A Timeline of Colonisation & Reconciliation

“The Wurundjeri People take their name from the Woiwurrung language word ‘wurun’ meaning the Manna Gum (Eucalyptus viminalis) which is common along ‘Birrarung’ (Yarra River), and ‘djeri‘, the grub which is found in or near the tree. Wurundjeri are the ‘Witchetty Grub People’ and our Ancestors have lived on this land for millennia.”

Source: Aunty Joy Murphy Wandin AO

Mercantilist doctrine fuels global colonialism

Far, far away, European powers Spain and Portugal settle among and establish political control over large parts of Central and South America. France and England do the same in Northern America and the Lesser Antilles.

This era of colonialism establishes mercantilism as the leading school of economic thought, where the economic system is viewed as a zero-sum game in which any gain by one party requires a loss by another.

The mercantilist doctrine encourages many intra-European wars of the period and arguably fuels European expansion and imperialism throughout the world lasting as long as the early 20th century.

The Rise of English Power

The Spanish Armada attempts to invade England but is famously defeated. This marks a turning point in naval dominance and heralds the rise of England as a global superpower.

The Aboriginal population of Victoria before the introduction of European diseases in the late 18th century is estimated to be more than 11,500 people.

Source: National Museum of Australia / A. R. Radcliffe-Brown

The First Fleet Arrives

The First Fleet arrives at Botany Bay. Finding it unsuitable for settlement, Captain Arthur Phillip, decides to move to Port Jackson, where a week later they establish the first permanent European colony in Australia. This date is now commemorated as Australia Day, but it marks a day of mourning and reflection for many First Nations people, known as Invasion Day or Survival Day.

The establishment of the colony at Sydney Cove begins the systematic dispossession of Indigenous lands, disruption of traditional lifestyles, and the onset of conflict and disease that will decimate First Nations communities throughout the following centuries.

In Sydney, Captain Thomas Melvill of the whaling ship Britannia is presented with a silver cup by Governor Arthur Phillip for killing a Sperm Whale, it “being the first of its kind taken on this coast since the Colony was established.”

Source: DL MSQ36, State Library of NSW

Survivors from the Sydney Cove shipwreck are shipwrecked a second time near Lakes Entrance. Seventeen sailors, including Europeans and Bengali crew, trek 700 km along Australia’s southeast coast, being among the first Europeans to encounter Indigenous groups like the Kurnai and Thaua, who aid them despite cultural misunderstandings. Only three survived the journey, reaching Sydney after two months, marking a cross-cultural survival milestone.

Source: ‘Australia’s Lost Histories’ Dr Mark McKenna / University of Sydney

First Europeans navigate the Birrarung

Charles Grimes, deputy surveyor-general of New South Wales is sent by Governor Phillip King to Port Phillip to survey the area. They enter Port Phillip on January 20.

By February 8, Grimes reaches Dights Falls. Another member of the party, James Fleming, notes in his diary about finding good soil and suggests along the Yarra is the most eligible place for a settlement.

Simon Wonga is Born

Simon Wonga, son of Billibellary (c.1799-1846), is born near Arthur’s Seat (“Wonga” being the Aboriginal place name for this area). Wonga goes on to became Ngurungaeta (leader) of the Woi wurrung clans in 1846, at the age of 22, following the death of his father. In 1863, Wonga and his cousin William Barak lead their remaining people across the Black’s Spur Songline to the Upper Yarra and established Coranderrk. The Melbourne suburb of Wonga Park and Wonga Road are later named after him.

Europeans Arrive from the North

Hamilton Hume and William Hovell, looking for new grazing land in the south of the colony, come overland from New South Wales and, due to thick vegetation and injuries, are thwarted in their attempts to reach the summit of Mt Disappointment to view the coast. Instead of crossing the Great Diving Range they shift their direction to the west via Mount Macedon, later mistaking Corio Bay for Western Port due to errors in navigation.

