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EUROBODALLA ABORIGINAL CULTURAL HERITAGE STUDY South Coast NSW Emergence of Small Scale Settlement: ‘Locking Out’ At the end of the 1850s gold was discovered at Kiandra in the Snowy Mountains and ‘gold fever’ hit the south coast. The increased population in the area that resulted from the movement of miners into the area, although a largely transient population, resulted in the development of roads and the establishment of coach services and roadside inns. 94 The gold rushes also led to an increased demand for agricultural products in order to feed the dramatically increased population. These developments all contributed to increasing mobility within the area and to the growth of European settlement with its concomitant alienation of land from the Aboriginal people of the area. The ‘locking out’ of the local Aboriginal people from their land through the imposition of small scale European land use patterns had begun. Within the European community in the years following the gold rushes of the 1850s the issue of access to land rapidly came to dominate the political landscape of New South Wales. A strong popular demand to ‘unlock the lands’ and allow small selectors access to the vast tracts of land held under pastoral lease emerged. In 1861 two Acts, colloquially known as the Selectors’ Acts and Robertson’s Acts, attempted to address this demand in New South Wales. The impact of these Acts on landholding patterns was limited, the 1884 Crown Lands Act was the next major legislative attempt to shift the nature of land holdings. Both this Act and the following legislation that culminated in the Closer Settlement Act of 1905 were more effective in altering the nature of land holdings. 95 The 1861 Acts had an impact on the South Coast with the movement of small scale settlers into the region in the 1860s as the large pastoral leases began to be broken up into small allotments. 96 In the period from 1860 to 1900 a shift occurred over much of the area under consideration from pastoralism to agriculture, intensive grazing and associated activities (ie. cropping and pig raising) as the primary form of European land use. 97 The intensification of land use and the associated decrease in property sizes and increase in land enclosure resulted in increasing restrictions on Aboriginal people’s capacity to reside on, travel over, and utilise the resources of the country. Impact of Gold on Growth of European Settlement Gold has been found in many of the mountains and valleys of the Eurobodalla area and indeed all along the south coast. Throughout the area the gold miners’ need for goods and services led to the growth of towns in the second half of the nineteenth 94 Higgins, op.cit., p.19. ; Danny Webster, The Sapphire Coast of N.S.W.: 1788-1901, self-published, 1989, p.11. 95 Lee Godden, ‘Wik: Feudalism, Capitalism and the State: A Revision of Land Law in Australia?’, Australian Property Law Journal, 5 (2&3), 1997, p.177; C.J. King, An outline of Closer Settlement in New South Wales: Part 1, The Sequence of the Land Laws 1788-1956, Division of Marketing and Agricultural Economic, Department of Agriculture, NSW, 1957, pp.73-77; J.M. Powell, ‘Patrimony of the People: the role of government in land settlement’, Chapter 2 In R.L. Heathcote (ed.) The Australian Experience: Essays in Australian Land Settlement and Resource Management, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1988, pp.16-17: J.M. Powell, Environment Management in Australia 1788-1914, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1976, pp.82-84. 96 Denis Byrne, The Mountains Call Me Back: A History of the Aborigines and the Forests of the Far South Coast of N.S.W., N.S.W. Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs & NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, 1984, p.18. 97 Webster, op.cit., 1989, p.12. Goulding Heritage Consulting Pty Ltd 48
EUROBODALLA ABORIGINAL CULTURAL HERITAGE STUDY South Coast NSW century; these included Mogo, Nerrigundah, Wagonga Inlet (late Narooma) and Tilba Tilba. As discussed above the development of towns and roads to service gold miners provided the infrastructure to support the extension of small scale settlement in the region. The first major gold discovery on the south coast was at Eden in 1852. In the mid 1850s alluvial gold was discovered at Mogo Creek and the township of Mogo developed as a result of the miners’ arrival. By 1871 around fifty men were working in the Mogo creek itself. The town grew rapidly as a result of the miners coming in. At its peak in the late 1800s there were more than 17 hotels in the area but by 1913 all the mines in the area had closed. Gold was also found at a number of locations along the creeks around Moruya in the 1850s and the mines established in this area continued to operate until the 1920s. 98 Alluvial gold was also discovered in the Mt Dromedary area in the 1850s; in 1875 at its peak there were more than 150 men working Dromedary and Punkally Creeks. 99 Mt Dromedary is more properly known by its Aboriginal name of Gulaga, in a newspaper account from 1879 the mountain is referred to by that name though with an alternative spelling: … the writer... [visited] the settlements that nestle under the shadow of Cooligah, the big mountain of the blackfellow, Anglicized into the unpoetic name of the Dromedary for the reason it is said that a certain peak in the mountain resembles the hump on the animal’s back, surely too lame an excuse for dropping the pretty native name of Cooligah. 100 Gulaga is a major site of significance to Aboriginal people of the south coast. Deborah Bird Rose in her 1990 report asserted the mountain to be primarily a women’s site although including some men’s ceremonial areas. It is stated to be, along with Mumbulla Mountain, a Bunan ceremonial site. 101 One can only presume that the mining of the mountain, and the large population associated with it, would have caused great distress to the site’s custodians. In 1882 reef gold was discovered at Kianga, just to the north of the Wagonga Inlet, and for a time brought many miners to the Wagonga [Narooma] area. 102 One of the major fields of the region was that at Nerrigundah, gold was found there in the 1850s. By 1861 there were around 200-300 miners in the area, and this is said to have increased to 400 in the following years. However, as occurred in all the gold fields in the Eurobodalla region they more or less ceased to function in the first decade of the twentieth century. 103 Expansion of European Settlement: Dairying and Timber Timber getting began along the south coast in the 1840s, with sawmills proliferating in the 1860s. The large forested areas lying between the valleys, in which European 98 R.I. Jack & D.N. Jeans, Regional Histories: Regional Histories of New South Wales, Heritage Office & Department of Urban Affairs and Planning, Sydney, 1996, pp.170-172. ; James, op.cit., p.128. ;Pacey & Hoyer, op.cit., pp.4,9. ; Pacey, op.cit., 1990, p.11. 99 Pacey & Hoyer, op.cit., pp.4, 9. 100 th Anon, ‘The Tilba Tilba District’, Bega Standard, 29 November, 1879, p.2. 101 Bird Rose, op.cit., 1990. 102 Pacey, op.cit., 1990, p.11. 103 James, op.cit., p.128. ; Pacey, op.cit., 1990, p.5. Goulding Heritage Consulting Pty Ltd 49
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Page 3 and 4: Introduction EUROBODALLA ABORIGINAL
Page 5 and 6: Scope of this Investigation EUROBOD
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