Aboriginal history Yalanji (also known as
Kuku Yalanji,
Kuku Yalaja,
Kuku Yelandji, and
Gugu Yalanji) is an
Australian Aboriginal language of
Far North Queensland. The traditional language region is
Mossman River in the south to the
Annan River in the north, bordered by the
Pacific Ocean in the east and extending inland to west of
Mount Mulgrave. This includes the local government boundaries of the
Shire of Douglas, the
Shire of Cook and the
Aboriginal Shire of Wujal Wujal and the towns and localities of
Cooktown,
Mossman,
Daintree,
Cape Tribulation and
Wujal Wujal. It includes the head of the Palmer River, the
Bloomfield River,
China Camp,
Maytown, and
Palmerville.
Palmer River Goldfields Palmer River was one of Australia's major
gold rush locations.
William Hann and geologist Norman Taylor found gold in a sandy bed of the river in 1872. Hann named the river after
Arthur Hunter Palmer the Premier of Queensland at that time. In 1873, access to the goldfields was established by Archibald Campbell MacMillan who led an expedition of 110 diggers, police and officials which blazed a trail from the port of
Cooktown to the Palmer River. They "shot a lot" and "hunted" Aboriginal people along the way at the
Normanby River, Kennedy River, Kavanaugh Creek, St George River and at Battle Camp. At Battle Camp, a large group of Aboriginal men approached MacMillan's camp yelling a war cry, but were forced back by gunfire, some of whom fell. The expedition members then pursued them to a lagoon where many more were shot. Two Aboriginal women and three children were brought back to the camp by the diggers after one of the shootings, where they had in their possession a number of items from a digger who had supposedly been killed. A later government enquiry into the events found that the diggers acted in self defence and were justified in their actions. The main settlement of the
gold field was
Maytown replacing Palmerville after some months. The settlement began as a camp in 1873, then grew into a town which served as the administration centre for the former
Hann Local Government Area. The settlements of Byerstown and Idatown were also established along the river. There were many other confrontations between the Anglo-Australian diggers, Chinese miners and the Aborigines from the area after
Battle Camp. From 1874 until 1877 more than 20,000 Chinese immigrants arrived at the river. The
miners in the Palmer River included
Chinese, mostly from the
Guangdong Province in southern China. The Chinese miners would re-work the diggings of Europeans as they moved on to find richer diggings. In 1876, with the rush to the Hodgkinson River, Chinese miners occupied most of the Palmer Gold Field. As gold reserves were extracted, anti-Chinese sentiment grew. The Queensland government eventually responded to the influx with a
poll tax of £10 according to the
Chinese Immigration Regulation Act 1877. == Tourism ==