Slavery is outlawed in the British Empire, including Australia, by the Slavery Abolition Act, following an anti-slavery movement that began in 1783. There is a growing ‘mood of philanthropy’ in England, which is, however, a long way from Port Phillip where a war over land is underway.

The Batman ‘Treaty’

Headman Bebejern, along with Billibellari and Jagga-Jagga are the three main signatories to John Batman’s purported deed of sale for full possession of more than 240,000 hectares of the Kulin people’s ancestral lands.

In return, Batman offered the Wurundjeri token items including blankets, flours, knives, tomahawks, scissors, mirrors, shirts and beads. It is now believed that the Wurundjeri may have thought Batman was offering them gifts in exchange for safe passage – a transaction known as tandarrum.

This meeting occurred probably at either Merri Creek near present Rushall station or on the Plenty River at present day Greensborough.

Source: State Library of Victoria
Image: John Wesley Burtt, circa 1875

Sexual violence

The newly formed Port Phillip Association, apparently honouring their ‘treaty’, is making unsuccessful attempts to return Aboriginal women abducted from the Victorian coastline by sealers and whalers. Rapes are common in the frontier town. Aboriginal camps on the outskirts are seen as a place of entertainment, drunkenness, gunfire, violence and interracial sex.

Source: Edmonds, Urbanizing Frontiers

The New South Wales government annuls Batman’s treaty with an act of Parliament, confirmed by the British Colonial Office in Whitehall on 10 October 1835. If the Aboriginal inhabitants had the right to dispose of their land, the Crown’s claim would be in doubt.

Annulment of Batman Treaty

Source: Proclamation of Governor Bourke 10 October 1835, National Archives of UK

Fawkner returns

Fawkner arrives with another party of settlers and Batman and Fawkner agree there is plenty enough land for everyone.

Billibelleri Becomes Ngurungaeta

Bebejern dies and Billibelleri (of north of the Yarra) becomes headman and seeks to establish an Aboriginal Reserve at Bolin-Bolin in Bulleen, then at Pound Bend in Warrandyte. He later builds a close and mutually beneficial relationship with William Thomas, Assistant Protector of Aboriginals.

Henry Arthur, nephew of the lieutenant governor of Van Diemen’s Land, establishes a station in present-day Diamond Creek, part of which extends to Kangaroo Ground.

The Ryrie brothers, who travelled overland from Monaro with vine cuttings and 250 head of stock, take 58,000 acres of prime hunting country, almost the entire Yarra Valley, and build a dwelling at Yering.

Captain Alexander Maconochie proposes a Native Police force as an alternative to protection, based on ideas of assimilation and compensation for land. A force is established on three different occasions – 1837, 1839 and 1842.

In response to the 1837 Buxton Report, the English Secretary of State for War and the Colonies recommends a protectorate be established. It is required to learn the Aboriginal language. The stated duties are to watch over the rights of Aborigines, guard against encroachment on their property and to protect them from acts of cruelty, oppression and injustice. The Port Phillip Aboriginal Protectorate is formed with George Augustus Robinson as chief protector and four full-time protectors sent from England. Robinson is later best remembered for his journals, his abandonment of Tasmanian Aboriginals at Wybalenna, the forwarding of Aboriginal objects including human skulls to British museums, and his association with events that eventually led to the hanging executions of Maulboyheenner and Tunnerminnerwait.

An elder Bonurong woman named Dindo and her two sons Derremot and Ningerranow with their families were the first people to come in to the Assistant Protectors presenting with the symptoms of influenza, which was to sweep through the Aboriginal population.

Government surveyor T. R. Nutt does a full survey including the Templestowe-Warrandyte area describing it as ‘Grassy hills, thickly timbered stringy bark forests and gums’ assuming it is a virgin landscape rather than a carefully managed environment.

Battle of Yering

An armed conflict, later known as the Battle of Yering, takes place on William Ryrie’s Yering Station in the Yarra Valley.

