British victory Kingdom of Great Britain (1795–1800) United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1801–16) Indigenous clans: Total Casualties: ~300 ('conservative estimate')[2] Dead: at least 80 confirmed Dead: 80 confirmed (many likely went unrecorded)[2] Tedbury's War Nepean War The Hawkesbury and Nepean Wars (1794–1816) were a series of conflicts where British forces, including armed settlers and detachments of the British Army in Australia, fought against Indigenous clans inhabiting the Hawkesbury River region and the surrounding areas to the west of Sydney.

[3] The local Darug people raided farms and murdered settlers until Governor Macquarie dispatched troops from the 46th Regiment of Foot in 1816.

These attacks led Governor Philip Gidley King to issue an order in 1801 which authorized settlers to shoot Indigenous Australians on sight in Parramatta, Georges River and Prospect areas.

[6] With the expansion of European settlement, large amounts of land was cleared for farming, which resulted in the destruction of Aboriginal food sources.

This, combined with the introduction of new diseases such as smallpox, caused resentment within the Aboriginal clans against the settlers and resulted in violent confrontations, coordinated by men such as Pemulwuy.

The Dharug people, however, were the largest dialect of the Sydney region and consisted of the Wangal, Kurrajong, Boorooberongal, Cattai, Bidjigal, Gommerigal, Mulgoa, Cannemegal, Bool-bain-ora, Cabrigal, Muringong and the Dural clans.

At the time it was used as a penal colony to which criminals and political dissidents were sent as punishment, however, a small number of free settlers also took up land.

An officer with a detachment of marines quickly rushed to their aid, however they were too late to repel the natives which left one convict dead and seven severely wounded.

[11] On 7 September 1790, upon hearing news of a gathering of natives at South-head near Broken Bay, Governor Phillip and three others made their way towards the reported happenings.

Gifts were traded between them and continued for more than half an hour until a native armed with a spear came forward and stopped at a distance of twenty to thirty yards from the party.

Watkin Tench reports in his journal that Phillip took out his dirk (dagger) and threw it on the ground to show he meant no harm but the aboriginal man was frightened by the noise of this action.

[13] An irate Governor Phillip ordered Lieutenant Tench to gather his company of marines and lead an expedition against the Bidjigal in retaliation for Pemulwuy's attack on McIntyre.

Tench swiftly suggested an alternative and less bloodthirsty plan, that six Bidjigal be captured and brought to Sydney Cove but that none be killed out of hand.

The expedition was the largest military operation since the founding of the colony, comprising Tench, Lieutenants William Dawes and John Poulden, and 46 marines.

Tench unwisely decided to march at night in the hope of surprising the Bidjigal in their camp, and at sunset his company forded the Cooks River and continued south towards Wolli Creek.

After a few hours rest on the riverbank Tench abandoned the expedition, and the bedraggled marines again made their way back to Sydney Cove.

[14] The expeditions having failed, it was decided to instead avenge McIntyre by strictly punishing any Aboriginal considered to have transgressed against the settlement's laws.

The governor made orders to capture six Aborigines that were living near the Botany Bay heads, stating that if it was not possible to take them alive, then they were to be killed.

The goal of the military expedition, according to the governor, was "to convince them of...[British]...superiority and to infuse an universal terror, which might operate to prevent farther mischief".

A sergeant and a party of soldiers pursued them and after overtaking them, a brief skirmish occurred which left one native man, Bangai, mortally wounded and resulted in three others being captured.

In 1799, several high-profile and responsible Hawkesbury settlers, under oath gave assessments that were similar to those above tallied from existing sources.

An attack on the William and Mary at Pittwater was thwarted and two salt boilers thought killed were escorted back to Sydney by Aboriginal people.

[37] William Reardon, the first to die in February 1814, appears to have been speared in mistake for another man who accused some Aboriginal men of destroying his vegetable garden on Cox's Fernhill estate at Mulgoa.

Wallah, the leader of these warriors also spared the life of the girl's brother because their mother Mrs Byrnes had given food to Aboriginal people.

Hannibal Macarthur wrote to his uncle in mid May telling him that Aboriginal warriors had killed a man and woman on their Cowpasture farm and that escaped convicts were involved in the attacks.

Despite the lack of orders regarding decapitation, the skull of Carnimbeigle ended up in the hands of the Edinburgh phrenologist, Sir George Mackenzie.

[50] Many years after the killings William Byrne wrote that the bodies of sixteen Aboriginal people were decapitated and the soldiers were rewarded for their actions.

[51] Governor Macquarie's May 1816 Proclamation ordered magistrates and troops at Sydney, Parramatta and Windsor to support settlers in driving off hostile Aboriginal people.

[56] In September 1816 Magistrate William Cox outlined his plan to Governor Macquarie to put five parties of soldiers, settlers and guides into the field to scour the Grose, Hawkesbury and Nepean Rivers.

[63] In 1834, John Dunmore Lang wrote: "There is black blood at this moment on the hands of individuals of good repute in the colony of New South Wales of which all the waters of New Holland would be insufficient to wash out the indelible stains.