Jackey Jackey

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Aboriginal Australian guide and surveyor companion

title: "Jackey Jackey" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["explorers-of-australia", "1830s-births", "1854-deaths", "history-of-australia-(1788–1850)", "indigenous-australian-guides"] description: "Aboriginal Australian guide and surveyor companion" topic_path: "history" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackey_Jackey" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Aboriginal Australian guide and surveyor companion ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox person"]

FieldValue
nameJackey Jackey
imageJackeyJackeyMedallionDrawing.jpg
captionWood engraving (Walter G. Mason, 1857) of the solid silver breastplate made for Jackey Jackey in recognition of his heroic deeds (shaped to include swans and a fox)
birth_dateapprox 1833
birth_placeMuswellbrook
death_date1854 (Aged 21)
resting_place_coordinates
nationalityWonnarua
citizenshipBritish
other_namesGalmahra
known_forHeroic deeds as guide and companion for surveyor Edmund Kennedy
employerSurveyor-General's Department
State of New South Wales
occupationGuide
websitehttps://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/jackey-jackey-2264
::

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Jackey Jackey (also spelt Jacky Jacky) (c. 1833–1854), Aboriginal name Galmahra (or Galmarra), was the Aboriginal Australian guide and companion to surveyor Edmund Kennedy. He survived Kennedy's fatal 1848 expedition into Cape York Peninsula (in present-day Queensland) and was subsequently formally recognised for heroic deeds by the Colony of New South Wales in words engraved on a solid silver breastplate or gorget, which read as follows:

::quote Presented by His Excellency Sir Charles Augustus FitzRoy K.D. Governor of New South Wales, to Jackey Jackey, an Aboriginal native of that colony. In testimony of the fidelity with which he followed the late Assistant Surveyor E.B.C. Kennedy, throughout the exploration of York Peninsula in the year 1848; the noble daring with which he supported that lamented gentleman, when mortally wounded by the Natives of Escape River, the courage with which after having affectionately tended the last moments of his Master, he made his way through hostile Tribes and an unknown Country, to Cape York; and finally the unexampled sagacity with which he conducted the succour that there awaited the Expedition to the rescue of the other survivors of it, who had been left at Shelbourne Bay. ::

In the 1970s Australian school textbooks, such as Margaret Paice's Jackey Jackey, were published recording Jackey Jackey's life and achievements:

::quote To the people of his tribe he was Galmarra, the Songman; to the men of the ill-fated Kennedy expedition he was Jackey Jackey, the young Aborigine. This slightly built teenager was to be their strength as they faced the mangrove swamps and tropical jungles. ::

The name "Jackey Jackey" since entered general Australian and Aboriginal Australian slang:

::quote 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 (including botanist William Carron) on an expedition through unknown country heading up into Cape York Peninsula. On that expedition Galmahra proved his value (including bush skills) 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 (a.k.a. Jathaikana) people in the northern Peninsula area (December 1848), 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 honoured 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 (see above) 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.

Online newspaper articles

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/St_James'_Church,_Sydney_23.JPG" caption="A memorial to Kennedy and Jackey Jackey on the wall of St James' Church, Sydney"] ::

Places named after Jackey Jackey

References

References

  1. "Medal given by Sir C. Fitzroy to Jackey Jackey, native servant to the explorer Mr Kennedy".
  2. Maloney, Shane. (April 2008). "Jackey Jackey & the Yadhaykenu". [[The Monthly]].
  3. {{cite QPN. 17002. Jacky Jacky Creek
  4. Blyton, Greg. (2004). "Wannin thanbarran : a history of Aboriginal and European contact in Muswellbrook and the Upper Hunter Valley". Muswellbrook Shire Council Aboriginal Reconciliation Committee.
  5. "Heroic Acts". [[National Museum of Australia]].
  6. Margaret Paice, [https://search.worldcat.org/title/3629513 Jackey Jackey], Sydney: Collins, 1976 (Australians in History). Retrieved 6 July 2024.
  7. See for instance [[Michael Mansell. Mansell, Michael]] (27 August 2003) [http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/29182 The decline of the Aboriginal protest movement]: "we have to rely on Cathy Freeman, proudly holding her people's flag aloft against all protocols, to symbolise our rejection of having to be Jacky-Jacky Australians" in Green Left Weekly
  8. [https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/jackey-jackey-2264 Beale, Edgar (1967) ' Jackey Jackey ( - 1854)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 2, Melbourne University Press] Online Edition accessed 9 May 2010
  9. link. (25 July 2008 Accessed 15 May 2010)
  10. "Australian Dictionary of Biography". National Centre of Biography, Australian National University.
  11. [https://web.archive.org/web/20100604040122/http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/c/carron/william/kennedy/complete.html Carron, William (1849) "Narrative of an expedition undertaken under the direction of the late Mr. Assistant Surveyor E. B. Kennedy, for the exploration of the country lying between Rockingham Bay and Cape York;, one of the survivors of the expedition"] Accessed 8 May 2010
  12. [http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12906070?searchTerm=%22Jackey%20Jackey%22#pstart1512478 Sydney Morning Herald (7 March 1849) "Correspondence: Jackey Jackey"] Accessed 10 May 2010
  13. [http://www.printsandprintmaking.gov.au/catalogues/bibliography/184502/author-not-identified-jacky-jacky-lithographic-por.aspx Prints and printmaking Australia Asia Pacific, ''Jacky Jacky'' (lithographic portrait by Charles Rodius) online database entry] Accessed 16 May 2010
  14. [http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12923750?searchTerm=%22Jackey%20Jackey%22#pstart1510395 Sydney Morning Herald (31 December 1850) "Jackey Jackey" (regarding Silver breastplate)"] Accessed 10 May 2010
  15. {{cite QPN. 16955. Jacky Jacky Creek
  16. {{cite QPN. 17004. Jacky Jacky Range
  17. [https://www.vk5pas.com/uploads/1/3/9/8/13982788/arm-vk4.pdf Summits on the Air – ARM for Australia - Queensland (VK4)], vk5pas.com. Retrieved 6 July 2024.
  18. {{cite QPN. 16954. Jacky Jacky Airfield
  19. [https://monumentaustralia.org.au/search/display/90468-jackey-jackey- Jackey Jackey], monumentaustralia.org.au. Retrieved 6 July 2024.

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explorers-of-australia1830s-births1854-deathshistory-of-australia-(1788–1850)indigenous-australian-guides