Aboriginal people have lived around Sydney Harbour for at least 30,000 years, and probably longer — occupation of the Australian continent is dated to around 65,000 years, which makes it the oldest continuous human culture anywhere.

The land the city stands on belongs to the Eora nation, and the clan of the area around the harbour’s southern shore — the CBD, The Rocks, Circular Quay — is the Gadigal. Neighbouring clans include the Wangal to the west, the Cammeraygal on the north shore, the Bidjigal, the Gayemagal at Manly and the Birrabirragal on the harbour islands.

The Darug, Dharawal and Guringai peoples hold country in the wider Sydney basin.

What was here in 1788

A population variously estimated at a few thousand around the harbour, living on fish, shellfish, plants and small game, with women fishing from bark canoes — nawi — with hook and line, and men spearing from rock platforms.

The middens — accumulated shell deposits, some metres deep — and the rock engravings cut into flat sandstone across the region are the physical record. There are thousands of engraving sites in the Sydney basin, of fish, whales, kangaroos, people and ancestral figures.

The First Fleet

Eleven ships arrived in January 1788 carrying around 1,400 people, about half of them convicts. Governor Arthur Phillip had instructions to establish relations with the local people and to punish anyone who harmed them, and he made genuine efforts.

None of that altered the fundamental fact: the land was taken.

Terra nullius

The legal basis of British settlement was terra nullius — land belonging to no one — which held that Aboriginal people had no system of law or land ownership recognisable to English courts.

It was legal fiction, and it stood until the High Court’s Mabo decision in 1992, which recognised native title and overturned it after 204 years.

The smallpox epidemic

In April 1789, sixteen months after the fleet arrived, smallpox swept the harbour. It killed, by contemporary estimates, around half the Aboriginal population of the Sydney region within months. Bodies were found in caves and on beaches.

How it arrived remains contested — the fleet carried variolous matter for inoculation, and historians have argued over deliberate release, accidental transmission and arrival from Makassan contact in the north. What is not disputed is the scale.

Resistance

Pemulwuy, a Bidjigal man, led armed resistance from 1790 until he was shot in 1802 and his head sent to England. His son Tedbury continued. This was one front of what are now generally called the Frontier Wars, fought across the continent into the twentieth century.

Bennelong, a Wangal man, was captured on Phillip’s orders in 1789, learned English, travelled to England in 1792, and returned to a position between two worlds. Bennelong Point, where the Opera House stands, is named for him. Barangaroo, his wife, refused the accommodations he made.

The century after

Dispossession, missions and reserves, the Aborigines Protection Act 1909, and the removal of children from their families — the Stolen Generations — which continued into the 1970s. The 1997 Bringing Them Home report documented it; the national apology came in 2008.

Aboriginal people were not counted in the census until the 1967 referendum, passed with over 90 per cent support.

Now

Sydney has one of the largest urban Aboriginal populations in Australia, concentrated historically around Redfern, where The Block was bought by the Aboriginal Housing Company in 1973 — the first Aboriginal-owned urban land in the country.

The 26th of January, the anniversary of the fleet’s landing, is the national day and is also marked as Invasion Day or Survival Day, with large protest marches in Sydney.

The Uluru Statement from the Heart (2017) called for a constitutionally enshrined Voice to Parliament. The referendum on it was defeated in October 2023, with about 60 per cent voting no.

Where to learn more in Sydney

The Yiribana Gallery at the Art Gallery of NSW. The First Nations galleries at the Australian Museum. The MCA’s contemporary collection.

Aboriginal-led walking tours at The Rocks, Barangaroo and the Botanic Garden are the best use of two hours available to a visitor here.

Acknowledgement of Country — the short statement recognising traditional owners that opens meetings, performances and flights — is standard practice in Australia. You will hear it constantly, and it is worth understanding what it is for.

Language

The Sydney language is being revived. Gadigal and Dharug words are increasingly used in public life — Yiribana (this way), Naala Badu (seeing waters), Barangaroo, Wulugul, Gadigal station on the new Metro.

Yaama or warami is a greeting depending on the language group. Country in Australian usage means a specific people’s land, waters and sky and the responsibilities attached — it is not a synonym for countryside.

Reading and viewing

Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu is the most widely read recent book and has been vigorously debated by archaeologists — read it alongside the criticism. Grace Karskens’ The Colony is the standard history of early Sydney and takes Aboriginal Sydney seriously throughout. Bill Gammage’s The Biggest Estate on Earth is on land management.

The Australian Wars, Rachel Perkins’ 2022 documentary series, covers the frontier conflict.

A note on how to visit

Aboriginal-led tours put money directly into the community and are led by people whose families are from here. They are also simply the better tour — the harbour, the Botanic Garden and the sandstone read completely differently once someone shows you what grows there, what it was used for, and where the engravings are.

If you do one guided thing in Sydney, make it that one.