1820: Escaped Convict Turns on His Captor: A Fatal Stabbing on the Road to Newcastle
Burigon, a widely respected leader among the Aboriginal people near Newcastle, had helped track down an escaped convict named John Kirby and was escorting him back to the settlement when Kirby turned on him with a knife, driving the blade into his abdomen.
The wound proved fatal. Burigon lingered for eleven days before dying on 27 October 1820, a loss felt deeply in a district where relations between Aboriginal people and the colony had been better than elsewhere in NSW districts.
