Aboriginal History of the Great Lakes Area

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Aboriginal History of the Great Lakes District

(extract from Community Profile)

In 1788 there were about 300,000 Aborigines in Australia. They were divided into over 500 tribes, each with its own distinct territory, dialect, customs and history.

The Aborigines were hunters and gatherers who wandered within their own territory in response to seasonal availability of food, so that the land's resources could be naturally replenished. For example, the coastal tribes of New South Wales would move inland during winter to hunt, then back to the coast in spring and early summer to fish.

In the Great Lakes district there were two tribes - the Biripi, who inhabited the area between Tuncurry, Taree and Gloucester, and the Worimi, who occupied the land between Barrington Tops and Forster in the north and Maitland and the Hunter River in the south.

The Worimi was divided into a number of nurras. (Nurras were local groups within a tribe, each occupying a definite locality within the tribal territory). Location of these tribal territories is not known accurately because of extensive de-tribalisation that occurred after European settlement.

However, according to W.J. Enright and Boris Sokoloff, there appears to have been the following nurras in the Worimi tribe:

	Garuagal (between the mouth of the Hunter River and Maitland).
	Maiangal (along the southern side of Port Stephens).
	Gamipingal (along the northern side of Port Stephens and the Karuah River to Tea Gardens).
	Garrawerrigal (between the Myall River and the seashore).
	Buraigal (between Karuah River and Paterson).
	Warringal (between Telegherry River near Barrington Tops and Pipeclay Creek near Nabiac).
	Birroongal (on the Myall River).
	Birrimbai (around Bungwahl).
	Yeerungal (around the Myall Lakes).
	Wallamba (in the Wallis Lake area).

The nurras were sub-divided into small groups which were probably based on the extended family unit.

The Worimi and Biripi tribes both spoke dialects of the Kattang language.

Captain Cook noticed the presence of Aborigines in the Myall Lakes area when he sailed along the coastline in 1770 and named Cape Hawke.

However, the first contact that Aborigines had with white people wasn't until 1790 when five convicts escaped from the Second Fleet. They were "adopted" by Aborigines in the Hawks Nest area, who thought that they were spirits of ancestors who had returned, and lived with them until recaptured by Captain William Broughton in 1795.

In 1816 cedar getters and their convict servants started arriving in the Myall and Manning areas. Their impact was devastating and caused an early dispersal of the tribes. As a result of this dispersal, the tribal boundaries ceased to be observed and the Biripi and Worimi intermingled and camped in the same territory.

When the Australian Agricultural Company established its headquarters at Carrington in 1826, the Aborigines were treated kindly. They migrated towards the settlement, and began to learn the white man's ways and language, and were employed on many tasks in exchange for food. However, this migration reduced the number of Aborigines following a traditional life style, especially around the lakes.

George Godwin, the first settler to arrive in Forster with a family in 1856, also found the Aborigines friendly and showed them how to grow corn, till the barden, split shingles and palings, and gather oysters and wild honey.

With the withdrawal of the Australian Agricultural Company from the lakes in 1832 and the arrival of settlers in the Manning Valley in 1831, conditions deteriorated rapidly for the Aborigines. They lost land, sacred sites and hunting grounds as settlers took up land grants. Wildlife dwindled as a result of the settlers' guns, timber-getting and cattle grazing. By 1840 the natural food supplies were almost exhausted.

When the Aborigines, who were suffering from starvation, began killing stock to supplement their food supply, the settlers retaliated. Hostilities increased on both sides as Aborigines resisted being driven off the land and the settlers protected their properties and lives. The Aborigines ambushed settlers, attacked isolated settlements and burnt crops, buildings and the countryside, while the whites retaliated with random shootings, massacres by settlers, government troopers and native police (eg hundreds were forced over the edge of a cliff at Mt Mackensie), poisoning of waterholes, and "gifts" of food laced with arsenic (known as the "Harmony" policy and widely practised throughout the Manning River basin, e.g. Upper Gangat, Wingham and Bellbrook). Under the two-pronged invasion from the north and south, the Aborigines retreated or were forced into the rough north-western reaches of the Manning River and the ranges behind the lakes.

Aboriginal numbers declined drastically as a result of the hostilities, exposure to European diseases to which they had no resistance, starvation, alcohol and low birth rates. By 1860 the total Aboriginal population in Australia had dropped to 22,200.

