The People

The distinctive features of the region's people are that:

  • there are relatively few people (18,000 or 0.1% of the Australian population) in this area whish is nearly 2% of Australians or about half the size of
  • Victoria (13.7 million hectares or 137,000 square kilometres)
    More than 60% of the population belong to Aboriginal and Torres groups
  • 71% of people live in the eight towns of over 1,000 people, 25% live in settlements with less than 1000 people, and 4% live on properties
  • the indigenous peoples maintain a high level of cultural distinctiveness (e.g. language and traditional activities)

Australian Bureau of Statistics
www.abs.gov.au

Aboriginal History

Ancient Aboriginal history is recorded orally in the stories and ceremonies of the numerous clan groups of Cape York Peninsula. These tell of hunting, gathering and nurturing the land, sea and resources of the region. The oral history also records momentous events, such as rising sea levels, cyclones, droughts, fires and the coming of the Europeans.

The earliest recorded contact between Aboriginal people of Cape York Peninsula and the European explorers occurred in 1606 when William Janz visited the Wik people at Cape Keer-weer.

Aboriginal history is also recorded in the distribution and populations of contemporary Aboriginal communities with many of the existing Aboriginal communities owing their survival to the establishment of missions from 1867. These missions enabled Aboriginal people to take refuge in the face of European occupation. They also provided education and health services, which were otherwise, not provided.

The need for Aboriginal labour on the bêche-de-mer, trochus, and pearling boats working the waters of the inner Barrier Reef and the Torres Strait in the nineteenth century involved abduction of able-bodied Aboriginal people and thus severely depleted the Aboriginal population on the east coast. Because the Gulf waters did not contain the vast quantities of maritime resources being exploited at that time on the east coast, there was no need for a similar labour force to be obtained on the west coast. Accordingly, the Aboriginal population of the west coast communities (at Napranum, Aurukun, Pormpuraaw and Kowanyama) remains larger than that of the east coast.

From the latter part of the nineteenth century, many Aboriginal people moved to missions, with some of them moving 100's of kilometres from their homelands and subsequently living on land belonging to other clan groups who spoke different languages. These moves were at variance with Aboriginal custom and caused hitherto unknown conflict over land use.

The most recent relocation occurred in 1963 when the Aboriginal residents of Mapoon on the west coast were forcibly moved to a new place near Bamaga, which was called New Mapoon. Also in the mid 1960s, an opportunity was given to the people resident at Lockhart River Mission to move to the Northern Peninsula Area and a small number of people voluntarily established the new community of Umagico.

In 1970 the Queensland Government built a new village adjacent to Iron Range aerodrome, and the people of Lockhart River moved from the old mission site.

On the west coast at Weipa, a large area of land which had been set aside as an Aboriginal Reserve was converted to a mining lease following the discovery in 1955 of deposits of bauxite (aluminium ore). The 350,000-hectare Aboriginal Reserve was reduced to 124 hectares in 1959. The operator of the bauxite mine based on some of these deposits, Comalco, was required to surrender land from the Special Bauxite Mining Lease No 1 to the Queensland Government by 1997. This lease was reduced from 616,420 hectares to 259,000 hectares. While the surrendered land was not re-gazetted as Aboriginal Reserve, most of it was later incorporated by the Queensland Government into land holdings at Aurukun, Napranum and Mapoon communities.

In 1988 a Deed of Grant in Trust was issued to the Weipa Aboriginal Council (now called the Napranum Aboriginal Community Council). Over the last two decades, relations between mining companies and Aboriginal peoples have improved, as evidenced by royalty, compensation, employment and enterprise packages which have been negotiated at mines on Cape York Peninsula and in particular at the major mines at Weipa and Cape Flattery.

Despite a history of conflict, there have been some positive aspects of interaction between indigenous and non-indigenous cultures and there has been, at times, involvement in the enterprises introduced by settlers and their descendants over the last one hundred and fifty years. These enterprises include the pastoral, mining, maritime, tourism and service industries.

