The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) was part of New South Wales until transferred to the Commonwealth Government of Australia in 1911. When Europeans arrived on the Limestone Plains in the 1830s, early colonists described First Peoples as “very numerous and very kind” and numbering about 500, but often visited by other tribes from areas like the south coast, swelling numbers. Fifty years later there were 

There are surprisingly few accounts of Aboriginal resistance to European settlement on the Limestone Plains. In 1827, to the south of the Limestone Plains near Berridale, Richard Brook’s station was abandoned when Aborigines attacked a party which was droving cattle (Sekavs 1988: 40). A report in The Australian in June 1828 also states that Aborigines had created havoc amongst settlers in the region but had retreated to the mountains, contrary to the traditional seasonal pattern of movement (ibid.). (Avery 1994)

At least one known conflict between Aboriginal people and colonists took place in what is now the ACT in 1834 near today’s Acton Peninsula (see New South Wales frontier conflicts map). This is now the site of the National Museum of Australia and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.

About 1833, Henry Hall took up Charnwood, a 3473-acre property in the Ginninderra District (Hall Heritage Centre, Rediscovering Ginninderra: Charnwood: https://heritage.hall.act.au/display/1939/place/1997/charnwood.html) of what is now part of the Australian Capital Territory but was then still part of New South Wales. Not long after arriving at Charnwood, Henry Hall caught Walgalu-speaking warrior, “Hong Kong”, known also as Onyong, spearing cattle for which Hall shot him in the leg (Gillespie 1984: 59). Mawer also refers to this incident and claims that although “the settlers dispossessed the Aboriginal people of the best land and their domesticated livestock drove away the game. There is, however, no evidence of extensive or systematic physical violence in the neighbourhood of Canberry.”(Mawer 2019: 13).

Elizabeth McKeahnie alleged that in the 1830s Aborigines had planned to kill all the men on Moore’s station, located at the foot of Black Mountain (Gillespie 1984: 34). However, a “kind-hearted gin” warned them beforehand and the “blacks met a warm reception”. Such a reference was often used by colonists and squatters for shootings at, if not murder, of Aboriginal people who defended their country from incursions by invading Europeans, who mostly believed the land to be terra nullius (belonging to no-one) and theirs for the taking. Such violent incidents quite often went unrecorded officially, although may have been passed down through oral history. 

There was obviously much misunderstanding among colonists and the local Aboriginal people on the Limestone Plains. While ex-convict Garrett Cotter was friendly with Onyong, according to Samuel Shumack, “Aboriginal people were vilely treated by the white despoilers, of whom only a few were exceptions. William Davis treated the natives very well indeed; Henry Hall treated them particularly vilely.” (Shumack 1977: 151).

First peoples of the Limestone Plains area acquired many European-introduced illnesses to which they had no immunity, often with disastrous results. For example, two measles outbreaks that caused “severe mortality” were reported among the Ngunnawal of the southern highlands in 1858 and 1862 (Dowling 2021: 71)

By 1927, when WP Bluett was recalling the times when Aboriginal people were numerous in the Canberra district, few if any First People appeared to be permanently resident in the area. Many had died, or had been moved away to Aboriginal missions in New South Wales or Victoria. Today (27 March 2025) it is estimated that there are more than 9,544 people of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent (Population Summary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and demographic profile, p. 10), from many different areas of Australia who have often come to work in Canberra, living in the Australian Capital Territory. Additionally First Nations people live nearby at Yass and Queanbeyan, New South Wales.

References
ACT Government, Health, Epidemiology Section Analytics Branch, 2023, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and demographic profile, ACT and surrounds, p. 10
Avery, Steven 1994, Aboriginal and European Encounter in the Canberra Region. Available in the ACT Heritage Library and at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra..
Bluett, WP, "Canberra Blacks", The Sydney Morning Herald, 21 May 1927, p. 11
Dowling, Peter, 2021, Fatal Contact: How Epidemics Nearly Wiped Out Australia's First Peoples, Monash University Publishing 
Gillespie, Lyall L 1984, Aborigines of the Canberra Region, Campbell ACT
Jackson-Nakarno, Ann 2001, The Kamberri: A History of Aboriginal Families in the ACT and Surrounds, Weereewaa History Series, Vol. 1, AHM 8, Canberra
Mawer, Granville Allen, 2019, Canberry Tales: An Informal History, Arcadia. First published 2012.
Sekavs, M 1988, 'Aboriginal History in the Nineteenth Century' in ACT, Heritage Seminars, Volume 1
Shumack, Samuel, "Canberra Blacks", The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 June 1927, p. 9 
Shumack, Samuel, 1977, An autobiography or Tales and legends of Canberra pioneers, ANU Press. First published 1967.


Text for this page first published 2017,  updated 27 March 2025.