First Aboriginal Feast Day at Parramatta
28 December 1814

On Wednesday HIS EXCELLENCY the Governor went to Parramatta, for the purpose of seeing and confering with the Natives, agreeably to the benevolent design intimated in the General Orders of the 10th instant. At one o'clock HIS EXCELLENCY, accompanied the LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR, and a number of Officers Civil and Military, went to the Market-place, where the interview had been appointed to be held, and conversed with them for an hour, pointing out in an affable and familiar way the advantages they would necessarily derive from a change of manners, and an application to moderate industry. The whole number assembled, of all ages and sexes, did not exceed sixty, owing, as it was conjectured, to some false impressions which the more distant tribes had given way to, relative to the design of the convocation, suspiciously imagining that they were to be forcibly deprived of their children & themselves sent to labour. Those who did attend gave information that numbers were in the neighbourhood, but unwilling to come forward, owing to their doubts, which they had in vain endeavoured to appease and satisfy. —

After a length of conversation, three children were yielded up to the benevolent purposes of the institution; and after HIS EXCELLENCY, His Honor the LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR, and the accompanying Officers had bestowed every possible pains in producing a confidence necessary to the proposed ends, the natives were seated in a circle, and served with a fine dinner of roast beef, and a cheering jug of ale. At two o'clock HIS EXCELLENCY took leave of them, and returned to Sydney, accompanied by Mrs. MACQUARIE. During the afternoon their number increased, and the strangers were welcomed by Mr. Shelly, who continued the same hospitable treatment to all that arrived, from the remaining stock, which had been provided for a much greater number. Another child has since been offered, without solicitation or persuasion, and added to the list of candidates for civilization. That the proposed number will very shortly be obtained there can be no reason to doubt; while on the other hand it may readily be believed, that in the course of a very few months that number might, if required, be very considerably increased. The house preparing for their reception is near the Church of Parramatta, and will be inclosed [sic] only by a paling; one good effect of which will be, that they will be frequently in the view perhaps of their parents, as well as other persons; and when those become eye witnesses of the benefits accruing to their children from the change, it cannot be doubted they will feel thankful to the beneficence that projected and accomplished it. The plan that has been adopted must appear the best suited to the ends proposed. At a tender age it affords to the children an asylum against the distressing wants they feel, more especially in June, July and August, when the weather is cold, the woods afford them little or no food, and they become a prey to many loathsome diseases which poverty entails upon the human frame. The kangaroo has almost disappeared about the Settlements; the opossum, long substituted as their chief dependence, has at length become as scarce; the roots of the earth are by nature too sparingly administered to constitute anything like a dependence to them; and the tribes of each district dare not incroach [sic] upon any other, In the summer those of the coast subsist by fishing; but in the winter, only for the occasional aid they derive from us, their situation would be equally miserable: -And whence have those evils originated, but in the clearing of the immense forests which formerly abounded in the wild animals they lived upon? This admission certainly gives them a claim upon the consideration of the British Settler; and we cannot imagine for a moment, that any one who bears that character will withhold any means that may fall within his power of forwarding the benevolent views of the Native Institution.

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Provenance
Sydney Gazette 31 December 1814 p.2a.

Context
The first meeting convened by Macquarie at Parramatta with the tribes of the Cumberland Plain took place on 28 December 1814. The purpose of the meeting was to provide a public celebration between Europeans and Indigenous tribesmen and to launch the establishment of the Native Institution at Parramatta for the education of Indigenous children. The next meeting was held on 28 December 1816, and thereafter continued as an annual feast day on this same day until 1835. [see: Aboriginal Feast Day 28 December 1816]

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