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2002 (c) Peninsula Community Access Newspaper Inc

 

The Peninsula before 1788

 

Much evidence has survived confirming the rich history of human activity prior to 1788 in the district.

The higher regions are abundant with relics, the most common types being rock engravings and axe-grinding grooves. Rock shelters containing charcoal and ochre drawings are found throughout the district. Many hundreds of locations of relics have been recorded; however, in the South Woy Woy area, little is known of the former Aboriginal occupants.

Some written records survive, following the arrival of the First Fleet in January 1788, that not only describe the people that were found here, but some of the locations in the district.

One such record is found in a volume published in 1792 in London, which was compiled from the journals of Lieutenants Shortland, Watts and Ball and Captain Marshall.

"On the 2d of March Governor Phillip went with a long boat and cutter to examine the broken land, mentioned by Captain Cook. This bay proved to be very extensive. The first night they slept in the boats, within a rocky point in the north-west part of the bay [Pearl Beach], as the natives, though friendly, appeared to be numerous; and the next day, after passing a bar that had only water for small vessels [Half Tide Rocks] they entered a very extensive branch, from which the ebb tide came out so strong that the boats could not row against it in the stream [The Rip]; and here was deep water. This opening appeared to end in several small branches, and in a large lagoon which could not then be examined, as there was not time to seek a channel for the boats among the banks of sand and mud. Most of the land in the upper part of this branch was low and full of swamps. Pelicans and various other birds were here seen in great numbers. Among the rest an uncommon kind, called then the Hooded Gull, and supposed to be a non descript; but it appears from a drawing sent to England to be of that species called the Caspian Tern, and is described as the second variety of that species."

The various journals left by those in Phillip's party all mention the 'numerous natives' to be seen, and the many camp fires alight at night.

What 'happened' to the Aboriginal population in the district can only be surmised.

No doubt the smallpox or chickenpox epidemics in the years following the arrival of the First Fleet took their toll. Although there are records in the local Magistrates' Bench Books (from 1823) of conflict between white settlers and Aboriginal people in the northern areas of the Brisbane Water Police District, there is no evidence of the same sort of conflict in the south. Perhaps this could have been one area in the Colony where harmony existed between the two groups.

In the 1820s, Police Magistrate Willoughby Bean reported to the Colonial Secretary that there were five family groups of Aboriginals in the district.

For census purposes, Bean bestowed names on these groups according to their locality: Broken Bay, Narara, Erina, Tuggerah Beach and Wyong.

The 'Broken Bay' group would have included any in the Woy Woy district.

Bean estimated the number of people in these groups at a total of 65 persons.

In the 1830s, a number of the Brisbane Water Aboriginals were arrested and sent to Sydney for trial, mainly on charges relating to what seemed to be an on-going feud between William Cape of Wyong and the Aborigines in that district.

The young men who were arrested were tried, found guilty of robbery or similar crimes, and were then either sent to Van Dieman's Land or imprisoned in Sydney.

No evidence has been found indicating that any of them returned from this incarceration, and indeed, there are records of several of their deaths.

The removal of these young men from the local family groups would have had a devastating effect on the groups' survival.

Throughout the next 50 years, the Magistrates' registers record a diminishing number of blankets being distributed to the local native population.

The only other records that survive that tell us anything further are an occasional mention in diaries of individuals.

In the 1830s, Mrs Sarah Mathew, wife of a surveyor, met many of the local people, and was very impressed with the Aboriginal population in the Narara area.

On April 29, 1857, the Rev Alfred Glennie, an Anglican Minister who lived at Gosford between 1850 and 1862, occasionally 'borrowed' an Aborigine from a neighbour in order to paddle him around Brisbane Water in a small boat, also borrowed.

In recent times, further evidence has been uncovered that links the present day with the time before white settlement: in 1997, a small Aboriginal cutting tool was found at Point Clare.

As the band of enthusiastic local historians has grown, early maps have been found in various archives showing the recording of Aboriginal names for localities and landmarks, and which mark Aboriginal activity, such as the sites of fish-traps along the shores of Brisbane Water.

Joan Fenton, July 2000