Colebee and fellow Dharug man Nurragingy received land grants in recognition of their assistance in guiding British military forces in punitive expeditions against insurgent Gandangara and Darkinjung people in 1816.
In 1816, during a period of heightened conflict between local Aboriginal people and the British colonists in the Hawkesbury and Nepean Wars, Governor Lachlan Macquarie employed several Indigenous men to act as guides for the military to track down and 'inflict exemplary and severe punishments on the mountain tribes' who had been raiding farms along the Hawkesbury and Nepean rivers.
[3][2] In May, Colebee and Nurragingy were again called up to be guides for the British military, this time under Sergeant Robert Broadfoot leading 16 soldiers on a punitive expedition to capture or kill Gandangara people in the Warragamba River area.
[3][2] In September, Colebee was assigned to another punitive expedition, this time organised by the prominent colonist and ex-soldier William Cox, to track down and 'utterly destroy' ten Aboriginal outlaws believed to have been hiding out around the Grose River.
The court awarded the land to Lock, a historically famous figure in Australia for being the first Aboriginal person to legally marry a white man, a British convict.
It was only when this family was decimated by a series of diseases and epidemics that they were no longer able to meet their obligations, so Blacktown Council took over the payments and probably bought the area after the Second World War.