-
Sheas Creek (Alexandra Canal) Alexandria
Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward At Beaconsfield in the 1890s, workers on the Alexandra Canal began cutting through the sediments of Shea’s Creek and made some remarkable discoveries. The sediments were several metres deep and contained layers of shell, peat and old tree stumps. Among these layers they found the bones of a dugong.…
-
Lilyvale Campsite
Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward The Rocks area is mainly known as a place of early European history, but it was also used by Aboriginal people for many years before colonial settlement. Traces of an Aboriginal campsite have been found near the intersection of Cumberland and Essex streets. The campsite was discovered next to…
-
The site of First Government House
Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward Sydney’s first Government House overlooking Sydney Cove was built for Governor Arthur Phillip in 1789. The building and its grounds were an important place of early contact and cross-cultural exchange between Sydney’s Aboriginal population and the colonists, as expressed through the relationship between Bennelong, a Wangal man, and Governor…
-
The Domain and Royal Botanic Gardens
Author: Paul Irish The Governor’s Domain has been a public space since the earliest days of the Sydney colony, and continued to be used for many years by Aboriginal people. It was proclaimed by Governor Lachlan Macquarie in 1812 to provide a parkland setting for First Government House. The grounds were much more extensive than…
-
Paddington Town Hall
Author: Paul Irish Town Halls throughout Sydney’s inner suburbs provided large civic spaces that Aboriginal organisations used to gather and socialise for leisure activities and political meetings. Paddington Town Hall was the venue for the first Aboriginal Debutante Ball in Sydney in 1966. Debutante balls were an English rite of passage to formally present young…
-
Dawes Point / Tar-Ra
Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward The Aboriginal name for the peninsula on the western side of Sydney Cove is Tar-Ra. It is also known as Dawes Point because it was the site of an observatory built in April 1788 by Lieutenant William Dawes of the First Fleet. He lived and worked here, and with…
-
Cora Gooseberry
Cora Gooseberry was wife to King Bungaree and was an identity in Sydney for 20 years after his death. Her Aboriginal name was recorded as ‘Carra or Kaaroo’. She was known as ‘Queen of Sydney and Botany’ and ‘Queen of Sydney to South Head’, and was often seen wrapped in a government issued blanket, her head…
-
Conservatorium of Music
Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward In 1998, some Aboriginal stone artefacts were found during archaeological excavations ahead of the redevelopment of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music on Macquarie Street. The excavations were being undertaken to investigate an area of early colonial remains around the site, which was the former stables for nearby Government House.…
-
Darling Walk Midden
Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward In 2009 archaeologists found an Aboriginal campsite, or ‘midden’, on the eastern side of Cockle Bay (Darling Harbour) in an area known as the Darling Quarter, west of Harbour Street, between Bathurst and Liverpool Streets. They were investigating early colonial archaeological remains on the site when shells were found,…
-
Aboriginal sites on Goat Island
Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward Goat Island is a small rocky landmass in the waters of Sydney Harbour. It was inhabited by early colonial Aboriginal identity Bennelong and his wife Barangaroo, and was said to have belonged to Bennelong’s father. It was also used by Aboriginal people long before that time, as two Aboriginal…
-
Junction Lane Campsite
Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward In 1997, an Aboriginal campsite was discovered at Junction Lane in Woolloomooloo during archaeological excavations ahead of the construction of the Eastern Distributor motorway. Underneath around a metre of recent ‘fill’ (historically deposited material such as gravel and rubble), archaeologists found some soil surviving from before the arrival of…
-
The KENS Site
Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward In 2003, archaeologists discovered a large Aboriginal campsite in the western part of central Sydney. It was named the KENS Site after the surrounding streets (Kent, Erskine, Napoleon and Sussex). The earlier building had been demolished and archaeologists were looking for colonial remains, when they found buried soil that…
-
Moore Park Campsite
Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward An Aboriginal campsite was discovered in 2014 beneath the car park of the Moore Park Tennis Centre. It was unearthed during archaeological excavations brought about by the proposed construction of a light rail line through the area. The surrounding area once contained sand dunes and swamps, but over the…
-
Moore Park Engraving
Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward On a slab of sandstone just outside Centennial Park there were once some Aboriginal engravings. Rock engravings were produced when Aboriginal people carved them onto level sandstone platforms, ledges or small rock exposures. They often show fish or land animals, ancestral beings, human figures, weapons and other motifs. Engraving…
-
Moores Wharf Midden
Author: Paul Irish and Tamika Goward In the late 1970s, the NSW Maritime Services Board began to redevelop the Moores Wharf area at Millers Point on the end of the eastern shore of Cockle Bay (Darling Harbour). The board decided that an historic sandstone building from the 1830s, known as the Bond Store, would be…
-
Redfern Speech 25 years on
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Redfern Speech. On 10 December 1992, the launch of the International Year of the Word’s Indigenous People took place in Redfern Park. The most notable event of the day was the speech delivered by former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating that is now known as the ‘Redfern…
-
Black Theatre
Author: Lily Thomas-McKnight Black Theatre began informally in c1970 as a small group of Aboriginal people who came together to read scripts and poems. These reading groups soon expanded into street performances that exposed police violence against Aboriginal peoples and the everyday racism experienced by urban and rural Aboriginal people. Some of the Aboriginal activists…
-
Resources
Further research The Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council is the custodian of Aboriginal culture and heritage within the Sydney region. For more information, visit Metro’s website. For Aboriginal cultural attractions, tours and events in Sydney, visit the City of Sydney’s What’s On website and Sydney Visitors Centre website. The State Library of NSW’s Australian Indigenous Service…
-
Redfern Park
Redfern Park was the site of a speech given by the former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating on 10 December 1992, to launch the Year of the Indigenous Person. Subsequently referred to as the ‘Redfern Speech’, it focused on reconciliation, and was the first acknowledgement by a Commonwealth Government of the dispossession of Aboriginal and…
-
Aboriginal Legal Service
Author: Lily Thomas-McKnight The Aboriginal Legal Service (ALS) was established in 1970 at 142 Regent Street in the heart of Redfern. The ALS was created as a response to intense police brutality, violence and harassment. It provided free legal aid to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples most of who not have access to legal…
-
Significant Aboriginal events in Sydney
Author: Anita Heiss January 26 was nominated as Australia Day to celebrate the anniversary of white settlement. It commemorates the ceremonious unfurling of the British flag at the head of Sydney Cove by Governor Arthur Phillip in 1788. By the beginning of the 21st century, however, it is also recognised as a day of mourning…
-
Aboriginal boxing in Sydney
Author: Professor John Maynard The historical boxing gym was a place of smell and noise, of sweat and liniment and the constant smack of gloves against the heavy bag and the rat-a-tat-tat of fists rattling upon the speed ball. There were voices, expletives, encouragement and banter. The boxing gym and boxing itself has slipped from…
-
About
Aboriginal people have always lived in this place we call Sydney. The Barani website highlight’s Sydney’s Aboriginal journey: its places, its history and its people. Barani celebrates a living culture in the heart of the city. Barani is an Aboriginal word of the Sydney language that means ‘yesterday’. ‘Sydney’ as a place name dates from…
-
Elizabeth Town
In the mid-1810s, at the same time as Governor Lachlan Macquarie was waging war on the Aboriginal people of south-western Sydney, he tried to encourage Aboriginal people along the coast to adopt a more settled existence. In 1815, Macquarie established a farm and village at Middle Head on the north side of the harbour to encourage…
-
Bill McConnell’s gym
Author: Professor John Maynard Bill McConnell’s gym was originally in Newtown, but moved to 83 Abercrombie Street, Chippendale in 1934. After the gym was destroyed by a fire in 1955, McConnell opened another gym nearby at a council-owned property at 62–64 Pine Street, mainly targeting young amateur fighters.[1] McConnell was born at Paddington in 1906.[2]…
