Bungaree (1775?-1830), sometimes spelled Boongaree, was the first Aboriginal person known to circumnavigate (sail around) Australia. Aboriginal peoples are original peoples of the land that is now Australia. Bungaree contributed to the mapping of the Australian continent’s coastline.
Bungaree was born about 1775 in an area later called Broken Bay, north of what is now Sydney, Australia. He was a member of the Guringai Aboriginal peoples who had long inhabited the area. In 1788, Britain (now called the United Kingdom) established Sydney, its first settlement in Australia. Bungaree moved to Sydney in the 1790’s.
In 1798, Bungaree joined the crew of the British ship Reliance. The ship was traveling to Norfolk Island, about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) northeast of Sydney. Bungaree met the British navigator Matthew Flinders on this journey. From 1802 to 1803, Bungaree took part in an expedition led by Flinders that sailed all the way around Australia. Flinders employed Bungaree as a translator and liaison (link) between his ship’s European crew and the Aboriginal groups whom Flinders expected to encounter. The expedition mapped much of Australia’s coastline.
After Bungaree returned to Sydney, he became an important figure in the community. He was called King Bungaree by the British colonists, most of whom thought he was the leader of his Aboriginal clan.
Bungaree was known to several early colonial governors of Australia, including Lachlan Macquarie, the governor of New South Wales from 1810 to 1821. In 1815, as part of a plan to establish formal leaders of the local Aboriginal clans, Macquarie gave Bungaree a brass breastplate. The inscription (writing) on the breastplate proclaimed Bungaree the chief of the Broken Bay clan. Macquarie also gave a breastplate to Bungaree’s wife, a Guringai woman named Karoo or Carra. Among the British colonists, she was known as Cora Gooseberry, or Queen Gooseberry. Also in 1815, Bungaree received a land grant to establish a farm at Georges Head, just north of Sydney Harbour.
In 1817, Bungaree joined an expedition led by the British naval officer Phillip Parker King. As part of King’s crew, he explored the northwest coast of Australia and the island of Timor. Bungaree continued to travel on expeditions and to act as a liaison between white settlers and Aboriginal people until his death in 1830.