From the 1860's to the 1890's, the Aborigines worked for rations, wages or a combination of seasonal employment and traditional subsistence harvesting, depending on the area in which they lived. On the North Coast, from the Hunter Valley to the Bellinger River, at least fifty extended Aboriginal families were able to secure fertile land for mixed farming and dairying.

When compulsory education for all children aged between 6 and 14 years was introduced in 1880, Aboriginal children enrolled in local schools. By the mid-1880's however, there was a policy to educate Aborigines separately in their own schools where possible and in 1902 a regulation was issued which allowed a public school to be racially segregated if there was any complaint by parents. This led to schools being set up in Aboriginal reserves. For example, Forster Aboriginal School, which commenced in 1891 and changed its name to Tobwabba School in 1900, operated until 1952, and a Mission School operated at Purfleet Reserve from 1903 to 1952 and at Karuah Reserve from 1916 to 1954. These schools were staffed by untrained teachers who only taught up to 3rd grade level before the syllabus was extended to 4th grade in 1940. Rarely did Aboriginal students go on to high school.

The Aborigines Protection Board was established in 1883 to give out rations and manage all Aborigines and Aboriginal affairs in New South Wales.

The Board's policy was for all Aborigines and part-Aborigines to live on reserves, regardless of whether or not they needed protection. It set up Aboriginal reserves in Forster in 1895, Karuah in 1898 and Purfleet in 1900, which the Aborigines were encouraged to farm to become self-sufficient.

In 1909 the New South Wales Aborigines Protection Act gave the Board wide and far reaching powers. For example:

It could order Aborigines to leave their campsites or town settlements to live on reserves under the control of a superintendent.

Practising tribal customs and speaking their native language were forbidden. This resulted in traditional culture, history and language dying out.

Aborigines needed permission to enter or leave a reserve.

White people were not allowed to associate with Aborigines or enter the reserves.

The sale of alcohol to Aborigines was prohibited.

Aborigines were not entitled to social security allowances.

In 1915 the Board was given control of Aboriginal children and the power to remove them from their families for training and indenture as domestic servants and farm labourers. Girls were sent to Cootamundra Girls' Home and boys to the Aboriginal Inland Mission at Singleton or, from 1924, to Kinchela Boys' Home at Kempsey. As visits were actively discouraged, family members usually lost contact with each other. Apprenticeships ceased in 1940 when the Aborigines Protection Board was replaced by the Aborigines Welfare Board. However, control over removing "neglected" or "uncontrollable" children was merely transferred to the Child Welfare Department who placed them in children's homes for rehabilitation or assimilation, or, after 1957, fostered them with white families. This practice continued until 1969.

The Board shifted whole communities from one reserve to another so that it could close down a number of reserves and lease them to neighbouring white farmers. Between 1911 and 1927, almost half of the total reserve land in New South Wales was revoked. 75% of the land lost was from the North Coast and included independently settled Aboriginal farms, Wingham Reserve and almost half of Forster Reserve.

Aboriginal servicemen who had returned from World War I were not eligible for soldier settler land grants.

In 1918 the Board adopted a dispersal policy and expelled Aborigines who were not full-blood or half-caste from the reserves on the grounds that they were not Aboriginal and should be part of the white community. As a result, the number of Aborigines camping on the fringes of country towns swelled significantly, but they were not accepted by the townspeople. Local Councils tried to move them on by using evictions, demolitions and jailings, and police and vigilante gangs imposed local curfews. As they were not welcome at other reserves or towns, these "part-Aborigines" were forced to wander from place to place, often hundreds of miles from their traditional territory. This lasted until 1936 when the government recognised people with any mixture of Aboriginal blood as Aborigines.

After the failure of its dispersal policy, the Board introduced assimilation for adults. Aborigines and part-Aborigines were again concentrated on reserves to be trained to live in ways acceptable to the white community. This lasted from 1934 to 1939.

When the Aborigines Welfare Board replaced the Aborigines Protection Board in 1940, it continued to close reserves and encourage people to move to town. However, due to townspeople's opposition, the Board compromised by building weatherboard houses on the reserves or town camps instead of in town, and these were denied the supply of amenities by local Councils.

In 1943, as an incentive for Aborigines to integrate into the white community, the Welfare Board introduced an exemption certificate for Aborigines who were prepared to live separately from other Aboriginal people, work in approved regular jobs and save for approved purchases. This certificate freed the person from all legal restrictions imposed on other Aborigines and entitled them to move freely about the district, as well as receive public education, housing, services and facilities on the same basis as white citizens. By 1964 when the system lapsed, there were only 1500 applications for exemption certificates in New South Wales and 1200 approved, reflecting the widespread opposition to the scheme by Aborigines.

