Pre-colonial Archaeological evidence has shown that the Dharawal and their ancestors have lived in the area for at least 8,200 years, with human habitation of this region and the associated (now submerged)
continental shelf probably predating this by an additional 20,000 to 30,000 years. showing Cook's landing with a British marine shooting at Dharawal men He went on to say that:"in the afternoon 16 or 18 of them came boldly up to within 100 yards of our people at the watering place...all they seem'd to want was for us to be gone. After staying a Short time they went away. They were all Arm'd with Darts and wooden Swords." Those of the Cobbitty Barta clan who lived along the Georges River and into the Campbelltown areas were more directly exposed to the violence, disease and cultural destruction brought by the colonists. However, young leaders such as Bundel and Gogy worked with the British which led to rewards and survival for them and some of their kinspeople. Dharawal clans, such as the
Wadi Wadi, who lived in what is now called the Illawarra region, were subjected to incursions of cedar-getters from the early 1800s, and then from 1815 wealthy land-holders such as
Charles Throsby,
George Johnston and
Richard Brooks received land grants in the area. Although some Dharawal were killed in the violence that occurred with this taking of land, the Aboriginal people of the Illawarra were regarded as "friendly" and people such as the
Timbery family and
Toodwik were regarded favourably by the colonists. Further south, in the Shoalhaven region, early cedar-getters were driven away by the clans there and the colonists hence regarded the resident people as ferocious. However, when
Alexander Berry arrived in the early 1820s to lay claim to his massive
Coolangatta Estate land grant along the Shoalhaven River, he was able to negotiate a peaceful takeover through Dharawal intermediaries. The Aboriginal people of the Shoalhaven area became important workers for Berry, while they in return were able live on country with access to European goods. Due to their good positioning in terms of survival and their close cultural and geographic ties to the British economic hub of Sydney, a significant proportion of Dharawal people were able to integrate into the colonial world. By the 1830s, the coastal Dharug (Eora) people of Sydney had been decimated by colonisation and the few Aboriginal people seen in Sydney were by this stage mostly Dharawal. Dharawal people like William Worrall were regularly observed in the colonial capital and regarded as locals. Furthermore, other Dharawal men such as Warroba and Johnny Crook were employed by the colonists as negotiators and trackers in places such as
Van Diemen's Land,
Western Australia and
Port Phillip. These Dharawal men played a significant role in the founding of
Melbourne and the negotiation of
Batman's Treaty.
Confinement to camps and reserves By the late 1800s, the value of Dharawal people to the expanding local white society became negligible and most of the surviving members of the various clans were either left to fend for themselves in "blacks' camps" as
fringe dwellers, or were pushed onto small reserves. Around the Shoalhaven region, most of the Dharawal people there were confined to a purpose built village on the Coolangatta Estate under the patronage of the Berry and Hay families. However, in 1901 these people were forcibly relocated onto a government reserve at
Roseby Park. By the 1920s, most of these camps and reserves had been shut down and the remaining people were consolidated by the
Aboriginal Protection Board into the La Perouse and Roseby Park establishments.
Dharawal identity in the present era The descendants of the surviving Dharawal who were confined to the establishments at La Perouse and Roseby Park (Orient Point) have managed to maintain a strong Aboriginal identity despite hundreds of years of destructive colonial attitudes and policies. Those at La Perouse are consolidating their heritage through language revitalisation and re-acquiring important artefacts, while the Roseby Park people have reasserted their identity as the
Jerrinja people. ==See also==