After the early meetings, dancing, and musket demonstrations, the Eora avoided the settlement in Sydney Cove for the first year, but they warned and then attacked whenever colonists trespassed on their lands away from the settlement.[73] Part of Phillip’s early plan for peaceful cohabitation had been to persuade some Eora, preferably a family, to come and live in the town with the British so that the colonists could learn about the Eora’s language, beliefs, and customs.[74]

By the end of the first year, as none of the Eora had come to live in the settlement, Phillip decided on a more ruthless strategy, and ordered the capture of some Eora warriors. The man who was captured was Arabanoo, from whom Phillip and his officers started to learn language and customs. Arabanoo died in April 1789 of smallpox, which also ravaged the rest of the Eora population.[75] Phillip again ordered the boats to Manly Cove, where two more warriors were captured, Coleby and Bennelong; Coleby soon escaped, but Bennelong remained.[39][75] Bennelong and Phillip formed a kind of friendship, before he too escaped.[75]

Four months after Bennelong escaped from Sydney, Phillip was invited to a whale feast at Manly. Bennelong greeted him in a friendly and jovial way. Phillip was suddenly surrounded by warriors and speared in the shoulder by a man called Willemering. He ordered his men not to retaliate.[76][77] Phillip, perhaps realising that the spearing was in retaliation for the kidnapping, ordered no actions to be taken over it. Friendly relations were reestablished afterwards, with Bennelong even returning to Sydney with his family.