Recent changes in Aboriginal and Islander land tenure legislation and recognition of native title have given indigenous people a stronger position relating to land use on Cape York Peninsula.

In summary, the history of Aboriginal land use has involved:

  • A period of some 50,000 years of subsistence during which land was managed and used in accordance with a complex set of cultural practices involving some ecological modification (principally by fire) and resource management which included a degree of replenishment. Over this period, climatic and topographic changes had significant influences over the land.
  • A period of almost 400 years since the coming of the first European explorers and later colonists, during which the Aboriginal people were largely dispossessed of their land and their culture was greatly modified. During this time, the community structure has undergone significant change and the Aboriginal population declined. Over recent years this population has started to increase.
  • Periodic involvement in mainstream European land use, particularly in the pastoral, mining, tourism and service industries.

Aboriginal History Inc. includes index to Aboriginal History Journal and list of monograph publications.
www.aboriginalhistory.org

Indigenous Libraries Unit (ILU) of the State Library of Queensland which was first formed in 1997 and is based in Cairns.
publib.slq.qld.gov.au/footprints/index.htm

European History

The first recorded contact of Europeans with the Australian continent occurred on Cape York Peninsula when William Janz in the Duyfken made contact with the Wik people at Cape Keer-weer in 1606.

The first European settlement in Cape York Peninsula was proposed by Sir George Bowen, the first Governor of the Colony of Queensland. His vision for this northern outpost included the provision of harbour of refuge for shipwrecked sailors, a supply depot and a coaling station to service the major international shipping route. He believed that, as an administration centre, it would encourage the growth of commercial activity and provide a settlement that maintained friendly relationships between settlers and Aborigines.

After first selecting a site on the western side of the island of Pabaju (Albany Island) ten kilometres south east of Cape York, it was agreed that the settlement should be set up on the mainland opposite the island. Mr John Jardine was appointed as Government Resident and established the settlement of Somerset in 1864. The need for a supply of fresh meat prompted Jardine to establish the first cattle station at Vallack Point five kilometres south of Somerset with some 200 head of cattle.

Mining brought further European settlement to Cape York Peninsula. In 1873, James Venture Mulligan led a party of 100 Georgetown diggers with 300 horses and bullocks to the Palmer Goldfield. At the same time other prospectors came by sea to the estuary of the Endeavour River. From there a trail to the Palmer was cleared under the direction of the surveyor A.C. Macmillan.

Police and staff from the Goldfields Department accompanied these miners and established the township of Cooktown in 1873. The gold rush continued up to Coen five years later. The rapid population growth created an increased demand for meat production, resulting in the establishment of many cattle stations over the following twenty years.

In 1885, John Embley, a Licensed Surveyor attached to the Queensland Department of Lands, surveyed an area to make York Downs his headquarters. From there he conducted surveys on the Peninsula for twenty years, setting the boundaries of many pastoral leases.

Following the collapse of gold mining during the early years of this century, the population of settlers rapidly declined and the pastoral industry diminished. Cooktown supported a population of 7,000 only a year after gold was discovered on the Palmer River in 1873. By 1880 there were 24 hotels and several banks and the population reached a peak of 30,000 in 1884, only to gradually dwindle to 400 by the outbreak of World War II. The town survived mainly through small scale tin and gold mining and the reduced cattle industry.

The war years saw a rapid increase in development on Cape York Peninsula. A new aerodrome was built at Cooktown, and other military aerodromes were constructed at Coen, Iron Range, Higgensfield (near Bamaga) and Horn Island. The influence of the war effort with the temporary increase in population and the resultant infrastructure development should not be underestimated. The provision of these aerodromes enabled the establishment of regular public transport, and DC3 aircraft made the remote communities more accessible.

