The ideological concoction of history
*****
Pemulwuy: Coward, Thief, Killer
Robert Hill, Quadrant, Aug 07 2026
No Aboriginal figure has acquired greater symbolic importance in the modern construction of the “Frontier Wars” than Pemulwuy, and no episode associated with him has been more heavily mythologised than the confrontation now called the “Battle of Parramatta” in 1797. The elevation of a brief, unattributed colonial account into a major military engagement has supplied the emerging frontier-war narrative with both a commanding hero and a foundational battle.
The modern Pemulwuy is not merely the product of generous interpretation. He has been constructed through the cumulative enlargement of fragmentary, unattributed and often much later accounts. Hearsay became fact. Raiding became warfare. A clash became a battle. A notorious local outlaw became the commander of a resistance movement.
A short article cannot examine every contradiction and embellishment within that transformation. It can, however, expose its essential structure. The contemporary evidence does not securely establish Pemulwuy as the commander of an Aboriginal army, the leader of a regional political coalition or the architect of a sustained military campaign. Even the killing most strongly associated with him rests upon an identification that is plausible rather than conclusive.