A Century of Change

While the suburbs of Sydney expanded during the early 19th century, Aboriginal People were still able to largely choose where they lived. There were spaces in the settler landscape that gave Aboriginal People ‘continued access to the land’ 1. Along the Georges River family groups continued to live in traditional ways, supplementing fishing and food gathering with participation in the European economy. Until the 1840s the New South Wales colonial government was largely indifferent to Aboriginal welfare, beyond handing out blankets. By the 1880s however, Europeans believed that Aboriginal People were a ‘dying race’ and ‘a moral and social problem that needed to be solved’2. The government increasingly intervened in Aboriginal life and people were forced to gather on reserves, including those at Sans Souci, on Kogarah Bay and La Perouse on Botany Bay.

Despite this, these sites had a long history of Aboriginal occupation, which allowed local knowledge and family connections to continue. At these sites Aboriginal People made and sold shellwork and collected wildflowers which were sold at city markets. The Sans Souci site was abandoned by 1890 and from 1900 La Perouse was one of the few Aboriginal settlements remaining around Sydney. From 1883 the Aboriginal Protection Board was established to manage the reserves and restrict the lives of an estimated 9,000 Aboriginal People living in New South Wales, which it continued to do until 1940.

2

Australian Indigenous Ministries pictorial material ‘Last of the Georges River Tribe, NSW’, c. 1885 Facsimile photograph, State Library of New South Wales collection