Windradyne

Windradyne ( 1800 – 21 March 1829) was an Aboriginal warrior and resistance leader of the Wiradjuri nation, in what is now central-western New South Wales, Australia; he was also known to the British settlers as Saturday. Windradyne led his people in the Bathurst War, a frontier war between his clan and British settlers.

Description Although only limited information about Windradyne is available, mainly from the contemporary British accounts, it is possible to put together an approximate description of the man.

Windradyne's date of birth is unknown, but on his death in 1829 his obituary in The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser—thought to be by his settler friend George Suttor from Brucedale Station north of Bathurst—stated "His age did not, I think, exceed 30 years", However, Coe's description does not fully correlate with a drawing of a Wiradjuri warrior that is thought to depict Windradyne.

When Windradyne visited Parramatta to meet with Governor Thomas Brisbane in December 1824, the Sydney Gazette (using the British appellation for him of Saturday) wrote that:

At the same event, another observer wrote that he was "a very fine figure, very muscular ... a good model for the figure of Apollo". While the early confrontations generally involved few combatants and were relatively rare, as the British population increased and spread further out from Sydney, they came into contact with increasingly large numbers of Aboriginal people of different tribes and nations, and the frequency and intensity of the conflicts increased. These conflicts would come to be known as the Australian frontier wars.

For the first twenty-five years of British settlement, the Wiradjuri's land in the central part of New South Wales remained isolated from the settlers due to the intervening barrier of the Blue Mountains. In May 1813 the exploration party of Blaxland, Lawson, and Wentworth found a route across the mountains, essentially by following existing Aboriginal trails. Macquarie himself travelled the new road shortly thereafter, and on 7 May 1815 selected the site for the town of Bathurst, thereby opening the region for British settlement.

First contact There is evidence that the early encounters between the Wiradjuri and the British were quite affable. The first recorded meeting with them was by the surveyor Evans in December 1813 on the Macquarie River about from present day Bathurst. Evans wrote in his journal:

Macquarie himself met with some members of the Wiradjuri camped at what would become Bathurst on his trip in 1815, making a positive report about their skills and nature, concluding with "They appear to be very inoffensive and cleanly in their persons", a quite positive assessment for the time. Macquarie's aide, Major Antill, also remarked positively of the Wiradjuri, writing in his journal "They appear to be a harmless and inoffensive race, with nothing forbidding or ferocious in their countenance ... They were perfectly mild and cheerful, and laugh at everything they see and repeat everything they hear".

Macquarie then spent a week touring the surrounding area, meeting with a number of the other indigenous inhabitants. On 10 May he wrote:

Following Windradyne's release hostilities continued to escalate, and some particularly violent incidents are reported from May 1824. The murder of Wiradjuri people by settlers, including women and children, is recorded from this time,

Windradyne reportedly stayed at Parramatta for some time after the conference, before returning to Bathurst, and did not attend the feast the following year. Reports from later years occasionally implicated him in raids on crops and altercations with settlers around Lake George. With little substantial evidence, however, these may have simply been vexatious claims against the "notorious Saturday",

It concluded with a Latin quotation from Terence, Homo sum, humani nihil a me alicuum puto, meaning "I am a man, I consider nothing human as alien to me". An editorial comment added: "This quotation from the Roman dramatist contains a fine sentiment for those persons who think no more of man in a state of nature than they do of a wild animal". It is likely that the second account is the more accurate, as the grave site recognised as Windradyne's is indeed on Brucedale;

In 2008 Windradyne's story was featured in the first episode of the award-winning seven-part SBS documentary series First Australians. He is the subject of the song of that name, released by Troy Cassar-Daley on his album "Between the Fires."