In 1948 the Welfare Board abandoned its plans to concentrate Aborigines on reserves and introduced a policy of surveillance by District Welfare Officers to monitor Aborigines who were no longer living on reserves. This lasted until the abolition of the Board in 1969.

The North Coast Aboriginal tribes formed the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association in 1924 to protest the loss of lands, farms and children, and to lobby for equal civil rights (ie. equal education, equal opportunity, equal wages, equal rights to possess property and to be their own master). Full citizenship rights were given to Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in 1967 as the result of a referendum.

Responsibility for Aboriginal affairs was transferred from the Aborigines Welfare Board to relevant government departments such as the Housing Commission and the Child Welfare Department in 1969 and a policy of integration and urban relocation was implemented. In 1972 the Commonwealth Government proclaimed a policy of self-determination and self-management for Aborigines and supported Aboriginal land rights. These policies were subsequently adopted by the New South Wales Government.

In 1974 the New South Wales Aboriginal Lands Trust, formerly the Aboriginal Advisory Council, was given freehold title to reserves, as well as the power to purchase property and develop or mine any of its lands. For the first time Aborigines had control over the reserves.

Cabarita Aboriginal Corporation leased the Forster Reserve from the Lands Trust to provide housing, essential services and management. Similarly, Purfleet Housing Advancement Co-operative leased the Purfleet Reserve. Karuah, however, was unable to secure a lease and was managed by the Lands Trust directly.

In 1983 a system of State, Regional and Local Aboriginal Land Councils were set up. These Councils received Torrens title to land held by the Aboriginal Lands Trust, as well as the power to purchase property and claim vacant Crown land not needed for any essential public service. Local Aboriginal Land Councils were established in Forster, Karuah and Purfleet-Taree. 1983 was also the year when Kamarah Aboriginal Housing Co-operative was formed to manage the Karuah Reserve and take out a 99 year lease with the Land Council. Management of the reserves in Forster and Purfleet was transferred to the Local Land Council in 1990.

In an effort to solve the problems of sub-standard conditions, unemployment, poor health and low educational achievements, Aboriginal self-help organisations have been established over the last twenty years to provide services in areas such as health care, housing, education, employment, broadcasting and the law.

In 1990, The Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Aboriginal Development Commission were abolished and replaced by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC). A system of elected Regional Councils Australia-wide were set up to determine how Commonwealth funds allocated to their regions would be spent. Funds for Forster, Karuah and Purfleet-Taree Aboriginal Land Council areas are administered by the Lismore Regional Office.

Aboriginal culture is now being revitalised, with growing numbers of Aborigines becoming involved in art, drama, music and dance.

Land Councils and other Aboriginal organisations are also advising the National Parks and Wildlife Service, museums and archaeologists about the management and protection of Aboriginal sites and heritage items.

Sources

Keith Leon Cabarita Aboriginal Corporation.

Malcolm Davis Forster Local Aboriginal Land Council.

Michael Leon Forster Local Aboriginal Land Council.

Lance Moran Karuah Local Aboriginal Land Council.

Colleen Perry Karuah Local Aboriginal Land Council.

John Clark Purfleet-Taree Local Aboriginal Land Council.

Aboriginal People of New South Wales - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, 1990.

Clean, Clad and Courteous - J.J. Fletcher, 1989.

The Earliest Inhabitants: Aboriginal Tribes of Dungog, Port Stephens and Gresford - Gordon Bennett, n.d.

The Great Lakes District: An Aboriginal Perspective - Department of Aboriginal Affairs, 1986?

The History of Nabiac and District - L.A. Gilbert, 1954.

The Language, Weapons and Manufactures of Aborigines of Port Stephens, N.S.W. - W.J. Enright, 1900.

Myall Lakes: Creation to Controversy - H.K. Garland and Joy Wheeler, 1982.

The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody: Regional Report of Inquiry: New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania - Commissioner J.H. Wootten, 1991.

Survival : A History of Aboriginal Life in New South Wales - Nigel Parbury, 1986.

The Tobwabba Story - Michael Leon.

The Worimi: Hunter Gatherers at Port Stephens - Boris Sokoloff in Hunter Natural History, August, 1974.

Written by Narelle Marr, 1993 (International Year for World's Indigenous Peoples), revised in 1995.

Last Updated 19 December 2003