One individual, Pemulwuy (Pim-el-wi)^[26] has been recorded as a leader of the Bidjigal^[27] people of Botany Bay and the Georges River, and a leader the Eora wars of 1790 to 1802. Another felon wanted by the British during this same period was Musquito of the Hawkesbury clans who was captured and exiled to Norfolk Island in July 1805 for raids on settlers’ properties in the Hawkesbury and Georges River districts. Later he gained notoriety for his alleged leadership of the wild Oyster Bay tribe in Tasmania.^[28]

Both Pemulwuy and Musquito were seen by the colonialists to be Aboriginal leaders. It is debatable whether their leadership in guerrilla warfare legitimately arose from a clan Elder consultative process. Rather their leadership may have been the result of their personal aspirations. Or perhaps they became military leaders out of the desperate necessity to survive following the destruction of Eora society after the 1789 smallpox epidemic? Were these men forced to take on a transgressive role and become leaders in a manner which went against their societal values, bearing in mind that their constructs of law and land management were also destroyed through the colony’s greed for land? Perhaps an answer is to be found in the rise in 1824 of another Indigenous guerrilla fighter, Windradyne, discussed below.^[29] First I will look at a contrast to Pemulwuy and Musquito, a non-military leader, Bungaree, who was the first proclaimed Aboriginal ‘chief’.