Initially they continued to show themselves hospitable to the newcomers, but gradually relations soured over frictions arising from possession of indigenous women, some of whom, according to Nunukul oral history traditions, suffered abduction.
William Reardon, convict hutkeeper, known to the Nunukul by the sobriquet of Chooroong is said to have lured a tribal elder out on a fishing expedition, and, once the crew had killed him, to have cut off his head.
On the 25 November of that year Reardon was surprised near his hut at Pyrrnn-Pyrrnn-Pa (the little sandhill), entangled in towrows (fishing nets) and beaten to death with waddies.
[9] In 1837, a tall (6 foot 2) 17 year-old Nunukul, subsequently named Toggery, and a kipper or adolescent initiand called Peermudgeon stowed away on Captain F. Fyan's schooner as it left Amity Point bound for Sydney.
Fyan himself had a brass crescent made for his Nunukul stowaway, with inscribed images of a kangaroo and emum together with Toggery's name.
[b] In an expedition to recapture runaway convicts, which was led by Chief Constable McIntosh, he was wounded on landing and two of his men, a Charles Holdsworth and James O'Regan, were captured.
It is estimated that as a result of the escalation in fighting between the islanders and the British military units over the period between July 1831 and December 1832 something like thirty and forty Ngugi and Nunukal died or were wounded.
Since the island has been inhabited for over 50,000 years, it has been suggested that what Fairholme recounted may be 'an oral history link to the most ancient of human-cetacean interactions with a positive outcome for both.