Governor Arthur Phillip and the Eora [HD] Saturday Extra, ABC RN

abc.net.au/rn/s... The year 2014 marks the bicentenary of Arthur Phillip’s death, the commander of the first fleet, first governor of New South Wales and one of the founders of modern Australia.
What remains contested history however is the precise nature of race relations in those early years.
Most of us know that Arthur Phillip had a close relationship with the Aboriginal man Bennelong who he initially kidnapped in order to learn the local customs and language. But over time such a close bond was formed between the men that Phillip built a house for Bennelong and later invited him back to England.
So was Phillip’s relationship with Bennelong indicative of the responses of the early settlers to the indigenous people?
And did his approach set a template for the following two centuries of cross cultural relations?