What meetings did Matthew Flinders have with the Aborigines?

Answer 1

Matthew Flinders had several encounters with Aborigines while charting and exploring Port Phillip Bay. These encounters revealed that the Aborigines were as interested in him as he was in them, and that the Port Phillip Bay Aborigines were unfamiliar with firearms, showing no concern about them. At no time did Flinders feel threatened by the Aborigines.

Flinders had an Aboriginal friend from Broken Bay, named Bongaree, who travelled with him when he briefly explored north of Port Jackson. Bongaree also travelled with Flinders aboard the Investigator during Flinders' circumnavigation of Australia.

When in Tasmania, Bass and Flinders both encountered the Aborigines. Contrary to reports from later Europeans, the Tasmanian Aborigines were very friendly and peaceable.

There were some occasions when Flinders' encounters with the Aborigines were not so friendly. One time Flinders seemed to have difficulty with the Aborigines was when he, Bass and their ship's boy, William Martin, met with the Aborigines at present-day Port Kembla. There was some tension as they were approached by a war-like party, but the situation calmed when Flinders decided to amuse the Aborigines by using scissors to cut their hair.

On another occasion, when Flinders was charting the Gulf of Carpentaria in present-day far north Queensland, a fight with the local Aborigines left one of his crew dead. And as testimony to another incident, Skirmish Point on the southwestern side of Southeast Queensland's Bribie island is so named because of a skirmish with the local Aborigines there.