Initially he had good relations with the white administration and distributed goods and rations received as compensation for the use of land by settlers. As the white setllers increasingly encroached on traditional lands and threatened the Noongar way of life he fought back.
Yagan's first recorded act of open rebellion was the June 1833 spearing of a servant and the destruction of a mud brick home in reprisal for the shooting of an un-named Noongar man who had been stealing from a settler's garden. Following this a number of other attacks on settlers occurred throughout the Swan area leading to his arrest. After being imprisoned on Carnac Island, Yagan escaped to the mainland.
On July 11 1833, two teenage brothers named William and James Keats discovered Yagan and his brothers and suggested that they join them in hunting kangaroo. When the Keats pair found an opportunity, Yagan and his brothers were shot and killed. Yagan's head was removed and placed in the wedge of a smoking tree in order to preserve it.
The head was eventually taken to England and until 1964 was on display at the Royal Institute in Liverpool but was eventually buried in Everton cemetery.
In 1990 a request by the Western Australian Noongar community was put to the British Government to exhume the head. Permission was finally granted and 164 years after it was sent to England, Yagan's head was brought back to Australia for burial according to Noongar custom.
The battle over his memory continues as unlonown persons have repeatedly beheaded a statue erected in his honour at Heirrison Island in Perth.