Jackey Jackey


Jackey Jackey is the name by which Galmahra, the Aboriginal Australian guide and companion to surveyor Edmund Kennedy was known. He survived Edmund Kennedy's fatal 1848 expedition into Cape York Peninsula and was subsequently formally recognized for heroic deeds by the then colony of New South Wales in words engraved on a solid silver breastplate or gorget which read as follows:
The name "Jackey Jackey" since entered general Australian plus Aboriginal Australian slang

"For whites it was a generic dismissive, denying blacks their individuality and hence their dignity. To blacks it meant a collaborator, the subservient native complicit in his own people's dispossession.

Biographical details

As a young man, Galmahra seems to have grown up and lived at Jerrys Plains near Muswellbrook, New South Wales, most likely as a member of the local Australian Aboriginal nation: the Wonnarua.
In April 1848, still a young man, Galmahra was asked to accompany and help guide Assistant Surveyor Edmund Kennedy and team on an expedition through unknown country heading up into Cape York Peninsula. On that expedition Galmahra proved his value and turned out to be a loyal and resilient member of the expedition upon whom Edmund Kennedy increasingly relied until he died, speared by Yadhaykenu people in the northern Peninsula area, somewhere near the Escape River.
Following an inquiry into Edmund Kennedy and other expedition members deaths, Galmahra became more generally known to the colony of New South Wales as Jackey Jackey: an Aboriginal Australian to be honored for his loyalty, heroic deeds, and general assistance to the expedition. By March 1849 a lithographic portrait of 'Jackey Jackey' had been produced for sale, and by the beginning of 1851 the Governor of New South Wales had presented him with a specially made, pure silver breastplate plus a £50 bank account gratuity.
Galmahra never wore the breastplate, never accessed the £50 bank account, and did not seem to have otherwise been fully engaged or employed by the colony. Instead he gained a reputation for enjoying his alcohol and, in 1854, after drinking too much during an overland journey to Albury, New South Wales, fell into a campfire and died.

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