriginal history and culture are understood throughout the world. [5] Noeleen Timbery, the chair of the La Perouse Local Aboriginal Land Council states that while she understands that the shield would not exist if it had not been preserved by the British Museum, she supports its return to Australia. [5]
The spears left behind by the two Gweagal warriors who confronted Cook's party in April 1770, and collected by Joseph Banks, were donated to Trinity College, Cambridge the following year. From 1914, they were looked after by Cambridge University's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. In March 2023, it was reported that Trinity College had agreed to repatriate the spears to the local indigenous community and that they would be displayed in a new visitor centre
Nugent and Sculthorpe state that the shield's presumed association with the violent encounter between Aboriginal people and the Endeavour crew at Botany Bay in 1770 made it a powerful symbol for the traumatic history of unjust colonial relations. They argue that despite the evidence that the shield in the British Museum is not associated with Cook, it is valuable as the earliest surviving shield used by Aboriginal people on Australia’s east coast, and as an example of a shield type about which little is known. [13] According to Thomas, "the shield in the British Museum is, irrespective of its specific provenance, certainly a rare, early example and undoubtedly a highly significant expression of the heritage of the particular Aboriginal groups concerned." [12] Shayne Williams states that the "shield…would have strong meaning for Aboriginal people right across the country, and Torres Strait Islander people as well". [14]
The Kamay Botany Bay National Park is a heritage-listed protected national park that is located in the eastern part of Botany Bay in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The 456-hectare (1,130-acre) national park is situated approximately 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) south-east of the Sydney central business district, on the northern and southern headlands of Botany Bay. The northern headland is at La Perouse and the southern headland is at Kurnell.
La Perouse is a suburb in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. The suburb of La Perouse is located about 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) southeast of the Sydney central business district, in the City of Randwick.
Pemulwuy was a Bidjigal warrior of the Dharug, an Aboriginal Australian people from New South Wales. One of the most famous Aboriginal resistance fighters in the colonial era, he is noted for his resistance to British colonisation which began with the arrival of the First Fleet in January 1788.
Botany Bay is an open oceanic embayment, located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 13 km (8 mi) south of the Sydney central business district. Its source is the confluence of the Georges River at Taren Point and San Souci as well as the Cooks River at Kyeemagh, which flows 10 km (6 mi) to the east before meeting its mouth at the Tasman Sea, midpoint between the suburbs of La Perouse and Kurnell. The northern headland of the entrance to the bay from the Tasman Sea is Cape Banks, and, on the southern side, the outer headland is Cape Solander, and the inner headland is Sutherland Point.
Kurnell is a suburb in Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is 21.4 kilometres (13.3 mi) south of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the Sutherland Shire along the east coast. Cronulla and Woolooware are the only adjacent suburbs. La Perouse is located opposite, on the northern headland of Botany Bay. The Cronulla sand dunes are on the south eastern headland of Botany Bay. The eastern side of the peninsula is part of Botany Bay National Park, and Towra Point Nature Reserve is located on the western side of the suburb.
A scarred tree or scar tree, also known as a canoe tree and shield tree, is a tree which has had bark removed by Aboriginal Australians for the creation of bark canoes, shelters, weapons such as shields, tools, traps, containers or other artefacts. Carved trees are created as a form of artistic and spiritual expression by some Aboriginal peoples, to mark sites of significance such as burial sites.
Australian Aboriginal artefacts include a variety of cultural artefacts used by Aboriginal Australians. Most Aboriginal artefacts were multi-purpose and could be used for a variety of different occupations. Spears, clubs, boomerangs and shields were used generally as weapons for hunting and in warfare. Watercraft technology artefacts in the form of dugout and bark canoes were used for transport and for fishing. Stone artefacts include cutting tools and grinding stones to hunt and make food. Coolamons and carriers such as dillybags, allowed Aboriginal peoples to carry water, food and cradle babies. Message sticks were used for communication, and ornamental artefacts for decorative and ceremonial purposes. Aboriginal children’s toys were used to both entertain and educate.