The conflict involves fifty Wurundjeri clansmen clashing with troopers led by Captain Henry Gisborne, who has been sent to capture their leader, Jaga Jaga.

After an exchange of gunfire forces the Wurundjeri to retreat to the Yarra Flats Billabongs beside present-day Yarra Glen, they manage to draw the troopers away and rescue Jaga Jaga, with no injuries reported among the troopers or settlers.

Lieutenant Governor La Trobe issues orders banning Aboriginal people from Melbourne.

William Thomas establishes a station at Narre Narre Warren as part of a new Aboriginal Protectorate (including Native Police) to replace the failed school and mission. He is not successful at convincing the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung so far from Melbourne and by 1843 had moved to the Merri/Yarra confluence, and established the Merri Creek School for Aboriginal children with some success.

A gathering of 600-700 Kulin people draws attention of colonists who don’t like the camps being so close to town, and the Kulin mia mias are burned down. Beatings and horse-whippings regularly occur on the streets of Melbourne, often in response to what is perceived as begging.

James and Isabella Donaldson and their 5 children, fresh ashore from Scotland, buy 1 square mile of land in Kangaroo Ground. They immediately come under attack from roving bushrangers who steal their silver and take a horse. Also aware of Jaga Jaga, the Donaldson’s invite six tenant farmers to join them, almost all also Scottish.

Source: Wilkinson

Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner, male Aboriginal survivors of the notorious ‘Black Wars’ in Van Diemen’s Land, are the first people to be hanged by the Government in the District of Port Phillip. They were convicted of the murder of two whale-hunters at Cape Paterson, twenty miles south of the Western Port area. after absconding and ‘commencing a course of crime’ following their witnessing of frontier violence while working for George Augustus Robinson. For months the public had followed the case, and the hangings were attended by six thousand spectators. The executions were a cruel and mismanaged debacle.

Ngurungaeta Billibellary requests land to be reserved for the Woiwurrung clans. His request is not granted.

An epidemic of influenza hits the large Wurundjeri encampment at the confluence of the Yarra River and Merri Creek particularly hard. Those who survived the initial impact of disease had to live with the grief and devastation within their community, and this discourages Aboriginal people from returning to former campsites such as this.

William Thomas is named Guardian of the Aborigines and given almost identical instructions, except for the emphasis by La Trobe to ‘keep the blacks out of Melbourne’.

Kangaroo Ground is the only thriving farming community in the Yarra Valley upstream of Heidelberg.

The Victorian Gold Rush

Successful agitation by the Port Phillip settlers leads to the establishment of Victoria as a separate colony, and La Trobe as its first Lieutenant Governor.

Shortly before and immediately after separation, gold is discovered at several locations (after the government stops keeping the presence of gold in the colonies secret in fear of disorganising the young colony). By 20 July, the Mount Alexander / Forest Creek Diggings (at present-day Castlemaine) are the richest shallow alluvial goldfield in the world. They are soon surpassed by Bendigo and Ballarat, Beechworth, Bright, Omeo, Chiltern and Walhalla. The ensuing gold rush radically transforms Victoria and Melbourne.

Simon Wonga organises the last great intertribal corroboree of the Kulin and other nations at Pound Bend in Warrandyte. His purpose was to allow his people to draw the curtain on their traditional life and find a way to survive in the new world that had been thrust upon them. For 14 days and nights the Kulin people held a celebration of traditional culture, including music, ceremony and traditional games such as marngrook.

Source: First Peoples Relations Vic

Work is begun on Yan Yean Reservoir to provide water for the growing Melbourne.

A gold rush to the Caledonia diggings commenced in Upper Diamond Creek and Back Creek, taking over sections of Haley’s Caledonia run leasehold.

William Thomas, age 64, stops living with the Wurundjeri and Boonwurrung people. He continues as Advisor on Aboriginal Affairs until his death on 1 December 1867.

