Aboriginal nations and European invasion

The Maitland landscape prior to Europeans was made up of extensive rainforest and wetlands surrounded by open forest on the flood-free land. The rainforest and wetlands provided many sources of food, fibre and medicines for the Aboriginal people but they lived on the higher lands.[1]

The Wonnarua’s lands were to the west and through the floor of the Hunter Valley. Neighbouring nations were the Gringai to the north, Worimi to the east and Awabakal to the south east. The exact boundaries are uncertain and contested. In fact, Aboriginal people did not see land as Europeans do, subdivided into privately owned parcels. Aboriginal culture was largely communal and there was little private ownership.[2]

Grinding grooves in Green Wattle Creek.

Just a few names survive relating to the Maitland region. Coquun is probably the most relevant, the name attached to the Hunter River in the Maitland area. Others are Mindaribba, and Tocal meaning bountiful, big or plentiful. The Paterson River around present-day Woodville was known as Yimmang but unfortunately this name has disappeared. As has Coquun, and indeed other place names. Few are in common use.

European invasion and settlement

There were four phases of European occupation of the Lower Hunter region, each with increasing impact on Aboriginal life and culture.

The first phase was initiated by merchant expeditions seeking timber and coal. The first recorded violent encounter occurred in April 1799.[3] Europeans explored the Hunter River estuary by way of the voyage of the Lady Nelson led by William Paterson in 1801.[4]

In the second phase, starting in 1804, convict timber-cutters from the penal settlement at Newcastle were the main form of European contact with Aboriginal people in the region. The gangs operated along the Paterson and Hunter Rivers and established camps, one at Old Banks, a few kilometres downstream from where Paterson Township now stands and another in the locality of the Harry Boyle Bridge on the Hunter River. They had little impact on areas available to Aborigines for hunting or materials but disrupted their communities through sexual relations and the introduction of European diseases.

The third phase involved settlement of a few Europeans on small blocks along the river at Patersons Plains (now the Woodville district) and Wallis Plains (between Maitland and East Maitland). Given the low number of settlers and the small areas of land involved, this probably had little additional impact on the local Aboriginal people.

The fourth phase of European invasion and settlement of the region involved large-scale alienation of land from 1822 as individual settlers were granted up to two thousand or more acres each. By 1825 most of the prime alluvial land along the lower reaches of the Hunter and Paterson Rivers had been granted to European immigrants. Rapid growth of the European population followed. This scale of settlement drastically reduced the hunting areas of the Aboriginal people, restricted their supply of game and materials, and further exposed them to European diseases against which they had little or no immunity. The disruption to Aboriginal communities was massive and they were soon outnumbered by European settlers. Dispossession of Country was the consequence.

Conflict and accommodation

Throughout the phases of Indigenous/European contact there were varying degrees of conflict and accommodation, although conflict in the Lower Hunter was sporadic. In 1827 it was reported that 12 Aboriginal people were shot on a property just north of Paterson (although the landholder denied it).[5] Another shooting occurred near Wallalong where a camp of Aboriginal people was fired upon with a number killed.[6] In unrelated incidents Aborigines killed a few Europeans in the district but Aborigines suffered far more at the hands of Europeans than was the reverse. Despite the sporadic violence, some of the intercultural exchanges involved cooperation, companionship and sharing of knowledge.

Decline in Aboriginal numbers

Maitland and Morpeth were the shipping ports where the most intense impact of Europeans occurred. In the 1830s Aboriginal numbers in the Lower Hunter declined markedly, and mortality in a smallpox epidemic from 1829 to 1831 may have exceeded 30 per cent of the Aboriginal population. After this epidemic Aborigines survived in numbers in the Upper Hunter but not in the Lower Hunter.

Some European settlers were more accommodating than others which enabled Aboriginal families to continue living in the region. There was never any public facility for Aboriginal people in Maitland. The closest was created many years later at Redbourneberry near Singleton.

A story of survival

Despite the sad and sorry story of how these First Australians were treated they have survived and there is a vibrant and active community in the Lower Hunter Region. A number of Aboriginal organisations operate in Maitland and a cultural collection is part of the Mindaribba Local Aboriginal Land Council Centre at East Maitland.

Endnotes

[1]     Cameron Archer, The Magic Valley: The Paterson Valley – then and now, ACA Books, 2019.

[2]     We acknowledge that the Mabo decision was based upon private ownership of land and that there are other locations where families or clans held a form of property rights on special locations.

[3]     Mark Dunn, The Convict Valley: The bloody struggle on Australia’s early frontier, Allen and Unwin, 2020. p24.

[4]     In mid-1801 Barrallier surveyed what we now call the Hunter and Williams Rivers. He returned to survey the Paterson River in November 1801. See: Andy Macqueen, Blue Mountains to Bridgetown: the life and journeys of Barrallier 1773-1853, The author, 1993.

[5]     Sydney Gazette, 22 & 24 March 1827, 18 April 1827; The Australian, 3 March 1828.

[6]     Brian Walsh, Woodville uncovered, Paterson Historical Society, 2021.

References and further reading

Archer, Cameron, The Magic Valley: The Paterson Valley then and now, ACABooks, 2019.

Attwood, Brian and SG Foster (eds), Frontier Conflict: The Australian Experience, National Museum of Australia, Canberra, 2003.

Blomfield, Geoffrey, Baal Belbora The End of the Dreaming: The massacre of a peaceful people, APCOL, Chippendale, 1986.

Brayshaw, Helen, Aborigines of the Hunter Valley, Scone and Upper Hunter Historical Society, Scone, 1986.

Connor, John, The Australian Frontier Wars 1788-1838, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2005 (first published 2002).

Dunn, Mark, The Convict Valley: The bloody struggle on Australia’s early frontier, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 2020.

Gapps, Stephen, The Sydney Wars – Conflict in the Early Colony 1788-1817, Newsouth, 2018.

Griffiths, Billy, Deep Time Dreaming – Uncovering Ancient Australia, Black Inc., 2018.

Karskens, Grace, People of the River, Allen and Unwin, 2020.

Laffan, Jennifer and Cameron Archer, Aboriginal Land Use at Tocal: The Wonnarua Story, CB Alexander Foundation, Tocal, 2004.

Maynard, John, True Light and Shade: An Aboriginal perspective of Joseph Lycett’s Art, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 2014.

Miller, James, Koori: A Will to Win, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1985.

Paterson Historical Society, Museum fact sheet 1: Aboriginal nations in the Paterson Valley, nd.

Sokoloff, Boris, Aborigines in the Paterson Gresford Districts: Effects of settlement, Paterson Historical Society, 2006.

Walsh, Brian, Woodville Uncovered, Paterson Historical Society, 2021.