About Aboriginal Lands
Written by Graham Wilson
ABORIGINAL LANDS
Australian Theme - peopling Australia.
NSW Theme - Aboriginal cultures and interactions with other cultures.
Local Themes - Place name, trade route, massacre site, pastoral workers site, timber milling settlement, town reserve, places of reconciliation.
Australian Theme - building settlements, towns and cities.
NSW Theme - land tenure.
Local Themes - activities and processes for identifying forms of ownership and occupancy of land and water, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal.
Fence, survey mark, subdivision pattern, boundary hedge, rock engravings, shelters and habitation sites.
Much of the newly formed Gwydir Shire lies within the lands of the Kamilaroi nation. The lands were so extensive that the Kamilaroi was one of the largest and most influential cultural groups in Aboriginal Australia. Based on Tindale, Ferry describes the extensive lands of the people that stretched from the Upper Hunter Valley along the western escarpment of the Moonbi and Nandewar Ranges as far as the upper reaches of the Gwydir River, along the Gwydir to about where Moree is today. Then a rough boundary could be drawn to Walgett, down to the Warrumbungle Ranges and back to the Liverpool Ranges and Upper Hunter Valley. Other Aboriginal groups in the district identified by historian Elizabeth Wiedemann include:
The Jukambal (Yookumbul, Eucambal)- Pindara, Bukulla, Inverell, almost to Bingara, almost to Bundara, almost to Tingha.
Bigambul (Pikumbul)- Bonshaw, Wallangra, Yetman, extending into Southern Queensland (Darling Downs) and continuing down the Macintrye to Goondiwindi and Welltown.
Weraerai- west of the Macintyre River, from Inverell almost to Wallangra, almost to Bingara, including Warialda and Delungra and the north side of the Gwydir from Bingara to Moree.
It is difficult to calculate early numbers of Aboriginal people in the area because of conflicting evidence. Greenway estimates that the Kamilaroi was an extensive group on the western slopes from the Liverpool Plains to the Gwydir, numbering between 6,000 and 7,000.
It is not the purpose of this study to examine in detail the relationships between the local Aboriginal peoples and the arrival of pastoral settlers in increasing numbers from the 1830s. Conflict was inevitable as Aborigines were displaced from their ancestral land and stock became a food source for local Aborigines. Retaliation took place from both sides resulting in the horrific massacre that took place on Myall Creek Station on 18 December 1838. The perpetrators were tried and seven of the twelve involved were executed. For the first time, the colonial government executed Europeans for the part that they had played in the killing of Aboriginal people.
A detailed history of the massacre and the establishment of the Myall Creek Massacre Memorial is available in the publication by Roger Millis, Waterloo Creek. Particular attention is drawn to a small booklet The Myall Creek Massacre. Its History, Its Memorial and the Opening Ceremony, published by the Myall Creek Memorial Committee in 2001.