#SerenityInOz— a quiz about Australian stuff— Tuesday 17 Mar, 2026
(Please boost for reach, and try to CW your answers)
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what’s my name?
I was born in cheshire around 1776
i fell in with a bad lot, and was convicted in 1802 of knowingly receiving a roll of stolen cloth
i was set up, you know
in 1803 i was transported to the Port Phillip penal settlement at Sullivan Bay (near Sorrento)
the settlement didn’t last long, but i managed to abscond with 5 others during a storm
long story short, i ended up spending more than 30 years living on and off with the Wallarranga tribe of the Wathaurong nation.
i managed to avoid interacting with white settlers until i learned, in 1835, of a plan to rob an English ship near Indented Head, and possibly murder the occupants.
Some Indigenous friends and I then visited the camp site of John Batman’s Port Phillip Association
it would take a while for me to remember how to speak English
I was still legally a convict, but in exchange for preventing the raid on the ship, and acting as interpreter, a pardon was organised by one of John Batman’s men.
As i was barely literate, my life story was eventually written by someone else.
It was an age when there was a flourishing market in stories of colonial adventure, especially stories involving Indigenous people. They didn’t have to be true.
Tim Flannery reckons my story has been "ignored or mentioned only in passing by historians" because it is "so at odds with contemporary preconceptions”.
What were the odds i could abscond from a penal settlement and survive at all, let alone 30 years?
my name has become synonymous in australia with someone who doesn’t have a chance.