Bare Island is a heritage-listed islet located at La Perouse, New South Wales in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney in eastern Australia. The islet is located about 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) south east of the Sydney central business district, within Botany Bay, close to the bay's northern headland. Containing former fortification facilities, Bare Island was a former war veterans' home and museum and is now a historic site that was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999 and is significant as an almost completely intact example of late nineteenth century coastal defence technology. It was designed by Sir Peter Scratchley, Gustave Morell and James Barnet and built from 1881 to 1889 by John McLeod on behalf of the NSW Department of Public Works.
The Tharawal people and other variants, are an Aboriginal Australian people, identified by the Yuin language. Traditionally, they lived as hunter–fisher–gatherers in family groups or clans with ties of kinship, scattered along the coastal area of what is now the Sydney basin in New South Wales.
Herman Diedrich Spöring Jr. (1733–1771) was a Finnish explorer, draughtsman, botanist and a naturalist.
The Bidjigal people are an Aboriginal Australian people whose traditional lands are modern-day western, north-western, south-eastern, and southern Sydney, in New South Wales, Australia. The land includes the Bidjigal Reserve, Salt Pan Creek and the Georges River. They are part of the Dharug language group.
The Gweagal are a clan of the Dharawal people of Aboriginal Australians. Their descendants are traditional custodians of the southern areas of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
The Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, also known as MAA, at the University of Cambridge houses the university's collections of local antiquities, together with archaeological and ethnographic artefacts from around the world. The museum is located on the university's Downing Site, on the corner of Downing Street and Tennis Court Road. In 2013 it reopened following a major refurbishment of the exhibition galleries, with a new public entrance directly on to Downing Street.
The first voyage of James Cook was a combined Royal Navy and Royal Society expedition to the south Pacific Ocean aboard HMS Endeavour, from 1768 to 1771. It was the first of three Pacific voyages of which James Cook was the commander. The aims of this first expedition were to observe the 1769 transit of Venus across the Sun, and to seek evidence of the postulated Terra Australis Incognita or "undiscovered southern land".
Nicholas Jeremy Thomas is an Australian-born anthropologist, Professor of Historical Anthropology, and Director, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge since 2006, and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge since 2007.
The Cronulla sand dunes, also known officially as the Cronulla Sand Dune and Wanda Beach Coastal Landscape, are an open space, heritage-listed nature conservation, and visitor attraction located south of Sydney on the Kurnell Peninsula at Lindum Road, Kurnell, New South Wales. Formerly, it was a site for sand mining, film making, and had use as pastoral property. It is also known as part of Kurnell Peninsula Headland and Cronulla Sand Hill. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 26 September 2003.
Lissant Mary Bolton is an Australian anthropologist and the Keeper of the Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas at the British Museum. She is particularly known for her work on Vanuatu, textiles, and museums and indigenous communities.
Emma Timbery was a Mulgoa Aboriginal Australian shellworker and matriarch. She was also known as the "Queen of the Illawarra", "Queen of La Perouse" or "Granny Timbery." Her shellwork became part of a family tradition that continues to the present day. Timbery was also a Christian convert and active in the Christian Endeavor Society in La Perouse. Timbery also acted as a cultural informant about her language, Dharawal.
Silver Beach is a 2.8 km (1.7 mi) long west-trending sand spit in Kurnell, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia that is located 18 km (11 mi) south of the Sydney CBD. Situated on the northwestern reaches of the Kurnell Peninsula and linked with the sandstone of Sutherland Point in the east, the beach is characterised by silver-coloured sands, hence the name, and fourteen rockwall groynes which project into Botany Bay.
Cooman was a Gweagal man identified by some of his descendants as the warrior who was shot and wounded by James Cook's landing party at Kamay in 1770. He was previously unnamed in historical documents, and his identity has been disputed within the local Aboriginal community. Little is known of Cooman's life apart from his possible involvement in this incident.