Phillip arrived under orders to conciliate Aboriginal communities, live in amity with them, and punish unprovoked violence against them. When friendly contact failed to produce the close relationship he wanted, he ordered the capture of Eora men so the colonists could learn their language and customs. Arabanoo died of smallpox in 1789 as the disease devastated the local population. After further captures, Phillip was speared in the shoulder and ordered his soldiers not to fire, apparently treating the attack as retaliation for the kidnappings rather than an attempt to kill him. Friendly relationships later developed with some Eora people, and two Aboriginal men traveled to Britain with Phillip, including one of the men previously captured. Those later relationships remained inseparable from their coercive beginnings and the losses caused by epidemic disease.
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Phillip's contradictory relations with the Eora
Instructions to seek amity coexisted with coercive kidnappings, epidemic disease, violence, restraint, and personal relationships between Phillip and Eora men.