Noongar People - History

History

Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the Noongar population has been variously estimated at between 6,000 and some tens of thousands. Colonization by the British resulted in both violence and new diseases, taking a heavy toll on the population. Nowadays, however, according to the Noongar themselves, they number more than 28,000. The 2001 census figures showed that 21,000 people identified themselves as indigenous in the south-west of Western Australia. In 2006, the community claimed to number over 28,000 people. Today, most of the Noongar live in the Perth Metropolitan Region.

Traditional Noongar made a living by hunting and trapping a variety of game, including kangaroos, possums and wallabies; by fishing using spears and fish traps; as well as by gathering an extensive range of edible wild plants, including wattle seeds. Nuts of the zamia palm were something of a staple food, though it required extensive treatment to remove its toxicity. Noongar people utilized quartz instead of flint for spear and knife edges. The Noongar people saw the arrival of Europeans as the returning of deceased people. As they approached from the west, they called the newcomers Djanga (or djanak), meaning "white spirits".

Yagan arose as one of a number of leaders of the Noongar at the time when British settlers first arrived in the Swan River area in 1829 and Captain James Stirling declared that the local tribes were British subjects. Although at first the Noongar traded amicably with the settlers, rifts and misunderstandings developed as land seizures went on, and attacks and reprisal attacks soon escalated. An example of such misunderstandings was the Noongar land-management practice of setting fires in early summer, mistakenly seen as an act of hostility by the settlers. Conversely, the Noongar saw the settlers' livestock as fair game to replace the dwindling stocks of native animals shot indiscriminately by settlers. Yagan participated in a number of food raids and in killing settlers in retaliation for the deaths of Noongar at white hands – notably, he warned nearby whites repeatedly that one white life would be taken for every Noongar killed by a white. He was shot by a shepherd boy and is now considered by many to have been one of the first indigenous resistance fighters.

From August 1838 ten Aboriginal prisoners were sent to Rottnest Island (known as Wadjemup to the Noongar, possibly meaning "place across the water"). After a short period when both settlers and prisoners occupied the island, the Colonial Secretary announced in June 1839 that the island would become a penal establishment for Aboriginal people and, between 1838 and 1931, Rottnest Island was used as a prison to transfer Aboriginal prisoners "overseas". In "pacifying" an Aboriginal population, men were rounded up and chained for offences ranging from spearing livestock, burning the bush or digging vegetables on what had been their own land. It has been estimated that there may be as many as 369 Aboriginal graves on the island, of which five were for prisoners who were hanged. Except for a short period between 1849 and 1855, during which the prison was closed, some 3,700 Aboriginal men and boys, many of them Noongars, but also many others from all parts of the state, were imprisoned.

A significant development for the Noongar People in the Western Australian Colony was the arrival of Rosendo Salvado in 1846. Bishop Salvado was a Benedictine monk from the Spanish region of Galicia, who was a gifted musician, highly cultured but at the same time very caring, practical and down to earth. Bishop Salvado would dedicate his life to the humane treatment of the Australian Aborigines at the mission he created at New Norcia and always did his utmost to assist the Australian Aborigines adjust to the challenges of British settlement. In the early part of the Colony New Norcia could be described as a beacon of hope in a sea of despair for the Noongar people. Bishop Salvado brought many Benedictine monks to New Norcia to assist him build the mission and assist the Australian Aborigine at the mission. Bishop Salvado was many decades ahead of his time in his pioneering of a humanitarian approach to bringing western civilization to the Aboriginal people at New Norcia by teaching them life skills required to survive in the rapidly growing British settlement but at the same time encouraging them to maintain their own culture. The Aboriginal people were free to come and go from the mission as they chose. Bishop Salvado saw no lack of innate ability in the Aboriginal people but he understood that they needed time to adjust to the new ways of the British settlers. The Aboriginal people were also not the only people to benefit from Bishop Salvado, the success and indeed the very survival of the Catholic Church in the early days of the Western Australian settlement would owe much to Bishop Salvado, although this was always his secondary consideration to the Australian Aboriginal.

From 1890 to 1958, the lives and lifestyles of Noongar people were subject to the Native Welfare Act. Two state-run "concentration" camps, Moore River Native Settlement and Carrolup (later known as Marribank), became the home of up to one-third of the population. It is estimated that 10 to 25% of Noongar children were forcibly “adopted” during these years, in part of what has become known as the Stolen Generations.