The Victorian Nicholson Land Act is the first of several Acts that allow settlers to acquire crown land of 80-640 acres for intensive farming, with the intent of encouraging closer settlement. Settlers paid half the purchase price upfront and leased the rest, completing payment and improvements within seven years to gain ownership. The policy aimed to promote agriculture like wheat-growing over wool production but often led to disputes with squatters who already occupied the land and found ways to bypass the laws.

Black Spur

Simon Wonga and William Barak lead around thirty Kulin people through the Yarra Ranges, following a traditional songline route known today as the famous Black Spur road. They settle at a traditional camping spot on Badger Creek near present-day Healesville.

Source: First Peoples Relations Vic

Mssr Peers, Haley and Wilson discover gold in he Diamond Creek. Diamond creek mine was opened several years later.

Diamond Reef discovered by Thomas Wright Soady on Dr John Blakemore Phipps property (stretching from Reynold’s Rd to the Diamond Creek)

There are 70 Aboriginal people living at Coranderrk.

The Age No. 3 050 p.7 via National Library of Australia

Melbourne’s civic pride is demonstrated by the huge edifice of the Royal Exhibition Building, built for the Melbourne International Exhibition.

Foundation stone of St Pauls Cathdral is laid the same year.

The population of Melbourne is 280,000.

The long boom culminates in a frenzy of speculation and rapid inflation of land prices known as the Land Boom. Governments shared in the wealth and plowed money into urban infrastructure and railways. Victorian businesses and politics become notorious for corruption.

The population of Melbourne reaches 445,000. For a time it is the second largest city in the British Empire, after London. It is already one of the largest cities in the world in terms of area because of the quarter-acre dream and suburban sprawl.

The inevitable economic bust – a spectacular crash that ends the boom. Banks and other businesses fail in large numbers. Thousnads of shareholders lose money. Tens of thousands of workers are put out of work. Possibly around 20% unemployment inMelbourne throughout the 1890s.

Melbourne’s population scarcely changes from 490,000 for the next 15 years as a result of the crash. Immigration dries up, emigration to goldfields in WA and South Africa increases, and the high birthrate falls sharply. Urban poverty becomes a feature of city life and the slums spread.

William Barak dies.

Despite inclement weather, up to 500 people attended the opening of the Eltham-Hurstbridge railway on 25 June 1912. Local member of parliament Ewen Cameron and Victorian Premier William Watt were present.

By 1914, 1,886 acres of orchards were under cultivation, with a considerable proprotion of the fruit being exported overseas.

The hated Aboriginal Protection Board forces Coranderrk residents into exile at Lake Tyers. All but six are moved: Only Lankie and Annie Manton, Alfred Davis and his wife, Mrs Dunnolly and Bill Russell were permitted to remain at Coranderrk.

The Wall Street Crash ushers in another Depression which lasts until a brief return to prosperity in late 1930s, cut short by outbreak of World War II

Melbourne celebrates its centenary and acquires the landmark Shrine of Remembrance.

Day of Mourning

While many Australians celebrated the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the landing of the First Fleet, a group of Aboriginal men and women gathered at Australia Hall in Sydney, a culmination of years of work by the Australian Aborigines League (AAL) and the Aborigines Progressive Association (APA). The assembly would became the inspiration for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander activism throughout the remainder of the twentieth century. In the early 1960s, both organisations would reform and reshape and become the driving force calling for a constitutional referendum that would take place in 1967.

There is active debate in Australia over the origins of the continents first human inhabitants. It is often argued that Australia had been settled by successive waves of culturally and biologically distinct people. The earliest of these waves was said to be represented by Tasmanian Aborigines, with mainland Aborigines being a mixture of different groups of immigrants, claiming to be reflected in the varying appearance of modern-day populations.