The introduction of Brahman cattle which responded more favourably to the tropical conditions, and the demand from the American hamburger market in the 1950s, stimulated a revival in the beef industry over the next two decades. Extensive investment from the United States of America in several large cattle stations in the mid-sixties further boosted the prosperity of the pastoral industry. With the sudden drop in cattle prices in 1974 and the introduction of the Brucellosis and Tuberculosis Eradication Program (BTEC) in the early 1980s, the pastoral economy of Cape York Peninsula declined again.

Large scale bauxite mining at Weipa started in the early 1960s. Production levels have increased and associated activities have continued sustaining a population of about 2,000. With the bi-centenary of James Cook's landing and the opening of the National Trust museum in the old Convent, the tourist industry was established in Cooktown. Cooktown's population has increased to 1,500 and an elected Shire Council has been re-established.

Visitor numbers per annum to Cooktown and the lower Cape York Peninsula are now 60,000 and 20,000 tourists venture to the top of the Peninsula and visit Cape York.

In summary, the history of non-indigenous land use has involved:

  • three waves of settlement beginning in the 1860s with pastoralists and miners, followed by wartime use by American and Australian service personnel and culminating in a third wave of visitors seeking a wilderness experience
  • the waxing and waning of the size of resident communities as mining ventures upon which they depended underwent periods of prosperity and decline
  • fluctuations in the area's pastoral industry through heavy dependence on external prices
  • short lived agricultural experiments in sugar and rice production in the 1880s and more recent involvement in broadacre legume pastures and other agricultural development.

Torres Strait Island Influences

The CYPLUS study area includes the continental islands of the Muralug Archipelago (Prince of Wales Group) north of Cape York Peninsula. A history of the study area therefore includes some of the history of the people of the Torres Strait and their contact with European explorers, sailors, fishermen and settlers since the 1600s. This contact has had both peaceful and violent aspects.

The Muralug Archipelago is the home of the Kaurareg people who identify as an Aboriginal tribe. Their traditional country included the islands and the surrounding sea. Frequent visits were made to this area by people from other continental islands to the north including Badu, Nagir and Moa as well as Aboriginal people from the mainland. In 1921 the Kaurareg people who were then living on Kiriri (Hammond Island) were forcibly moved to Moa Island to the north. Some Kaurareg continued to inhabit Ngarupai (Horn Island) and plans to remove them to Moa Island in the 1930s were resisted.

The main Kaurareg settlements presently in the region are Kubin Village on Moa Island and Wasaga Village on Ngarupai. Following the Second World War, many of the indigenous people of Saibai (a low swampy island near the Papuan coast at the northern-most part of Queensland) voluntarily relocated to the mainland, and a settlement was established at Bamaga near Cape York.

Some Saibai Islanders chose to live on the coast and established the village of Seisia near where a wharf had been built during the War. Although these settlements are physically located on the traditional country of mainland Aboriginal people, they are administratively regarded as being part of the Torres Strait. The residents of Seisia and Bamaga retain strong links with the people and culture of Saibai Island.

In summary, the history of Torres Strait Islander land use has involved:

  • A period of more than one thousand years of subsistence based on the islands and waters of the Torres Strait. Torres Strait Islanders managed and used the resources of the area in accordance with a complex set of cultural practices. Resource management included fishing, hunting, food gathering and agriculture.
  • A period of at least 390 years since the first contact with European explorers. From the early nineteenth century sporadic and continuing contact was made by passing European ships. Crews of these ships traded with Torres Strait Islanders for water and food.
  • Recent (post World War II) establishment of Torres Strait Islander communities on northern Cape York Peninsula.
  • Extensive involvement in the maritime industry including commercial fishing, pearl and trochus shelling and gathering of bêche-de-mer.

Extract from: Cape York Regional Advisory Group (1997). "Cape York Peninsula Land Use Strategy - Our Land Our Future - A Strategy for Sustainable Land Use and Economic and Social Development". (CYPLUS, DLGP Cairns, DEST Canberra).