Coranderrk Lands Bill revoked the reservation of Coranderrk’s remaining land which was then divided up for solider settlement. No Aboriginal soldiers were eligible for the land.

Yirrkala Bark Petitions

In August 1963 two bark petitions were presented to the Australian Parliament’s House of Representatives. This was a formal attempt by the Yolngu of arnhem Land to have their land rights recognised. It was also the first time documents incorporating First Nations ways of representing relationships to land were recognised by parliament.

Wave Hill walk-off

The Aboriginal flag

The Australian Aboriginal Flag is raised for the first time, at a land rights rally in Victoria Square/Tarntanyangga, Adelaide, on then National Aborigines Day.

It was designed in 1970 by artist Harold Thomas, a Luritja man from central Australia and a member of the Stolen Generations.

Reconciliation meaningfully enters the language of politics for the first time with Bob Hawke winning a landslide election on a platform that included the need for national reconciliation with first Australians, with self-determination, land rights, and addressing of “the worst conditions – the health, housing, employment, education, and the greatest poverty and despair. While this situation persists, we can never truly bring this country together.”

Bicentennary of white Australia

Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation is formed

The Australian Parliament passes an Act creating the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, and marking the official movement toward national reconciliation. The central purpose of the Council is to guide the reconciliation process over the rest of the decade, leading up to the anniversary of Federation in 2001. It aimed to do this through increased understanding of Indigenous cultures, the history of past dispossession and present-day disadvantage, and to foster a national commitment to addressing these disadvantages.

Origin of National Reconciliation Week

As part of the International Year of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, Australia’s major faith communities together support a “Week of Prayer for Reconciliation”, which from 1996 (with the support of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation) becomes National Reconciliation Week.

The dates for NRW remain the same each year, commemorating two significant milestones; the the successful referendum on 27 May 1967, and the High Court Mabo decision on 3 June 1991.

In view of the flag’s wide acceptance and importance in Australian society, the Australian Aboriginal Flag (designed in 1970 by artist and a Luritja man Harold Thomas, and first raised on 9 July in 1971 at a land rights rally in Adelaide) and the Torres Strait Islander Flag are proclaimed by Governor General of Australia William Hayden as flags of Australia under section 5 of the Flags Act 1953

Shire boundaries changed

Shire of Diamond Valley abolished, areas south of Ring Rd transferred to new City of Banyule. Areas north are merged with Shire of Eltham and parts of City of Whittlesea into the new Shire of Nillumbik.

Wik decision

In a case, initiated before the Native Title Act, between the Wik peoples of western Cape York peninsula and pastoral and mining leaseholders in the area, a decision of the High Court of Australia finds that pastoral leases did not bestow rights of exclusive possession on the leaseholder. As a result, native title rights could coexist depending on the terms and nature of the particular pastoral lease. Where there was a conflict of rights, the rights under the pastoral lease would extinguish the remaining native title rights. However, it is commonly accepted to include rights to perform ceremonies or to gather foods or medicines.

The reactions provoked by the decision were intense and deeply divisive, led by conservative politicians, agricultural and mining interests. The consequent amendments to the Native Title Act in 1998 were a devastating blow to Indigenous peoples’ rights.

Bringing Them Home report

The landmark ‘Bringing Them Home’ report is tabled in Federal Parliament. The report was the result of a national inquiry that heard from around 1000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It investigated the forced removal of 1 in 10, possibly as many as 1 in 3, Indigenous children from their families between 1910 and the 1970s. This report marked a pivotal moment in the healing journey of many Stolen Generations members. It was the first time their stories—stories of being taken from their families—were acknowledged in such a way.

Howard’s ‘Ten Point Plan’

In a legislative response to the previous year’s Wik decision, the Native Title Amendment Bill is introduced in Parliament by the Howard government. Known as the ‘Ten Point Plan’, the Bill proposed to broaden the power of governments to extinguish native title, remove the right to claim over urban areas and make the initiation of claims more burdensome.

The amendments were passed in 1998, adding 400 pages of law, and drastically increasing the complexity of the Native Title Act, changing the system markedly.

Local reconciliation groups start forming, including an advisory committee delegated by Nillumbik Shire Council to arrange a ceremony promoting reconciliation.

Nillumbik Reconciliation Walk & Ceremony

A formal document of Acknowledgement, Apology and Commitment is presented by Nillumbik Shire Council to Wurundjeri elders at a ceremony in May 1998 at Wingrove Park, Eltham.

Cathy Freeman’s Victory

During her 2000 Olympic Games victory lap after the 400 metre sprint, Cathy Freeman carried both the Australian and Aboriginal flags — a symbol of reconciliation and pride in her Aboriginal cultural heritage. She was the first Australian Aboriginal person to win an individual Olympic gold medal.

Corroboree 2000

CAR stops. Rec Aus starts

A plaque commemorating the Battle of Yering is unveiled at Yarra Flats Billabong near Yarra Glen by Wurundjeri Ngurungaeta, Murrundindi.

Closing the Gap govt strategy starts

Moor-rul Platform & Grasslands open

The Moor-rul Viewing Platform and the adjacent Moor-rul Reconciliation Grasslands are officially opened at Kangaroo Ground Memorial Park.

Black Saturday bushfires. 173 people killed. 411,239 ha burned.

National Congress of First Peoples established (until 2019)

Members of the Wurundjeri Council gathered greenstone blanks from the Wil-im-ee Moor-ring (Mount William) quarry to make axes with which to scar a River Red Gum at Plenty Gorge to build a koorong (canoe).

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Recognition Act 2013

The Wurundjeri Council launched a ceremonial ground in Warrandyte, near Garrambi Baan (Laughing Waters). Three trees were scarred to commemorate this event in recognition of the family groups that comprise Wurundjeri.

SA, Vic and NT announce beginning of discussions on Treaty

Yarra River Action Plan

Elders of the Wurundjeri Council, Premier Daniel Andrews and ministers of the Victorian government unveil the Yarra River Action Plan Wilip-gin Birrarung murronor (keep the Birrarung alive).

Elders of Wurundjeri Council address Victorian Parliament

Wurundjeri Elder’s address the Victorian parliament in an unprecedented ceremony to support the Wilip-gin Birrarung murron (Yarra River Proctection) bill 2017. The legislation creates an independent body called the Birrarung Council and grants Wurundjeri people a legislatively-enshrined voice in the formal custodianship of the Birrarung.

The 2019 Victorian First Peoples’ Assembly election is held to elect 21 members to the First Peoples’ Assembly in Victoria, which is charged with the responsibility of preparing for negotiations with the Victorian Government about a treaty with the state’s Aboriginal population.

First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria meets for the first time, in the chamber of the upper house of the Victorian Parliament.

Destruction of Juukan Gorge

Despite warnings, Rio Tinto detonates a blast at the Brockman 4 iron ore mine in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

The blast destroys known sites at rock shelters in Juukan Gorge of great cultural and archaeological significance, including evidence of continuous human occupation for over 46,000 years by the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura peoples.

The distressing act that sparks outrage across the globe and triggers an Australian parliamentary inquiry into the disaster that recommends greater heritage protections in Australia.

The Nillumbik Shire Council begins developing its first ‘Reflect’ Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP), to replace the Reconciliation Charter committed to in 2008.

Source: Nillumbik Shire Council

Voice referendum fails

A referendum to recognise First Peoples in the Australian constitution with an Indigenous advisory body, the ‘Voice to Parliament’, fails after more than 60% of Australians voted “No”.

Australian Indigenous leaders call for a week of silence and reflection.

The outcome is a major setback for reconciliation efforts with the country’s First Nations communities and damages Australia’s image in the world regarding how it treats First Nations people.

What will you do, personally, to help create reconciliation in Australia?